Chapter 92: Breakthrough
Alex Sandclaw’s POV:
My urine tasted about as unpleasant as I’d expected. To save on water, I had begun drinking it like we’d planned. The first batch was alright and mostly just tasted like water. Everything after that, however, only began to taste worse and worse. It was to be expected, but it still wasn’t fun.
The only thing that was weirder than drinking my own urine was peeing into a bottle with Felix standing right there, who was facing the wall and pretending not to listen.
It had been about a day and a half since we decided to wait. It had been rather dull, honestly. We didn’t have anything left to read—well that wasn’t true, but it didn’t feel right to start reading smut together with Felix down here. This cavern was many things, but romantic it was not. If anything, it was a real mood-killer. For the first time since we had gotten together, Felix and I hadn’t made out at least once a day. Through an unspoken agreement, we’d both come to the conclusion we just weren’t in the mood for that.
I spent most of my time drawing and leveling my drawing Skill. It leveled remarkably fast. I was pushing myself to start drawing an entirely different range of subjects than I was used to, and unlike my other drawings, I kept finding myself putting in details that just weren’t there in the real world—usually things that reflected my emotions, like the skulls. For a lack of a better word, I wasn’t just drawing what I saw but was making art.
It wasn’t something I’d previously been interested in. I much preferred drawing only what was there, but now I sort of understood the appeal. Putting my emotions into my work like that was very cathartic, and there were things I just didn’t have the words to describe but that I could still put into my drawings. Again, like the skulls. I didn’t really have the words to describe the constant dread and terror I felt being down here, but the skulls told the story I was unable to myself.
Or at least, I thought they did. Felix certainly seemed to understand what they meant, but I wondered how someone who hasn’t been stuck in a cavern like this would see the drawing. Would they think it was morbid? Would they see the terror? Or would they think I’d just lost my mind? I couldn’t wait to ask people if—when—we got back.
As for Felix, he spent quite some time organizing his notes. After sleeping, he’d regained his focus and had no trouble continuing where he’d left off. Occasionally he would ask me for help, just like I occasionally asked him to check if I’d gotten a perspective right or if the shapes were recognizable. His notes were pretty much always legible and understandable, though, and I had only needed to suggest a change a few times.
I drank the last drops of the bottle, grimacing a little, and put the bottle away. Our supply of water was running dangerously low. By now we’d been in this cave for about three days, and we only had a day worth of water left—and that included Felix drinking the urine I couldn’t anymore.
I glanced up from the drawing I was currently working on and looked towards the collapsed entrance. Despite the almost three days we’d been here, there hadn’t even been a single sign that rescue was coming. Intellectually, I knew they had to be coming. Even if they thought we had died, they would want to hurry just in case we hadn’t. So they had to be looking for us. But the mages of the Academy were powerful, I had learned at least that much. They would’ve long since been here to scour the cave systems for us, and at least some of them had to have life-detecting Skills. So by all accounts, they should’ve found us by now.
So why hadn’t they?
I turned to Felix. “I think we should go and see what’s behind that wall,” I said and he sighed.
“If we want to be found, we have to stay put,” he said, “I know we agreed to go look there, but we haven’t given them a fair chance yet. It hasn’t even been two days yet since we agreed to wait.”
We’d had this argument three times already today. It was the first time we’d argued about something since we had started dating. So far there hadn’t been any yelling, though I sure felt like it.
I rubbed at my snout in frustration. “It’s not like we’ll go far. And we can leave a message scratched into the stone for them to find.”
“They might miss it. And what if we bring down the ceiling while getting through the wall?”
It was just a rehash of the last three times we’d had this argument. I would ask to go through the wall, he would come up with a reason why it was a bad idea, I would refute the reason, and so forth. I knew we had agreed to wait two days, but I didn’t want to wait anymore. The more time went by, the more crushing the walls felt, the more stifling the air became, and the less likely it seemed rescue would come. And water was running low. We were going through it faster than expected, and by the time we originally planned to go through that wall, we would’ve been left with less than half a day of water, if even that.
I sighed. “Felix, I know you have more faith in the Academy than I do. I get that. But don’t you think the mages would’ve found us by now? It’s been almost three days since the cave-in, for the star’s sake. The mages would’ve been here on day one if one of the professors ran to get them, and we both know they would have,” I said, some heat creeping into my voice. “Either rescue isn’t coming and we need to find our own way out, or there’s some issue going on we don’t understand and we still need to find our own way out. I’m tired of just sitting here and doing nothing when we could be going through that wall. Maybe there’s nothing there, or maybe there’s a tunnel leading straight to the surface. We won’t know until we go there and look.”
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Felix looked down at his talons, his wings drooping and his expression sad. I immediately felt a little guilty. This couldn’t be easy for him. He was counting on the Academy being there for us, and they weren’t.
I stepped forward and lifted his snout so I could meet his eyes. With a gentle voice I said, “Look, I think I know what you’re going through. Sort of anyway. You remember how I said that I fled home when my parents found out I was gay, right? What I didn’t tell you was that before I fled home, I actually spent a few hours hanging around the town, just hoping my parents would come looking for me and apologize and tell me everything was alright. Despite everything I still loved them and had faith in them. It’s not really the same as what I think you’re feeling, but it is similar. You feel like that if you go through that wall, that you’re betraying the Academy or professor Scott in some way, because you didn’t trust them enough to stay still. Or am I wrong?”
