Eliminated 411
It's only after driving away Exqua and the excitement dies down, that we start to feel it. The hunger and fatigue of living in a hole for a few days starts to catch up, and the heavy realism of our predicament sets in.
When I first woke up in the pit, it had admittedly felt… unreal. Like this was just a temporary experience, like a camping trip or something, and soon I'd just be back at my house, taking a warm shower and falling into a soft bed. But now, now that we've escaped the pit but just come out into another cave, it really starts setting in, y'know? No idea where we are. No idea how deep we are. No idea which continent we're in. No idea who else is here. No idea when another Exqua will appear. No idea when we can leave. No idea how to leave. No idea whose idea it was to put us here. No idea who's watching us, laughing at us, moving us around on invisible strings.
I feel small, like I'm being toyed with by some primordial demon, like this is all just a stupid, twisted game.
I am cold, exhausted and starving, my clothes are sticking to my skin because of all the dried blood and dirt, my hair's plastered to my forehead with sweat and I'm filthy.
I feel like dying, I feel like I just want to fall down and split my head open and then float away. But then, what's happen to Nari. Right, Nari. My ten-year old little sister, Esinara Russell, who enrolled into some boarding school in the Western Continent six months ago.
"..you don't have to worry about me. I don't want to do it either but it's better than you having to take care of me whilst studying…"
It wasn't something that should be coming out of a ten-year old's mouth, but Nari always acted older than she was. I wonder how she's doing now, if she's received news about my disappearance, or even if the authorities have discovered my disappearance yet, my disconnection from the Prisma Stream…
Currently, there are two things that are keeping me on my feet.
The fact that I still have to get back to my little sister. And the people that I've come to know, people who can understand what I'm going through because they're experiencing the same.
Man, there are so many things on my mind right now. I have so many questions I just can't stop asking, and I feel like I'm losing it. I feel like I'm living in another reality, like I've lost a part of myself somewhere but not quite sure what.
There are people everywhere. The number of survivors climbing out of pits is steadily increasing, and the number of people sitting down, breaking into tears, or wandering around blankly increases with it. There are fights and scuffles breaking out every now and then, little groups of people aiming to stick together forming, and that includes us - the number of people sticking to us, and we've grown to over thirty people.
It's only when that pang of pain shoots through my head that all my thoughts clear, and I stop drifting away.
"Two weeks have passed," the droning voice says in my head. "Congratulations, you have completed the first mission. The number of survivors is 589. Proceed to the exit."
Exit…?
I turn to Artee.
"That hole we found last time," I tell him, and he nods.
Right, a couple days ago, while exploring the passageways, we had found only one single path out of this cave system that houses the pits. That's where we gotta go.
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the exit."
Why is it repeating itself? Jeez, we get it…
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the exit."
No, something's wrong. It's getting faster and faster. Something's wrong. A countdown.
"Run," I say. "RUN!!"
We hurtle through the passageways, yelling at people to get a move on, and in seconds nearly six hundred bodies cram into the exit passageway, and dash through it.
Dammit, legs, move!
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the exit."
"Proceed to the-"
"Pro-"
"Pro-"
"Pro-"
And then it just becomes one long, high-pitched drone. My legs are screaming in pain as I tear through the passageway, heels knocking against someone's shins. Sweat is rolling down my face and every breath hurts, but I can't stop. I can't shake the cold feeling creeping up my neck as the countdown follows me, and the narrow, dark passage, illuminated only by luminous spores and natural chrona in the air fills with the sound of hundreds of feet pounding against the rock.
"Countdown ended. The remaining 411 applicants will be named failures. Proceeding with elimination."
Elimina-?
And a tremendous, deafening, jarring boom echoes through the cave, hurling me to the ground. The screams and cries of the other survivors are drowned by more explosions, and rocks begin to rain down around me.
"Sword!! SWORD, GET UP!!"
Someone pulls me to my feet. It's Elemental. I reach out into the rising dust and collapsing pebbles, and catch his sleeve, and, shielding my eyes with my other arm, we race through the hail of rocks. Someone grabs at me, and summoning the strength in my reinforced muscles, I heave them onto my shoulder and keep running. Something catches my cheek and I feel the stinging pain of a cut.
"RUUN!!" Elemental yells in front of me.
And then, all of a sudden, we break through and it's all over. Spilling out into a wide area, I collapse face first on the rock, panting heavily.
I am safe. Or am I?
