Chapter Thirty

 

 

Star

 

The roar of water continued but seemed far away as I tried to open my eyes. My limbs felt like lead, stiff and cold. My hair was spread around me in wet, snaking tendrils, covering my face and holding in whatever miniscule heat escaped from my breath. I couldn’t tell if I was hurt or not. I knew the moment I tried to move, I was going to regret it with every cell of my body.

I sucked in a deeper breath, feeling too tired to move. It threw me into an unrelenting coughing fit, forcing me to roll to my side. My stomach lurched, and river water poured out of me onto the moss and rocks. I gagged until it stopped and rolled back, breathing hard as my heart hammered. I felt at the ground with my stiff fingers, realizing my gloves were gone, probably lost in the river. I managed to roll over and curl up into a fetal position until the nausea and resulting dizziness ceased.

I’m alive, I thought. I couldn’t believe it. I’d made it out of that river in one piece. At least, I hoped I was still in one piece. I couldn’t really feel much. I hoped Gideon and Clyde had made it out too. At the thought of them, my eyes swung open, and I looked around at my surroundings.

Where was I?

The river was several feet in front of me; the current was a lot slower than before. How had I crawled to the shore? I could barely push myself into a sitting position as I studied the banks. Water splashed and gurgled, lapping at the shore as though it were nothing but a playful entity. It must have split off at some point, because it wasn’t as wide as before. I hoped Gideon and Clyde had been thrown down the same way I’d gone, or we’d never find each other again.

“Oh, geez,” I cried out, feeling the push of nausea hit me again with a vengeance. I pulled myself up, crawling forward until I threw up some more water. The amount surprised me as it kept coming, spraying on the rocks until I had no more to expel. I fell to my side, away from the mess, and began to shake, crying as I pressed my hands to my face. They were wrinkled up and frozen, nearly white. Other than my gloves and headlamp, everything else was still on me. I laid there for a moment on my pack, which dug into my back, but I didn’t care. Staring up at the cavern walls towering high above me, I let myself drown in sorrow.

Gideon and Clyde were gone. Probably dead. We’d failed our mission and paid for it with our lives. I had no idea how to make it back home without them. Pressing my arm to my throbbing forehead, I contemplated begging for death. I wanted to join them in the watery grave of the underground river. I didn’t want to live without them.

A few minutes passed as my pity party finally drained away. Sniffing and wiping away the last of my tears, I pushed myself to sit up and get it together. Grunting as I dragged myself to a small boulder to lean against, I breathed out hard as I rested. I was in good physical condition, but man, no one was in shape to nearly drown in a monstrous body of freezing water. I finally removed my pack and set it next to me. I pulled my boots off and dumped the water out of them. I tugged off my drenched socks; I had to get my feet dry. I’d packed an extra outfit in my pack just in case I got too wet. All three of us had prepared for this.

My teeth chattered as I slowly got to my feet and yanked off my jacket and pants. Beneath were my thermals. These were fortunately dry, but the outer sides of my jacket and pants were drenched, dripping cold water all over my exposed skin. I laid them on some raised rocks nearby to dry. Shivering, I yanked out a reflective blanket and wrapped my body tightly in it before squeezing any excess water out of my brown hair. I stared at the color leeching from the strands. I had dyed it before I’d gone on the mission. The darker color had been temporary, and the reddish tints beneath began to show through from the long soak. Somehow, it made me happy to see my reddish-brown color returning. I squeezed as much water out of my locks as I could, twisted it, and tucked it under a beanie I had brought. I then searched through the pack for a pair of dry, warm socks.

My feet felt so much better with the dry socks on as I continued to dig through the pack. After throwing up, my stomach was ready for something to eat. I tugged a bar of rations from the stack and bit off the edge, chewing on the dense food. Remembering to drink water with it, I pulled out my canteen and swallowed down some clean water. I hoped the river wasn’t polluted. All I needed was to die of dysentery in the middle of nowhere.

I tried to shake off my fears as I finished eating and kept the blanket around me. The shivering had lessened, and my hands were no longer white and numb but painful and bright pink. So were my cheeks and lips, along with my toes. I tried not to think of frostbite and how long I had been submerged in the river, because losing an appendage wasn’t appealing. But it was the least of my problems. If I didn’t get out of there sooner or later, I’d lose a lot more than a finger or toe.

Drowsy with a bit of food and heat, I grabbed my pack, bunched it into a makeshift pillow, and tucked it under my reflective blanket to lay my head on instead of the hard stone floor. Tucking in the edges of the blanket until I was wrapped like a burrito kept most of the frigid air out. I sighed in relief, happy it wasn’t as cold as the previous cavern since the water wasn’t throwing up misty clouds into the air. For these little things, I was thankful.

I watched the water gurgle by as I drifted off to sleep, unable to fight the fatigue from nearly drowning. My mind was too tired to even dream anything, and I was saved from the nightmares which sometimes plagued me.

After what felt like minutes but had been hours based on the stiffness in my body, I blinked my eyes open. What had awoken me? I peered around me without moving in the hope that it was nothing, but I jerked at the sound of footsteps slowly approaching. I scrambled to unwrap myself from the tangle of the blanket, ripping some of it in the process as I got to my feet, holding out the dagger Gideon had given me when he’d saved me from Farlan.

“Who’s there?” I called out, seeing no one around. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone watching me from the shadows. I was just wearing my thermals, and I wondered if I should take a moment to pull on my pants, jacket, and boots. It wasn’t as cold as the other cavern, but I didn’t want to get caught anywhere without proper clothes. It was as dangerous as being ambushed by a stranger.

No one appeared. Maybe I’d imagined it. Keeping my senses hyperaware, I yanked on my outer clothes and my now-dry boots. I stuffed my water and my ripped blanket into my pack and strapped it to my back as quickly as I could. Slipping the metallic cuff onto my wrist, I kept my dagger ready to fight anything which could come my way from the darkness. I pondered using some of the weapons in my cuff, but I didn’t want to waste them unless something was really there. Maybe it was some small cave-dwelling creature. I prayed it would be small.

There are terrible things roaming the dark, but none more treacherous than those lacking all morality.

Gideon’s words echoed in my mind as my heart hammered in my chest. I was still exhausted, still weak from the stress and abuse from the river’s wrath, but I wasn’t going to let anything kill me now. I’d thought he’d meant unearthly creatures and scary monsters, but humans and possibly the Others could be just as terrifying. If I got through this without meeting a stranger, I’d be thankful.

I heard another crunch of gravel and jumped, holding my blade out in front of me.

“Show yourself!” I yelled into the many shadows surrounding the small shoreline of the river. Some of them could be tunnels leading out, and some were probably just shadows of the rocks jutting out of the sides of the cavern. Whatever was out there, I just hoped it wasn’t something deadly.

“Star? Is that you?”