We abandoned the car in the same place we had last time, the sound of the shutting doors slicing through the silent and tense air like shockwaves. I swung my backpack onto my back, wincing as it dug into my skin with its newfound weight.
Ani, sitting patiently at my feet, flicked his tail as he watched Bearard stumble around. He shifted his weight, ready to pounce. I scooped Ani up in my arms before he could cause trouble, and his back paws dug painfully into my stomach as he squirmed.
Ranch, at Cove’s feet, eyed Bearard with a curious look. Noticing this, Cove picked her up, draping her over his shoulder’s like a content scarf. Ani, now entirely distracted from Bearard, grew jealous and painfully climbed up to my shoulders, his claws gouging my skin each time he slipped. I stilled, resigning myself to additional scratches.
Mattie took the lead again, with Jack trailing on her heels and Cove and I not far behind. We occasionally paused to wait for Bearard as his stubs for legs worked hard to keep up.
When his fake fur caught on a jagged piece of the shattered building and he stumbled, forcing us to wait, my patience wore thin. I pried Ani from where he’d attached himself to my shoulder, depositing him on the ground with a silent warning to be good. I stalked up to Bearard and offered him my hand.
Bearard stared up at me, the golden stars in his eyes shining exceptionally bright. He slowly reached back, allowing me to grab his thinning cloth coat. I picked him up gently, noting how lumpy his stuffing felt beneath my hands. Like Jack's car, he was well taken care of but clearly very old. I placed him on my shoulder, allowing him to use my hair to steady himself. Being a stuffed bear, he was light, and the careful tugging was much less painful than Ani’s claws.
“Thank you.” He said as he grasped my hair to steady himself.
Since it was more to help me than it was to help him, I didn’t bother to answer. He placed his paw lightly on my face, and I turned to see a grateful smile cross his face.
Compelled by the gesture, I said, “You’re welcome.”
I took a few cautious steps forward, testing his balance and ready to catch him if he fell. When he made no sign of falling, we continued onward. Ani swished his tail back in displeasure at being replaced, his eyes narrowing. Some trouble was going to result from this, I was sure.
Mattie tapped her foot impatiently as I walked, her nails leaving crescent-shaped marks on her skin. Her eyes shone gratefully at me as I motioned for her to get a move on.
We moved much faster after that, with Ani darting between our feet and traveling at his own pace as he was wont to do.
Walking in the back of the pack, I periodically pulled out my phone, checking the robots' locations. As we planned to obtain control of their controller as soon as possible, we weren’t inclined to face them when we didn’t have to. They would all be recalled to the same area soon enough.
The scenery around us began to look familiar, and before I realized it, Mattie was leading us down into the dark sewers. She clambered down the ladder first, clearing out of the way as Cove and I climbed down, Rancna and Bearard clinging to our respective shoulders. Ani sat stubbornly at the top of the ladder, crying pitifully. With a sigh, I passed Bearard off to Mattie momentarily while I climbed back up to fetch my jealous cat. He clung to me gratefully until we reached the ground, where I dropped him and left him to follow on his own. As we were planning to separate soon enough, Mattie passed Bearard back over to me, and we headed into the dimly lit sewers. Bearard passed me a flashlight from my backpack as Mattie and Jack pulled out theirs, lighting up the dark caverns. The darker the lighting got, the brighter Bearard’s eyes seemed to glow.
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We’d marked our destination location on our maps and had to pull it out a few times as we ran into dead ends. When we’d passed the same spot three times, Cove called for us to halt, and we carefully ran our lights and fingers over the wall, checking to make sure we hadn’t missed anything.
Cove let out an “Ah ha!” as something clicked, and a door creaked open with a light push of his hands.
Curious, we clustered around him, shining the lights over the damp and musky-smelling cavern. If we walked shoulder to shoulder, we’d all be able to comfortably walk side-by-side down the halfway, with maybe a foot of space between us and the wall. The tunnel moved straight ahead of us, with damp groves where people had carved out the bedrock. It was noticeably warmer in the caverns, enough that Mattie, Jack, and Cove abandoned their jackets to tie them around their waists.
Ranch leaped from Cove’s shoulders, and Ani tackled her, sending the two racing down the hallway past where our lights could reach. We tread forward, our footsteps and voices echoing loudly down the corridor. It reminded me of the chimera city as much as it didn’t. The floor itself was much rougher, the grooves in the floor spiking up into my worn shoes, where the floors of the underground cities had been polished.
Further and further we went, our only sense of time was the flashing numbers on our phones.
The light next to me flickered and died. Jack cursed, and I heard him slap the flashlight against his hand.
When it didn’t come back on, he said, “It’s dead.”
Cove swallowed thickly next to me.
Ahead of us, Mattie halted, swinging back around. “Maybe you should turn yours off, too, Hayden.”
She didn’t say ‘to preserve the battery,’ but she didn’t have to. We didn’t know how much longer we’d be down here, and being stuck without light would be devastating. Bearard’s eyes were unreliable and grew dimmer the further we walked down the tunnel.
I thumbed the flashlight off and tucked it into my pocket. With two of our three lights off or dead, the shadows surrounding us were noticeably thicker and darker. Mattie took vanguard, but the ground between us and her was difficult to see. My foot caught on something, and I fell to the side, wincing as my forehead was caught against another cave feature.
I hissed in a breath as I reached up to my forehead, searching for broken skin.
“Are you okay, Hayden?” Bearard asked, his golden gaze full of concern.
I was, but even if I hadn’t been, we could do nothing at this stage. I dropped my hand. “I’m fine.”
The cave twisted a few times, and I began to worry that maybe our true path had been covered by shadow and we were just wandering in circles, lost. I bit my lip, not wanting to suggest it. Mattie began to slow, and the steps next to me were placed more thoughtfully. The others must have been thinking the same thing, but no one wanted to say it.
“I spy, with my little eye, something…brown,” Jack joked, his voice tense.
“Would you say it’s ‘cave brown?’ or ‘bearry brown?” Cove responded.
I rolled my eyes while everyone else huffed out a terse laugh.
“Right-o. It was the cave, Cove. Your turn.”
“I spy something black.”
“The shadows?” Mattie suggested a sarcastic tint to her voice.
“Nope.”
Ani brushed himself against my leg. “Ani?” I questioned the cat beneath me. He let out a tiny, satisfied meow.
“Yup. Your turn, Hayden.”
I hadn’t meant to join in at all. “Something…blue.”
“Cove?” Jack asked.
Well, I’d meant his shirt, but that was close enough. “Yes.”
The game continued for a while, resulting in hours of repeated answers. Jack and Cove were the main participants, though Bearard and Mattie joined in for a round or two. Mattie turned the corner ahead, the light cutting off briefly. The sound of her breath catching in her throat echoed down the tunnel. “I spy something silver,” she said, her voice smug.
I trailed my hand along the wall, partially to keep from walking into it again, and turned the corner to see exactly what we’d come here for.