A Delicate Web (gxg) | ONC2020 |

8. creature

chapter eight: creature

word count: 1473

We follow the winding cave in silence, never finding a branch-off or an intersection. The watery beam of my flashlight begins to waver, growing weaker in the choking darkness.

"You don't have a spell for that?" Gem asks.

"I never bothered with any light spells. There's never been a point before today."

The ground shifts underneath us suddenly, dirt trickling down from the ceiling above. We freeze in unison, Gem's grip tightening around mine. I swallow and stare at the craggy earth roof above. It's hardly structurally sound—the idea of tons of rocks and dirt burying us is almost suffocating.

Then the ground vibrates as a deep, growling hum pulses through the caverns. Gem goes stiff, sending a flash of pain through my hand as she squeezes it. When she speaks, her voice is a quavering whisper, so quiet I can barely hear it.

"What was that?"

"I don't know." It's hard to keep my own voice from trembling. "But I think it might be the reason we're here. I need to find out what it is."

"I'm coming along."

I'm going to argue, but her hand is latched so tightly to mine, I'm not sure I could pry her off of me even if I wanted to. I shouldn't be putting her in danger, but the idea of going farther on my own sends a nervous shiver down my spine.

"Okay. C'mon."

We advance further down the tunnel, my flashlight beam quivering more and more, as though it too is scared of what lies ahead.

A shallow rush of warm air passes down the cavern, sending Gem's narrow braids fluttering around her head. I don't say that it seemed like an exhalation, and neither does my companion. We forge onward, until the cavern around us suddenly opens into a wider tunnel, messy with loose and jagged rocks. My flashlight lands on a rough surface that rises up several feet in front of us, blocking off the path completely.

"I guess that's that," I say.

"Then what were we hearing?"

"I'm not sure, but this looks like the end of the road." I sweep my flashlight in an arc across the surface in front of us, bumpy and shiny in several places.

Then the wall splits open. Brilliant amber glows beneath. Gem sucks in a breath next to me, too petrified to scream.

My flashlight shuts off, blinking out of existence. The dark lunges forward to swallow us.

The eyelids open and a dark, slitted pupil that challenges my own height focuses, then narrows. It's surrounded by an iris of gold and red and orange, undulating lines of fire in a massive, glossy red marble.

An eye.

Then the entire wall shifts, and I realize it's no wall at all. It's the side of a face.

Scales, each larger than my head, pass by. Then it resettles, and slowly, the huge eyelids droop shut again. Darkness settles over us entirely, thick and choking, and a deep, vibrating hum sounds through the cavern again, created in the chest of the massive beast that lives here. The rocks underfoot shiver.

"Run," I breathe.

Gem is silent.

"Run!" I exclaim. I jerk her harshly back the way we came, and she stumbles, but I haul her to her feet and push her in front of me. She gets the idea and breaks into a mad dash, the two of us hurtling headlong into complete darkness. My heartbeat screams in my ears. Unseen rocks find their way directly into my path, and I find myself pitching recklessly forwards, oftentimes barely catching myself on the jagged cavern edge before I go plunging to the ground. My legs burn and my eyes sting with sweat. A deep rumble vibrates the tunnel.

Then, Gem bursts into the pool of dim light that marks the shaft we came from, and I run headlong into her, sending both of us flying against the far wall. I don't have time to apologize, already dragging her back to her feet.

"C'mon. C'mon, it's time to get out of here."

She throws her arms around my neck and I tug her close, staring up at the dot of sky far above us. My back is burning, and I expect that thing to burst through the cave wall behind us at any moment.

I power up my boots and we shoot skywards under the screaming strain of the lifters. The dot grows larger and larger until we burst through the ruined warehouse suddenly into a pale, early morning sky, momentum taking us far over the peaks of the decrepit buildings around us.

And that's where I stop us, halting in midair, breathing hard. Gem trembles in my arms and separates herself from me by an inch, then looks down and screams, wrapping her arms around me so tightly I can hardly breathe.

"Get me down! Get me down from here now!"

"I will! I will, it's okay!"

I descend slowly, keeping in control. Finally, our feet touch solid ground outside the warehouse. Gem clings to me, and I find myself unable to let go, either, glued to the way she trembles violently against me. I reach up and put my hand against the back of her head, holding her close.

"Hey, it's alright. We're fine."

She pulls away, shaking, and pushes her braided hair behind her ear.

"What the hell was that thing?" Her voice quivers, loud and raw with adrenaline. My own heart beats wildly in my chest, and nervous black dots crowd my vision. I can taste blood on my tongue.

"I have no idea, but Neilson must've known it was there. What else could he have been doing there?"

I fall down to the crumbling asphalt street, sitting with my knees raised and my arms draped over them. Gem joins me, letting out a shivery breath. I think back to my last encounter with Neilson.

"He said he was close to something. Maybe I can go back in there and find out what that sigil was for."

Gemini rubs both of her hands across her face, massaging her closed eyes. Then she gets to her feet.

"Alright. Let's go do that."

I stare at her in surprise, though she can't see my expression. "What?"

"Don't you want to figure out what that thing is? And what Neilson wants with it?"

"Well, yeah, but..." I stare into the dark mouth of the warehouse, feeling a cold tickle on my neck.

She smiles, thought the expression is weak as watered-down coffee.

"Let's go. You can do it."

She extends a hand to me, and I stare at it for a moment, before finally clasping it in mind and hauling myself to my feet with her help. My bones hurt, like the crash after the rush of adrenaline has already caught up to me.

It's dimmer in the warehouse, the atmosphere punctuated by the still glowing, still buzzing circle on the floor. Gem and I creep up to it until I stand in the orange wash, staring back down past the crumbled edges of the hole we came through. The gargantuan eye, sliding open in a single smooth movement, haunts my vision.

"Do you have any magic that can help with this?"

"Yeah. I can cast an identification spell on it."

I step back and rub my hands together and whisper the spell, feeling my palms tingle with power. The brilliant orange circle flickers, and suddenly, I'm hit with a wave of knowledge that feels physical enough to send me stumbling several steps back. I drop my hands and clutch my hands over my helmet, wishing I could tear it off and shake the sudden, painful onslaught of information that swells in pulses in my brain. I see flashes, remnants of memories from long ago, too quick for me to catch more than a fragment of them.

Hundreds of feet of scaled, sinewy muscles. Sharp teeth. Land closing in over something ancient. Those giant, amber eyes closing with an air of finality—but then opening again, suddenly, as golden magic from the sigil seeps into the ground where it rests. The entire continent, rumbling and crumpling in on itself right here, where we stand.

I gasp and sink to my knees. Immediately, Gem is by my side, grabbing my shoulder. I jerk away instinctively.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I... I think so."

I suck in a deep breath of air, calming myself as the vision ebbs away, and I'm left with a tingling mist in my mind, like I woke up from a dream that I'm already struggling to remember.

"Did you learn anything?"

"Yeah. I think..." I push myself to my feet and walk unsteadily to the edge of the shaft, staring downwards. "Something big lives down there. And I think he's trying to wake it."