Pushing myself back to my feet, wheezing for breath, I turn, and a sickening, terrifying, horrifying sight greets me. I feel like I want to scream, vomit, cry and run all at the same time, but my legs are frozen, anchored in place with fear.
Beyond the corridor we've just hurtled out of, a straight line down, past the sea of heads still streaming out of it, there is nothing. Nothing but the thunderous roar of a waterfall, a waterfall of gargantuan boulders, racing down past the exit tunnel and crashing down to the ground. Dust is leaking down from above us and the ground is trembling.
The onslaught continues, burying 411 people in their stone tombs.
***
The rumbling, tremoring and exploding continues for a full fifteen minutes as five hundred pits were filled with thousands of tons of rocks, and then the passage we popped out of collapses, and a boulder crashes down in front of my eyes, sealing it forever.
After it dies down, a quiet stillness follows, coupled with broken sobbing. Four hundred and eleven people have just died in front of my eyes. Four hundred and eleven stories have just ended abruptly a mere hundred feet away from me. Four hundred and eleven families and friend groups will never see them again.
I feel sick, and unstable on my feet.
Neo, Artee, Ronin and the rest of the group re-gathers but I can barely bring myself to acknowledge their presence. I can't move.
"…let's go," Elemental says eventually, laying a hand on my shoulder.
I don't hear him.
"Sword," he says. "Those people are dead, they're gone and buried. But right now, we're all alive. You and everyone that means something to you here is alive."
I look at him, he's right. Standing here isn't gonna bring these people, who I never even saw, back.
"Let's go," he says.
I nod.
"…yeah."
It's only after I come to my senses that I realize the kind of place we've just stumbled into. We're in a huge cavern, the ceiling stretching hundreds of feet above our heads. All around us, bioluminescent fungi cast an eery blue glow across the stony walls, and countless huge stalagmites and stalactites, tens of feet in height, lead on into the dark like a forest. The gentle tinkling of underground streams rich in chrona minerals reaches my ears. Like moths to a flame, we fall on the fresh groundwater, our first drink of 'clean' water in two weeks, and lap up the cold, sweet water gratefully, splashing it in our faces and throwing it at each other.
Eventually the excitement calms down, and the survivors disperse across the area of the cave just outside the exit passage - a rough semicircle surrounded by the stream, as if it's a naturally marked safe zone.
Natural. Safe?
The quite droning chatter, the small smiles that are slowly appearing.
No. It's not possible. Not after everything they've done.
I consult the others, and they agree.
"It feels off," Artee agrees. "But right now this is probably the only chance we'll have to get some rest…"
"We can take turns taking watch?" another guy called Kard suggests. "If something does happen, we'll wake everyone up."
"Right," a girl about the same age as me named Mist says. "I don't think we should leave the safe zone either. It's better to stick with the bulk."
She jerks her head over at the crowd of people milling around close by, in groups ranging from twos and threes to up to fifty or more. We all agree that this is the best course of action, and I gratefully collapse on the cold stones.
Finally, some rest. It's nothing like a warm bed at home, but… I'm too tired to care, and almost as soon as I lay my head down I'm out of it.
***
I have a nightmare. I'm standing knee-deep in black water, and when I look around I'm in the same cave that I was just in. Above me, dangling from strings leading up to the endless shadows, are hundreds of people. Artee. Ronin. Kard. Mist. Elemental. Neo. Every second, one of the strings snap, and someone falls into the dark water, consumed in seconds by the inky waves, and a scream echoes before crackling out into static. Then pulses ripple out around me, and one by one, pale eyes open beneath the surface, staring up at me, like light shining through oil.
You cannot escape, they whisper, we are always watching.
I look up again, and suddenly I realize I too am dangling on a string. It stretches taught, and snaps.
I fling myself awake in a cold sweat.
"Sword?" Kard says, groggy and startled.
I'm panting and sweating.
"What happened?"
"No-nothing," I mutter. "…want me to take next watch?"
"Oh, sure," he says. "Thanks. You sure you all right?"
"Yeah."
I stand up, still shaky, glancing over at Kard, and instantly cold fear grips me. My body freezes. It must've shown in my face because he asks me, confused,
"What's wrong?"
"R… r-r-run," I whisper hoarsely. "KARD, RUN!!!!"
Kard whirls around, but it's too late. The shadow that had appeared behind him slams him in the head with a glistening steel bat.