They entered the hole. Inside was a small and tight tunnel system. There was barely any space in the tunnel that they had to crawl.
It was a taxing journey. Even though their strength had recovered, caving a tight tunnel like this was too much.
"Hey are you there?"
"A little bit more."
"Hang in there."
The kids kept talking and motivating each other. It was so dark they couldn't see each other. This was the only way they knew they were near each other.
The only other noise they could hear was the sound of their bodies grating the earth…
RUMBLE
And the occasional rumbling.
"Eeeeek"
Everytime there's a rumble, the earth shake, and they feared that the tunnel will collapse on them.
"Let's go back! Let's give up."
The boy decided, and the girl was happy to hear it.
But there was a problem.
There was no space for them to turn, and they were crawling down a slope. It was hard for them to crawl backward and also upward.
"I can't! I can't turn back!"
"What! Just crawl backward."
" I SAID I CAN'T"
The girl panicked and it was too dark for the boy to understood the situation, nor did he have the experience to handle it.
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And the boy and girl started screaming at each other, expending air, and stressing each other.
"GUYS! LETS JUST GO FORWARD."
The youngest girl screamed. She could not handle the screaming match and wanted it to end.
"..."
The boy and girl were shocked into silence. They were just reprimanded by the youngest, the one they thought they had to protect.
It calmed them.
"Alright let's move forward."
They continued crawling.
***
They crawled…
And crawled.
Crawled.
How long had they crawled?
They were no longer calling each other. Their throats were dry.
They only knew they were near each other, from the sound of their crawling.
It was painful. They had to fit their bodies through the tight spaces. Even though their bodies were small, the tunnel was smaller. They were being squeezed by the tunnel.
Their skin scraping the earth. Their skin scraped by the earth.
And the girl had it worst. The wound on her leg reopened, blood started to pour again. She was also constantly hit by falling debris caused by the climbers in front of her.
Worst of all, she had too fight against gravity, as her companions crawled agonizingly slow forward.
It was painful...
Exhausting...
Inside her mind, she cursed her idiot companions.
Then the boy stopped crawling.
And the younger girl hit him.
"Ow!"
And the girl hit her
"Ow!"
"Why did you stop, idiot!"
"..."
The boy did not answer. He had to confirm something in the dark.
"I think there's two paths."
"Then just pick one."
"But which one did the Molrrets go through?"
Despair loomed over them. They had crawled for so long they almost forgot their original objectives and the fact that they already lost the Molrrets.
"Pick the wetter one, they like to piss."
A desperate guess from the girl.
But it was worth trying.
So the boy felt the two branching paths, but to his despair, he couldn't tell which one was wetter.
The floor of the tunnels were cold, and there were drops of water in both of them.
He did not know which one is wetter, so he felt the paths again.
One felt like it sloped downward, and the other sloped upward.
He wanted to get out of this tunnel. Up, back above ground. So he chose the upward path.
"I think it's this way."
He led them upward.
The girl did not protest, even though she could hear the lack of confidence in the boy's voice.
She knew their survival depended on luck now.
So they kept crawling.
***
They crawled
They chose branching paths
But they were nowhere near an exit.
Then the boy stopped.
"wh-why are you stopping?"
The girl asked weakly. She barely had enough strength.
"No,no,no,no,no,No,NO!!!"
The boy desperately begged.
He faced a dead end. The path in front of him had caved in. Rock and pebbles blocked their path forward.
"NO!"
The boy dug the debris till his hand bled.
It was futile... he was barely scratching it, showing no results.
From the scratching sound, the girls knew without being told.
This was it. This was where they path ended.
This was their coffin.
The younger girl cried. She regretted her foolishness of tried to enter the hole first, egging the group to venture inside the darkness.
It was her fault.
The girl was silent. She gave up and was too tired to utter a single sound. She should have forced them to stop...whatever it took.
It was her fault.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!!!"
The boy kept digging.
"Please, please, please…"
The boy begged.
"...Please save us."
He was the reason they entered this hole. He was the reason they are dead.
It was his fault.
Tears poured out of his eyes. Blood flowed out of his hands. His breath running ragged.
"Please…"
It was his last desperate plea,
RUMBLE
Before darkness consumed them.