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Chapter 2

First encounter

The green light of the glow stick cast an eerie light in the cavern, it wasn’t powerful enough to illuminated the entirety of the area, but what it did, was beautiful. If there hadn’t been danger Yandré was certain he would have stayed quite a while taking it all in.

But there was danger and the weight behind the distant footfalls made him want to crawl into a hole. At least there wasn’t a shortage of them…

In took him and Eria five minutes to reach the boulders. Just in time as the sounds coming from one of the shadows filled caves in the cavern was close.

Far too close.

He even opted to not even try whispering to Eria, not wanting to take the risk. He gave her the sword and motioned that he was going to try and get on top of the boulder.

She nodded, and even in the green light it was clear she was biting her lip. He softened his features and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay,” He whispering, risking it for her sake.

Scraping together his courage, he dropped his rucksack and slipped his hands into the chalk pouch behind his right hip, rubbing his hands together. Yandré took deliberate hold of the rock in front of him.

This was second nature to him, but still, his hands trembled… and not because of fatigue.

Within a few minutes, he reached the top and silently snuck over the rough area to get a better view with his facing the cavern’s wall.

He looked down the length of the cavern. There was no movement, and the growling had died down. He squinted while scanning intensely. A hope formed in him that the thing had turned away and moved off away from there.

He was about to get up as his foot slipped on some loose gravel. It tumbled to the floor down below and loud echoes filled pierced the air.

Then there was noise a grunt, followed by thundering steps coming from the cave right next to the boulder. Yandré realized his mistake in perception too late.

He looked back over the edge to Eria, her eyes were wide. He wildly motioned for her to hide.

Yandré threw himself flat against the uneven surface. Just as it finally entered.

He slowly turned over to see what they were up against. His moved at a snail’s pace over the edge as he cast his gaze down.

What stood there was straight out of nightmare. A huge creature, half the size of the boulder moved below him. It had had sharp black quills sticking out its muscular back, reflecting the little light there was. Those muscles continued all the way up its broad neck where a head with a mouth that housed hundreds of dagger-like teeth. They were the size of real daggers! The arms had large claws that made him realize how that the man in the armour was most likely killed by such a beast.

Yandré gulped.

They stood no chance against this thing. They needed to run.

He was busy sliding back, to start climbing down, when another noise echoed just below him. It came from where Eria was! He glanced down to see his rucksack had fallen over.

Then a clattering noise filled the cavern, it sounded like thousands of hard objects being vibrated against each other, followed by an immense roar.

Yandré dropped his stealth and descended as fast as possible. As he jumped the last two metres, he grabbed his rucksack and hissed to Eria, “Run!” All the while he pointed to the small gap between the boulder and side of the cavern.

The ground trembled as the monster was clearly on the move.

Eria was first through the gap. Yandré squeezed through, the area was clear, his instincts had paid off. Just then, Eria was about to run into the cave the monster came from, he lunged forward and grabbed her shaking his head.

She regarded him with her panicked eyes and he took the lead. He chose a smaller cave, hoping it would slow down the big brutish beast. In the shadows of the opening, he looked back. And to his terror, he made eye contact with the monster who was staring at them from fifty metres away. The quills on its back started vibrating sending that strange clattering sound through the cavern again.

Yandré spun around and flipped his light on and yelled.

“It saw us!”

He plucked Eria into the cave entrance and started running.

Even from the distance, the weight of the creature’s strides made the ground shake under them as they swept into the narrow cave. It was not small enough.

~

I’ll add to it this afternoon. ;)

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