Chapter 24 – Forgotten Passages

            The four slid out from the chute one at a time, landing in a squared concrete tunnel. There was a small trail of water running along the middle of the floor, and the walls were covered with years of thick, unkempt spiderwebs. As Alos dropped to his feet down below in a squat, he raised his head and shuddered at the thick lining of mossy webs. There was so much webbing that the grayish concrete only stood out in dime sized circles every few feet. Zephay and Wander took to the right side of the tunnel, stepping across the stream walking side by side. Alos however, stepped in away from the walls as quickly as he could, standing with Levitas between him and the left wall.

            “The spiders aren’t going to jump at you.” Zephay said, pointing with his thumb at the webs beside him.

            “I’m not so sure; these webs are thick, REALLY thick. The spiders that spun these are going to be pretty big.” Levitas said, lifting his hand up and turning the bulbs on the side of his visor to glow once again.

            Zephay immediately pulled away from the wall beside him in horror.

            “Someone should take their own advice.” Wander smirked, catching Zephay with his elbow.

            “Yeah, yeah. Let’s see how you like spiders crawling all over your neck.” Zephay replied, covering his neck with folded hands.     

            They walked down the straight path following the stream, Levitas’ visor illuminating the way for them. The stream they had been following ran towards them, and the more they walked, the more he noticed the incline. Alos wasn’t sure how that made sense if they were trying to go down into this facility. Had they really dropped that far down the chute? Or maybe this facility was right under surface level, before the bunkered undercity began? Alos shook his head; the only thing he knew for sure was that the tunnel he was in was a living nightmare.

            Reaching up, Alos pulled on his hood and turned over to Zephay. “You should have seen the spiders from earlier. They had to have been over nine feet tall.”

            “What the hell? There’s no way.” Zephay said, his green eyes curling up into a squinting grimace.

            “Aye, the kid speaks the truth.” Levitas said. “Magna Arachnis is a race of spider bred specifically by the Magnam’s for farming silk, and to ride as mounts.”

            “After seeing how ridiculously huge everything around those Magnams were, I believe it.” Wander said, interlocking the fingers of his hands and placing them over his head.

            “What happens when they get mad and try to bite you? I can’t even imagine…” Zephay said his face curling even further up his eyes looking through the concrete and at the mental image of a giant spider biting him.

            “That’s what muzzles are for.” Levitas laughed.

            The tunnel seemed to keep going and going, the stream sloping up then down a few times, but never really stopping its flow, while the webs along the wall became progressively thinner. Eventually the webs along the sides became so scattered that they became difficult to spot. As they continued, in place of the previous webs, wet spots dripped from the corners of the tunnel, patches of moss and mold growing out and around them. While none of this was normal for Alos, one thing stood out as particularly strange; as they went further in, the patches of fungus covered moss would be missing chunks from the center, usually carved out in a very specific shape. They looked like something had come along and taken bites out of the different clumps.

            “He didn’t mention how far down this went, did he?” Wander asked, a weariness dragging out of his voice.

            “It can’t be more than a few miles at most.” Levitas said, pointing down into the darkness in front of them. “He would’ve said so otherwise.”

            “I hope so,” Alos began, folding his arms in front of him as he walked, to try and keep warm. “This place creeps me out.”

            “I just don’t want to walk all night.” Wander said, breathing out a deep sigh of boredom. “If I knew we were going to be doing this I would’ve brought my levboard.”

            Then before them, down at the edge of the light, the passage ended, opening up into a larger room. As they drew closer they saw inside that it matched the description given by Barly earlier. Inside was a large convergent concrete room, on each side an opening to another passageway. The stream collected at the center of the room with three other individual streams flowing down from out of the other passages. Levitas’ light illuminated the entirety of the room and the beginnings of the other passages beside them. The way directly across from them had a stack of stairs inside, and looking up, Alos also saw a small balcony protruding out from the wall.

            “That looks like the one.” Levitas said, motioning upwards with his head at the balcony. “From this point let’s try and keep our voices down, I don’t know if there’s any security in here.”

