Chapter 19
The room explodes into motion as contestants surge toward the opening in the tunnels, eager to begin the First Trial.
Some sprint immediately inside, while others form groups before they cross the threshold.
Wren catches my sleeve with Lena and Jonah at her side.
“Come with us,” she says, her face pale but her grip firm.
“We’ve already agreed to stay together.”
“We’ll have better odds as a group.” Jonah looks nervously toward the tunnel. “Four people can cover more routes without losing track of the main passage.”
“Four people make a larger target,” I say.
Lena’s mouth presses into a thin line. “We’re offering to help you.”
I study the three of them for a moment. I see my friends from lunches, study sessions, and nights at the Witch’s Brew, but I also see people who have deceived me once and who have more than enough reasons to continue to do so.
“I’m going alone, but thanks for the offer.”
Wren releases my sleeve. “That’s a mistake, Jack.”
“Probably,” I agree.
I turn and step into the tunnel before they can say anything else to stop me.
The first passage divides into three paths after less than fifty yards in.
Other contestants rush past me, quickly making their choices, as I stop to study the angles of the tunnel.
The left slopes downward while the right rises slightly but narrows between warped support beams. Straight ahead, boot prints mark the mud where several contestants have passed without turning off in either direction.
Someone falls into step beside me, fast and silent.
“Right.”
I look up. Silas doesn’t meet my eyes. He barely slows, his attention fixed straight ahead.
“What?” I ask, unsure I heard him correctly.
“Go right,” he repeats, his jaw clenched. “Watch for the carvings. The oldest ones mark the way out.” The words come reluctantly, as though every one of them is being dragged from him against his better judgment.
“I don’t need your help.”
A humorless smile ghosts across his face.
“Sure you don’t.”
Before I can tell him that he can take his help and go to hell, he’s already gone, swallowed by the darkness.
I don’t trust Silas. Not for a second. I don’t believe one thing that comes out of his lying mouth.
And yet, against every ounce of my better judgment, I find myself turning right. I tell myself it isn’t because he told me to or because he also went that way himself, but because it seems as good a direction as any.
For the first hour, the tunnels feel difficult but rational. Every branching passage must lead somewhere. Every dead end eliminates a possibility. I mark turns by scraping lines into the mud with my heel and try to keep track of which passages I’ve already explored.
There are two major obstacles working against me.
The first is the darkness. The torches lining the walls cast just enough light to see a few yards ahead, and even with my cell phone flashlight, progress is painfully slow.
Still, I suppose I should be grateful. The Veil could’ve given us no lights at all.
Like I said, they have manners.
The second obstacle is the tunnels themselves. It’s a good thing I’m not particularly claustrophobic. Some tunnels are so narrow, I have to crouch or crawl to get through, and each time the ceiling drops lower, I wonder if the next stretch will finally prove impassable.
I catch glimpses of a few other claimants along the way, but I make a point of avoiding them, ducking into side passages whenever I hear footsteps approaching.
I have no idea who might be an ally and who might happily leave me bleeding in the dark, and I’m not particularly interested in finding out.
I press onward as quickly as the tunnels allow, past two partially collapsed chambers, one flooded passage, and then a circular corridor that, unfortunately, deposits me right back to lines I made with my heel earlier in the mud.
Every wrong turn costs time, and every correction ratchets the pressure in my chest a little tighter.
Twice I pass deep markings pressed into the stone near a junction. Small, deliberate shapes, not the random scarring of centuries underground. Silas’s voice surfaces in my mind, reminding me that I should look for the oldest carvings.
I almost laugh out loud. Sure. Like I have time to decipher ancient graffiti.
I ignore the carvings and keep moving, trusting my own system instead, watching for airflow, beam spacing, and the angle of the ground.
Eventually, I hear shouting up ahead.
I slow near the opening to a wider chamber. Van stands near the center with Nicole, the pretty blonde junior from earlier. She doesn’t appear so calm anymore. Dirt and tears streak her face, and she clutches one arm against her chest. It looks broken.
The smart thing would be to leave before Van notices me.
Being trapped in a tunnel with that maniac is the last thing I need, but the woman is clearly in trouble.
