Unless… it was just me.
I was a demigod after all, or so I’d been told—
I snapped out of my thoughts as a rumbling sensation trembled the ground beneath me, vibrating through my Earth magic. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I heard a crack above us. Ez groaned in the way he always did when he was about to swing his ax. One more blow, and this tunnel was done for.
“Ez, no!” I shouted, but it was too late.
His ax clanged against the side of the tunnel, and the structural integrity faltered. I reacted without thinking about it. A blast of Air shot out of my hands, sending the two of us flying apart from each other. The deafening sound of rock falling over rock filled the tunnel as I flew backward, and I felt the air in the tunnel shift, then become blocked.
I landed flat on my back. Dirt rained down on my face and into my eyes, burning them. I inhaled a deep breath and coughed.
“Charlie! Charlie!”
Several voices called my name, but they sounded muffled and far off.
“Fuck, he’s dead!”
I finally caught my breath and shouted, “I’m fine! Ez, you all right?”
“We’re okay!” he called back.
My shoulders sagged in relief. One split-second had made all the difference.
“Fuck, that was close!” Chancey cried. “Can you get through?”
I got to my feet, but my knees shook. I’d used up most of my energy in the blast of Air that had shot Ez back from the cave-in. The noxite in the mines drew everything else out of me.
I stumbled forward, feeling out in front of me. My hands landed on sharp rocks, most of them bigger than my head. Panic set in as I felt upward, moving higher and higher until I couldn’t reach any further. My head spun as I inhaled dust. I tried to work my magic to find holes in the rock, but my powers were useless.
So much for being a demigod. There was no way in hell I was moving this rock with all the noxite inside of it.
“I can’t find a way through,” I called through the barrier. “Do you see anything?”
“We don’t see nothing!”
I listened carefully to Chancey’s reply, in case the sound came through any spaces large enough to crawl through, but it was completely muffled.
I was trapped.
I tried to think fast for a solution, but without my magic, I felt disoriented. “Any chance we can move the rock?”
“There’s so much,” Ez said. “It could take days!”
“Then you best get started,” a guard growled at them.
I heard rocks tumbling, and Ez swore. He launched into a coughing fit, and my guts sank. He’d already worked too hard today. The dust billowing through the cave surely wasn’t helping his condition. I knew the guards would push him beyond his limits.
“Guys, no!” I insisted. “It’s not safe. This whole thing could come down on you. By the time you get through, I could’ve starved to death.”
“No,” Chancey argued. “We’re going to get you out of there.”
“I’ll find another way out. This tunnel has to go somewhere.”
“You don’t know what’s down there!” Ez protested. “You can’t navigate unknown tunnels on your own!”
“Yes, I can. I’m blind. I navigate in the dark all the time. Take it easy, Ez. I’ll get out.”
I wasn’t going to let him work himself to death for me, so I turned and started down the tunnel. The sound of Chancey’s protests followed me, but they were so muffled that they faded quickly.