            The other three nodded in agreement and then followed Levitas in stepping across the streams and into the room with the stairs. The flight of stairs went up and broke into a second flight turning back in, at the center of both flights the stream continued along in its own smoothed out rut. At the top of the stairs, was a cutout leading over to the balcony they had just seen and behind them a continuation of the tunnel. They all turned into the tunnel and continued to follow it inwards against the flow of the stream

            The tunnel extended onwards, the never ending darkness like an eternally thick blanket of dread. Alos was beginning to feel somewhat claustrophobic. On every side of him were concrete walls, imprisoning his perception within their containment. Spider webs once again began to litter the walls, but this time were much sparser and more intentionally placed. One of the patches of web Alos saw consisted of a ball of thick webs rolled up and surrounded by inch thick silvery cordage.

            Chills ran down his spine, tickling the nerves into goose flesh all the way down his back, through his shoulders, and down his arms. Something wasn’t right about this place; Alos could feel it in his very bones. There was a strong intuitive impulse running through him telling him to turn around and go back. Hot waves of anxiety washed over him, as if a sign to warn him. His eyes were jumping around the tunnel in a paranoid alertness as they continued on through it. Then, at the edge of light, he could see the tunnel break into another room.

            “Thank Menelich we are finally here.” Alos said, accidentally raising his voice in the exhalation of his fear.

            “Shhh, it might be guarded.” Levitas muttered under his breath, raising his right pointer finger to his mouth.

            As the four approached the new room, Levitas crossed over in front of Zephay and Wander, putting his back against the wall as close he could without actually touching. The other three were hesitant, but followed suit and did the same. Levitas peeked his head around the corner and then turned back towards the others.

            “I’m not picking anything up, it just looks like another concrete room.” Levitas said, nodding and then leading the others into the new room.

Suddenly Levitas stopped and looked up.

            Up in the corner of the square concrete room, illuminated in the iridescent glow of Levitas’ visor light, was a bear sized bi-thorax spider spinning its web around an equally over-sized rat. The beast snapped its head around at the group, hissing through two massive fangs like scythes. Immediately, it released its web from the rat and dropped down to ground level facing them.

            Wander’s hand shot back into his pack and pulled out his revolver, pulling the hammer back and switching the safety off with light speed.

            “NO! Hold your fire.” Levitas shouted in a muted volume.

            Wander looked down at the gun, then up at the oncoming spider, and then down at his revolver once more. With a flick of his wrist, Wander placed the hammer of the gun back and flipped the safety back on, pursing his lips as he placed his back into his pack. Not knowing what else to grab, Wander reached down and pulled out the venomstick Xri had given him, expanding it outwards.

            Both Zephay and Alos followed suit, reaching down and pulling out their venomsticks with reactive instinct. Alos tossed his to his left hand, and then focused on his new mechanical right hand until the finger tip on his pointer finger folded back revealing a high powered laser.

            Levitas jumped forward at the spider twisting his hands inwards until the bone spurs protruded from his forearms. With a full sprinting force, he jumped at the spider grabbing it by the back, and then hooked into it with his extended bone spurs. The spider shrieked, bucking around trying to throw Levitas off as he wrestled back, guiding it around the room, as he tried to avoid being bit.

            Alos raised his hand up pointing his opened finger at the spider. His eyes dilated as a red laser flashed from his finger and onto the side of the massive arachnid. The spider’s flesh instantly began to sizzle like bacon in a scorching pan, smoke pouring out with each prolonged second Alos held it there. A second shriek cut through the air as the spider jumped out of the beam, and turned to face Alos. The frenzied face of all eight of the spider’s eyes staring him down left his heart skipping beats.

            The arachnid shot out at Alos, trying to catch him in the pinning grasp of one of its eight over-sized legs. Alos’ mind dropped into reactive reflex, speeding his perception up until the flow of time seemed to move at only a fraction of its normal pace. Throwing himself to the side, Alos dove to the ground, and rolled to his feet, dodging out of the way from the spider’s attack.

            Taking advantage of the spider having its backside turned to him, Wander leapt forward, shoving the tip of his venomstick into the left spinneret of the spider. The spider screamed, sweeping around and batting Wander across the room with one of its legs, throwing him slamming into the wall.