And apparently, despite being in Salem’s Fall for months now, I still haven’t shaken that pesky inability to mind my own business when someone needs help.
“This isn’t my fault,” she cries. “I thought this was the right turn.”
Van’s expression is almost bored. “You said you knew the way.”
Nicole backs up against the tunnel walls. “I—I thought I did,” she stutters. “I must’ve gotten mixed up. I’ll do better, I promise.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” he says. “I don’t think I want a partner anymore.” His gaze flicks toward the ceiling above her. Then he takes a slow step backward, and a loud cracking sound rolls overhead.
Nicole looks up just as the ceiling gives way, taking part of the adjoining wall with it. It all happens too fast for her to run. Stone breaks loose as several feet of dirt and rock collapse over her body in a violent wave. Her screams are quickly silenced beneath the impact.
Dust billows through the chamber, reducing everything to a choking haze. When it finally begins to settle, all that’s left of her is one hand protruding from the rubble. It never moves again.
Van turns then, noticing me. He smiles, and I have the craziest thought that he knew exactly what was going to happen. That somehow, this wasn’t an accident, and he killed that poor girl.
But no… that’s absurd.
Mr. Ashcroft already told us. These tunnels are old and unstable. It was just horrible timing that she was standing under the ceiling when it collapsed on its own.
He catches my eye. “Finding it harder to breathe yet?”
I back away, cursing myself for not running earlier when I still had the chance.
“Stay away from me.”
“No,” he says, his smile widening, “I don’t think I will.”
He lunges so fast I don’t even have a chance to move before his fist slams into the side of my face.
Stars burst across my vision, and I crash into the wall hard enough to lose my footing.
He grabs the front of my coat and drives me backward again, cracking my head against the stone. Pain tears through my shoulder.
“You don’t belong here,” he says, his breath hot against my cheek. “You’re just a mistake everyone else was too cowardly to correct.”
“Mistake this, you asshole!”
I bring my knee up between us, aiming for his crotch. He twists, taking most of the blow against his thigh, but it gives me enough room to strike a second time, and I drive the heel of my palm into his nose. His head snaps back, and blood appears immediately.
“You… bitch,” he hisses, wiping the blood from his nose and looking at it with disbelief. “You hit me!”
A small, savage part of me delights in the sight, but there’s no time to enjoy it.
Before he can come for me again, I spot a narrow opening behind the rubble where earth has fallen away between two beams. I drop to my knees and scramble through, stone scraping my coat as the passage tightens around my shoulders.
For the first time this evening, I’m grateful for the confined space.
This new tunnel is too small and Van’s frame too broad for him to follow.
“You can’t crawl forever!” he screams after me.
But he’s wrong. I will crawl as long as it takes to get away from that bastard.
Eventually, I can’t hear his frustrated shouting anymore. I keep moving, losing track of time, until it occurs to me that I haven’t seen or heard another competitor in hours. Crawling through that broken wall must have led me into a hidden section of the tunnels that wasn’t accessible before.
When the passage finally widens again, I start to pay closer attention to my surroundings. I stop choosing tunnels based solely on instinct and attempt to read them as a system. It’s what Josh would do, look for patterns.
This time, when I see the marks in the stone again, I actually stop to study them.
The oldest support beams are wider and spaced farther apart.
The newer reinforcements appear where the ground has shifted, often near dead ends or collapses.
The same small crescent-shaped carvings from earlier repeat at junctions, but only on walls where the airflow moves inward.
I think of Silas’s words again and decide to trust him.
At this point, I don’t have anything to lose.
The marks appear more often as the ground rises.
I start to follow them.
More hours pass. My cheek swells, aching from Van’s punch. Every breath tastes like dust, but the air eventually grows colder. Fresher. Somewhere ahead, I smell rain. Then I finally see light, a pale gray thread descending through a shaft at the end of a long chamber.
Relief overwhelms me.
I’ve done it!
I’ve found the exit.
Unfortunately, it happens to be twenty feet above the ground.
At the ceiling of the chamber is a hatch door. A line of iron footholds climbs toward it, only to end abruptly halfway up, leaving the remaining distance impossible to scale. I frown, wondering why anyone would build a climb that simply… stops.