The mineshaft descended at a steep angle. Seth held his phone high, watching the stream of light fade into darkness. He’d thought himself used to darkness by now. It turned out, there were different kinds of darkness. Out in the woods, there was the moon and the stars, and even with the dense fog, there was always a dull ambient light. The pitch black of the mineshaft was suffocating in comparison.
“Nice place you brought us to,” Seth said. “Real cozy.”
“Shut up.” Alex held up a finger and stared down the mineshaft, her eyes glazing over. A moment later, she turned back to Seth. Her skin was pale and she shivered against her sweater. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Wait, you meant to come here? I thought it was a mistake, or like, a blind portal. Don’t tell me you willingly brought us back to this fucking farm?”
Seth recognized where they were. He’d never been this deep in the mine but he’d seen the entrance from that brick building outside the campsite. It was Deep Grave Mine. It had to be. Where else could they be?
Already, Alex had shuffled past him and was heading deeper into the mineshaft. Seth hurried to follow, careful not to slip on the dusty ground. When he caught up, she reached into her sweater pocket, pulled out a long lanyard, and handed it to Seth. The laminated name card flashed in the light, displaying the smudged image of some professor from Shelby State.
“I’m trying to find him,” Alex said. “He’s the last lead Jess has given us.”
Seth glanced about the mineshaft. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
“He’s farther down. I don’t know why my Shortcut didn’t take us directly to him. Maybe it’s less accurate over long distances. Regardless, I don’t have enough energy to make another portal. We have to walk.”
Well, that was just great. This was the second time she’d brought Seth to Eldridge Creek, and the first time hadn’t gone so well. And why was this Dr. Rose so important anyway? Sure, Jess had included his lanyard in her box of mysteries, but that didn’t mean anything significant. Rose was probably just one of Owen’s slaves.
Whatever. Seth would follow Alex on her little mission. He had no other choice. She was his only way out of here. Well, unless he wanted to climb all the way up the mineshaft and escape the farm on foot. He much preferred her slimy portals. Now that was a useful wish.
Seth tossed the lanyard behind him like the piece of trash it was. It clattered against the stone, lost to the darkness.
A hand grasped the back of Seth’s hoodie and tried to slam him against the wall. A pathetic attempt. Seth slid a few inches before catching himself, and it only took a fraction of his strength to resist the attack.
Will loomed over him, his cheeks pulled back to reveal razor-sharp teeth. “Pick it up.” He snarled, his teeth jackhammering up and down with a metallic chitter. “I’m tired of you disrespecting my girlfriend.”
Aw, did Will think his new teeth made him big and scary? Seth should give him a taste of his shotgun, and then they could see whose bite cut deeper.
The flashlight on Seth’s phone started to dim. Ignoring Will, he lowered his phone and brought up the home screen. The battery icon was in the red, with only a sliver remaining. That wasn’t good.
“My battery’s almost dead. Anyone got a charger?”
“Give me that.” Will ripped the phone from Seth’s hand. Fucking rude, that was.
Silver tendrils slithered from Will’s stump, wavy light shimmering down their length. Will held the phone up to the silver wires, and they dove into the charging port. Now socketed to Will’s arm, the flashlight brightened into a harsh blue beam that cut through the darkness.
That was useful. Seth had known Will’s tendrils could power mechanical machines. He’d seen Will use them with the chainsaw and the car. However, he hadn’t known they would work with electronic devices as well.
Now that he had the light, Will took the lead, the shadow of his lean frame ambling into the darkness ahead. As Will walked past, he took a massive bite from one of the wooden supports. His teeth cut clean through, leaving a cartoonish hole in the wood. It looked like the hole a shark would leave after biting through a surfboard. The sound of chewing wood sent goosebumps down Seth’s arms. What was up with that guy?
Alex held back so she could grab the lanyard. After picking it up and wiping off the dust, she scooched past Seth, giving him an apologetic shrug before racing after Will. That left Seth to take the rear.
What a load of bullshit. Seth would much rather be back at Weaver Hall, even with Torch Labs circling him like a pack of wolves. Then he could continue working on his demo.
Moving the program onto Updraft had been a genius idea, assuming he could get the firewall configured. Seth was itching to get back to troubleshooting. Hell, the only reason he’d left was because Alex had shown him how to connect to Updraft on his laptop. Now he could access the virtual machine anywhere. Well, anywhere with an internet connection. And this mineshaft certainly didn’t have internet, nor would anywhere else on this cursed farm.
They continued their descent for what seemed like forever. How deep did this mineshaft go? Owen had supposedly created Deep Grave Mine to dig up pieces of the meteorite. How the meteorite fragments had ended up so far underground, Seth had no idea. Even if the meteor had landed pretty hard, most of the debris should have remained near the surface.
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“Do you hear that?” Will asked. He stopped just ahead and placed his hand against the wall.
Seth didn’t hear anything. He held his breath and tried to listen, but other than his heartbeat, it was completely silent.
“I think so,” Alex said. “The slight whooshing noise?”
“Yeah.” Will stepped away from the wall, shrugged, and continued heading down the slope. “Do you think it’s related to your doctor?”
“I don’t know. He’s still a ways deeper. Though, it’s strange. Pinpoint shows me an outline of whoever I’m focusing on, but the doctor’s is blurry. It’s like I’m watching him through smudged glass.”
As they continued, Seth started to hear the sound himself. It was a soft whine that shivered through the walls and trembled underfoot. The noise sounded like wind, but Seth didn’t feel any breeze in the mineshaft. The air was completely still, and it was kind of muggy. That was a change. When they’d first arrived, it had been cold and dry. It was still cold, but now it was starting to get humid.
