Adelia - The Broken Chain pt. 1

Another day in the cavern, I thought as I reclined in my chair.  I looked out over the lake scanning the surface out beyond Kerath’s Arch.  I was idly thumbing through my journals, scrutinizing past entries, when my oh-so-normal day was quickly interrupted.

"Adelia! Adelia!" I peered out from the shadows of the tent where I had been lounging and I saw Pantaleon dashing across the plaza.  I would never forget his face.  "Adelia! You're back! Where have you been?!"  Laughing, I put out my arms to stop him from crashing into me.  I waited until he was catching his breath so I could manage to get a word in.

"I was a little... delayed."

"I heard you were in a cave in!"  There was no hiding the frown on my face.  Obviously there was no fooling Pantaleon, his eyes were already looking at my leg which was still bandaged up.

"I suppose there's no keeping secrets in this city." I sighed, sitting back down.

"What happened, Adelia?" Pantaleon asked in a low, shocked whisper.  I dipped my head, cringing; trying to remember.  Thinking about the accident made my leg throb.  I decided I would share my journal entry of the event with him.

All-consuming darkness was all I was able to feel to the point of suffocation.  My wits came back to me.  A prison.  I was in a rocky prison.  I felt as though I was barring the door to my soul while the reaper himself was trying to take me down that path to which there was no return.  The fear and anxiety were more chilling than the harshest winter, making every hair on my body rigid and on edge

The faint light of the lake algae could not make its way down the tunnel to where my team and I had been trapped.  I was surrounded by a prism of stones - huge boulders that were only inches away from crushing my body.  The belly of the beast.  My body trembled as those words floated across my mind.  The jagged edges surrounding me resembled the mouth of some ravenous beast. 

I heard mournful voices calling out for those lost and separated by the cave in.  No prayer on this planet is strong enough to wipe that sound from my memory.  I wanted to rip my heart out, hoping and praying to God that it would end soon.  My name was the next called among us who had fallen prey to the shaky ramparts of the tunnel, and the others that were taken by the cave in, no answer was returned.  I was terribly afraid of the dark but I still had a grasp on my sanity.  I was able to manage to laugh at myself: someone afraid of dark and enclosed spaces coming down into a cave.  I felt a hot, sticky thread weave down the side of my face.  I reached up and touched my forehead.  Straining my eyes was just enough to make out what it was and the in shock of the amount of blood on my fingers I fell into unconsciousness.

I'm not sure how much time passed but when I woke all had an eerie calm.  No wailing; no sound of rocks collapsing; no names were being called.  I managed to arch my neck enough to get my bearings.  I tried to twist my body around and without realizing it, my leg brushed up against the boulder it was pinned under.  My leg was lifeless. In that moment there were no words in human or in D'ni that could have described the pain that shot through my body.  My lips parted in a voiceless scream as I collapsed, my leg still helplessly pinned.  I tried to keep my eyes open; the tears rimming the corners of my eyes were mixing with the heavy dust that saturated the air.  Hopelessness started to take me.  Was this the end for me?  Was the rest of my team dead?  Did they forget about me?  Will they come back for me?