Darius's hands shook as he held on to his cane and his torch. His pulse pounded. Beads of sweat rolled from his brow as he trekked deeper into the auburn cave. He wanted to hurry, crawl faster through the passage he'd found, and emerge out the other side.
He wanted to will the first part of the journey away.
In his bag were five torches—enough to accommodate a long journey, if needed. On the way here, no Watchers had spotted him. Hopefully, that luck would continue.
For the first time in as long as he remembered, Darius felt as if several years of fruitless searching might finally yield something. It felt like tonight, something was special.
A screeching bat took flight from somewhere above him. Darius jolted more than he might normally have, if he hadn't been in such haste. Slow down, he told himself. You don't want to risk a fall.
Still, some inner force pushed him on.
All at once, he remembered that strange doorway in his dream. Instead of recalling the frightening parts of that nightmare, he recalled Akron's hopeful face and their reconnection. He recalled the joy in his heart at finding his friend alive.
Darius knew better than to believe the lies of sleep, which made glittery promises and ripped them away. Still, some spark drove him.
He traveled the same caves as he had the night before, winding past the smooth walls, until he reached the narrow passage where he'd first encountered the fox. Darius' heart beat faster as he came across the pile of rocks he'd pulled aside. The passage was still exposed.
Of course, it was.
No one was foolish enough to enter these caves, except Darius.
He swallowed as he crawled through the small opening, feeling the same fear he had the first time about getting stuck, until he was upright and on the other side. This time, he had no decision to make.
Darius turned left.
The cave widened, following a curvy path. His torch light revealed trails of rodent scat. In one corner, he found a small, fresh rat corpse that hadn't yet been ferreted away.
Maybe scavenging animals feared these caves.
He doubted the truth of that paranoid thought—the fox had been here, after all—and yet he couldn't help feeling that way, as the tunnel took a deep, downward slope. Darius tread with careful steps as he avoided scattered rocks and larger, jagged pieces of stone that had broken off the walls. A long, straight gash drew his attention to a nearby part of the tunnel, where a miner had chipped off a piece, long ago.
He'd seen plenty of similar marks before, of course, but it was the first mark in this cave, and that gave him a strange intuition.
A sign?
Darius's hope grew as he moved faster than he should, heading deeper into the tunnels, even farther from the surface and Red Rock. He held his torch higher, lighting his way as small, fast-moving insects scurried into holes. A small cave lizard bolted from the torch light.
A strange smell hit Darius's nose.
The cave smelled dank, old. He kept going until the tunnel broadened and became an enormous, chamber-sized room. The ceiling sloped so high that he couldn't see the top with his torch light, nor could he see the tops of the walls.
Rocks and dust littered his way.
He slowed his steps as he saw something.
Past the rocks, pieces of a strange, gray substance lined the floor. The waste-like material was flaky and ashen.
What was this?
Something gleamed in the light of his torch, pressing him onward.
Darius inched forward, over more of the ash, until he was upon it.
His breath caught in his throat.
A skeleton.