Crash

38: Trapped

Nathan-

I opened my eyes and yawned. The wind was howling again but it sounded more muffled.

Unraveling my arms from Lyra, I carefully tucked her in before I got up and stretched. We'd set traps yesterday and I should probably go check them, though the only thing I wanted to do was crawl back next to Lyra.

I threw on my jacket and headed for the door. There was only a slight problem, it wouldn't swing open. I pushed and pushed but it wouldn't budge.

"Oh shit..." I muttered.

"What?"

I turned to see Lyra sitting up, rubbing her face and brushing her messy hair out of her face.

"Um, the door won't open," I muttered and scratched my head in confusion.

"What?!" She scrambled out of the best of blankets and stumbled over to me.

"Somethings blocking it," I grumbled.

"Let's pull it. It's not really designed that way but..." She shrugged.

We pulled the door instead of pushing, and it protested because it's never been opened that way but we got it open. We were greeted with a wall of snow.

"Oh wow," I muttered and touched the thick wall.

Apparently, the tunnel from our door  to the snow cave collapsed under the extreme weight of snow over night. I became aware of Lyra practically hyperventilating beside me.

"Hey are you okay?" I asked her. Her chest was heaving as she backed away from the doorway. 

"W-we're trapped! Not again, I- I can't.." She trembled and tears filled her eyes. She stared at the wall as if it was going to collapse on her.

I realized this was just like the mudslide but much worse. We really were trapped.

She dove towards the snow and started to frantically dig at it, "We're going to die in here!"

I gently grabbed her shoulders and made her look at me, "We're not going to die in here, it's going to be okay. Alright?"

A few runaway tears fell and I wiped them away, "I won't let you die in a cave Jay, that's not going to happen."

"We're going to run out of oxygen... I c-can't do this again...And Baine." Lyra cried. The wolf was on the other side and wasn't making a sound. 

"Hey, just breathe. We're going to be fine. Baine is fine. We'll get out of here," I hugged her to me and she cried into my shoulder.

It must be really traumatizing to do this twice. I was trying really hard not to freak out myself. I quickly sat her in the blankets and wrapped her up maybe to comfort her. Lyra looked up at me, her eyes said she was absolutely terrified.

"I'm going to start digging okay, just stay right here and calm down," I said and kissed her forehead. She nodded and clutched the blanket.

I dragged the tarp over and grabbed the axe. I started hacking away at the snow and pulling it away from the wall, hoping that it wouldn't collapse on me. It took me a while to make a dent in it.

"Nathan.."

I looked over my shoulder at Lyra. She pushed the blankets away, "Can I help?"