Page 42 of Fearless

I gently lay the long pieces of my past self back onto the stone floor, leaving them to rest.

The sun has abandoned me for the night.

I squint in the growing shadows, only to be met with the yawning darkness of a cave before me. A shiver skitters down my spine when I take a step inside. My eyes widen in a futile attempt to see while myhands reach for something solid in this place of nothingness.

My palms find a wall, and I cling to it with each shaking step. The sound of my quick breaths echoes around me, accompanied only by the pounding of my heart.

This cave feels different. Unwelcoming. Occupied.

My mind reels, picturing every menacing thing that could be a single step away. Trying to calm my unhelpful thoughts, I crouch to the floor. But it’s not stone I find beneath my palms, but packed dirt. I suck in a surprised breath, feeling hope bloom in my chest.

This could be it.

I continue my slow crawl, hands dragging through the dirt in front of me. The air is thick and damp in my lungs as I force myself deeper into the cave. Reaching to my right, I find the wall now far closer than it had been when I entered. Panic swells in my chest as I turn to my left, nearly cracking my skull against the rock.

It’s as though the stone is shrinking in on me.

My breaths grow shallow in the narrow place. All I can feel is the grimy dirt clinging to my hands and knees, see nothing but a thick blackness blanketing my eyes. I hear nothing but my thundering heart and—

A soft squeak echoes above me.

My breath catches. My body stills.

Something rustles over my head, forcing me to clamp a dirty hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound. My whole body shakes in anticipation of meeting what it is that dwells in this cave with me. I can’t move freely in the cramped space, and that alone terrifies me into stillness.

A flutter of wings sounds beside my head. I jerk away instinctually, slamming the side of my temple against a jagged wall. The dirty palm pressed to my mouth falls away as I let out a yelp of pain.

I feel the first bead of blood roll down my face when all hell breaks loose above me.

A symphony of screeches echoes off the walls. I feel dazed, unable to determine up from down or fear from confusion. My head aches as a flurry of wings rain down on my crumpled frame.

I think I may be screaming.

Bats—hundreds of them. The creatures rush past me, claws tearing at my skin from the ends of leathery wings that beat against my body. They feel far larger than they should be, pelting me persistently with a strength I doubted they could possess.

Amid the terror and chaos, I manage to pull my dagger from its sheath. My palms are sweaty, eyes squeezed shut in the already smothering darkness. The scream that rips from my throat is rabid, the accompanying swipe of my dagger even more so. I slice wildly through the air, managing to hit several of the bloodthirsty beasts. Their screeches mingle with the pounding heartbeat in my ears.

Fear and pain course through me to create a daunting concoction of desperation. I can see nothing, but I feel the demons that dwell in this darkness. They swarm around me as I blindly brandish my blade. Countless cuts sting my skin, blood bubbling to the surface with nauseating quickness.

Another bat meets the wrath of my dagger and careens to the ground with a soft thud. I don’t know what to do, or how to breathe, or if I ever will again. Terror grips me tightly, squeezing tears from my eyes and screams from my throat until—

They dart past my head.

Like a gust of wind, there one moment and gone the next, the swarm of bats rush out of the cave. I’m panting, turning toward the mouth of the tunnel as I tuck my dagger back into its sheath. I can barely make out the outlines of their huge bodies as they fly into the night.

With palms pressed into the dirt behind me, I shuffle back several feet, attempting to put distance between me and the creatures beyond the cave’s mouth. The night sky awaiting me looks bright compared to the darkness within this swallowing stone. My eyes strain, body scrambling back, back, back—

The dirt caves in beneath me.

Wood snaps loudly before my scream drowns out the sound. I fall through what feels to be a decaying trapdoor, arms flailing as clumps of dirt and splintering pieces of wood plummet with me.

My back slams against something solid, my head following shortly after. I groan, unable to stop my body from rolling off the object and onto the ground beside it. Cool stone meets my cheek as I lie there on my aching ribs, panting and numb with pain.

My palms press into the uneven rock as I struggle to lift myself into a sitting position. Blood leaks from the many slices I’ve earned, making me acutely aware of each sticky path staining my skin. I lean against the large something I fell onto, back aching nearly as much as my head.

I open my eyes and—

No, my eyes are open. They have been this whole time.

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