His Weeping Willow's Bloom

Crawling Through the Dark

" YOU FUCKERS!!!" You raged into the empty tunnels. Your furious voice bounced along the walls of the tunnel, getting quieter as they traveled. You hoped the others heard it. If you found them you were going to make them all wish they had died in that fall.

Their abandonment fueled a fire inside you. chasing away some of the cold and bringing new energy to your limbs. You were going to get as far as you could, you weren't going to give up now. At the very least you still had your flashlight.

You gripped it hard, the blood in your knuckles leaving and lightening the skin. You stormed through the tunnels, a glare set on your face while you breathed heavily.

Making sure of course to watch the ground for holes and the sides for passages. You also listened closely to the dark sounds of the cave. Trying to see if you could catch anything that might be of use.

The sound of rushing or trickling water, voices for all that matter. All that met your ears though was the sound of your own angered footsteps scraping wetly against the rock floor.

Otherwise, the tunnels were completely quiet. They were devoid of any sound whatsoever, It was if the very air itself was muting every other sounds, making you feel a little claustrophobic

You walked, and walked and walked and walked. Under normal circumstances, if your feet were not numb they would be hurting badly. You guessed that was one good thing the cold gave.

This tunnel seemed never-ending. They must have gone the other way. Back to the river to find a different route. You would not be turning back, you were going to stick to this path. Even if you wanted to turn back you did not know if there was any other passage that could be taken in the room where the river was.

You did know there was a passage here, so you would just stick with what you knew. You ran your hand along the wall as you moved to help steady your unstable legs.

The walls were rough and had a sandpaper-like consistency. Your fingers were numb, so they did not feel it, your palm though still had some feeling left in it, though not as much as it should.

So instead of feeling the pain from pushing your hand against it, you only felt a light fuzzy grindy feel. You did not feel the skin of your hand become shredded and the blood trail it started leaving behind to drip down the stone walls to the rock floor below.

Eventually after who knows how long of stumbling in the dark you got to a fork in the passages. You shone your flashlight down each path. The beam splitting the dark as far as it could, but still not giving you any defining features instead of thick darkness covering more stone walls.

You held still, trying to figure out which path should be the right one to take. How on earth would you be able to tell though!? It did not look like one slanted more upwards than the other. In fact, if you squinted, it actually looked like they both slanted down somewhat.

You groaned, bringing your hand up to your head to rub at your aching temples, not realizing that you just smeared your own blood all over your face.

Both of them were dark, narrow, and quiet as the one you just came from. You would just have to make a choice, you could not go back even if you wanted to. You would not make it back to the river before the cold took you.

You wobbled over the split, about to take the left tunnel when a light whisper of air touched the skin of your arm. Breezing in from the right.

You turned your flashlight down in the direction of the small wind. Unsure if you had actually felt that or if that was just your mind playing tricks on you.