The hole was tiny. Perhaps large enough for crawling, but even that would be tight. Natalie watched as her friends took turns poking into the tight space, using their bodies to measure, with the scrawny Dominic able to move in with a couple inches on either side of his shoulders, while the growing bear of a boy that Corey was, had to squeeze and wriggle to fit.

To look at them, no one would ever guess that the pair could be friends, given their opposite appearances - nerdy, mouse-brown haired Dominic with square glasses and looking like a gentle summer breeze could tip him over, dwarfed by the big blonde with the buzzcut. Corey looked more like a small human tank than anything. But as Natalie learned, first from observation, then as a friend, the two had more in common than meets the eye.

A shared love of myth, magic, and mystery that drove them to host weekly tabletop games, compete in online tournaments and spend hours upon hours watching and reading old films and books in the fantasy genre. Natalie could never quite keep up with them on this.

At least at first. Until she told them about her father’s job, and all the knowledge he’d shared with her as she grew up. Knowledge that had led them here, to the entrance Below. All it took was a fortuitous find by her dad last week, that prompted him to call and tell her that she’d been practically right on top of the entrance the last three years of her enrollment at the boarding school.

Well, of course she had to share this with the boys. A genuine legend, beneath their feet in the bowels of the school. With almost no chance that they’d be the ones to rediscover it, but as she’d known, it was a chance that Dominic and Corey were more than willing to take. Never once had it occurred to her that the entrance would be there. Even if it wasn’t just legend, it was still absurd to think that three thirteen-year-olds would be found “worthy” to delve into the dark tunnels that had destroyed the lives and minds of so many adults.

A chill ran down Natalie’s spine as a soft gust of air sent her bright red hair fluttering against her cheek, like a quiet sigh, straight from the blackness. Spotting goosebumps on her friends’ arms, Natalie knew that she wasn’t the only one to feel it, and spoke up from her prolonged silence, after both boys had started to ignore her in their excitement of this legend-turned-reality.

“You both need to get your heads out of the clouds,” she could hear the note of hysteria in her own voice. “This isn’t a pleasant cave out in the woods where the biggest threat could be a bear mauling. The legends of Below are told with monsters. Half of the people who are recorded in my father’s books went mad from the things they saw, some so inhuman that they could find no words to even describe them! If that’s not enough for you, then how about the random environments they described? Tepid one moment, then a step forward and it feels like your blood freezes in your veins, the shock of which could kill you, oh, but one more step forward and your flesh is melting off your bones!”

Their eyes were wide as they stared at Natalie in stunned silence as her voice rose in pitch and volume, but she wasn’t done, not as her heart started to thunder in her ears and adrenaline surged through her veins.

“Or how about the significant lack of food and water down there? We’re not equipped for any manner of spelunking, we can’t see in the pitch black, there are tales of gas acidic enough to scarify one survivor’s lungs - killing him only days after he crawled to the surface. And all of this for what? Tell me, what is worth any of that?” she didn’t give either of them a chance to answer before spitting out in disgust, “Magic! A lure, a tease, a bribe for the thousands more who never made it out, whose last days were probably spent in agony and despair, desperate for one last glimpse of their loved ones, one last breath of fresh air.”

Dominic, a relatively slight figure, mousy and shy spoke up then, timid in the face of her wrath. “You’re assuming that out of thousands, not even one found what they were looking for…” Natalie threw a pityingly disgusted look at him, snapping the truth that they’d all been taught in their science-based education, “Magic doesn’t exist, Dominic.”

Corey spoke up now, sticking up for his childhood best friend, as he had since the day he’d stopped a bully from stealing his glasses as little kids on their first day of education. “By your own logic, Natalie, none of what you’ve just told us should exist. Monsters? Randomly changing temperatures and an underground labyrinth that no one can find by digging, but we just happened to stumble upon an entry that ‘only shows itself to those who are worthy’? Come on! Either you believe the legends, or you don’t, in which case this is just a harmless cave whose biggest danger is a bear mauling our faces off.”