            Zephay then seized the opportunity, jumping in and shoving his venomstick up the other spinneret of the spider. With a blood curdling squeal, the beast bucked Levitas off its back and over into the wall just beside Wander. Jolting its body around with a menacing precision, the spider turned towards Zephay. Toxins dripped from the fangs of the spider, its eyes convulsing with pure blind rage. Then with an inability to do anything else, the spider rushed Zephay.

            Alos could see Zephay’s pupils dilate from across the room, until they took up the entirety of his green irises. Frozen in terror, Zephay threw up his hands, covering up in an attempt to hold off what he knew he couldn’t.

            Everything was slow expansion, each individual frame of movement blending into the next.

            As if God himself reached down to lend a hand, the spider was suddenly squished into a ball before Zephay, and catapulted into the wall just beside Levitas. The dead spider was crumpled into a pile of fragmented pieces of exoskeleton and flesh. Blue blood pooled up around the corpse glowing in the iridescent light of Levitas’ visor.

            “…what just happened?” Wander asked in bewilderment.

            “…I....I have no clue.” Alos said, turning wide eyed with amazement over to Wander.

            Zephay stood speechless, his hands still extended out before him. Twisting his palms up towards him, he looked down at his hands examining them, and then peered over at the clumped corpse of the spider.

            “Maybe it got caught by its own web…?” Zephay said, trying to make sense of the situation, Alos realizing he sounded unconvinced even to himself.

            Levitas stood to his feet and shook his head, and retracted his protrusions back into his arms.

            “I doubt that’s what that was. This’ll be somethin’ to tell Xri and Zeith later, until then we need to keep movin’.”

            Wander snickered as he got up and cracked his neck. “So much for being quiet.” He walked over to the corpse of the spider, looking down to retrieve his venomstick, but after a quick inspection concluded it wasn’t worth the cost of shoving his hand up the bloody spinneret.

            “I guess those things are a lost cause.” Wander said, turning back behind Levitas.

            “I don’t know what kind of poison was dripping from that thing’s mouth, but it’s probably not worth finding out.” Zephay added, agreeing with Wander’s notion.          

            “Let’s go, I don’t know how much further up it is.” Levitas grunted at the others, waving for the other to follow.

            They gathered back together and followed Levitas through the room to the other side. There was still an air of chaos about the room, keeping everyone alert and on edge. The soft sounds of running water filled the concrete rooms with echoes of white noise and left Alos’ mind wild with paranoia. Every few feet, he would throw his head back and look over his shoulder just to make sure that no more of those… THINGS were following them.

            The stream of water led past the spider’s lair and into another long stretch of darkness shrouded tunnel. The water seemed to be beginning to move faster as they made their way through, and eventually Alos realized they were walking upwards on an incline. They passed by a small offshoot, barely large enough to crawl through, when a swarm of half foot cockroaches flooded out from within. Alos darted away from the swarm in disgust, Zephay and Wander doing the same once they noticed it. More and more poured out from within, until the wall surrounding the small off shoot was black with the reflective bodies of six inch long roaches.

            “Oh god that’s making my stomach crawl.” Zephay said as he scurried past the roaches.

            “A few roaches ain’t gonna hurt you. Looks like there’s an opening up ahead.” Levitas said, pointing ahead.

            Levitas was right, the tunnel definitely opened up into another room, but from what Alos could tell, the room looked illuminated from the bottom up. As they drew closer the stream that they had been following reached its starting point; a small manhole cutout in the tunnel above with water pouring down. They made their way around it, lining up into single file to avoid getting wet, and made their way past to the illuminated room. As Levitas stepped through into the lit up room, he stopped nearly causing the others to collide into him from behind.

            “What’s the hold up pops?” Wander asked stepping out of line and beside Levitas.

            Levitas stood motionless, his head tilted downwards. “This could be a problem.”

            Alos peered around Levitas only to be struck by both shock and amazement. The floor inside the next room of the tunnel was fragmented, creating a giant gaping hole from one side of the room to the other. Shining in from below the missing section of concrete floor, was the green luminescent light from the underground city below. Below the gap was a drop of hundreds, if not thousands of feet straight down. A boulder of anxiety dropped into Alos’ stomach at the realization of how high up they were

            “It’s not that bad, just don’t fall.” Wander smiled, as he shrugged his shoulders. “Unless you want to end up as a blood splat on the floor of course, then by all means, be my guest.

