Panting, Kari and Elwin somehow managed to make it to the other side of the pillar.

“What do we do?!?” Elwin desperately asked in between gasps of air. His eyes were wide with terror.

Kari was frantic. Chest pounding in his ears, he racked his memory. Something was so, so familiar about the rectangular obelisk that they were hiding behind. One on a mossy hillside. Another under six feet of glacial ice. Another in the desert, surface smoothed down by scorching windblown sands…

The soldiers had stopped firing. They were closing in.

Suddenly, Kari remembered. These structures had an entrance, yet for some reason, this one didn’t.

Or maybe, it was just buried.

“Elwin! Dig!” Kari said.

“Dig?” Elwin asked, completely caught off guard.

“Yes! Dig! Now!” Kari said, himself beginning to dig by forming icy plates in the dirt below, heaving them up messily. Elwin joined in and began pulling the earth up with great efficacy.

In seconds they had dug a sizeable tunnel. Without Elwin, Kari would’ve been done for once again.

“In, now!” Elwin said, jumping into the hole. “I’ll cover it up behind us.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Kari joined him in the wet earth. It was completely dark, save for the slight orange glow of Kari’s stasis bracelet, holding the dirt above their heads. He also used two plates of ice to support the ceiling as needed.

“They’re going to find us,” Elwin said.

“Get closer to the monolith,” Kari said. “There’ll be an entrance.”

“Are you sure?” Elwin asked.

“Trust me. You should be able to feel a gap with your Gift. Aim for that.”

Sure enough, after they had gotten closer, Elwin could faintly feel what could be an empty space about 30 meters down. He began tunnelling.

Kari, meanwhile, felt a few patches above ground lose water as they were shot. He held his breath.

The soldiers must have found our little grave.

Elwin dug them deeper, and they left the range of Kari’s Gift.

In the suffocating darkness, Elwin dug them closer and closer to their theoretical light at the end of the tunnel. Just as Elwin began to wonder if they would run out of breathable air soon, he felt solid ground beneath his feet, and the dirt gave way… to blinding white lights.

Kari and Elwin hesitantly stepped out onto the polished steel floors. Before them, there was a round, circular door. Startlingly, it opened on its own as they approached.

“Do we go in?” Elwin asked.

“Would you rather try your luck upstairs?” Kari asked.

Elwin began walking.

Polished white panels made up the interior. Between the gaps, dim blue lights shone through.

The structures that Kari had seen in his past had been picked apart by scavengers. He never could have imagined that the untouched interior would look like this.

“Perhaps the goblins were right to worship this, it's like a temple,” Kari said.

Right at that moment, the flat metal doors slid shut behind them, sealing the boys inside.

“Oh, pixie dust…” Elwin exclaimed with trepidation.

Kari rushed to the door and tried to pry it open, but it wouldn’t even budge. Not even Elwin’s gift could find a hair’s breadth of space in between the gap where the door joined its frame.

“We’re trapped…” Kari said.