And then he saw it. The fog. Thin tendrils swirled by the phone’s flashlight as it bobbed up and down. The fog was coming from deeper within the mine, which was strange. Seth would have expected it to flow down from the entrance, far above them now, not rise up from the bottom.
“Holy shit!” Will said. He stepped to the side, revealing the mineshaft’s exit.
The tunnel opened up into a massive cavern. The cave cut through the earth as if a giant had cleaved through the stone with an axe. Its sheer walls stretched into darkness, the ceiling so high that the light couldn’t reach. A river cut through the center. Foamy water splashed against the rocks as it rushed downstream, and droplets drifted through the air, cold as they condensed on Seth’s skin.
“Wait a minute,” Seth said. “Is this the creek?”
Will glanced at him. “What creek?”
“As in the name of the fucking farm. Eldridge Creek. Is this part of it?”
“I think so,” Alex said. “I mean, the creek itself is above ground, but it would make sense that a part of it runs underneath. Maybe? I don’t know how aquifers or water tables or any of that works.”
Seth didn’t either. Not that it mattered. Either way, this creek appeared to be the source of the fog. Thick clouds drifted away from the underground river, much denser than anywhere else Seth had seen. The fog thinned into light tendrils near the creek’s edge, where they were standing.
“Dr. Rose is just on the other side,” Alex said. “Now I know why he’s so blurry. It’s the fog. For some reason, it’s obscuring my Pinpoint ability.”
“Okay,” Seth said. “I don’t see anywhere to cross the creek. Can you use your weird portal yet?”
“I can try,” Alex said.
She held out her arms and closed her eyes. Black electricity crackled between her palms, the air growing denser around her. Her arm muscles bulged as she strained against the air, though Seth couldn’t see anything happening. Alex furrowed her brows, and she leaned forward. Nothing. She dropped her arms and let out a stale breath.
“Not enough energy?” Seth asked.
“No, it’s not that. With such a short distance, opening the Shortcut should’ve been easy. It felt… almost like something was blocking the path forward. Something my Shortcut couldn’t cut through. I think it’s the fog.”
That didn’t make any sense. The fog had been omnipresent ever since the First Shadow dropped. And not just at the farm. The fog had extended all the way to Shelby State, and probably even beyond that. Even so, the strange mist had never disrupted any of Seth’s abilities. Hell, the fog hadn’t disrupted Alex’s abilities ten minutes ago. What was different now?
Seth stepped closer to the creek. Tendrils of mist reached out and swirled around him. It condensed into cold droplets that ran down his skin. Perhaps this fog was different from the surface. As before, Seth could hear the Signal whispering through the mist. Only this time it felt more substantial, more potent.
Either way, they needed to cross the creek.
Seth scanned the rushing water, looking for the easiest path. Rubble was scattered about the shoreline, boulders and debris that had fallen from the cave walls. Further upstream, the creek narrowed a bit, the water foaming around spires of rock that jutted from the surface.
“Over here,” Seth said. He walked toward the path he’d spotted, wet sand and gravel squelching with every footstep.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Alex said.
“Why not.” Seth crouched down and placed one foot in the creek’s edge. Cold water splashed up his shoe and soaked through the hem of his jeans. Even with one foot in, the current tugged at him, the water moving faster than it looked.
Alex didn’t answer. She stayed away from the water, as if afraid to let the fog touch her.
This was ridiculous. Finding the doctor was her idea. Rose was waiting on the other side of the creek, and now she didn’t want to cross. It was just a creek. After all the danger they’d faced, what was the worst that could happen? They’d fall in and get a little wet?
“Just follow my path,” Seth said.
He jumped to the closest boulder and landed square in the center. Easy peasy. Water rushed all around him, the spray reaching up to his chest. He readjusted his backpack. Hopefully, his laptop inside wouldn’t get too wet.
Seth leaped to the next boulder, and the one after that. Tendrils of mist buffeted him. The fog here was denser than it looked from the shore. Already, he found it difficult to see the path forward. Seth had to be near the center of the creek by now. Only a few more jumps and the fog would clear and he’d be on the other side.
After reaching the next boulder, the fog was even denser. It clung to his hoodie and dripped down his skin like molasses. Seth held a hand against his brow and squinted into the suffocating mist. He couldn’t see a damn thing. It didn’t help that Will had kept the flashlight. A dark outline stuck out from the fog. Was that the next boulder?
“Hey!” Seth shouted. “Can you point the light at the next jump?”
Nobody answered.
Were those clowns ignoring him now? What a load of bullshit. Seth didn’t even want to be here, and again he was doing all the work. And what thanks did he get? Whatever, he had to be more than halfway to the other side. The damn creek wasn’t that wide.
Seth jumped toward the gray outline.
And missed.
He plunged into freezing water. The current caught his legs and yanked him straight down. Seth shot toward the bottom as fast as a torpedo. A stream of cold bubbles burst from his lips, and his arms flailed to the sides.
It didn’t matter. There was nothing Seth could do. The current held him in an iron grip, pulling him toward the bottom. Or was it downstream? He’d lost all sense of direction, and he still hadn’t reached the bottom or a boulder or anything to grab onto.
Seth’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. His lungs burned. He reached out, trying to claw at anything that could stop his endless descent. His fingers only found foam and bubbles and utter darkness.
And just like that, the creek swept him away.