The Stillrock Silver Mine was among the oldest active mines in the country, having been in continuous operations since the town’s founding in 1889. Over the decades there had been numerous cave-ins due to poor planning, shifting management groups, and a lack of cohesive mapping. The caveins were often so disastrous they could even be tracked through the city’s birth rates which rose in stable years and dropped during years with particularly wet weather. As a consequence, tunnels had collapsed, been dug back out, and collapsed all over again for nearly a century until the country attempted to install oversight on the mining industry in the 1980s.

After hitting their first dead end, Ethan had quickly realized that the map he had sketched was not entirely aware of the mine’s chaotic history, and in fact was more of a suggestion than a precise set of directions to follow. Before long, Ethan had already dragged Rainey into tunnels he hadn’t known existed in the three years he worked down in the mines, and finding new ones with seemingly every turn, the air stale and hot, clinging to the back of his throat. Instead of being able to properly follow the tunnels down to the breach point, Ethan was instead attempting to head in the general direction his map pointed them towards, which roughly equated to going southwest on a compass, but trying to do so while falling down a staircase in the dark.

Their journey had taken them to many new tunnels, but with every dead end they hit, Ethan could hear Rainey’s sighs growing more curt. Ethan’s desperation was so palatable that Rainey could probably feel it, too. Her face was growing increasingly gaunt the longer they went on, and it wasn’t lost on her that the farther they went, they became increasingly lost and put themselves farther from help.

But because they also put themselves farther from anyone who could stop them, that was a risk she was willing to take.

“Would you say we’re…getting close?” Rainey asked. She used the back of her sleeve to wipe the sweat off her forehead, staining it grey. Ethan noticed, for the first time, that she was rubbing her thumb on her necklace, a dull grey stone hanging on the end of a gold chain.

Ethan tried to speak, but his parched throat reminded him that Raz was the one who always carried the bookbag with their water, and he desperately needed goggles to keep the silica dust from cutting his eyes. Given they were still in his car, Ethan had to settle for squinting against the palpable dust in the air, the grit nagging away at him. Instead of replying, all Ethan could offer was a pained expression, which was more than enough for Rainey to read into. She sighed curtly.

“Personally, I thought you’d be better at this,” Rainey said plainly. “Isn’t this what you do all day?”

Ethan swallowed hard, trying to clear the silica from his throat. He gestured frustratedly to the tunnels around them. “Everywhere we go down here looks exactly the same, and my map isn’t exactly pinpoint accurate.”

“And how was I supposed to know that before you slammed the entrance shut and forced us down here?”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed while Rainey folded her arms. After running through a number of responses, most of them containing one or more obscenities, he relented, pulling the map back out and attempting to remember every tunnel they’d already gone down.

“We’ve been walking for over half an hour,” he said, his finger tracing the tunnels, moving back and forth down the map, trying to invent a path in between where they were and where they needed to go. “We have to be getting close.”

“Considering you told me this would only take thirty minutes, I’d certainly hope so. Titan has to be on our tail, too. I keep expecting her to burst through the rocks above us like she broke through the ice to save you.”

Ethan rolled his eyes, then wondered if it was too dark for Rainey to see.

“Saw that,” she said offhandedly.

His shoulders sank. He pushed himself off the rock he was using as a seat, and reached a hand out for Rainey, pulling her up. Wordlessly, he started off down a new direction, praying it was the right one.

“Maybe we could talk about something else to take our minds off of the fact that we’re almost certainly going to die?” Ethan suggested.

Rainey shrugged, gesturing for him to get it over with.

“Well, if this works, and we don't get instantly disintegrated, what are you going to do if you get powers?”

Rainey mulled the question over, then pulled her book bag back over her shoulders. “Let’s keep going. You first.”

Ethan pushed himself down the tunnel, careful to avoid hitting his head on any of the jagged rocks jutting down from the ceiling. The tunnel was narrowing as they went.

We’re going down, he thought, which is a positive sign.

“I didn’t go to college,” he said, shaking his head. “Stillrock doesn’t exactly offer the clearest path out. That’s…almost by design, really. If there was a community college, or higher paying jobs that didn’t involve commuting two hours a day, then no one would stay here, and nobody would certainly be stupid enough to work in the mines.”

“But you still chose to work down here, instead of moving to Ascension,” Rainey countered. “Couldn’t you just leave?”

“Not without money, which I thought the mine would’ve provided. Despite the obvious danger, the mine is the steadiest place for you to work if you don’t want to drive a few hours to teach snowboarding during the winters at a resort you can’t afford to visit. But once you get down here, you start working twelve hours, and when you’re done, you’re too exhausted to do anything else, to find anything better. This place just sucks you in and never lets you leave and, before you know it, you blink and three years have gone by and you’re exactly where you started, only you’re starting to wonder if your hairline is receding and you’re so pale the moon could give you a sunburn.”

Rainey nodded quietly.

“And the worst part is that being so high up in the mountainside, we have a nearly unblocked view of Ascension. Raz and I,” Ethan’s voice caught in his throat, his last memory of Raz’s hurt face staring up at him from the dirt, “back before I…probably ruined that friendship, we would climb up to the top of the water tower at night and stare out at the city, making plans for the future. Where we’d live, how much we’d drink at the Aces games, which bars we’d visit…mostly drinking-adjacent goals, but we were in high school then, and that was our top priority.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“It’s still mine, other than getting powers,” Rainey admitted.

Ethan laughed for the first time since starting their journey down, but it was short lived.