            “That gap looks only about fifteen feet long, at least Wander and I should be able to jump across.” Zephay said, to Levitas.

            “I’m not worried about us, I’m worried about him.” Levitas stretched his hand out and placed it on Alos shoulder.

            “I’m worried for me too.” Alos murmured, with pouting eyes.

            “Alright, we’ll jump across,” Levitas started, pointing to himself, Zephay and Wander, “and then we’ll throw a rope over for you.”

            “Actually hold up, how long is the cord on my hand?” Alos asked, raising his right hand. He disconnected it and slowly causing the cord to let out until his hand was flat on the floor.

            “Long enough, it looks like.” Levitas said. “Toss it over to me on the other side and I’ll hold it so you can pull your way across.”

            Alos wasn’t thrilled about the idea of swinging over a drop that high, especially using his new hand that he wasn’t completely comfortable with, but there wasn’t much of a choice, and he knew it. The other three were going to get across, and he needed to go with them, even if it meant doing one of the most terrifying feats he could imagine. With a deep, stomach pushing breath, Alos closed his eyes, trying to step outside of his fear, even if only for a moment.

            Zephay and Wander stepped back several feet and then with running starts, ran over to the gap and easily cleared the distance with a jump. Levitas came up behind them and did the same; first with a running start and then leaping through the air over the gap. Once they were on the other side, Levitas motioned for Alos to throw his hand over.

            “Throw it over kid, we’re wasting time.” Levitas said, the roughness in his voice echoing through the concrete room and then exiting through the gap in the floor.

            A cold sweat broke over Alos’ body as he began to swing his hand over his head. Each icy drop was like a prickly reminder of just how far down he would fall, IF something went wrong. With an audible gulp, Alos released his hand, flinging it over the gap and right into Levitas’ hands, the cord stretching out and then sagging down slightly over the abyss.

            “Don’t jump for it kid, you’ll just swing all over the place when you miss.” Levitas said to Alos, as he clenched his hand and cord between his hands. It was still strange to Alos that he could feel the sensation of Levitas squeezing his hand from fifteen feet away.

            “Just drop down over the side and swing over. I’ll pull you up from there.” Levitas added.

            Nodding Alos responded in a low voice, “Alright.”

            A sudden beam of confidence overtook him, as his heart rate drumming in his chest, the blood flowing into his now protruding veins. Alos knew this is what he had to do. He knew that he had no other choice, and most of all he wanted to get it over with.

            Alos walked over to the edge of concrete floor, looked up away from the fall, and then dropped down. Like a massive pendulum, the cord connecting to the inside of Alos arm became taught and he swung down under where Levitas was holding his hand. With a partial return of energy, his body swung back up slightly, and then back down, until finally his motion stopped as he hung below the section of floor where Levitas stood. Without immediately noticing it, Alos began to retract his hand, pulling himself upwards as Levitas simultaneously pulled him up.

            As he reached the edge, he frantically grabbed the cliff and scurried up the side. Deep gulping, exasperated breaths of victory pushed out, as his hand fully retracted and locked back into place. Alos sat on the floor, blank faced, staring, breathing, just thankful to be alive. A slow smile crept across his face.

            “That was… ridiculous.” Alos laughed, pushing himself to his feet.

            “Good work kid. Your never cease to surprise me.” Levitas said patting Alos on the back as he stood.

            “Yeah for a second there I thought you were going to just turn around and walk back.” Zephay smirked, as he patted Alos on the back.

            “Watching him flail around never gets old, that’s for sure.” Wander added, shaking his head.

            They all turned over to the continuing tunnel which extended inwards another thirty feet or so and then stopped. At the end of the tunnel was an old wooden door hinged to the wall, with rusted metal bearings. An indented handle sat opposite of the hinges, also corroded from years of collected rust.

            Levitas paused halfway down the tunnel, pointing at the door.

            “That looks like our way in boys.”