Something Fishy

Chapter 4: ...But Cats Have Nine Lives, Right?

     “ – wrong,” I finished after I take a moment to assess my condition. No physical injuries to speak of, but my ego has suffered yet another blow. “I was wrong, Ron. Ron?”

     I looked around, but the trapdoor or whatever it was that opened up has closed back up. It was so dark down here that I might as well have been looking with my eyes shut.

     “Ron? You’d better be down here!” My voice echoed. Why was my voice echoing?! “RON? Ron, if you’re up there, let me out now!”

     The floor was cold and strangely slick, almost slimy. I crawled across the ground, my hands outstretched ahead of me. All at once I touched something warm and soft.

     “EEAAUUUGGHH!” I screeched, leaping backwards. “What was that?”

     “It’s just me.” Ron’s disembodied voice came from the general direction of the warm soft thing. “That was my face.”

     “You shouldn’t scare me like that, Ron.”

     “Sorry.”

     “I was joking.”

     “Oh. Sorry.”

     I sighed inwardly. “So,” I said, “you’re the one who knows this place really well. Where the heck are we?”

     “I don’t know,” Ron replied. “Dad never said anything about this.”

     I sat down and felt something press against my side. My bag! Which contains my chocolate bar! Oh, and my flashlight, yeah. I pulled it out (the flashlight, not the chocolate) and flicked it on. A weak beam of light emanated from the end. Shining it around, I slowly began to realize where Ron and I have just landed.

     We were in a tunnel. A dark, damp, tunnel. A dark, damp, claustrophobic tunnel. I aimed the  flashlight up to try and see how far we fell, and if we could possible exit that way, but the trapdoor was at least fifteen or twenty feet above us.

     “Why are you breathing so fast?” Ron asked me.

     “Who, me? I don’t hyperventilate when I’m nervous. And I’m not nervous! I mean, I don’t get claustrophobic in small, dark tunnels! What are you talking about?” I babbled loudly. My frantic voice resounded around me, only amplifying my anxiety. “How about we try and find a way out of here, hm?”

     “Sure,” said Ron, eyeing me strangely. “Left or right?”

     “What? Oh, the tunnel. How about left? It doesn’t really matter as long as we don’t split up. Whenever people split up in movies, bad things happen to at least one of them.”

     “Okay.”

     We walked along in silence. My flashlight scanned the ground ahead of us, illuminating our path. My teeth were chattering, though whether that was because I’m cold or because I was freaked out was unknown to me. A million scenarios were running through my head. What if we’re in a pipe? What if it’s a maze? What if it’s a circle and we just keep walking around and around until we die?

     This is not the time to panic, said a calm, serious voice inside my mind.

      Panic! Please panic! screamed a hyper, crazed one.

     Panic is for wimps, said Adventurer Me. We’re not a wimp, are we? We must remain calm. Do characters in adventure stories freak out when they’re trapped in tunnels?

     We’re not a character in an adventure story! shrieked Panicky Me. We’re a real person! I really want us to panic!