Ash was awakened by pain.

He opened his eyes but the world was black.

For a moment he panicked, wondering if he was blind.

Suddenly remembering he was supposed to be fleeing for his life, his heart started pounding in his chest, trying to break free.

He sat up quickly then two things happened on top of each other.

Firstly, the back of his head throbbed with pain.

Then the second thing was that he vomited, hot liquid rose up from within him and spilled out over the front of his chest.

Managing to get onto his knees and elbows, he could only listen to the pathetic sounds he made as his head throbbed and the dizziness tried to wring more hot liquid from his gut.

He waited for an unknown amount of time, just trying to breathe.

He opened his eyes trying once again to see in the darkness, it took time before he could begin to make out what he thought were the walls of his tomb.

Remaining still on all fours, he listened as much as he could, straining to try hear any sounds of his uncle's men.

He didn't know how long he waited but the only thing he heard in that time was a very faint sound of wind.

It was so faint that he thought he might have been imagining it, until he realised that it was gently touching the skin of his hot face.

He looked in the direction he felt the breeze from and in the darkness, he slowly thought he could see an even blacker patch in that expanse.

Unable to do anything more, he slowly crawled and shuffled towards it.

It seemed as though he were crawling through a corridor-like passage that lead from the pit he had thought was his tomb.

At one point after stopping to breathe through the pain on the back of his head, he must have not been heading directly straight because his shoulder pressed up against the hard side of this passage.

Reaching to it with a hand, he felt around.

He felt what he thought were tree roots against the wall, that coupled with the rocky and dirt covered ground made him sure that he was in an underground cave system.

He didn't know which direction he was heading in, was he heading further into the mountains or was he heading back under the woods?

He didn't know if he had missed other passages in pit he had originally fallen into or whether this was the only way he could move.

The pain on the back of his head and the nausea it caused were too much to make him consider going back to check.

Besides, now that he had stopped once more he thought he could once again feel the breeze on his face.

It would have to be enough for him, he crawled onwards.

Time passed, he had stopped to breathe through the pain and nausea so many times that he had lost count.

Everything was a haze in that darkness.

He had found that his passage was one that twisted and turned, sometimes he had had to drag himself over mounts of dirt or piles of rocks.

Crawling through small gaps, pushing stones out of his way.

All the while chasing that breeze.

Time and time again he would doubt himself, he thought that maybe he was just imagining the breeze and would end up stopping once more, waiting there in the darkness until he felt the air once more kiss his skin.

Then he would continue.

One thing he came to realise was that he was definitely heading into the mountain, rather than back into the woods.

The roots had become smaller and fewer until only dirt and stone remained.

That coupled with the feeling of a slight incline made him sure of his direction, if not his destination.

Crawling, scraping his hands through the damp earth, pushing and pulling rocks or small stones he continued onwards until eventually he couldn't make his body move any more.

He had no idea how long he had been here, under the earth trying to escape this hell but after his desperate sprint for his life, first by the travel carriage, then on foot through the woods, it was too much for his body.

He stopped, lay on his side and passed out from exhaustion.

Some time later he awoke once more in darkness, a small pang in his chest was the only disappointment he felt at remembering where he was and why he was here.

Wasting no time he moved onwards once more.

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Some time later he heard it.

The drip drip drip of water.

He was almost frantic in his mad crawl in the darkness to find the source of the sound.

As his hands scrabbled over the loose stones the felt them start to come away slightly damp until he felt a cold splash on the back of his neck.

When he eventually found the point on the stone above him where the drops of water seemed to run to, he was frustrated as how little there was.

Beneath it had been a small puddle of water, he had lowered his face to it sucked it in only to have it vanish into him after no more than a mouth full.

He had to wait as the small divot refilled itself from the maddeningly slow source, a couple of drops at a time.

He slept once more.

When he awoke again, he didn't immediately continue he journey.

He first drank the water that had collected while he slept then waited for it to eventually refill.

Before he had slept, he had managed to keep himself awake long enough for it to refill four times.

This time he waited for it to refill it twice more before he moved on.

Eventually he came to a halt, he had just dragged himself through a narrow gap of stone.

Convinced that it would suddenly shift and crush him the entire time, when he found that he could crawl no further.

He was at the bottom of a hole, the ground beneath him was completely made up of loose jagged rocks.

Looking upwards he could make out the edge about fifteen feet above him, but nothing beyond that.

Suddenly startled that he could make out anything in such darkness, his heart started to race at the knowledge that somewhere close there must be light.

When he felt that breeze hit his skin once more he felt dizzy, he sat back against the hard rock heedless of the jagged stones beneath him.

He spent a few minutes trying not to heave up bile as there was nothing left inside his empty stomach.

Opening his eyes once more when he felt composed enough, he looked up at the stone sides of this new pit.

It was, like everything else had been; uneven.

The mostly narrow tube he found himself at the bottom of looked to be maybe three feet wide at the narrowest point about half way up.

If the hole were completely straight, that narrow point would have been all he could see, but rather than being a directly downwards straight hole, there was a slight incline to the stone sides.

Knowing that there was no other way, he started to try to climb.

His hands and fingers felt raw after all they had been through, he could feel cuts on them long since crusted over with blood.

Even the amount of dirt under his nails seemed to want to force his finger nails from his fingers with the pressure.

He struggled upwards, his sore hands searching for grooves or cracks.

Once he could get over that half way point where the narrowest part was, he could use it as a 'new ground' of sorts, from there he should be able to climb the remaining distance to the top without too much effort.

It wasn't to be though, the strain of having to hold himself in place with one grip while his other hand sought out somewhere else to purchase was too much for his weakened and exhausted body.

He fell.

When he woke again, his head throbbed as badly as he remembered from his first awakening.

He lay for a long time breathing through the pain, he knew by the new pain in his left elbow that it had been the first point of impact from his fall.

While it hurt, he was just glad that he hadn't actually landed on his head.

If this was the pain he felt from it just being roughly jostled, a direct impact would likely kill him.

When he felt as settled as he could be, he started his climb once more.

This time, after an excruciatingly long time he found himself gasping and sweating as he eventually dragged himself over the lip of the pit.

He thought he had never seen such a beautiful sight in his life.

The pit he had just dragged himself from was the floor of what was clearly a man made stone corridor.

The corridor lead a short way into an open expanse that was also clearly a room of sorts, everything was made of the mountain itself.

At the far side of that room, he could see a single ray of light.

A small line that seemed to have broken through the mountain into this buried place.

He let exhaustion take him once more but this time, he felt his lip curl ever so slightly into the shape of a smile before he drifted off.