𝐒𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇

𝟎𝟖. 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡

𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟑𝐭𝐡, 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟖

"The caverns...they just seem to go on forever..."

"Berman, shut up and help me dig her out of here."

Your thoughts all slurred together into one confusing soup of consciousness as you awoke. The one thing that registered in your mind was the fact that you felt significantly lighter than you did when you fell under. You blinked twice to clear away the blackness in your vision only to realize from occasional sweeps of Cindy's flashlight that the three of you were trapped in a pitch-black cave.

Alice was bent over you, hauling rocks off of your leg until you could finally see the bruised flesh beneath the layers and layers of jagged stone. "There she is," she flashed you a quick, pained smile despite the deep gash on her lip. Both her and Cindy looked a little worse for wear. You obviously weren't the only one injured in the rockslide.

You craned your neck to watch the latter pace around in tight circles, shining her light against the tall, rugged ceiling above you. Stalactites loomed over you like teeth threatening to pierce through your flesh. Cindy was right. From what you could make out through the thick, velvety darkness, the caverns looked never-ending.

You hissed in pain as Alice removed the final weight from your swollen ankle. Her expression turned apologetic as she reached for your arm. "Can you stand?"

Your bones still felt like a bowl of cereal. Only the fluttery, tingling feeling had long since faded away into a dull pain that flooded every muscle and limb of your body. "It doesn't feel like it," you spoke through gritted teeth, using every last bit of energy to hike yourself into a sitting position.

The only thing you could feel was the phantom of Tommy's hand latched around your ankle like a vice. Your skin seemed to thrum even in his absence, marking you with a bruise in the shape of his handprint that wouldn't ever go away even after it faded from view.

"Try anyway."

Cindy abandoned her exploration to offer you her shoulder. With the help of your fellow counselors, you lifted your injured ankle and let all of your weight settle on your opposite foot. If you weren't in so much pain that you felt you might pass out again, you would have been proud of them for getting along. Alice and Cindy didn't have the greatest history together. You doubted that they would even be speaking right now if you weren't there for them to fawn over.

"You were out for a solid fifteen," Alice winced, guiding you over to the tallest archway of rocks. "But Berman thinks she found us a way out."

None of you had the guts to say what you were all thinking — that the guy you've all been hanging out with and sleeping in tents no less than five feet apart from had just killed Arnie Swartz. 

Alice's boyfriend, for fuck's sake.

When you squinted to see her face in the dark, she had a determined, almost inhuman look in her eye. Like she knew exactly what you were thinking and that she'd be damned if she let it slip that she was even remotely upset about it. Maybe once the dust settled and she felt safe enough to cry about it, she would. But knowing Alice, she'd carry what you all saw tonight with her until the very end.

It took much longer than it was supposed to with your injured leg, but once you hobbled through another slanted hole in the wall, you came face to face with the key to your salvation.

A cascade of craggy rocks formed a steep, uneven staircase all the way up the cavern wall. It was a miracle that Director Bailey never noticed something like this so close to the camp or else he might have sealed it up years ago.