Darius glanced behind him, ensuring no one followed. The flame of his torch lit the smooth, auburn walls of the tunnel on either side. Sticks and rocks covered the cave floor. Often, the children of Red Rock threw items into the cave when they thought no one was looking. Some acted on dares, proving their courage to the others, while others tested their own bravery.
Some cured their boredom with those dares.
None, except Darius, entered.
And Akron, on too many occasions, including the time he disappeared, he reminded himself.
That thought urged him on as he clutched his cane, careful not to make too much noise. Darius moved steadily, following a path he'd traveled more times than he could count. From somewhere outside and behind, he heard the hoot of a desert owl, perched on the giant formation's outer ledges. Soon, the sound disappeared, and an eerie, closed-in silence surrounded him. Darkness enveloped everything outside his torchlight.
Deep in the tunnels, there were no days and nights.
There was only the amount of water and food in one's bag, the number of torches he had, and the bravery in his heart.
Darius swallowed as he recalled the times he had traveled here as a younger man, always careful to come back before the morning, so he wouldn't be discovered. Back then, the threat of lost rations hung over his head.
Now, his punishment would be even worse.
The Heads of Colony had already warned him twice: after his shattered leg, and after Akron's death. He couldn't fathom what they would do to him now.
The rules of Gideon and his men were getting stricter. Underneath the stern demeanor of The Heads of Colony, Darius saw an undercurrent of nervousness. Each storm chipped away at their outward assurance.
Gone were the days of freedom, when young colonists might enjoy more than a handful of years without worry. He wasn't sure if it was nostalgia, or a bitter truth. Sometimes, it felt as if the planet were a river, slowly running dry, with no way to replenish itself.
Following the curved, red tunnel, Darius kept his torch high and his knife clutched in his cane hand. He knew that the sandstorms drove creatures into hiding, giving him more things to worry about than Watchers. He reached an intersection, veering left. Lifting his torch, he spotted a faded, familiar marking as high as a hand could reach. A circle.
Seeing that familiar marking triggered memories. All at once, Darius was a young man, with a limber body and a spear in his hand. In a cave that often felt menacing, the circular marking was a thick blanket, comforting him on a cold night. He smiled as he passed the familiar drawing, heading over some crushed rubble and skirting a divot large enough to grab a boot and hold onto it.
His love for the caves was tempered by his fear of their power.
A few times while sleeping in his hovel, he had awoken from some terrifying dream, where he was trapped in the suffocating darkness forever, dragging his body through a tunnel with no end. Listening to the crackle of his torch, he clutched it tighter, remembering that time when he had been without it. Darius had been lucky to make it out after his accident.
And yet he kept returning.
He followed the cave through several more turns, using his old, faded markings when he could find them, substituting memory when he couldn't. In a few places, he saw slashes on the walls from the miners. He entered a narrow section of the tunnel, bending down and leaning more heavily on his cane. More memories came back to him. He recalled Akron's stories of avoiding animals in the caves. Akron had been lucky in his travels, until he wasn't.
A pair of glowing eyes startled him.
Darius thrust his torch in front of him and froze.
A small, desert fox craned its neck and looked back at him, fear in its face. Darius held it in an uneasy glare for a moment before it raced away, burrowing into a distant hole. Rocks scattered and fell, pinging off the floor as its claws scratched something out of sight.
Darius took a few steps, finding the fox's rear end on the side of the cave. Its tail waved back and forth, and then it disappeared. He heard the echoes of its escape somewhere in the wall. It sounded as if the fox had gotten much farther than just into a small hole. Where was it?
He knew foxes found dens that were smaller than humans could navigate, but this lair sounded deep.
Heart hammering, Darius crept closer, illuminating the pile of stones the fox had kicked up.
The fox had revealed a head-sized, circular opening.
Stooping, Darius poked at the surrounding stones, loosening a few more and knocking them to the ground. A den.
Not a den, a passage.
He stuck his torch into the hole, illuminating a space that went much deeper and wider than a normal animal's lair. Looking up, he saw something else.
Akron's triangular mark.
Darius bent down, making his way through the hole he'd exposed after moving more rocks. His pack scraped the ceiling. He held his knife in front of him, as if the fox might appear and nip him, but it wasn't close. Far in the distance, he heard louder echoes as it went farther away.
Darius kept crawling, fitting his old frame through the passage, leading with his cane and his knife. The cave was hot before, but now it was sweltering. The ceiling of the passage weighed down on him, pressing his bag tighter on his back. A new, panicked thought struck him.
What if he got stuck and died? He would surely die slowly.
No one except Elmer knew where he was going, and even if someone else did, who would look for him? Darius might be a fossil for someone else to discover. Or maybe no one would ever find him. He swallowed as he dragged his lame leg behind him. His torch illuminated an end to the narrow, uncomfortable space. Pulling himself through, he pushed with his hands and his cane, until he regained his footing and stood.
Darius was deep in a dark cave, with sides as wide as the one in which he'd traveled.
He looked left and right, down two sides of a tunnel he'd never explored.
Darius felt as if he was on to something more promising than he'd ever found. But which way should he go? The last thing he wanted was an encounter with a cornered, scared fox.
After some debate, he chose a path to the right, combing through the tunnel, stopping every so often to check for revealing marks. He saw no more triangles. He kept going, ignoring the pain in his joints and leg, stooping or shimmying as needed. The tunnel walls were a blend of auburn, with mixes of brown, or occasionally black, where varieties of rock blended together.
Eventually, the tunnel rose, seemingly headed toward the surface. Darius followed it until he found a sliver of light.
A breeze told him he had reached an exit.
He slowed, wondering where he had ended up. Ducking beneath a low-hanging crag, he peered into a seemingly empty desert, illuminated by the light of the moons.
He saw no sign of Red Rock. No sign of the small, mud-brick hovels, or the Comm Building.
It took him a moment to realize he'd ended up on the far side of the eastern wall. Darius wanted to turn and explore the tunnel's other direction, but if he stayed too long, his exploration might run until daylight.
If he were caught, or missed, he might never see what was on the other side of this new tunnel.
Eventually, his good sense won out, and Darius snuffed out his light and snuck out into the moonlight, intent on getting back to his colony before daybreak.