The Thanaton Syndrome

Chapter Twenty-One: Pt. 2

Spencer touched the webs. "We have to get up there," he said. "John, do you think you could lift me up?"

"Climb on my shoulders," John said. He got down so Spencer could climb up.

"What do you see?" Lena said.

"Webs," Spencer said. "Well, not much actually because it's so dark. There's room up here for all of us, I think."

So Seth and Lena climbed up on John's shoulders, Spencer helping them up at the top. Then they helped pull John up, and held up the torch to get a better look.

The space was huge, as far as they could tell, but the ceilings were low. Most eye-opening were the webs strung from floor to ceiling everywhere. Some dangled, some only stretched from floor to ceiling, and some were enormous works of art. They couldn't walk through the space without running into a web somewhere. They saw no human-spiders though, only webs.

"Piper!" Spencer yelled, only to have Lena quickly quiet him.

"We might frighten them away and make it harder to find her," she said. "And trust me, if she came up here, they have to have captured her." Spencer hesitated, then nodded.

"Let's go," he said, taking the torch and beginning to make his way through the webbing.

They moved slow. John warned them that some of the webs could have remnants of poison, and many were sticky and hard to get untangled from. They tried not to touch the webs, but it was difficult when they could hardly see anything else and they wanted to hurry.

The longer they went on, the thicker the webs got. After a while, they could hardly avoid touching a web with every move they made. The air also grew mustier as they went, and Seth could hardly breathe from the foul stench.

He felt sure they'd gone for hours and hours before Lena spoke up. "Let's rest for a moment, shall we? I'm starving and I don't think I could take another step through more webs."

Spencer looked ready to protest, looking longingly ahead, but John touched his shoulder. "We've all got to rest, Spence. We're no good to the princess exhausted and practically dead."

Spencer hesitated, then nodded. "Ok, a quick break then. Get something to eat."

Lena, who'd remembered to grab the pack in the confusion of the battle, pulled out some stale bread and handed it out. "This is about all we've got," she said.

Seth paused, his piece already halfway to his mouth. "What'll we do then? Starve?"

The others didn't say anything for a moment.

"Unless we find the others, and their packs," John said, "yes, I suppose we'll starve. We've tried to ration what we had, but there's only so much we can do. Either way, we have to eat, so don't worry about saving that. Eat up."

Seth nodded, feeling uneasy as he finished his bread and washed it down with a bit of water. The food and water burned as it went down his throat, which brought to mind that he mostly had his voice back. Hopefully the effects of the venom had mostly left, other than a bit of a sore throat.

They had barely sat down and swallowed their last bites before Spencer hurried everyone on once more. As Seth stood up, he thought he saw a flicker of light out of the corner of his eye.

"Wait, stop!" He cried. "What's that?"

Spencer moved the torch enough to see a sparkling light glinting on the cave floor. Seth made his way over and picked up a delicate bracelet, ornamented with small crystals. He held it up to the light, didn't recognize it, and handed it over to Spencer who studied it carefully.

"It's Piper's," he said. "She never took this off...it isn't broken or anything, so I'd guess she left it for us."

"Guys, look." Lena moved back toward where they'd found the necklace. "There's a tunnel."

Seth looked closer and saw that, covered in webs and blending in so well anyone could miss it, there was indeed a small tunnel going downward into the webs.

"Let's go," Spencer said. "She's got to be that way."

Seth had no desire whatsoever so squeeze into the entrance covered in sticky webs, but Spencer was so insistent and it seemed so clear that Piper had gone that way that he had no choice.

One by one, they all shimmied through the hole, and slid down in a sort of underground rock slide. Only, this slide wasn't fast or invigorating like most underground slides were portrayed in movies. It made Seth feel incredibly claustrophobic and he needed to scoot down as well as he could without slipping and getting ripped to shreds by all the sharp edges of the rock.

Spencer, who'd gone first just in front of Seth, yelped and disappeared from view.

Seth froze. "Spencer!" He shouted. He heard a groan a little ways below him, and called out again, "Are you okay?"

"I...fine, I'm fine," Spencer called up. "I fell into...wait a second... Hey, get down here! You'll all want to see this!"

Seth hesitated for a few seconds, then grudgingly moved forward. His foot slipped on completely smooth stone, and next thing he knew, he was falling.

His landing was jarring and he couldn't bring himself to move for a second. Spencer appeared next to him and pulled him up. "Look at this."

Seth looked around to see that he'd landed in a pile of filthy sacks and packages. Looking a little closer, he realized they were all the questers' packs.

~~~~~

Yay! Update! :P

If you liked it, please leave a comment or vote, and keep an eye out for the next part. I should post either Saturday or Sunday.

Have a wonderful day :)

-RLM