As the hammering sound of pickaxe meeting hard stone rings out, Tavr stands uncertainly watching for a moment. He has half a mind to take his kids and leave just then, but if he did that all this effort would be for nothing; Worse than nothing, as Gatrick would denounce him and probably refuse to fix the family's tools anymore. Unfortunately for him, and most everyone else, staying in the smith's good graces was mandatory. So, grumbling, he takes up his own pickaxe. “Might as well, whatever gets us out of this cave faster…”

  Alunya watches the work quietly; He can’t exactly participate, there isn’t room and he doesn't have a tool of his own. The lamps are set down on the ground and the others in the group are sitting around in various states of tension, fear, or interest. Antares is just holding his head and sitting down. Probably another hangover. Alunya thinks with a feeling resembling resentment or disgust.

  Risa, though, is standing up on one of the ridges, staring deep into the blackness further on. Alunya climbs up to where she is, standing by her side to see what she was looking at.

  “What’s down there?” Alunya asks, trying to see what was keeping her interest.

  “I don’t know.” She murmurs in reply. “It's just… So dark. It just keeps going down.” She shudders. “I wanna go home… I just wanna go home…”

  Alunya blinks at her. “Why? Is it the tremors?” That was fair; Sudden death from something outside of his control was not a pleasant thought. But the cave seems quite sturdy, and presumably if it’s still around then it wasn't so easily collapsed, right..?

  Risa seems incredulous. “Why? It's cold and dark and scary!” She shudders. “There's got to be monsters hiding around down here!”

  Alunya looks around the cavern. He supposes he could understand that viewpoint but, he just doesn’t see it that way. “Well, it is cold and dark.” He agrees at some length. “I do wish we had more light. The rocks and ore and all that look really pretty, I’d love to see what the whole place looks like lit up.” His eyes shine as he imagines it, looking around at the rock. It’s so unusual in how it looks, like it’s flowing, constantly tricking his eyes into thinking there is movement.

  Like there is… Movement. No. Wait. That's not…

  The rock was moving.

  The tremor came on hard and fast this time, as… something breaches the upper layer of the bedrock above them, a vast, dark, coiling mass twisting and churning, as a horrible grinding noise broke the air. Alunya can only glimpse some small part of it in the dim lamplight, a vast foreboding form, sifting through the rock like it was paper, shaking the entire world around him. As if in slow motion he can see Vekt fall over behind him, Antares sliding down the rock he was sitting on, and… massive fractures spreading out in the roof of the cavern above him and Risa.

  Alunya is the only one who had managed to keep his feet beneath him, and the only one who had seen it before it started. Moving on reflex, he dives forward, tackling Risa to the ground as far forwards as he can, as with a monumental crash the ceiling caved in where he had been a mere moment ago, an eardrum-splitting sound louder than any he had ever heard. The entire world goes hazy, the air fills with dust and an unholy cacophony of noise. Shutting his eyes, Alunya struggles to crawl back up to his feet-he wasn’t crushed, right? In that moment of shock he can’t quite tell, his mind drawing a blank on his surroundings and even where his own body was. Slowly, he becomes aware that the sound of the collapse had turned into the noise of Risa screaming in terror, and that the warm trickling sensation clashing with the cold stone is the feeling of his own blood seeping down his leg where he had hit the hard rocks, his pulse pounding in his head nauseatingly.

  Alunya struggles into a sitting position, coughing his throat out as he tries to breathe through the dust, feeling his lungs straining to keep up. He crawls forwards, just wanting to get farther from the dust, despite the pitch darkness, and forces his wobbling legs to carry his weight as he climbs to his feet. There is actually air up here, and after coughing up a globule of blood and mucus he is finally able to breathe in with his ravaged throat. Risa’s screaming had dissipated to coughing and then eventually whimpering as well.

  Dark. Dark. It's so dark. Where’s the lamp? Alunya scrambles for his pack, finding it unharmed with a potent sense of relief. If it had been crushed in the cave-in, he would have been as good as dead.

  He struggles to find his way through the pack just by feel, and with the help of his fire piston he was able to light the lamp and see around. Behind him is a dense wall of rubble, thick enough that he wouldn’t have thought there was a passage there at all. A single glance is all it takes for him to be perfectly aware he would not be getting back through there; There is no chance he could dig his way through those rocks. But there is an object underneath the rubble that caught his eye; A bag, mostly crushed by a boulder. With some effort, he is able to wrench it free from its confines and looks inside; the food was mashed into an unrecognizable pulp, the lamp was dashed to pieces, and the bag was ripped, but at least there was some food left in it.

  “No. Nononono. No, no, no, this can’t be happening…” Risa is panting heavily and staring into the darkness with a terrified expression, holding her head in both hands. “We’re going to die, we’re going to die, we’re going to die alone in the darkness, it’s all over, it’s all over, it’s all-” She was cut off by Alunya putting his hand over her mouth.

  “Calm down!” he hisses, looking around. “I’m scared too, but we can’t panic!” Alunya says. “There were tons of these tunnels all throughout that big cave… There’s got to be another way back out to the surface.” At least, Alunya hoped that was true. There was no point in considering anything else; if they were trapped and were going to die, he would at least rather die still believing there was hope than wither away in desperate despair.

  Now that the shock is slowly wearing of, he feels the pain creeping into his body-His bleeding knee, his ravaged throat. His lip quivers as he resists the urge to burst into tears… Focus. I need to stay focused. Still, a dull groan of pain escapes his lips as his leg struggles to hold up his weight and he leans against the wall.

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  Risa stares up at him in frozen shock, with a hint of awe. Tears are already dripping from her eyes, but steadying herself, she nods-slowly at first, then faster and faster, almost maniacally. “Y-yeah. Ok. Ok. Ok.” She says, as if desperately trying to convince herself. Alunya helps her up to her feet.

