Chapter 22. The Caves.

Valery and Shawn went inside the cave first with Dylan just behind. A shrieking wall of shadows were racing towards the opening in the rocks. Dozens of the juvenile Renjin were pouring over the cliffs, fighting and clawing over each other to reach their fleeing meal. Shawn looked at the rocky ceiling drifting over him. A forest of stalactites stuck down over the entrance to the cave, shimmering blue in the light of his eyes.

“I know what to do!” Shawn shouted. He pushed Dylan further into the cave and let him and Valery go. Shawn turned back and watched the Renjin come into the mountain like a sea of slithering snakes.

“Wait for it… wait for it…” The Renjin were shrieking and cawing as they came inside the cavern. Shawn threw out his arm and blasted the roof with an explosion of golden light, cracking the rocks and making the stalactites above shatter. The roof of the cave violently crumbled and broke, then a waterfall of rocky teeth fell. The first Renjin were impaled by the stalactites, pinning them to the floor, and the Renjin who fought to come inside next became enveloped in a river of falling rocks and debris.

The entrance rumbled and shook. Shawn stepped back and ran to catch up with Valery and Dylan as the tunnel continued to collapse. He could hear heavy boulders pounding down and cracking behind him, the snaps echoing out for miles into the caves.

“Shawn!” Valery called.

He could see her far ahead, eyes glinting green in the shadows. The walls were hard and sharp, edges like knives. Shawn could see dozens of tiny passages going up into the roof and through the walls. Everything seemed shiny, like a layer of dried mucus had covered the inside of the cave.

“Wait up!” Shawn shouted, hearing his voice echo out into the darkness.

He came up behind Valery and Dylan. They were standing in the center of a large rocky chamber, looking up, both their mouths open.

“What?” Shawn asked. “What do you see?” He could hear a chattering sound over his head. Shawn looked up with them and saw a rocky wall glinting green in the light of Valery’s eyes. Except the rocks were moving, shifting and slithering past each other. The walls were alive. “What the fu–” Valery’s hand slid across Shawn’s mouth to quiet him. Shawn could see thousands of legs and slithering bodies snaking across the walls. There were hundreds of giant centipedes all around them.

Valery pointed to a passage off to the right as the green flame in her eyes flashed across its entrance. She gently pushed Shawn along and urged him towards it. Dylan stayed close, watching behind them as the migration of giant centipedes continued to slither up the walls. Once they were out of the chamber and a few steps inside, Shawn, Valery and Dylan began to move away more quickly. After a few minutes, they slowed to take a rest.

“I don’t think they heard us,” Dylan said to break the silence.

A hiss pierced the breath of the cave, and a giant centipede fell down from a tunnel in the roof, landing at Dylan’s feet. Dylan fell and crawled backward, kicking out his feet in the rocks as the insect slithered towards him. “Kill it!” He shouted. “Kill it!”

“Keep quiet!” Valery whispered as loud as she could.

The centipede bit down into Dylan’s leg with its wide teeth and made him scream, slowly boring out a chunk of his ankle. Blood sprayed across the cavern walls as it swallowed and bit down again into his thigh.

“Oh fuck!” Valery shouted, wiping his blood out of her eyes.

Shawn tried to grab the tail and drag it away, but the dozens of legs squirmed out of his fingers.

“Kill it! Please kill it!” Dylan begged.

Valery pulled a dagger from her hip and dove at the centipede. She landed on its back and stabbed it through the head, driving up a fountain of black blood as it screeched. She ripped the blade from the centipede’s bony flesh as it reared up with her still riding it. Valery plunged her blade into its body again and again and again, until she was soaked in black blood. The centipede screeched and collapsed onto Dylan, letting out a final gurgling hiss as it died.

Dylan screamed and pushed it away. “Fuck, is it bad?” he looked at his leg just as Shawn did. There were two giant bites out of him, both bleeding rivers. He looked up at Shawn, his cheeks pale and damp. “Don’t forget what I told you,” Dylan said, his voice shaking.

