The cage splashed into water, couldn’t see a thing. It sank, I held my breath. Tried to swim out but my boots had filled with water, weighed me down like two boulders. My hair tie undid itself, letting my hair loose and obscuring my view. The handcuffs didn’t exactly help either. I wanted to breathe, but I knew if I opened my mouth my lungs would fill with water, and that’d be the end of it. I kicked the boots off in panic, and tried floundering like a fish. I got nowhere, but then my waist was grabbed. I felt myself moving through the cage opening, then upwards.
Reached the surface and gasped for air. I saw a torch on the cave wall, there was a ledge, without having to move a muscle, I was brought to the ledge by the thing holding my waist. I climbed onto the ledge and rolled over on the cave floor. I lifted the hair out of my face, and looked at what had saved me; Ri. Before I had time to thank him, he took a deep breath and dove down again. I took some time to wring the water out of my long soaked hair.
Half a minute later, Ri came up with Mao who was unconscious. I pulled Mao up onto the cave floor with the help of Ri pushing from below, and laid him on his back. Ri quickly climbed over the ledge. He opened Mao’s mouth, then pushed on Mao’s chest. I counted 30 pushes before Ri held Mao’s nose and blew into his mouth. 30 more pushes.
He checked Mao’s pulse, looked at me, and shook his head.
“Fuck..” I said. No more Mao.
Ri closed his eyes, lowered his head, and put his hands together in front of his face. He mumbled something in the language I didn’t understand. When he opened his eyes again, we both stood up. I heard faint noises, and looked at the torch again. The noises seemed to be coming from a smaller cave passage next to the torch. Seemed like there was only one way we could go, so I pointed at it. Ri nodded.
We walked through the passage. I could tell the noises were human speech, and slowed down. Another light source cast silhouette figures on the cave wall further ahead at the other end of the passage. As I got closer, I made out three people gathered around the light source; a fire. Ri and I stuck to the shadows of the passage, and peeked over a large boulder at the people. All three were completely nude, making a meal of some sort on the spit over the fire. Beside them, red stains, and a severed head blankly staring with a gaping mouth, as if its expression had frozen in the moment of death.
I gasped, loud enough that one of them to turn their head. Ducked as fast as I could, had he caught sight of me? His feet smacked against the ground, I picked up the closest rock I could find. It wasn't sharp but it had to do for now. Handed another rock to Ri, although he did not quite seem to understand why. The nude man's shadow grew larger on the cave wall, he was definitely headed in our direction. His feet appeared next to the boulder, and without thinking twice, I struck. A nice smack right in the temple of his head knocked him out cold. It was, however, loud enough to alert the other nudes.
I grabbed Ri's wrist and brought him with me out in the light. Two against two, an even fight. Except they were both holding rocks a lot sharper than our.
“Fresh meat,” one of the two smiled.
“Not much meat on the little girl, she'd more fun alive, let's tie her up next to bone meal,” the other nude said. We slowly circled each other with our rocks drawn.
“Bone meal?” I asked.
“A fellow Unionsvillager with no muscles. We're saving him for desperate times. You see, down here you either starve, or get by. We choose to get by.” They attacked.
Violently swinging their sharp rocks from side to side, all I could do was dodge. Ri let out a roar and charged towards the nude attacking him, tackling him to the ground. The nude responded by stabbing Ri in the back. Ri screamed in pain, before using his own rock to hit the nude. In between the eyes, breaking his nose bridge. The other nude sliced at me but missed, I saw my opportunity. Threw my rock at the back of his head, he stumbled but was still conscious. I quickly picked my rock back up and hopped on the nude’s back. Wrapped my arm around his neck while bashing the rock as many times as I could. Had to go for quantity over quality, he fell backwards. I landed and got all his weight on top of me, but that didn’t stop me from keeping on squeezing his neck. His face turned blue, and my rock red.
Eventually he stopped moving, I let go, then pushed him off of me. Ri’s opponent had lost half his face, but Ri kept on bashing. I tapped on his shoulder, which made him jump. He calmed down when he saw me. Trying to turn his body he grimaced and pointed at the rock stuck in his back.
“Leave it in,” I told him. He shook his head.
I could see how much it pained him, and had an idea. Walked over to the fireplace, grabbed one of the burning sticks, spun my finger signaling him to turn around, then tore his shirt around the wound. I pulled the rock out, and pressed the burning stick against the wound, causing Ri to scream once again. The screams were ten times worse than that of Connor’s companion who had his leg bitten off by Nessie, but the wound was now sealed shut. Ri didn’t have to suffer the same fate as Mao.
“Let’s go,” I said.
At the other end of the cave, tied up and hidden in darkness, we found bone meal; the man with no muscles from ShaDing. He hadn’t made a sound throughout the whole ordeal. I quickly untied him, then looked around for another passage.
“So this is ‘another job,’ huh?” I said.
“Unionsville relies on maximum efficiency, I didn’t perform well enough.. Just leave me!” he replied. Not only were these people ants, they were sheep too.
“Don’t say that, there’s more to life than work.”
“Hard work makes our society function, it is what puts food on the table. My poor work could be a great liability, that is why they got rid of me.”
“Factory work might not be your thing, have you tried farming? Fishing?”
“Our roles are assigned on our tenth birthday, and if we cannot complete them well, we aren’t good enough to keep around.”
That damn queen, I thought and kicked a rock. Stubbed my toe, the rock didn’t budge. I hunched down to inspect it, then tried twisting it out of the ground. It twisted, just not the way I thought it would. This was no ordinary rock.
The ground shook, and the cave wall opened. I looked inside, this passage was different from the other one. A torch lit path slanting upwards, lined with skulls and bones on either side. Lots of them. I hesitated, Ri was the first to step in. Upwards was the right direction, so the walk began.
The skulls and bones never ended, I suppose nobody in Unionsville died of natural causes, just worked themselves to death. We reached a plateau, a T-junction with two paths almost identical to the one we had just come from slanting down to our right and in front. A ladder leaned against the bones to our right, and led up to a hatch. Rays of light streamed through the plank springs. We climbed.
