Total Word count: 6839
Nanowrimo 2013 Day 4
Other-Space Chapter 3 (part 1)
Just one word over the target, blimey!. I'd originally planned to stick the little flashback here in chapter two, but I forgot. But I think it goes better here.
Chapter 3 – “I think we should go and find out”
A new Cave
Crawler had to wait at least a year before setting foot into the tunnels. They’d spend that time training and preparing
for what lay ahead. Their training
included learning how to correctly use their emergency weaponry, there was a
small firing range a short distance from the Cave Crawlers’ base. Jade had hardly spent any time there since
her training finished, maybe one or two days a year just to make sure she
hadn’t forgotten how to handle the gun since until recently she’d never used it
outside of training, but in the last few days she’d barely left it.
It’d been
five days since the attack on the Listener, she’d spent most of the first day
after that being questioned about what had happened and after that she’d taken
to the firing range. She kept thinking
about what had happened and what she could’ve done different. She could’ve taken on the purple thing before
it reached the Listener. Different
scenarios kept playing out in her mind, she’d attack the purple being each time
but what happened next would be different.
It might turn and attack her after the first shot kill her instantly, or
she might miss and hit the Listener instead, and she’d still wind up getting
killed.
She felt
angry and frustrated; angry with herself for not saving the Listener, and she
was taking out that anger on the targets.
She pictured each one of them as Listener’s attacker and filled the
target with holes until she was out of bullets or there was no target left.
As she
continued to empty and batch of ammo into a target another thought struck her,
why did she try and fight the attacker herself?
She was never good in a crisis, one of the reasons why she never used
her gun was that on the very rare occasion that they encountered trouble while
exploring the caves she’d always run away from it, not try and take it on
herself. The Listener had told her to
go, but Jade didn’t go, she almost did though.
If she’d managed to leave the temple before the purple being arrived she
certainly wouldn’t have tried to take it out herself, maybe assuming that the
temple guards would’ve dealt with it.
That must’ve been it, with the guards unable to stop the thing she was
the only one around to try. And even
then she hadn’t gone recklessly charging towards the creature, doing that would
probably have gotten her killed, she’d acted with caution and tried to sneak up
on it.
If Dani had
been there she’d probably have tried to attack the thing head on. Dani was always better in a crisis, much
better than Jade had ever been. Dani may
not have been able to stop it, but at least she would’ve tried, she would’ve
done anything and everything to keep it from reaching the Listener. Jade and Dani had been through a few crisis
during their time as Cave Crawlers, usually involving an attack by an extremely
dangerous wild animal. In fact it had
been a crisis that had brought them together as friends in the first place.
Once they
completed their training Cave Crawlers would be given a partner either from
their group or from the previous year’s group.
Jade has always been rather shy and quiet, she’d often be afraid of what
they might encounter in those caves.
Dani didn’t like that, in the early days she saw Jade as an annoying
burden she’d had dumped on her. On one
occasion she’d asked Jade why she’d joined the Cave Crawlers in the first place
if she so easily frightened.
Then came
the time they wound up trapped in one of the caves. They’d been exploring a new passage that had
appeared. Dani was leading the way while
Jade was quietly following a short distance behind her, being completely
ignored by her partner. They eventually
ran into a dead end.
“Well that
was a waste of time,” Dani grumbled after they’d checked the area for smaller
tunnels. “Let’s head back, there’s no
reason to hang arou- what was that?”
They both
looked up as they heard a low rumble.
Jade gasped as she saw a crack appear in the ceiling a short distance
away from them. The crack grew bigger,
more cracks formed around it and began to expand themselves. Then that section of the cave collapsed,
blocking their exit. A cloud of dust
blew up as the rocks fell, the two girls raiser their arms over their faces to
shield their eyes. The sound of the
collapsing cave was intense and echoed around the tunnel, but it was brief. When the noise had stopped they both lowered
their arms and stared at the pile of rock in front of them. It took a few seconds for what had just
happened to properly sink in.
Realisation
struck Jade first, she let out a panicked scream and rushed towards the
blockage. She began scrabbling away at
the rocks, trying to dig her way through but she only managed to dislodge some
of the smaller ones. She was breathing
heavily and very erratically.
“Don’t
bother,” Dani said. “Besides, there’s
nothing to worry about. They’ll come and
get us out if we’re gone for too long.”