“We have to get him on his feet!” Valery grabbed Dylan’s arms and lifted him forwards. “We’re almost there!”

As Dylan came up on his legs, a fierce screech intruded from the darkness behind them. An arm like a black scythe came out of the shadows and wrapped its clawed fingers around Dylan’s leg, dragging him back and off his feet. “Something’s got my leg!”

“Help me!” Valery screamed. Dylan dangled up into the air from her grip. She lifted off the ground, hanging from Dylan’s arm. “Shawn! Do something!”

Dylan’s legs raised up into the shadows of the cavern’s dark ceiling. Shawn rushed forwards and jumped to grab Dylan’s other arm and yanked down with all his weight. Dylan screamed as he began to fall, and the creature in the darkness behind him screeched down from the shadows. Valery looked up at the ceiling and Shawn saw the glint of a green shadow over the head of a giant, brown mantis hanging down from a cave in the ceiling, its long arms wrapped around Dylan’s legs.

The giant mantis screamed and pulled, leaning back into the cave above. Shawn and Valery started to lift away from the ground. Shawn looked towards the cave they’d come from and saw the mass of centipedes start twisting and slithering up the path and into the tunnel. “They’re coming after us!”

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Dylan let out a roaring groan and looked down into Valery’s eyes. He shook his head. “You have to let me go,” he said as blood trickled from his lips.

“I can’t!” Valery screamed. “I just fucking can’t, Dylan!”

“Take Shawn..and go. This is the price for power. Don’t lose your second chance.”

The Mantis leaned down and cut off Dylan’s arm above the elbow with a swipe of its razor-like arm. Shawn fell to the cave floor still clutching Dylan’s arm in his hands. Dylan’s body jerked to the side and raised up into the shadows. The Mantis leaned down behind Dylan’s head, hissing as it raised up its arm.

“No!” Valery screamed.

Dylan looked down at her, barely conscious. “Let go, Veronica…” he mumbled.

Veronica? Shawn thought, wondering if he’d heard him right. Why did he call her that name? “Valery! They’re coming!” Shawn shouted. He blasted the cave behind them, making a shower of rocks explode from the walls and roof, peppering the dozens of centipedes that were coming up the tunnel.

“I’m sorry,” Valery said as a tear slid from her eye. “I’ll find you. I promise.”

The Mantis’s claw at the end of its forearm tore into the back of Dylan’s head and exploded out of his mouth. Blood erupted across Valery’s face. She let go of Dylan’s arm and fell as his body flung away into the darkness. She landed on Shawn, knocking him off his feet. “Fuck,” she cried, her voice as tortured as a woman who’d been filet’d. She leaned up on her arm and looked at Shawn. “I can’t believe I let that happen.” Shawn saw pain in her eyes. Tears and blood were falling from her cheeks. She was shaking.

“It’s time to leave,” Shawn said as he got up and grabbed her arms. He felt dizzy, and his eyes went dark as he stood. This isn’t good. “You have to…make it back to Denengear…and get the cure to Manie… You’re the only one who knows how to find it.” He shook his head, and the lights came back. He saw Valery’s blood-soaked face looking back at him.

“No!” She shouted like a lioness defending her pride. “This isn’t over. Not yet!” She grabbed Shawn’s arm and tugged. “I’m not letting what happened to me happen to you.”

“Let what happen?” Shawn asked.

“There’s no time to explain! Come on.” Shawn stumbled after Valery as she ran deeper into the cave. They came into a wide open chamber where the floor fell away, and the only thing between them and the inky chasm below was a thin bridge of rock stretching long and far across a great divide.

Shawn looked around and saw thousands of the centipedes crawling up the walls, their chitinous bodies shelled in black steel. As Shawn and Valery neared the middle of the bridge, a great rumble thundered beneath the ground, and fire burped up from the depths below, lighting the cave and letting Shawn see the centipede nests webbed all across the underground chamber. Thick, pink eggs were stuck to the walls in mucus and orange slime, dripping and cracking as new centipedes were born from them.

