Spencer roused them all far too soon, and after a meager breakfast (they had to ration strictly now), they began the long trek through the never-ending tunnels.
They entered the next tunnel, where the ceiling sank and the sides closed in, so some needed to duck in order to walk and they could barely walk more than single file.
Seth thought the cavern they'd slept in was bad. Now he wanted to return to it, and get out of the dirty, claustrophobic space. At least before he could fully stretch his arms out without touching the muddy walls of the tunnel.
They all generally avoided touching the walls to the tunnel. Mud slimed over pretty well every surface, and they'd already found countless bugs and centipedes lurking there.
To add to the claustrophobia and disgustingness, they continued to trudge through mud the whole way through. Sometimes they could walk over it and it wouldn't even go over their toes, but other times it reached their knees.
During the first stretch, Seth helped Jeremiah limp along. They moved slow, edging along with the rest of the group. Seth did his best to keep the dark thoughts at bay, thinking of Lydia every time the panic threatened to kick in.
They stopped for lunch, and then went on again. Someone else helped Jeremiah this time, and Seth traveled next to Christian.
"How have you been, Outlander?" Christian said as they walked.
Seth shrugged. "Fine," he said.
Christian smiled. "Good, because I think we've only scraped the surface of danger so far."
Seth suppressed a groan. He usually tried to expect the worst, but at that moment, it was hard to believe anything could get much worse. "What else will we run into, then?"
"Oh, I don't know really, but we haven't seen anything from King Morphew yet. It'll get rough when he starts to get involved."
"Who is he, exactly?"
Christian frowned. "King of Fangalia," he said. "The Paramount Palace rules all of Alaisia except Fangalia, which Morphew took over about five or six years ago. No one knows where he came from, but somehow, he has immense power. Just a year after we heard of him taking over Fangalia, he attacked the palace." Christian shook his head at the memory. "He had a huge army, and we only barely beat him. I can't imagine how he got so powerful so fast."
"And he's just stayed away since then?"
"Yes, strangely. Still, no one dares go to Fangalia now. We avoided the land as much as possible even before-- that place is so foul. I hope to get in and out before I can even come to terms we arrived."
"You've never tried to attack him?" Seth said.
"Nah. Like I said, we never cared for Fangalia, so no point in taking it back. And then, he never does much to us, so we leave him alone. All his main servants have pretty much disappeared without a word. The Red Warrior, for instance, disappeared after the Battle of Kingdoms, that battle I just told you about. We'd heard of him before, torturing peasants and villagers, attacking in the shadows and then leaving. We discovered he was in league with King Morphew at the battle, then never saw him again... Until, I suppose, a few days ago."
"A few days ago?"
"Yeah, that guy who chased you and your sister through the portal was the Red Warrior."
"The one that escaped." Seth vaguely remembered the name, but everything from that first day swirled up in his mind and he could only remember key points.
Christian looked slightly uncomfortable. "Yeah, that one. I can't say how he escaped, but then, we managed to capture him pretty easily considering the many years before of endless failed hunts."
"Could he come back? You know, to attack us or something."
"I suppose so. He probably went off to find his master. No doubt he was probably searching for you on orders from Morphew."
Seth frowned and shook his head. "That's so weird," he said. "How would Morphew know to find me? I mean, sure, they all think an outlander will stop the disease, but why me? And how did the Red Warrior get to my world, er, the Outland, if portals haven't been used in seven years?"
Christian laughed. "So many questions I don't really know the answers to. You can travel between the worlds other ways besides portals, but as I recall telling you, so many factors need to come into play that hardly anyone uses these methods. And maybe..." Christian hesitated for an instant before plowing on ahead. "Maybe Morphew knows your mother or something."
"My mother?"
Christian stopped him before he could even begin shaking his head. "Seriously, think about it. Maybe your mother or someone close to you has come here before. It's not entirely unlikely."
The words from the alpha swept through Seth's head at this. His father could come from Alaisia.
"I mean, you had a portal in your home, right?"
"Yeah, in my mom's closet..." Seth didn't like considering these possibilities because it made him feel as if he had a link to Alaisia. Which he didn't, of course. He came across it by accident and the only reason they hadn't gone home yet was because it just so happened to have a cure for the disease.
"How did you have a portal in your house if no one in your family has ever even head of Alaisia? It could be coincidence, but hard to believe when we've heard rumors from Fangalia of an outlander coming. And look who showed up."
Seth scowled. "I don't know how it all worked out like that, but whatever you say, Lydia and I don't belong here. I'll get the cure, heal her, and get home."
Christian shrugged. "Whatever you say."
It didn't lift Seth's mood however. The more he thought about it, the more he thought Christian had a point, as well as the alpha wolf. And then, a small hope surfaced.
Despite how much he rejected the idea, it could make sense for his dad to have come to Alaisia. And if he had, he was probably still there somewhere. As long as he could remember, Seth had quenched thoughts of ever seeing his dad again-- they only made life more sad and painful. Now, however, he let the small hope creep in. He just might get to see his dad.
Visions flooded his head of his dad, beaming and saying how much he'd missed him. Seth could imagine giving him a huge bear hug, and then they would sit down and Seth could tell him about everything he'd missed. He saw his dad back at work, letting his mom go back to a part time job, and they could have extra money to go see movies or eat at a restaurant. His dad could take him golfing again, as he aways used to, and maybe Rachel wouldn't be the stuck-up snob she'd revolved into after his disappearance.
