I decided to at least write this before tomorrow. Hope you enjoy it. ;)

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If there is anything you would like to see OR something you wish me to think about, feel free to PM me. I love brainstorming ideas.

Oh, and while I'm at it, in the future, would you like to see a map maybe? I've already created big stretches of the topside world, this is a story playing off under that world.

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Chapter 1

Then comes the fear

~Yandré~

Everything was dark.

Yandré blinked a couple of times to adjust his eyes and groaned as he sat up. Groggily he rubbed at his aching head.

“What happened?” He coughed, realizing he had dirt in his mouth. He fell over and spit it out as best he could.

As he gathered himself, he blinked again, trying to make out any features in the dark, but nothing cleared up.

It was then that he remembered what had happened before he blacked out. Eria sprang into his mind and panic burst through him as he struggled to his knees, not even caring about his knees digging into hard the ground. He patted around himself and started calling, “Eria! Eria? Are you okay? Answer me!”

But stillness met him.

Panic was replaced with fear, as his heart thundered in his chest. This can’t be happening, he been so careful all those years. Not one incident other than the odd scrape or bruise. But now… If he lost Eria...

Yandré frantically called out again and again. But the silence didn’t go away, and the echoes of the cave were only giving him false hope of another person’s presence.

Just then his hand landed a small familiar object. He scrambled to it as he fumbled with the headlamp. He held his breath as he pressed the button. And to his utter relief, it came on, blinding him for a moment. But he didn’t care. He blinked rapidly to try and focus on his surroundings.

A minute passed. It was taking too long!

Yandré was chewing at his lips until his eyes finally cleared up. His head spun around as he tried to take in as much as possible, to find Eria.

The nerves didn’t ease as he couldn’t recognise any of his surroundings. But that was the least of his worries.

A prone figure became visible behind a rock, finally. Yandré sprang into action, ignoring the sudden stiffness in his body and within seconds he skidded to halt next to Eria.

This wasn’t good. There was no sign of movement.

He tried calming down his own breathing, but even knowing that his breathing came in too rapidly and was hampering his decision-making abilities, he couldn’t help it. Not this time.

Though as his trembling hand neared her side, he finally saw her ribs expand with an intake of air. Yandré blew out all the air in his lungs and sat down heavily in relief.

She was alive.

He crawled to her head, softly lifting it with his one hand under her neck. He searched for any serious wounds but found only a small scrape on the side of her head. It had bled a bit, but not much.

Okay, so now what?

He managed to risk a few glances to his surroundings as everything settled down, but it only confirmed his other fears. This part of the cave looked nothing like the place where they had stood.

Was it a cave in? No, the hard dirt wall behind him looked as if had been like that for years, and there was no strewn about mounds of ground.

The cavern they were in looked a lot like the one they had been in, but somehow completely different... The worrisome part, was, that there was no longer any sight of the ocean, or his shoulder camera that he placed down for the photo. The sword was there, but nothing else.

It didn’t make sense at all as he rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. He shook his head and turned back to Eria, her rucksack made her look quite uncomfortable, so he gently eased it off her shoulders before he stood up, striding towards the sword.

As he got there, he noticed that his theory of somehow getting turned around was shaky at best. There were none of their tracks leading from the other side of the cavern to this ground wall, and only localised tracks, which didn’t make sense at all. It did, however, brought his attention to that wall of compact earth that looked so out of place. It was as if the cavern was cut in half and the solid and undisturbed wall of dirt were pressed against the side that was cut off.

Frustration built in him. He just couldn’t figure it out.

Rock scraping against rock pierced the silence and Yandré flung himself around, brandishing the sword. But to his relief, it was a grumbling Eria who had made the noise in her attempt to sit up.

“Ugh...” Eria groaned, “My head hurts…uh where are we?”

Yandré was tempted to start singing ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ but somehow the humour seemed completely out of place right then. He walked over to her and sat down with an oomf.

“I have no idea. What happened would be a far better question.”

She eyed him and asked, “So what did happen?”

“Beats me!” Yandré threw up his arms. “I’ve been trying to figure out… but nothing so far. But I’m guessing we are in a quite a situation here…”

Eria’s face became serious as she took in her surroundings.

"There’s a few exits, but… nothing looks like the one we came through… I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I Ria, neither do I…”

“Do we set up tent here and wait for a rescu—“

A low growling rumbled through the cavern from the far side. And immediately they both stiffened.

With fear in her voice, Eria whispered, “What was that?”

Yandré shook his head. He had no clue. But clearly, it didn’t sound good. He got up slowly and motioned for Eria to follow. He helped her with her rucksack, not taking his eyes off the furthest place the headlamp reached in the cavern.

“We need to find someplace to hide,” Yandré whispered intently and Eria nodded, even though her shoulders were trembling.

Yandré was sure his own body was shaking, there was something out there and he didn't know how to respond.

His hand slipped over the glittering crystals that were all over inside the cavern. He didn’t pay much heed to the fact that they were glittering at all after his headlamp had passed over them. The growling was getting louder accompanied by rumbling plops of footfalls. It wasn’t something small, whatever it was.

The cold of Eria’s hand disturbed him, it only reminded him that air flow in the cave was much colder now. Why… he couldn’t understand. Then Eria’s voice stammered from behind, her attempt at a whisper not working in her fearful state,

“Maybe w-we shouldn’t be walking with the lights on.”

She was right. It could attract the attention of whatever was out there.

But it didn’t at all help with managing the fear that was building inside him, and surely Eria. But she was a strong woman. Her sessions in dabbling with mixed martial arts had taught him that. Fragile body his ass! She could wipe the floor with him. Yet the fear in her voice was making the fear inside him increase exponentially. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her afraid…

His breathing quickened as he gulped, still heading to a big ten-metre boulder.

Eria’s headlamp died down.

He jumped at the sudden event and a sigh of relief flooded out when he realized what it was. His own hand was almost reluctant to lift up his own light.

Though, just before he could switch it off, inspiration struck him.

Yandré fumbled at the side of his rucksack, and though it was from an awkward position. He managed to pull out one of his multiple glow sticks. The little tube had often saved him a great deal of pain in his adventures into caves.

Yet somehow he was scared what the light of this one would reveal. He took a deep breath and cracked it, before tossing to the most central point of the cavern he could see.

Without wasting time, he flicked off his headlamp leaving only the green light emanating from the glow stick in the dark cave.

© Omri Hope 2016. All Rights Reserved.