“Don’t stop now!” Valery screamed as she ran, dragging Shawn along by inertia alone.

“Wait!” Shawn demanded. They came to the end of the tunnel and Shawn stopped, leaning against the wall to take a breath. He looked back and saw a long line of centipedes slithering across the stony bridge behind them. “Get back from the bridge!” he shouted, shoving Valery into the tunnel. He pushed his shoulder against the wall then swung out his arm. A great explosion of golden light came out of Shawn’s hand and rocked the tunnel, smashing down into the stone bridge like a wrecking ball. The rocks cracked and shattered as the force traveled up the bridge, ripping it down into darkness, carrying the pursuing centipedes with it. A cloud of fire rose and roared as it swept up the walls, bursting eggs and catching nests aflame.

Shawn stumbled back and fell, landing on his back at Valery’s feet. Hundreds of giant centipedes fell from the walls, screeching and hissing as they descended into the pit of fire.

The roof of the cave cracked and broke, dislodging a boulder from the ceiling. The rock landed between Shawn’s legs. Valery grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him back as the cavern turned into a waterfall of falling rock. “Get up!” She yanked him to his feet, breathing heavy and dripping with sweat. “Time to go,” she said.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Shawn pushed Valery back into a run and followed as quickly as he could. “Don’t stop for anything!”

The walls and roof shimmered green and blue as Shawn and Valery ran, flashing and flickering in the light of their eyes. The rumbling in the tunnel was getting louder behind their backs. “There!” Valery shouted, throwing out her arm.

Shawn looked and saw a speck of light growing into view. The teeth of the tunnel looked like they were closing in as Shawn and Vee got closer, like the cave was trying to swallow them.

“Almost…there…” Shawn could feel the world slipping between his fingers. His breaths didn’t seem to be bringing any air.

They came to the light at the end of the tunnel and Valery screamed as they escaped its mouth, diving out into dead grass between mossy corpses of burned trees. Shawn smelled sooty air and felt the rain against his back as they came outside. The rocks built up and spilled from the cave like a tongue. Valery grabbed Shawn with one arm as she crawled, dragging him away from the rolling boulders to safety.

The roaring stone quieted into a smooth rumble, and then died to silence as the final loose stones came clattering out of the cave’s mouth. Valery got to her knees and reached into her pouch, pulling out the Turquoise stone. A smile instantly appeared on her face. The green flame sparkled across her eyes and over the blood on her cheeks like a burning, green diamond. “You’re finally mine.” She let out a breath and pushed the stone against her chest, closing her eyes. “I did it.” she said. “We actually did it.”

Shawn groaned and fell to his side as the last of his strength fled his body. He was hyperventilating trying to get breath into his lungs, but the harder he tried to breathe, the harder it was to breathe.

“Shawn, what’s wrong?” Valery asked as she dashed to his side.

“I don’t have…a Crystal…anymore… My powers are killing me…”

“No, Shawn. Come on–you have to stay awake. You can’t give up now!” Valery grabbed Shawn’s face as rain slithered down her hair and dripped onto his cheeks. “Denengear is right there! I can see my sister’s tower.”

“Your sister?” Shawn asked as his breathing grew ever slower. Manie’s tower flashed into his mind. He could think of only one name now that he’d heard Dylan say it before. Veronica. The darkness clouded across his eyes, and Valery’s bloody face was eaten up by the shadow. “I have to find the cure…” he mumbled as he drifted out of consciousness. “I have to keep Manie safe…”

“Shawn, no! Shawn, don’t close your eyes! You have to keep them open! Stay awake, please! I can’t lose you, too… Not when we were so close. I’m here!”

Her voice muffled away until Shawn could no longer understand the words, and the world drifted away.