For one fleeting moment, Seth let the sensations of joy, normalcy, and family wash over him. He couldn't even remember the last time he'd felt that simple happiness.
Then he blinked and the darkness of the tunnel came rushing back. He sighed. He'd let his imagination get away from him, and now he got to deal with the consequences of dealing with reality once more.
They went through the tunnels for what felt like days upon days of never ending darkness. They didn't find another space where the walls widened out again-- only the endless walls keeping a consistent, enclosed space, squeezing the group together.
Every so often the party would stop as someone gave a shout. The disturbance would only show up to be an unusually large bug or some sort of strange creature in the dark. Seth shivered at each encounter, glancing around the space with deep loathing. They'd traveled inside the cave for about a day, he guessed, and he already wanted nothing more than for it to be over.
Spencer finally called to stop. "You'll have to sleep as best you can right here," he said.
So they all tried to find the least muddy spot. Seth considered sleeping against the walls, despite the uncomfortableness of it. Once he touched a patch of some sort of slimy substance, however, the ordeal was over and he did his best to roll up an extra cloak as a pillow on the ground.
He didn't talk to anyone, too tired to even form a comprehensible sentence.
His dreams were blurs of darkness and mud and magic. He jerked awake repeatedly, finding the blackness, then looking frantically for the reassuring glow of the torch. They only let one burn during the night in order to save fuel, but this put many into almost complete darkness. He always found it, off in the distance, and fell back into a disturbed sleep.
***
After many dark, blurry dreams, one clear scene appeared before him. He recognized his living room, blinking in the brightness of it. He felt a sob rising up in the back of his throat at the sight. His living room looked like the most beautiful thing on earth, and the dazzling sun streaming through the windows was so sweet he couldn't stand it.
He ran to the window, letting the sun bathe him in its blissful warmth. He gripped the window sill, where his mother's plants lined the corners. Grabbing the curtains, Seth buried his face in the velvety warmth. Everything about it, the plants, the sill, the curtains his mother had made-- they were all purely, beautifully his home. He couldn't get enough of his mother's homemade laundry detergent from the curtains, from the air, from everything. He sank into it, feeling peaceful and happy.
A sobbing broke his reverie and he turned around. Rachel sat crying on the couch, clutching a photo. Seth said her name, hoping with all his might that she could hear him.
She couldn't, of course, because Seth had the luck he had, which he considered incredibly rotten. He wanted to kick and punch and slam something in his frustration, but he reigned it in, and walked over to sit next to Rachel on the couch.
Coming closer, he recognized the picture in her hand as the one their mother always kept locked up in her bedroom. It was an old family picture, back when their dad still lived with them and their mother was pregnant with Lydia.
Rachel's sobs began to subside, and she muttered, "Crazy, I'm going crazy." She rubbed her temples, then said, "Seth, guess what?"
He gave a start as he thought she could see him, but then she looked down at the picture and began talking to his six year old self. "I'm talking to pictures again-- can you believe it? I talk to a lot of people who aren't here nowadays, and I suppose it's your turn. You're an idiot, Seth, and I love you. You shouldn't have gone away like you did, even if it wasn't your fault. I still blame you, because I need someone to blame, and you seem good enough for it.
"Somehow, I managed to get the cops and investigators and case workers and whoever else to let me stay here. Matthew and Katie Reeve helped out to convince them. Remember them, Seth? I sure hope you remember their daughter, Priscilla, because she's struggling as much as I am."
Seth couldn't help the small groan that escaped his mouth at this. He hadn't even thought of Priscilla since that night they fell through the portal. Knowing her, she was probably a wretched mess with him gone missing and Nathan in the hospital with the disease.
"She comes over quite a bit," Rachel continues. "Since they live down the street, Katie usually stops by with dinner for me and such. Don't get me wrong, I feel so grateful, but they ask just as many questions as everyone else. I found Katie snooping in Mom's bedroom the other day, and she told me she was looking for the bathroom. Weird." Rachel shook her head at the memory.
"Anyway," she said, "I should shut up now, because this is getting stupid. Seth, if by some crazy miracle you do hear this, come back. Please, please, please get back here, and being Lydia too. I get the feeling you two aren't being very safe." She sighed. "I should shut up now. I don't see how you can actually hear this, but I feel like you can." She let a strangled sort of laugh, saying, "I see why they wanted to bring me to the mental health hospital."
"I can," Seth whispered, knowing she couldn't hear, but saying it all the same. "I hear you, Rachel. You're not crazy, I swear, and I'll come back soon."
She sighed again, and shook her head. "Stupid," she said. She looked at the photo again, biting her lip to keep more tears from coming.
Judging from her state, Seth didn't know how she could have any more tears left in her, but they came anyway. He felt a rush of panic as the scene began slipping away, fading into the darkness of some other dream. He tried to grab ahold of it and bring back the bright living room, but it was gone.
~~~~~
There's a little less action in this chapter, but I hope it still managed to interest you. I love to hear your plot guesses, what you liked, didn't like, all of it, so go ahead and spill! That being said, it does seem to interrupt the flow a bit when you feel obligated to comment heavily in the inlines (is that how you'd say it?). So please don't think you have to comment all the time, especially since it brings you out of the story. I adore your comments, but I would also much prefer you use that time to get into the story and read a little further, if you get my meaning :) Votes are wonderful, in this case.
Again, thank you so much for bearing with me! Come back next week for chapter 15! :)
-RLM915