“Then…then the years started going by, and the dreams we had started to fade. By the third year of us working together we barely even talked about them anymore, we just settled into this routine where we had just enough to get by but not enough to get ahead, like we were keeping our noses just above water and if we opened our mouths we’d drown. Then people in Ascension got powers, and I just felt like I missed it. I missed my shot to get out. The night after I found out, I stared in the mirror until we had to leave for work, and when we got there…I got so angry.”

“At?” Rainey asked.

“Myself,” Ethan admitted. “About the dreams. About feeling embarrassed any time I tried to bring them up, and wasting so much time that I could’ve spent living them.”

“And then you lost control,” Rainey said quietly. Ethan sighed, nodding.

“When we went into the tunnels for our night shift, I couldn’t take it anymore. I lost it, started slamming my pickaxe wildly and it nearly got Raz killed. One errant swing and this whole tunnel started collapsing on top of us. I was barely able to outrun it before it swarmed us entirely, and I couldn’t pull Raz out fast enough before one rock slammed onto his knee, shattering the bone. And after my outburst, all I felt was guilt. I thought that, if I got powers, I could become a Protector, work in Ascension and do something with my life instead of just feeling like all my future was going to be was…”

Ethan sighed as they walked around the bend only to come face to face with a wall of stone blocking their path.

“Nothing.”

“Great,” Rainey sighed. “Well, on the plus side, you’re not going to have to deal with that guilt for long, because we’re definitely going to die down here.”

Ethan took one more look at his map. He had hastily drawn new tunnels, connected them to old ones. “No,” he muttered. “This should be…”

Ethan worked his hand down the jagged rock wall, his fingers moving in between the creases. He held them there, feeling. Working down slowly, he ignored Rainey’s stream of complaints, noticing something in the cracks between, something cold, fresh. His face lit up, exhaling in relief.

“Ethan, we don’t have much time left. Titan has to be coming after us soon. We need to get moving and I think you should sacrifice yourself and stay behind while I-”

“Actually” he said, turning, “Rainey, I think we’re here.” She gave him a curious look, noting the smile on his face. “You’d miss it if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s a faint air flow between the rocks. Feel this.”

Rainey cautiously put her hand where Ethan directed, nearly recoiling at the cool air gently lapping her palm.

“The breach,” Rainey whispered, her hand recoiling to her necklace. “It’s gotta be just behind these rocks.”

Rainey wore a large smile, already swinging her bag over her shoulder, setting it roughly on the ground.

“This is it,” Ethan said, letting out a slow breath to steady himself. “Either we get powers…”

“Or we get disintegrated,” Rainey finished, setting up the drill. “Let me get this together, and then I won’t make us wait a second longer to find out.”

Ethan watched her for a moment, then paused.

“So, what about you?” Ethan asked. His eyes were focused on Rainey’s hands, watching her deftly assemble the drill. She has a lot of experience with power tools. “Assuming we live that long, what would you do with your powers?”

“Oh,” she said, casually, “bring Apex to its knees.”

“A bit more ambitious than my goal,” Ethan admitted quietly, clearing his throat. “What did Apex do to you?”

Rainey snapped the drill to the battery pack, the noise echoing and making Ethan jump. “My sister and I…We were on a hike for her birthday. We had just reached the summit and, at that exact moment, the earth ripped open, throwing us both back. I walked away fine, she had to relearn how to walk.”

Ethan let out a shaky breath, and knelt next to Rainey. “I’m…so sorry that happened,” he said, “but that wasn’t your fault. Nobody could’ve predicted that.”

Rainey’s face was stern. “Apex knew,” she spat. “They knew it was coming.”

“How do you know that?” Ethan asked quietly.

“Right after the surge blasted us in opposite directions, I watched it race towards Ascension and shoot straight through their tower, as if they had some sort of magnet attracting the energy, pulling it away from the city. They wouldn’t have built Apex Tower that way if they didn’t know it was coming! They chose who to save, and it sure as hell wasn’t us.”

Ethan felt nausea rising in him. “Even if they knew the surge was coming, that doesn’t mean they could’ve stopped it.”

“No,” Rainey agreed, “but they could’ve told us. They hid the surge then, just like they’re hiding the breach points now. Apex can’t appear like they don’t have the situation under control, and since they won’t tell anyone what’s really going on, I’m going to use the breach point they refuse to fix to get powers, become strong, and force them to tell the city what’s really happening, and what’s coming next.”

Ethan was growing uneasy, watching as Rainey grew closer to completing the drill. His heart was beating too fast, and he was sweating more than before. He was terrified to ask, but knew he had to.

“How are you going to do that?”

She aimed the drill rock in front of the wall of stone, lining up her drill bit.

“You can’t hurt a corporation. Litigation takes years, if you’re lucky. Reporting falls by the wayside, Nothing more than a raindrop in the sea of content pumped out specifically so negative stories fall out of the news cycle as rapidly as possible. I couldn’t even make a scratch. But Apex does have one vulnerability, one thing I can take.”

“What?” Ethan asked, too quickly. “What can you take?”

Ethan’s eyes went wide right as Rainey plunged the drill into the rock, eating away at the stone bit by bit. A quick scan told him they had maybe thirty seconds before the drill breached the other side of the rock wall and the surge broke through, either bringing powers or death.

“Apex thinks they’re invincible. So does Titan.. Since I need to prove that Apex isn’t invincible…”

Rainey plunged the drill into the rock, white light spilling into the tunnel, nearly blinding him. When he was able to see again, he caught Rainey’s near maniacal smile.

“I’m going to kill Titan.”