Paul really should have been calling out for help, but he couldn’t bring himself to wake up the poor little thing lying asleep in his lap. Somewhere out there in the darkness, he could hear muffled voices and the pitter-patter of their feet against the bare rocks, so he knew he had to make some sort of noise, just not too loud or too scream-y.

His phone may not have had any connection, but he had tons of song stored in the phone itself, a tradition which was nearly extinct in all businesses except the cave-exploring one. He quickly scrolled through whatever artists he had on there until he finally found the perfect song to play. Kind of rock-y, but not to the point where the little axolotl would awaken.

“Rock ‘n’ Roll Lullaby.”

Perfect.

Paul anxiously pressed the “play” button, hoping that it wouldn’t somehow be too much. The smooth riffs of guitars started chiming out of his little past-year phone, and as the song went on, he slowly increased the volume until it was actually quite loud.

“Paulie? You over here?” he heard a somewhat feminine voice he recognized to be Johanna say a fair bit away. “No, follow the music,” Paul replied gently, hoping she would hear him despite how weakly he said it. “Wait, Joey, is that… music?” he heard a lazy voice, most likely Robert, ask. Paul knew it wouldn’t be long now.

And, sure as water was wet, within only a couple of tense minutes, two scruffy faces peeked through the one entrance to what had formerly been a tunnel. The first thing they noticed was the fact that Paul was laying down, and the second was the reason why. “Holy moly, are you alright Paulie?!” Johanna said, running to his side to make sure his legs were alright. Robert soon followed, sitting down on his left side, poking and prodding at his legs. “I’m pretty sure atleast one of these is pretty much broken,” Robert stated bluntly. Duh, Paul knew that for sure.

“Hey, shh, be quiet,” Paul simply replied, which made his two team-mates absolutely confused. This was a dire situation, why should they be quiet??

To ensure his point came across, Paul looked exaggeratedly at the little lizard on his stomach. Robert and Johanna easily noticed this and followed his gaze. Johanna was the first to react, namely by jumping about three feet back and looking almost scared. Robert, in extreme contrast to Johanna, laughed stupidly and said “wow, cool.”

“It’s sleeping,” Paul said with a little smile that was very unlike him. Johanna could barely remember the last time Paul had smiled like that, and Robert couldn’t remember at all. “What is it?...” Johanna said rather loudly, which prompted Paul to make a “shush” motion. “Wh-, what is it?...” Johanna whispered in turn. “I’m not sure, I think it may be a new species of axolotl, but it really qualifies for more than that,” Paul replied, also whispering.

“Well, whatever it is, it can wait, right? We should really get these rocks off ‘a ya,” Robert said, cutting the whole strange-lizard conversation short. “Oh, yeah,” Johanna replied, quickly standing up and walking over to the 35 kilo boulders. “I know you’re a gorilla, but are you sure you can lift those, Joey?...” Paul inquired. “My record is 85 kilos, no worries,” Johanna said before quickly stretching a little to soften her body up.

Squatting down beside one of the rocks, she quickly found a grip on it and lifted it as if it was nothing. Throwing the rock to the side, she did the same with the other two rocks, finally unearthing Paul’s legs. They looked pretty alright, but one of them was bleeding quite a lot, which wasn’t good, while the other was at a weird angle. An open and a closed fracture.

“There’s a first-aid kit in the backpack,” Paul stated. He was, and had always been, the one who knew just a bit more about first aid than the others. He had done basic training in the military as a nurse, after all.

With well-trained rigor and skill, Paul snapped open the box and quickly patched up his legs as quickly and effectively as he could, gritting his teeth against the pain and making sure not to so much as touch the gently napping axolotl in his lap. Soon enough, he wasn’t bleeding anymore, however, it would be pretty much impossible for them to finish their assignment while he was in this state. Finishing it without him was out of the question.

But before Paul could get up and be escorted out of the cave by his team-mates, he had to do something about this little lizard. It was adorable, but it couldn’t sleep on him any longer. Gulping down his sadness at having to cancel such cuteness, Paul meekly prodded at the little thing with his finger, causing it to awaken, stretch out, and yawn with a little sweet “queeee~” which really just made his heart melt. The little creature sat up, rubbed it’s eyes, and took a look around.

“Meep?...”