Jade didn’t
listen; she just continued scraping at the rocks.
“I said,
there’s nothing to be…” she trailed off as Jade broke down in tears against the
rock blockade.
Dani rushed
forwards and gently put an arm around Jade’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay,” she said quietly.”
Dani led her
to the back of the cave where they both sat down. Jade was still crying but she calmed down
after a few minutes.
“Look,
we’re supposed to be out of here in about an hour. Once we don’t turn up on time they’ll come
looking for us,” Dani said. “And it
could be worse; you could be stuck down here alone. Don’t worry, I’m right here.”
“Thanks,”
Jade croaked.
“We should
switch these off, try and conserve the batteries,” Dani said, reaching for the
lamp on her helmet.”
“No!” Jade
yelped.
“Oh… okay,
we’ll turn mine off,” Dani said. “I’ll
switch it back on again if it goes out.”
Jade
nodded.
“You still
scared?” Dani asked after a moment’s silence.
“A little,”
Jade muttered.
“Oh…
actually, I’ve got something that might help.”
Dani
reached into her backpack and after rummaging around for a few minutes
extracted a small portable cassette player.
“Try this she said.”
Dani handed
Jade the player, Jade stuck the earphones in place and pressed the play button. A piece of orchestral music flowed into her
ears. It was calm and slow and as she
listened to it she felt her nerves fade away.
She closed her eyes and led out a sigh of relief.
“Yeah, I
thought that would help,” Dani said. “I
use that to relax sometimes if I’m feeling a little stressed.”
“Thanks,”
Jade said.
A little
over two hours later they were found, though it took a while for the debris to
be shifted aside. Jade ran almost all
the way back to the cave entrance, reaching it before anyone else did. She felt as though it had been months, maybe
even years since she’d out in the open air.
She lay down on the grass with her eyes close and a contented smile on
her face.
“Hey, erm…”
Jade opened her eyes and saw that Dani had sat down beside her. “I’m… I’m sorry about… well… everything I
said or thought of you in the past.”
Jade smiled
at her. “Thanks.”
“I mean you
are a bit too easily scared,” Dani said.
“I think we should try and work on that.”
“Yeah, I
guess so.” Jade sat up and took the
cassette player out of a pocket in her jacket. “Thanks for this,” she said holding it out to
Dani.
“Keep it,”
Dani said. “I think you’ll need it more
than me.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely.”
“Jade?”
Jade
blinked, Dani was standing right beside her.
“Oh, hi.”
“You okay?”
Dani asked her. “You’ve been standing
here doing nothing for a few mintues.”
“What? Oh.”
Jade’s arms were still outstretched with the gun clasped in her hands,
but her grip wasn’t so tight now and her arms were drooping. “I was just… just thinking about the time we
were trapped in a cave.”
“Oh.” Dani
gave her a nervous smile.
Jade raised
her arms and took aim at what was left of the target. Her gun clicked as she pulled the trigger, it
was empty.
“Sheesh,
just how many bullets have you gone through here?” Dani asked her, looking over
the hole ridden targets.
“Wasn’t
counting.”
“Of course
not.” Dani laid a hand on one of Jade’s
shoulders and Jade felt her heart skip a beat.
“Listen, I heard what happened with the listener. Are you… are you okay.”
“Yeah I’m
fine,” Jade lied.
“Fine
people don’t spend several days taking their aggression out on pieces of
painted wood.”
Jade didn’t
say anything. She could hear the
Listener’s voice in the back of her head, urging her to talk to Dani and tell
her how she felt. “I’m not ready yet,”
she muttered.
“Pardon?”
Dani asked.
“Uh,
nothing.”
“Oh,
okay.” Dani didn’t seem convinced. “I heard that the temple got torn up pretty
badly. You saw the man who attacked her,
what was he like?”
“I don’t
think it was a man.”
“Oh, a
woman then.”
“It wasn’t
that either.”
“What was
it then?”
“I don’t
know, it was purple and made of metal I think.
It didn’t have a face.”
“Weird.”
Jade
nodded. “I empty my gun into it; it
didn’t gun down until the last bullet.”
“Wow… I’m
surprised it didn’t kill you.”
“I was
lucky.”
“I’m
surprised you didn’t just run away,” Dani said.
“I probably would’ve.”
Jade
was surprised to hear that, but she didn’t say so. “So was I,” she said.” 
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