The Neverseen's Last Resort

I want to live.

Unnatural shadows seemed to stretch out of the cave, straining to pull her inside. She stepped closer, strangely drawn to the emptiness that lurked inside. Once inside, while only by just a few feet, she found that the shadows seemed to greet her. The deeper inside she went, the darker it got, her eyes refusing to adjust. Not to mention how could it was down there. Had the cave always been this long? 

As she continued, she noticed the sound of cracking beneath her boots. It became more frequent the further in she got. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Thankfully, it didn't feel like bones, as the horror movies often portrayed. Wait, was that a memory? Or just knowledge? Sophie didn't have time to dwell on that, knowing that with each step, she was growing closer and closer to her family. To the Neverseen. And to Keeper.

Sophie wanted to turn back, make herself believe she'd gone far enough. She wanted to convince herself that she'd tried, and that maybe, maybe it was the wrong cave. Because with each step, she could feel the Keeper part of her stirring, growing excited. 

"I'm sorry," Sophie said, wishing she could transmit the words to Keefe. "I wanted you to be right. I wanted to be good." Tears blurred her vision, not that she could see anyway. The darker it got, the colder it got, and Sophie found that the tunnel seemed way too long for her to still be in Havenfield's property range. 

Maybe Sophie had been wrong. Maybe she'd just never given the Neverseen a chance. Besides, wasn't it only fair to hear their side of everything? To understand their goals and at least try to be open-minded? It didn't seem fair that the Black Swan were allowed to choose who were heroes and who were villains. 

Maybe the Neverseen were good people with the wrong ideas. Maybe they simply needed guidance. Sophie, growing bored of the same old walls, began to trace her hand across the sides of the cave as she walked. Time blurred into itself, nothing seemed to matter anymore. Come to think of it, why was Sophie in this boring cave anyway? 

"Huh," Sophie said, halting in her tracks. The weird crunches had stopped. She picked her foot up, rewinding her steps a bit before stomping down on the floor. A loud, satisfying crunch! rang throughout the cave, and Sophie smiled. Again, she did it. Again and again. Soon she was as a child jumping in puddles, only this time...

"Having fun?" 

Sophie froze, instantly knowing why she'd come here. Edaline, Grady, and Vertina were missing. She was supposed to be saving them. How had she forgotten that? 

"Hello?" Sophie called out, her voice bouncing off the rocky walls. She hadn't been as careful as she should have been.

The voice was so familiar, and her instincts seemed to know that she should be scared, as she couldn't stop shaking. Maybe it was someone she'd even fought beside during the Battle of Atlantis. One of the members who had left her to fight alone. And while Sophie hated herself for that moment, she also hated the Neverseen members for ditching one of their own. It was cruel.

"It's nice to see you again," the voice stalled. "I was beginning to think you weren't going to show." 

"Maybe you shouldn't have made the tunnel so long," Sophie said, deciding to go with it, chat, and see what she could gather. Though that would have been a lot easier if she had her telepathy. Sophie meant that sour thought for the council. If she could, she'd make sure that the council knew it was their fault she hadn't been able to properly defend herself. 

"See, but I needed you to have time to adjust."

Sophie could practically hear the smile in their voice. "Adjust to what?" She snapped. 

"I can't do what we'd done the first time," he said, disregarding Sophie's question. "Gisela's in control of the main ingredient to the drug and without that, I'm left simply to bring out what remains. And for that to happen, I needed Keeper to be closer. You'd buried her far deeper than I wanted. Not to mention that I'd need you to be distracted, your guard down. But we'll get to that in a moment."