Dara, Page, and the Secrets of the Multiverse

▷ 6.5

Dara bumped into Page on his retreat, almost burning Page's hair with the torch. The flickering light bathed a sleek, black thing slinking in the shadows, lunging with its claws outstretched. She cursed. It blocked her direct way to the niche. She glanced at the folder in her hands, one that contained nothing of what they needed. She has to know more, but this stupid beast kept getting in the way.

She squinted through the darkness. Only the light from the small hole they came in earlier chased the inky black away, and the quivering flames of the torch made it harder for her eyes to adjust. Her boots scratched against the Athepaliah's compact dirt floor, drawing the attention of the predator towards her.

A curse flitted off her lips. "Dara!" she yelled. "Is there any other way out of here?"

"I'm trying!" came the frantic answer from the opposite side of the cavern. Damn that sleaze. Was he planning to leave her alone with a hungry beast? "That sauroton isn't going to let us go that easily!"

Page felt the walls, fingers running along the bumps and falls of the folders and niches. More dust billowed in the dark air as the sound of claws clicking against the floor resounded. Like them, the animal relied on the light. Also like them, it was stuck in this cavern. What better way to spend incarceration by eating anyone foolish enough to fall into the hole, right?

She waited for a break in the clicks. When the silence thickened, she pushed away from the wall and surged towards the ebbing torch light in the distance. A growl ripped behind her, signaling the predator tearing after her. Arms outstretched, she swiped at the arm holding the inconsistent light and yanked it forward. She prayed her estimates were right, and she wouldn't ram them into a wall. Air tore at the ends of her braid as the pocket of space opened up before them. She led Dara's wrist to shine a circular beam all over the walls of this new corridor. Strange symbols etched in stone guided their way along with the darkness. More clicks and talons screeching against stone trailed behind them. Was running a good option in this scenario? None of the journals she consumed in the Academy taught her how to handle rogue interplanetary fauna. Perhaps, she should write a book about that too.

A weight slammed into her back. In a flash, she whirled the wrist she held in a wide arc, shoving it back down. A grunt followed by a heavy thump and harsh hiss rang in the darkness. The smell of burning skin rose from the ground. Then, Page realized what she had done. Oh. That was Dara. She just fed her companion to the sauroton, or whatever it was called.

Oh.

Her reverie was snapped in two when a firm grip returned in her arm. "Let's go." Dara's voice was loud and clear, flushing the dread out of her system. He was alive? What about the creature?

He didn't waste seconds explaining. Instead, they ran around the corridors, him mystically knowing his way through. They emerged from a hole in the mound, the entrance flanked with wooden planks. The upper plank was lopsided, barely holding on for dear life. It would have fallen and bumped them on the head should the ground shake a bit.