“Is everyone alright?” My father whispered from the back.

We all sounded off, and even though we couldn’t see, at least we were all ok.

Everyone let out a groan of relief before an awkward silence followed. It felt cramped. Everyone else was probably feeling the narrow tunnel even more though. I mean, I couldn’t even sit up, so I was sure my father could hardly even lift his head.

“All alone lost in the dark…”

I flinched at the familiar words but forced myself to calm down after realizing Zu was the one who said them. Still, his voice remained deep and almost demonic… To say it made me a little jumpy was an understatement.

I held my breath, gritting my teeth. “If you say that again I’ll kill you…”

“Uh… Sorry?”

“Siya light the torch.” My father groaned.

‘The torch…’ “Why would I have the torch? Airsidh’s always carrying it.”

He groaned again. “You were the first one down, so you should have grabbed it!” He let out a growl as if moving on. “Whatever, Airsidh.”

A brief silence hung in the air. “I thought you were bringing it, isn’t that why you were taking things out of the bag?”

He groaned again, louder this time. “You had the torch, why would I grab another out of my bag? Ugh… I guess things like this just happen when you run out of time…”

“Geez Siya, you couldn’t have gotten us down here a bit faster?” My brother asked. When I could see his face it was easier to take his jokes, but when I couldn’t…

My face started to twitch. “It’s a little hard when no one listens to you…” I mumbled.

Zu let out a sigh stretching his arms out “Well, what are we going to do without light?” He asked, lowering his hands again. I couldn’t explain how but I still had a faint sense of how things around me moved. As he relaxed his arms to the side one of his hands rested on my ankle, scraping against my skin like a rock.

I jerked back, reminded even more of my several fights with the ghoul. “Don’t touch me…” I tried to say it as calmly as I could, but I could hear the panic in my voice.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

“Sorry…”

Keigan slammed his fist against the stone, making dust fall from the ceiling. “Just feel around, maybe there is a path out in front.” We looked… Well, felt around, but everyone came up empty. “Siya, you’re in the front, can’t you find anything?”

‘Just more rock…’ I let out a deep breath tilting my head as I let my eyes roll back. “You’re in the back, can’t you find anything?” ‘Why is he getting to me so much right now…’ By that point, his words didn’t even matter. It was like the sound of his voice was what made me want to hit him.

He groaned. “Not without a torch…” Regardless of whether or not it was actually there, I heard the underlying accusation in his tone. It was starting to feel like everything that happened just pissed me off, even if they talked about puppies I probably would have found a problem with it somehow.

Zu changed his position, brushing against my legs as he tried to untwist himself, making me even more jumpy. “It would have been nice if we found this place sooner then we would have had more time to prepare.”

“Just once… JUST once I want to be on time. You know, Just once I would love to get done with something like half an hour before it’s too late, but I guess it’s TOO BAD that I keep getting dragged around by an IDIOT AND A MORON. Maybe if I was raised like a human being, and didn't get hit in the head so often during training, I would be faster, but you know, I wasn’t. So just deal with it!”

The only sound I could hear was my short breath after my yelling had stopped. “S-sorry, sorry… I didn’t mean to yell at all of you…”

“No please, don’t stop now, it was just getting good.” My brother's voice reached out to me through the dark space. I wasn’t in the mood for jokes, but it caught me so off guard that it snapped me out of it. I guess I probably should have expected him to say something like that, but for it to come so quickly, without hesitation… I guess it wasn’t exactly out of character…

After taking a deep breath I realized I should have just been using darksight. ‘I may not be in the abyss, but that hardly matters right?’ Everything lit up. The muted coloring didn’t matter, it was all just rock and dirt anyway, even if it was a bit muddy. My eyes and circuits ached but I had recovered enough to manage.

‘Turns out we aren’t inside something stomach after… Little wins…’ I knew logically it was unlikely, but without my eyes, I couldn’t help what my brain started to think.

I squirmed my way through a small passage that led up, crawling like the star of a spy movie. “I found the way out, just crawl to where I was and then go up,” I yelled back, continuing to move forward.

I could hear them rustle around, but not one of them dared to speak after the way I yelled. Airsidh seemed unaffected of course, but even he knew how to read the room to some extent, so in the end, we crawled in silence. It was surprisingly nice. Without any real light, my eyes could rest, and without the other's voices ratling in my ears, my mind found a small sliver of peace. Unfortunately, the tunnel wasn’t very long, and in just a couple of minutes, Zu was shouting, breaking my sense of peace. “Light… I see light, up ahead, we made it!”

The tunnel finally ended with a steep drop into an underground cavern with a glistening pool. ‘So that’s a nog.’ Even with my darksight I could see the color of the blue and white water as clear as the glow from the moons and from Rafi’s greatsword. ‘I wonder if it’s related, or if I can just still see blue for some reason.’

After crawling out I stretched and set down, finally taking a deep breath with ease again, no longer having gravity pressure my lungs.

“Ok, well, let's set up camp, we’ll be here for a while so…” Airsidh said, climbing down behind us. Squinting at me for a moment. “Siya… Your eyes…” He muttered, tapping a finger under his right eye.

I looked over to Zu. I was using darksight, but, that shouldn’t have been visible to Airsidh. ‘Did the marks come back?’ Looking down though they weren’t on my arms.

He leaned in and whispered. “You’re pupils are glowing white… And your eyes are dark grey and bloodshot…”

I quickly turned off darksight, starting to panic a bit. “How about now?”

“Well… They aren’t grey anymore at least. It actually looks kinda cool.” He stepped closer until it felt like our noses were almost touching, sending chills down my arms.

“Could this be a side effect from the dark magic?” Without the spell my vision felt blurry, it was similar to what I imagined being tipsy was like, but a moment later it was better, even if they still looked different. ‘We came here to cure me anyway right? This should be fine.’