Edie inhaled deeply. Cassidy’s hands still shook in hers, in rhythm with her ragged, nervous breaths. Just below the sound of their breathing, Edie heard the far away rush of running water again.
“We have to keep going forward. Maybe wherever this water is coming from is a way out. It’s not a big island, so it can’t be that far.”
She didn’t consider that they didn’t know how far they’d already gone or how long it had taken. Rather, she worried about if they didn’t find an exit and they had to turn around, but she didn’t want to voice those concerns to Cassidy.
Cassidy sniffled. “Okay,” she said in a small voice. “Let’s keep going.”
Edie returned to her side of the tunnel, left hand on the wall and right in Cassidy’s. She focused on the sound of running water between their splashing steps and tried to find a good pace that didn’t seem too slow but also wasn’t so fast that they’d run into something. The tunnel continued on, and Edie wondered if it was as perfectly straight as it felt or if it gently curved and wound around wide corners that she couldn’t perceive in the dark. It felt like they walked for hours without the sound of running water getting any louder, and Edie thought that she’d made a mistake. Maybe the tunnel connected with an underground stream and didn’t offer a way out, but it was too late to turn back now. They had to get to the end.
Hunger pains knotted in Edie’s stomach, and she tried to remember the last time she’d eaten. Had it been that morning in the villa, or last night with Rose? She struggled to recall, and the effort made her head hurt. She needed to focus.
“Is that …?” Cassidy asked and trailed off.
“What?” Edie asked.
“I dunno. I thought I saw a light.”
Edie picked up the pace ever so slightly and focused ahead of her to try to pick out anything in the dark. She thought she saw something, as well, but it could have been a mutual hallucination.
No, there was definitely something ahead. A pinprick of light in the darkness, light-years away from where they stood, but still visible.
“I see it, too,” Edie said, her relief audible. They both started walking even faster, and Edie felt the water splash onto her bare legs.
Their breathing grew louder as they continued down the tunnel, still hand in hand, but now Edie let her fingers lightly trail along the damp surface of the wall. The sound of the running water grew louder and the tiny spec of light they’d first seen came into greater focus. It became a lone star in the endless night and rose in height as they approached and grew to the size of a port window. The rushing water echoed loudly as they approached, and never louder than the volume of a running bathtub spigot.
Edie’s heart dropped into her stomach when she realized they reached the end. It came much sooner than she expected because she thought the water ran more vigorously from how loud the echoes were farther down the tunnel, and she’d hoped the source of light would be bigger. Instead, it stayed the size of a cruise boat porthole that she could reach up and touch. The water poured in a wide arc steadily down into the tunnel from the hole, distorting its light and size, and Edie couldn’t see beyond it.
“Do you think we could squeeze through that if one of us lifted the other up?” Cassidy asked.
“It would be a tight fit.” Edie thought she could fit most of her slender body into the hole but wasn’t sure her arms and head could get through together.
“And how would the second person get through?”
“Right.”
Enough light cast from the hole into the tunnel that Edie could see Cassidy staring up at it, fixated just as she was. It was almost a way out.
Something hard hit the floor and skittered across the dirt. Edie looked around but the light from the hole left an afterimage in her vision and she couldn’t see in the pure darkness. She looked back up at the hole, mesmerized.
Then the sound came again, and this time Edie saw a rock break away from the edge of the hole.
“It’s getting bigger,” she breathed.
Maybe it’s more of the magic happening here.
“Say we’ll get out,” Edie said, turning to Cassidy full of excitement that lifted her to her toes. “Like James. Say what you want.”
Cassidy looked at her, confused, so Edie turned her attention back to the hole—was it bigger again?—to show Cassidy what she meant.
“This is an exit, and we’re going to—”
Before she could finish her wish, the hole cracked wide, sending smaller rocks flying into the tunnel and spewing water through the new seams in the wall. The pressure of the water behind the wall opened the hole up like a diagonal slash, tearing the tunnel open and filling it with cool water from floor to ceiling in a matter of seconds.
The sudden light blinded Edie until the water slammed into her and forced her eyes closed. She fought the current, but it tossed her like a rock on the surf. Her shoulder hit something hard that the water dragged her body against. It stuck out from whatever surface it was on, and Edie used it to anchor herself against the rushing water. She hadn’t had time to take a breath before the surge and already felt her oxygen running low. As she had done in the empty tunnel, she waved her hand around, searching for a pocket of air or another handhold. Her fingers emerged above her into air. She tried to reposition herself to hook her foot on the handhold and stay in place, but the water was too strong. Instead, she kicked herself upwards. The water carried her backward, but she found the ceiling of the tunnel, hitting her head hard on it before she was able to crane her neck up and take in a breath. It wasn’t enough before the water got into her mouth and closed the pocket. She kept her hands on the ceiling and lifted herself to them as she was dragged, running over rocks and dirt, and catching on something else that felt like a thick root. She pulled herself up with the hold and pressed her lips almost to the surface, inhaling dirt, and the taste of decay, but also sweet air that filled her lungs.
Edie had no time for thoughts. Something inside of her solely focused on survival made all her decisions, unconsciously and without method. Her hands felt out along the ceiling for another root as the current tried to pull her backward. Anything she got her hands on, she used, pulling herself against the current. Her nails caught on rocks and dirt and her nailbeds filled with mud, but she didn’t feel it. She felt one handhold after another, many of them bending under the pressure of her weight even in the water and some of them breaking, but her wild mind found another and another.
Something brushed against her legs and got trapped there. It was solid and soft, like a body.
