LAILAH #2
There was an old wooden ladder, covered in cobwebs, built down one side of the tunnel.
Micah walked over with a piece of wood in his hand that he lit on fire and dropped down into the tunnel.
We watched and waited for it to hit the ground, letting us know how far this thing went.
It dropped a good ten feet or so, and we could see the flickering of the flame, but it wasn’t enough to give us light on our way down.
“Who gets the honor of going first?” Parker asked, looking between Jay and Micah.
Without a word, Jay climbed into the hole and started down the ladder, then went Brayden and Micah.
I started forward, but Hudson grabbed my arm. “Please, Sunshine, can you do us this one favor and stay up here?”
“Why?” I frowned, not liking this request at all. “We’re a team. We need each other, Hudson.”
He sighed and hung his head. “I know, I know, but would you be willing to compromise and let me go down first just in case? We still don’t know if you have any offensive abilities with your powers. Everything so far has been defensive.”
“Fine, I’ll let you go first, but I’m going no matter what,” I answered begrudgingly.
Hudson went next, and I waited a few moments to give them a little head start so I didn’t crash into them on the way down. Then Parker took up the rear making sure nothing came at us from behind.
“The rest of us made it no problem!” Brayden called from below.
Hearing that set me at ease as my feet hit the first rung of the ladder, descending into the cool darkness of the tunnel.
With no way of knowing how far I’d gone or still had to go, the journey took forever as I gingerly took each step down.
I was worried if I moved too fast I might slip and fall or step on Hudson’s hands, causing him to fall.
“You’re doing great, Sunshine. Slow and steady,” Hudson’s voice echoed, soothing my fears. “I’m off the ladder, so you have nothing to worry about. Just keep coming.”
When my feet hit the dirt floor, I sagged against the wall, relieved to have that part over with, only to be faced with the next task of where to go from here.
“Alright, we need to pair up. I sent a map of the tunnels that is believed to be the most accurate, but that’s not guaranteed,” Jay instructed as he also handed out flashlights and flares out of a backpack I didn’t notice he had on.
“Thank God we took the Jeeps so we had some kind of supplies to work with.”
“Fuck, Jay, you always make the rest of us look like idiots when it comes to shit like this,” Micah muttered as he took the flashlight and stuffed a few flares in his back pockets.
Jay just gave him a blank look and shrugged his shoulders. “Guess it comes with how I was raised.”
Once we had everything we needed and split into two groups of three, we headed out.
Jay, Parker, and Brayden went to the left and the rest of us went to the right with Hudson leading the way, the map in hand on his phone.
Micah moved me to the middle of the group so he took up the rear, which was smart with my skills of getting lost in a cereal box.
The tunnels reminded me of photos that I’d seen of ancient catacombs chiseled into the earth, mason blocks holding up the walls and ceilings.
Some sections had alcoves where old priests had been buried along with some of the early Elementi Knights.
It was spooky and fascinating at the same time, but the reality of why we were down here kept things in perspective.
When we came to a domed room that was different from the others, far more lavish with intricate etchings in the stone walls, I couldn’t help myself. I wandered over to see who it was that had been laid to rest here, gently dusting off the nameplate on the sarcophagus. Here lies Aiden Ryevick.
“Holy shit! You guys, this is the founder of Ryevick!” I gasped.
“We can come back to look, Lailah, but we need to stay on track,” Micah whispered, harshly motioning me to follow.
Shaking my head, trying to get it back to the matters at hand, I trailed after them.
“Tick tock goes the clock, Synergy… how much time do they have left?” Ubel’s voice echoed hauntingly down the tunnel behind me.
“It’s this way!” I yelled as I took off, Hudson and Micah yelling at me to wait up.
I didn’t wait, though—how could I when there were people trapped down here like sitting ducks for Ubel to play with?
I wouldn’t have any more blood on my hands over this; it was time I took a stand and say enough was enough.
Ubel was not getting out of this alive; he posed too high of a risk, no matter what they did to try and keep his powers contained.
He was sick and twisted, through and through.
His laughter echoed off the walls, leading me to him, and I ran faster, afraid he would slip through my fingers.
Skidding to a halt, I came to the edge of a cliff where it looked like there had once been a stone bridge over an underground river.
I looked around furiously, but I couldn’t see any way to get around to the other side. I was at a dead end.
“You want so desperately to be treated like one of them, but look where that has gotten you,” Ubel chided as he walked out of the tunnel behind me.
“Foolish, simple minded, and so easily led astray. No wonder they wanted you to stay behind and out of the way, but did you listen? No. No, you did not—you never do.”
Anger roared through me as he poked at all of my insecurities so casually. “Are there even people trapped down here?”
“Oh yes, but they are nowhere near here,” Ubel said as he began to circle around me. “I just needed to get you away from the others so we could have a heart to heart.”
“What could I possibly have to talk to you about?” I snapped.
“Just the lives of the five men you love and two hundred innocents that will all perish once the bombs go off and collapse these shoddy old tunnels. They really should have kept them up or filled them in.”
My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms. “You’re lying.”
Ubel rolled his eyes at me and produced a remote detonator, wagging it in front of me.
“See, I’m not the type who bluffs. I enjoy killing far too much for that.
Only, I get a win-win out of this situation.
Either you give yourself up to me and the Dark Lord, or I blow everyone up and let the blast trigger large containers of the weaponized serum that will spread around the whole school and even the town.
Think of all the hundreds and thousands of people I would be able to infect. ”
The glee that I saw flashing in his eyes led me to believe every word he said was true. In his mind, he did win either wayn. Now it was left up to me to decide how this would all end.