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I quickly jump down into it, stomach first, landing with a plop on the frozen slime of the oversized earthworm. I push myself down with my arms, and I’m forced to hug its body as I slide, trying to move as quickly as I can so Chase can follow.
The clangor above us is so loud that I can feel it in my jawbone, and it rattles my teeth.
His feet soon appear mere inches from my face, and the scent of his unwashed body and the smell of sandworm combine with the freshly churned earth to fill my nostrils.
Down. Ten feet. Twelve. Fifteen.
Dust and dirt cloud around us, and I cough as I finally slide past the tail of the sandworm and drop into a tunnel. I skitter back a few feet so Chase can drop down beside me.
He groans when he lands, cursing under his breath. The walls of the passage shake, and we run forward as Jennison’s Meat Factory collapses above us, sending rubble down into the shaft. Within seconds, our way back is blocked along with every beam of light.
We’re left fifteen feet below the earth, and our only hope of getting out is stumbling forward through the darkness together.
6
ALIANA
Caution only lasts so long—fightor flight is like a rainstorm pouring down hard at first. But internal clouds can only contain so much dark and foreboding feelings, and eventually, adrenaline sputters and fades to a trickle before evaporating.
Our caution in the tunnel lasted for a solid thirty minutes of stumbling through the dark, anticipating monsters or a collapse. But after a while, the panic receded and was replaced by the overpowering stench of wet dirt coated in monster slime.
Though I try to force my limbs to stay on high alert, utter blindness and silence muffle two of my senses and gradually lull me into a softer and stupider headspace. And instead of focusing on next steps after the attack, I start to wonder why it occurred. As if motivation for this entire fucked-up scenario matters at all. When there’s a fight for survival,whydoesn’t matter. Only living does.
But the silence has started to taste like cotton in my mouth, begun to stuff my ears full, and so the question pours out despite its uselessness. “Did they say why they took you?”
“Ebony Kingdom. Why else?” The answer comes out in a hiss of breath that sends a shiver coasting over my shoulders because I’m still not used to the way the Empty Man uses Chase’s voice.
The answer isn’t unexpected, though it’s definitely not what I hoped and makes my sore shoulders sag a bit. Part of me wanted this to turn out to magically be a vendetta against him personally. If Empty Man was the problem, then Tesq and Creep and even the Devourer would be in less danger.
Of course, the fact that whoever took Chase cut off his finger and lured the other Terrors here did clue me in to the fact that this wasn’t an isolated event…
So again, my question was a waste of breath down here in this tunnel where oxygen is limited, and there doesn’t seem to be a rise toward the surface anytime soon. I can’t help but wonder if that’s all we’re doing down here. Wasting breaths. Are we going to die in this darkness? A slow death now instead of the instantaneous death of crushing as we would have had if we’d stayed in the meat factory?
But I can’t let myself think back to that building. I can’t imagine the walls falling in without my stomach churning with worry for the other Terrors.
What a fucking turn my brain has taken to start caring about monsters. Not just caring but aching for Tesq, longing for Creep’s light-hearted quips as he slings an arm over my shoulders. Nostalgic for Fluffy’s purrs and a Christmas-light-strewn room.
They better be okay. They have to be okay, because I’m the one who forced them to come. Otherwise…
The dark possibilities twist my mind toward thoughts of revenge. Just in case.
“Know who it is?” I ask the Empty Man.
“Monsters who’ll soon join me in the afterlife.”
What a typical male response. Though, on this occasion, I don’t disagree with his proclamation. Whoever did this deserves to have their skin shaved off slowly, inch by inch.
Of course, his answer was one of those non-answers that drive me up the wall. He couldn’t have just said a name? Then I remember whose body the Empty Man’s stuck in.
“Sounds like Chase is rubbing off on you. That’s the sort of bullshit arrogant thing he’d say,” I observe.
A low, inhuman growl erupts from his lips. “It’s not bullshit.”
“Yeah, it is. If you could kill them, you’d have done it already.”
“I’m stuck in this body?—”
“And whose fault is that?” I retort, rolling my eyes even though the gesture has zero effect in this dank, earthy passage because he can’t see it.
