Aetherworld

The Enemy of my Enemy - Chapter 4

It had been... Two days? Since the prisoners had arrived. The dungeon was even more dangerous to dig in, so James refused to let me leave camp. There were too many eyes wandering the halls now, so we were forced to sit in the dark.

"We should re-arrange the rocks. With my pants and your towel, we could stop all light from escaping." His voice, normally calm and soothing, had an edge of hysteria to it that gave me anxiety now.

"And us with it." I said pointedly.

"We're trapped in here Jazz, if there was any reason to run, it would be crawling in through the very same door." He had me there.

"Alright alright, stop. You're making a mess of things, let me do it." James was crouched over the rocks toppling them across the floor in his blind attempt to rebuild it. The noise alone would attract someone. "I'm going to touch you," I warned before grabbing his shoulder. He was reluctant to leave the rock wall, determined to get this done. "I promise I will rebuild it. Ok? Promise." After a moment, he let me take over.

The light's absence had done a number on us but James more so than me. I'd accepted that perhaps I could see in the dark, or something to that end given the events of the Black Night- what I'd come to call the night the prisoners were dropped down here. James, though, could not see in the dark. We tried to talk to pass time, but often something would enter the grand hall and we'd be trapped in tense silence while we waited for it to pass.

I lay the towel over the exit again, with two of the biggest rocks behind it for support, stacking more rocks on top of it. The rock wall filled the entire entrance, and above it I laid James' pants. "Done." The lamp was on before I finished speaking.

"Gods, I feel like I'm going mad." James was hunched against the wall, his hair, once styled into a pompadour was now disheveled.

"You're not as far along as me at least," I shrugged offering a poor attempt at comfort.

"I hit you for simply brushing up against my arm earlier." The episode really bothered him.

"James, you couldn't see, and someone was dying just outside our door. Of course, you'd lash out at something touching you unexpectedly-"

"I knew you were beside me. I shouldn't have hit you." He snapped back. His eyes had the same spark of insanity I'd seen in the prisoner the night he'd tried to choke me.

"Apology accepted then." I sighed frustrated. We were more likely to fight now than talk like friends.

James pulled my pack towards him. While I eyed him, he fished through it looking frantically. It was my leather notebook. I'd brought it to write in myself, and it kept a list of all our supplies. He flipped it open and started writing frantically. It irked me that he'd never asked to write in it, but If it helped him fight through the fear who was I to take it away? His skin was sweaty and pale, and his eyes were sunken in with dark rings under them. We couldn't waste time waiting for the prisoners to die out, we didn't have time. "We can't-"

"No." It was the same argument we'd had since the Black Night. I needed to keep going out, to keep digging. James was more cautious though, saying we had to wait things out and only risk it when the odds were more in our favour.

I angrily slammed myself back into my favourite spot, directly across from the entrance. James was still madly scribbling and paid no mind to me. I sighed loudly. He ignored me. We sat like that for a while before he finally looked up from his book. I was still scowling.

"Everything we do here is a gamble, Jazz, but we need to play smart and play with our odds. Not against them." The hysteria had left his voice and when I looked at him, he had that same passive face he normally wore.