Michael Soll - Scorched

She squinted her eyes at me and then simply said, “Okay.”

We finally reached the edge of the Central Hive and found the paths leading away. “They don’t look so ancient,” Kaolin said, examining the ridges of the tunnel.

Cotta examined the handiwork as well. “These aren’t the ancient tunnels. We still have a ways to go.”

Kaolin and Cotta smiled at each other as they discovered the past all around them. They were wasting time. They shouldn’t be running their fingers through dirt or smiling at each other.

“C’mon. Let’s go.”

I pushed ahead of the others and suppressed every urge to explore the tunnel built by my ancestors. But it was fantastic. The tunnels they created years and years ago still stood strong, even through the Great Quake.

As we came to the first divide, I thought back on that day my father had assembled the elders. “Down the Pristine Path and you make a sharp right into Mudd’s Entrance,” reminisced Dover.

“This way,” I told the others.

We scurried through the next opening until we reached another path. “Then you’ve gotta go up, up through Toureanne’s Tunnel. It gets real narrow toward the end, but if you squeeze on through, it’s smooth tunneling from there,” Pebble had enthusiastically added. I remember my father giving me a wink after the elder had reminisced.

“Up here,” I ordered.

We moved through the narrowing tunnel, squeezing on through to the other side. And then I recalled my father’s words as he recalled his father’s words, “He saw the Ancient Tunnel once. Make a slight left when you see a large gap. A few steps in and you’ll see the largest path you’ve ever seen, constructed hundreds of cycles ago. That’s the original tunnel.”

“Over here.”

We found the gap and we made a slight left. And then, we saw the Ancient Tunnel. It was beautiful but ominous. It seemed like any moment it could crumble. How it lasted this long is a mystery nobody could answer.

Cotta gazed at the tunnel. “How did it last this long?”

Kaolin grabbed some more chum from my bucket. “C’mon boys. Let’s see how long forever goes.” She walked ahead, leaving us behind. Now it was us catching up to her.

We walked for what seemed like an eternity. We decided to stop momentarily while Cotta filled up his lantern. Kaolin walked ahead, navigating the tunnel with the faint light radiating from my lantern, heading into the darkness.

I hurried ahead to her, not because I wanted to be with her but because she had no light and if she got injured she’d slow us down even more.

When I caught up, I found her staring dumbfounded at a strange structure jammed into the wall. “What is it?”

I placed my hand against the brown device. It didn’t feel like anything I had ever felt, but it was rotting like food that had turned.

I rubbed my fingers across the material when a piece lodged in my hand. I recoiled and screeched.

Kaolin examined my flesh. “Hold still.” She placed her fingers against the brown sliver stuck in my hand and pulled it out.

“Wow, that’s amazing!” exclaimed Cotta, lantern burning brightly in hand. “That stuff is holding the tunnel up. Maybe we should take some with us for later.”

“We can’t. It’s holding the ceiling up—”

And then, noise echoed through the Ancient Tunnel. Cotta and I froze for a moment, asking for guidance from each other’s frozen lips.

“How did they find us so quickly?”

I shook my head, “We should’ve covered our tracks.”

The noise got louder and louder as our colony closed in on us, ready to imprison us once more, and then—

The butt of my ax struck the brown structure. Again and again until the foreign material collapsed beside my foot. The ceiling rumbled as dirt dribbled from above, an infinite amount of soil croaking.

I looked over at the ax, at the fingers grasping onto my beloved possession. Kaolin handed me back my tool and simply said, “Thanks.”

I stood in shock for a moment, dumbfounded that the seemingly innocuous girl standing before me was responsible for our imminent doom.

“I think we should go,” said a startled Cotta as dirt dribbled from above and onto his hair. “Scratch that. We should definitely go!”

Cotta turned and ran, but I was still frozen, staring up at the falling dirt, listening to the distant echoes, possibly from my father or Dover, their words and pleas kept alive by the barrier crumbling before me.

Kaolin’s hand clenched my wrist and I felt my world crumble. I felt the grains of dirt freeze in midair, I saw the echoes ricochet through the tunnel, and I felt her heart pump blood into my veins.

Her eyes shined and our rhythms pulsated. Her mouth opened and she screamed something, but I couldn’t hear. I had lost control of all other senses, all I could feel was the touch and then, everything came flooding back—

“What are you doing?! Run!” Kaolin pulled me away from the imminent collapse, as tons of dirt plummeted to the ground.

And then, the Earth was quiet. The three of us shared a relieved look.

Cotta examined the damage and the tiny collapse. “Well that wasn’t that bad…”

I felt it on my face first. A tiny grain from above. We looked up and all around, and we knew we could do only one thing…

“RUN!”

Our feet pounded against the ground as the tunnel collapsed all around. Yet, even though my fire was moments from being extinguished, I couldn’t stop focusing on the spark galloping in front of me. Those graceful feet and lean legs. She looked back at me and screamed something with her beautiful mouth and big, kind eyes.

We were moments from dying, but I hardly noticed the tidal wave of Earth caving in all around. I didn’t notice the tiny specs being displaced behind me, I was only focused on the displaced Spec within.

And finally, after what seemed to be an eternity of running, the dirt subsided and we collapsed, breathing heavier than we ever have.

Reality quickly struck as I looked behind and realized any thoughts of returning to my home had collapsed along with the tunnel.

Cotta picked up a chunk of rock and put it in his basket. “The tunnel survived hundreds of cycles but couldn’t withstand the Kaolin.”

I stood up and walked over to the fallen rocks. I laid my hand on the dirt and watched as the grains I touched trickled to the ground below and stopped, waiting for the next Kaolin to displace them once more.

I closed my eyes and thought about my home, a home I had always thought I’d visit some time in the distant future, a father I’d share all my adventures with, now just a memory, a story.

Truth be told, I had never really let go. I had whispered goodbye but never shouted it. I was leaving a trail of rocks, just waiting to pick them back up, but now the rocks were gone and I was lost.

I turned back to my two companions, my new world and my new home. I didn’t say a word because no words needed to be spoken. I simply walked ahead of them, lantern firmly in hand and we continued down the Ancient Tunnel towards forever, towards an empty abyss filled with dust and hopes whose echoes were silenced long ago. And as our lanterns lit up the ten feet in front of us, we could only wonder and fantasize on what lay in the darkness, shrouded in silence. We could see each step, see each other, but we could not see behind and we could not see ahead. Our world consisted of the ten foot radius of light. What we saw was real and what we couldn’t see was fantasy.

We walked for a long time and when we got tired, we continued walking. We kept walking until we couldn’t walk anymore and when that happened, we sat and waited until we could walk again. It was all we had to do, it was our only mission. We were not mining for clay or hunting for fungi. The tunnel was dead and our only goal was to get out alive.