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Sirens. He could hear their shrill wail.
One of their own had bled. One of their own was dead. And now they came for him.
"Got to keep moving," he muttered under his breath, the words ragged as they tore from his throat.
Sweat traced rivulets down his temples, stinging his eyes, blurring the already dim view of the rocky terrain before him. He could feel the dampness plastering his shirt to his back, the chill of the underground air turning sweat cold against his skin.
Now voices. Voices above. The shouts of cops.
Had they seen him?
They'd certainly seen what he had done to her.
But had they seen him?
"Can't be caught," he growled, the thought a mantra that propelled him forward.
His hands slapped against the jagged wall for balance, leaving behind smeared crimson testimonies of his desperate flight. The pain was there—a constant companion whispering lies of rest and respite—but he shoved it aside, buried it beneath the thunderous fear of capture.
"Almost out," he promised himself, voice scarcely more than a hoarse whisper.
The labyrinthine darkness closed in around him like a predator, eager to swallow him whole. He stumbled, foot catching on an unseen stone, but righted himself with a snarl of frustration. The world spun momentarily, a dizzying dance of shadows, but he forced clarity upon his senses.
"Move!" His command ricocheted off the walls, a ghostly echo of determination.
Above, the cacophony of boots grew louder still, a chorus of impending doom. He envisioned them—faceless enforcers of the law, hungry for justice or perhaps merely the thrill of the hunt. Their proximity was a tangible thing, a weight pressing down upon him, urging him to succumb.
His boots connected with the ground, a muted drumbeat against the soft crunch of gravel. Left, right, another left—each turn etched into his mind like the grooves of a well-worn map. They were in the east pass.
Two turns, and they'd find him.
But they didn't know this place. Not like he did. He'd grown up here. This was his home, after all.
"Gold," he whispered to himself, the word a prayer to stave off the encroaching panic. "For gold."
His fingers trailed along the damp wall, the moisture beading at his touch. The scent of earth and metal mingled in his nostrils, the familiar tang grounding him amidst the chaos. They didn't know these tunnels as he did. They hadn't spent years memorizing each fork, each dead end, each hidden crevice where darkness pooled like oil.
"Should've known better," he muttered, thinking of the cop. Her eyes had been too hungry when she'd seen the merest taste of treasure, a greed that mirrored his own. But it was this very mountain that taught him the harsh lesson of survival: there was no place for sharing among those who sought the gleam of gold.
The voices were nearly gone now. They'd taken the wrong turn.
He smirked in the dark. In his dark.
Slowly, he sunk to his knees, the mud clinging to his pants, mingling with the drying blood on his hands. His heart thrummed in his chest, a wild rhythm of triumph and relief. He had eluded them, escaped their clutches once again.
With every labored breath, the prospector fought against the exhaustion threatening to consume him. He knew he couldn't stay here for long—a moment's respite was all he allowed himself. The pursuers would regroup, seek out their mistake, and come back with renewed determination. He had to keep moving if he wanted to survive.
He knelt with trembling legs, a supplicant to the shadows that cloaked the bowels of the earth. His knees sank into the yielding mud, a stark contrast to the steadfast resolve etched into his leathery face. A dark crimson stained his palm, seeping between his fingers, as though he clutched the very essence of life and death within his grasp. He leaned close to the damp soil, his lips moving in an urgent whisper.
"Come on now, Bride," he murmured, the name a sacred invocation in the oppressive stillness. "You gotta help me find it."
His free hand pawed at the ground, the desperation in his movements betraying a frenetic need that bordered on madness. Clumps of earth caked beneath his fingernails as he scrabbled, his search frenzied and without pattern. The blood from his wound mingled with the mud, an unholy communion of man and earth.
"Can't... can't be for nothing," he breathed, voice barely a thread in the cavernous darkness. Sodden tendrils of hair plastered against his forehead, eyes wild and unseeing. His thoughts churned with feverish intensity, a maelstrom of hope and fear.
"Where is it?" he pleaded to the void that hugged the edges of his sanity. The darkness remained steadfastly silent.
"Show me," he whispered again, his words a desperate mantra to pierce the veil of silence.