  Is Antares ok..? I didn’t see where he was when the rocks fell. Alunya thinks, his blood turning cold as he looks back. An image flashes through his mind-Antares crushed under a pile of rocks, his blood pooling out underneath him.

  No! No, shut up. You have to focus on getting out of here. You’ll never know what happened to him if you don't. Alunya shoves the thought from his mind along with the nascent tears pooling at the corner of his eyes. He snarls and looks away, grabbing Risa’s hand with his.

  “We came in following the left hand side, and the cave mostly turned left. So if we keep going that way, it should lead out eventually, if there's another cavern. That's probably our best bet.” Alunya reasons. That is one of the two options, at least; the other would be to keep right and try to loop back around to the big cavern, there had been many entrances to it after all. But he had to pick one and stick with it… They were working on a timetable, if their lamp oil runs out they are as good as dead. And he can’t be sure the big cavern is even still there, or if it was, if there was a way out through it anymore. A nagging voice in the back of his head points out that if the main cavern is cut off then so was Antares, so he might as well just sit here and wait for death anyways, but he promptly ignores it.

  “It's so cold…” Risa mutters, shutting her eyes tightly as Alunya drags her onwards. “I don’t want to die here, I don’t want to die here. I’m going to die here. I’m going to die and it's going to be slow and painful.” She stumbles over the rocks as she walks; Alunya silently thinks he’s glad that he’s the one carrying the lamp, as if he wasn't there was a good chance it would be dashed to pieces against the rock.

  “Hush.” Alunya shoots a look back at her. He was sympathetic, really, he was… But that despair was not helping their situation and besides of which it was making him feel worse.

  Thankfully, Risa did hush, and the two of them maneuver the twisting cave in silence. It’s similarly smooth to the entrance, with the undulating rhythm of a corkscrew shaped ridge wrapping around the cave walls,, and though it is curving- slightly right and upwards- it is so gradual that it’s almost unnoticeable. Alunya does note that the stone had changed color, however; it’s more reddish, reminding him of the granite cliffs not far from his home.

  On any other occasion, I’d be ecstatic to be here. Alunya thinks to himself, gazing up and around. Probably nobody but us has ever even seen this place before! …Alunya just hopes that isn't because there is no way to the surface from this place.

  Suddenly, walking along, Alunya stumbles as his hand tracing the cave wall finds empty space. To his surprise, there is a fissure in the wall-A gap, just about large enough to fit through, though someone more bulky like Tavr or Gatrick probably wouldn't be able to make it.

  Should we go through..? Alunya thinks unsurely, looking back down the main passageway uncertainly. He had planned to keep to the left, but this passage looked… Precarious, to say the least. Noticeably less smooth than the main tunnel. But… If his sense of direction was right- and it had never let him down before- this was the correct way towards the valley.

  “...Come on, this way.” Alunya motions for Risa after a moment. Risa peers into the passageway, going white with fear.

  “A-are you sure? We could get stuck.” Risa’s voice was shaking. Alunya kneels down in front of her and holds her hand reassuringly.

  What do I say? Alunya hesitates for a moment. What should I do? I’ve never been around someone else needing comfort like this before! …Well, except when Antares was acting weird last harvest… Still, that didn't seem very similar; Antares was his brother, this was just some girl he didn’t really know, and he didn’t really know what to do.

  “Hey, come on now. Trust me, alright?” Alunya asks, despite the fact he was entirely uncertain if this was the right call. They didn’t have time for indecision and second-guessing.

  Holding himself sideways, Alunya skirts through the gap, keeping one hand securely gripping the lamp, their one sustaining source of light. The jagged rocks grind against his legs, rubbing against the open wound on his knee, pulling it further open for further bleeding, and he hisses in pain, but keeps going, doing all he can to not drag his knee against the stone.

  His ears begin picking up a trickling sound, though at first he isn’t sure if he is just imagining it from the trickling sensation of blood running down his leg. But as the cave opens up farther and he is able to walk normally again, he is sure he hears it. There is water moving, somewhere nearby, coupled with a subtle but distinct hissing sound. The cave is… Differently shaped here, more natural looking. He had come out on a ledge with a precarious grip, and the trickling sound was from below him- seemingly some water was flowing there.

  Water flowing! That means… What does that mean? Are there rivers underground? Would that mean that there's surface access, or is it meaningless? Alunya doesn’t know, it isn’t like the science of cave formation is well understood by the village. He shakes his head free of the useless thoughts. “Come on, we need to press onwards.”

  Risa looks down from the ledge in terror. “I-I can’t. I can’t, I’ll slip, I’ll fall, I know I will.” She whimpers. She could just about imagine the ground giving out from underneath her, bashing her head on those rocks… Bleeding out slowly on the ground, far from the light of the sun.

  “Hey. Hey, Risa. Look at me.” Alunya gently turns Risa’s face to steer her eyes towards his own. “Calm down, take deep breaths. Look, the cave is sloping upwards, see? That means we’re climbing towards the surface.” At least, Alunya hopes that is true.

  Risa takes a precarious step forward, gulping nervously, and then another. Alunya steadily guides her along the cavern wall.

  And then, just like in her imagination, the ground gives way from beneath her feet. A shriek of terror and a slide of dust and gravel ensues, but Alunya had her hand firmly grasped in his, and though Alunya slides down a bit, he is able to catch himself in a sitting position on the rock and steady Risa, supporting her long enough for her foot to find purchase on the ledge.

  Only for the lamp to be lost in the chaos, flying down into the darkness and shattering to pieces, releasing a small ball of fire which momentarily illuminates the cave.

  Alunya blinks down at the fire, a long moment of stunned realization slowly dawning on him. Their last light source… is gone.