Corey grinned as Natalie’s face turned a bright pink, and to soften her embarrassment, he lightly reached out to tap a fist against her shoulder, nudging her. “Who doesn’t want a little adventure? C’mon, we’ll go fifty feet - max. If it even goes down that far. Then we turn right around and go back to school. We’ll be back before dinner.”

Dominic chimed in again, quipping with a cheery smile, “And if there are monsters down there, we’ll stand a better chance of surviving with your knowledge of the lore.”

Natalie threw him a dirty look while Corey smacked him on the back of the head, knocking his glasses askew. “Don’t help,” and he just smiled sheepishly, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Natalie looked between the two of them, their eyes eager and excited, her lips pursing tightly when her eyes fell on the dark hole behind them.

“Fifty feet. Then we turn around and let it close.” after all, legend also dictated that once the worthy left sight of the entrance, it would not open for them again.

The boys exchanged a triumphant glance, before turning back and Corey stepped forward with Dominic on his heels, leaving Natalie to bring up the rear. The narrow opening dictated that they squeeze through on their hands and knees, and even then, the cave pressed in tight on Corey’s shoulders, broader than his companions, scraping on Natalie’s with the smaller Dominic moving a little more comfortably. The tunnel was dark, blinding all of them and sloped downwards, forcing Corey to move slowly, making their progress in those fifty feet slow and uncomfortable.

To fill the silence, Dominic mused aloud, “I hope somewhere up here there’s a place to turn around. I’d hate to back up too fast and put my butt in Natalie’s face. Of course if you pass gas before we get out of here, Corey, we’re both doomed.” Even Natalie had to laugh at this, a tense and stressed sound, but Dominic smiled in the darkness, satisfied with his achievement. Forward and down, down, down, and Corey started to realize that Dominic was right, that they wouldn’t be able to turn around like this, and backing up… well, that was looking more impossible as the passage became steeper.

Unease started to build in the pit of his stomach, a feeling shared by Dominic though neither was willing to say something aloud and add to the anxiety of their friend who they could both hear starting to breathe loudly behind them as her own panic increased. With little other option, they continued forward, the silence growing thicker.

Then nothingness. Corey felt his heart and his toes merge as his next shuffle forward had him fumbling at the wall at his sides with a panicked shriek as he started to fall head first.

Dominic lunged forward on pure reflex at the sound of his friend’s cry, groping about blindly, barely managing to wrap both hands around Corey’s ankle before he slipped entirely from reach, but Corey’s weight and his own diminutive stature put him off balance immediately, landing him on his stomach, already half over the drop. Natalie screamed incoherently behind them as her absolute worst fear was becoming realized, and everything was going wrong in a sudden burst of horror. All she could think, was her friends were dying ahead of her, and she’d soon be next. It took a few seconds before Dominic’s voice penetrated her panic, screaming over and over, “Grab my legs! Grab my legs! NATALIE, GRAB MY LEGS!”

Snapping out of it with a sudden jerk, Natalie lunged forward blindly, her arms flailing before finding Dominic’s legs, bent at the knee to anchor himself, and hugged them, collapsing onto her own stomach and wriggling, struggling to pull them back.

“Don’t drop me!” Corey screamed, “Don’t drop me!” and Dominic could only shout wordlessly back at him, pouring all of his adrenaline fueled strength into holding on to the best friend who’d always protected him. Failure in this would be simply unacceptable.

But gravity was winning. All of Corey’s weight pulled on that one ankle, and no matter how deeply Dominic’s fingers dug, they started to inevitably slip. Feeling this, Dominic started to scream in denial, “No! No, no, no!”

There’s nothing more horrible than feeling completely helpless as people you care about are slipping through your very fingers. This understanding was revealed to Natalie as Dominic, refusing to relinquish his hold on Corey, kicked forward, freeing himself from Natalie’s grip for a moment, trying to use that moment to enhance his grip on Corey. Natalie’s shriek reverberated through the tunnel as she groped blindly for her friend, reasserting hold on one leg, and sealing her own fate as the forward momentum from Dominic’s lunge pulled her over the ledge along with him, sending them all tumbling into darkness.