Felix shook his head. “No… you’re pretty much spot on. It feels like if we leave, that I’m telling dad and Scott and the rescue team and everyone else: ‘fuck you, I don’t trust you enough to even wait for you’. It feels super irrational and silly when I say it out loud like that, honestly. Especially after they failed last month with the dire-bear, too. But, I don't know... It's like, if I can't rely on them now, when I need them the most I've ever needed them, how can I rely on them ever again, knowing they let me down?”
I stepped forward again, and this time wrapped my arms around his neck. He nuzzled his snout into my neck and I could feel tears drip down my back. “I’ll tell you the same as what you’ve told me—your feelings are valid, even if you think they’re silly or dumb. And I don’t think you should stop relying on the Academy. They’ve been nothing but great in every other situation, but no one can be perfect, and these are pretty extreme circumstances. I know it will be hard, but I think we can both learn to trust them again. But for that we have to get out of here first. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t rely on them now—if the mages can get us out of here, that would be for the best. But we shouldn’t rely on just them. We’ve given the rescuers a chance, but now it’s our turn. If we can do something to get out of here, we should do it. And we have an option to do something, just sitting there, waiting for us to take it. We’ll see what’s on the other side of that wall and if it isn’t just another isolated cave, we’ll leave the rescuers a message and explore whatever’s there.”
Felix pulled away, pressed a kiss to my forehead and stepped back. “I… you’re right. And you’re right about what you said earlier, too. We don’t have the resources to keep waiting around, hoping for rescue. I don’t like that we have to, but we’ll have to take our rescue into our own talons,” he said, then he pulled me into a hug of his own. “And as for what you said about your parents, I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
I shook my head. “It’s in the past. Well, no, but let’s just pretend it is. We can talk about it more later, when we’re back home safe.”
Felix nodded. “Alright. So, let’s have lunch, then we’ll bring down that wall.”
I ate a quick lunch, followed by a too small amount of water. At least it was clean water—though it was the last drops of it. After this, there was only recycling the water. After lunch, I helped Felix scrawl a message into the floor. We made the lines thick, so that it would be easy to detect with stone-sensing Skills. Something like this would definitely stand out. The message itself was rather simple: we couldn’t wait any longer and had gone to explore through the other end of the cave. We included some details about our resources, followed by a bunch of straight-edged spiraling patterns in the walls and floors. It was something Felix came up with while we carved into the floor, and something I’d wished we’d come up with sooner. Like the message, these patterns would definitely attract attention. I really hoped they would find it, then come get us.
With the message finished, we made our way to the cracked wall. We then spent half an hour pretending to look for defects in the stone and signs that blowing a hole in the wall wouldn’t just collapse the ceiling on top of us. Neither of us actually knew what to look for, though, so it wasn’t a very useful way of spending our time. It only really served in helping us settle our nerves.
Neither of us really had any idea how strong Felix’s new attack would be, so we made sure to stand a decent bit back. Worst-case scenario, I’d top Felix’s mana back up and we’d try again.
As we stood in front of the wall, a question popped into my mind. “Hey, Felix, why don’t we just use your earth magic to make an opening?”
He paused to consider the question. “Because it would take several days to make an opening big enough for me to fit through. Maybe a single day if you topped me off with your mana, too. Either way, it would take way too long. This method will probably still take over an hour, but at least we’ll be getting through today.”
I nodded. “Alright, then. Shall we begin?”
“Yeah, let’s do this. Go stand behind me.”
I did as he said and nothing happened for a while, then I heard the crackling of lightning. I took the risk of glancing around Felix to see what was happening and saw him standing with his jaws agape and a small orb of bright blue and white lightning forming in his maw. He’d better not bite down. The power built for almost ten seconds; way more than the first time he’d used this ability. It had happened in almost a split second the first time. Did he do it slowly on purpose now?
I was about to ask what he was planning when suddenly a thick bolt of lightning struck forward and smashed into the wall. The thick rolling sound of thunder echoed loudly through-out the cavern, and flinched back behind Felix, my hands clutched over my ears. It was fucking loud. I vaguely noticed dust and stone fragments raining down around us, but was too disorientated to really notice. I would need to invest in some high-quality hearing protection for the future.
As the dust cleared and I regained my focus, I slowly walked up to the wall while I patted Felix’s back—I knew he was much more sensitive to loud noises than I was and I didn’t want him to startle if I suddenly entered his vision. The crack in the wall that had previously been so small was now a gaping hole. About five times as wide as before, I could probably crawl through it now. If barely. It wasn’t wide enough for Felix, yet, though.
I smiled up at Felix, who was still a bit dazed, and grabbed the light orb. I held it closer to the wall. The new gap was about a meter thick, and behind it was a decently large open space. Like any proper cave, stalactites hung from the ceiling. The floor was empty however, save for a strange pattern that almost looked like tiles. And there were shapes on the walls that vaguely looked like they might once have been lamps. But what really drew my attention, though, were the large and intricately carved stone double doors at the end of the new cavern, detailed with a pair of majestic dragons standing up and roaring at the sky.
Just where in the worlds had we gotten ourselves trapped?