I frowned. "That's Serena!"
Whether she'd encountered the creature or the bugs, I hesitated only a moment before running toward the sound.
We had to find Professor Marshall — he was the only one who knew the truth about this place.
If my hunch was right, he'd been here before.
At the fork in the tunnel, he'd said, "That's not right" — meaning he'd been to that level before!
There should have been only one opening then. Who made the second one, I couldn't afford to wonder about now.
I needed to confront Professor Marshall. Why had he dragged us to this godforsaken place?
Marcus hadn't spoken in a while. I glanced back, worried.
He forced a strained smile. "Let's just shake these things off. I'm beat."
I nodded and kept running toward Serena's scream.
After another twenty minutes of running, the scratching sounds gradually faded.
I looked back. In the darkness, the black shadow was retreating, as though it had given up on us.
I exhaled. "I'm so... so tired."
After all that running with a pack on my back, my throat tasted like rust and felt raw and parched.
Marcus slumped silently to the ground. I glanced over at him.
In the dim light, his face was deathly pale, dark circles under his eyes.
He pulled off his hat with trembling hands, and my whole body went rigid.
Clustered along the back of his neck were round, red swellings — like tumors — grotesque and revolting.
The red bulbs jiggled with his movement, filled with sloshing liquid.
They were insects. Blood-engorged insects.
So bloated that their abdomens had turned translucent, revealing the crimson inside.
Marcus had been running faster than me — because he'd been shielding me from the swarm the entire time.
My eyes burned. I fumbled for my windproof lighter and rushed over, searing the bugs off his skin.
Each insect recoiled and dropped, bellies bursting on the ground, spattering pools of dark red blood.
My tears fell, freezing into tiny icicles before they hit the ground. The frozen tear tracks on my face stung with cold.
Marcus turned his head, his ashen face managing a smile.
"What's with the waterworks? I've donated more blood than this at the blood bank. It's nothing."
"Just treat me to some pork liver when we get back and I'll be fine."
I didn't say a word. Just sniffled.
Once every bug had dropped off, I ran my hands over his back to check for stragglers.
Marcus's hands had always been furnace-hot, like a little space heater.
But now they were ice. Colder than mine.
Marcus leaned against the ice wall and laughed. "You women are tough. Bleed for a week every month and still find the energy to throw tantrums."
I gave him a withering look, but my lips twitched upward despite myself.
I knew he was referring to the time I'd lost my temper over a lab incident.
He'd been the one who fumbled and ruined the sample, but he insisted my rage was PMS.
We sat side by side on the ice, bone-deep cold creeping up our spines.
Serena's cries had gone silent. We'd also gotten completely turned around in the chaos.
Below us, there were monsters, corpses, blood-sucking insects.
But no way out.
It seemed we were truly going to die here.
I was freezing, and drowsy. I turned to Marcus. "Hey, if we die here and they dig us up ten thousand years from now, do you think they could resurrect us?"
"We'd have to hold each other."
I raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Marcus grinned. "If we're found embracing, future archaeologists might invent an epic romance for us. Maybe even make a movie."
My lips curved despite myself, but my eyelids were impossibly heavy.
After a whole day of running, freezing, and fear, I simply couldn't stay awake.
Suddenly, the back of my head was smacked so hard I nearly faceplanted!
I glared up. Marcus was staring at me, hand still raised.
"Don't fall asleep!" He pushed himself up, panting. "Get up, keep walking. I haven't even found a girlfriend yet. I can't die here!"
I was so exhausted I just rolled my eyes without responding.
Marcus grabbed my hand, serious. "If I die here, my family line ends. No one to inherit the throne. Come on, maybe if we push a little further we'll find the exit!"
"Don't you want a hot shower?"
Did I? More than anything.
The thought of hot water made me shiver with desperate longing.
I gritted my teeth and let him pull me to my feet.
Standing again, the cold and fatigue wrapped around me like a thousand-pound weight, pressing me down, urging me to just sit and rest.
I shook my head furiously, following Marcus step by step into the dark.
His hand was cold, but it felt like the only source of warmth in this frozen wasteland.
We traced the ice walls forward. Mercifully, this section had none of the pitted holes that heralded creatures — meaning nothing would crawl out and drag us off to join Kevin.
Unfortunately, the tunnel ended at a fork. Two paths diverged in opposite directions.
"Which way?" Marcus turned to ask me.
I had crippling decision paralysis. Making a binary choice was harder than writing an eight-thousand-word paper from scratch.
After agonizing, I held out my hand. "Rock-paper-scissors. You win, we go left. I win, we go right."
"Deal."
Marcus put his hand behind his back. "Rock, paper, scissors—"
I looked at my two extended fingers, then at Marcus's open palm, and couldn't help but laugh.
"I win. We go right."
Marcus chuckled. "Figures. I've never beaten you at rock-paper-scissors."
The right-hand tunnel curved sharply right at the entrance.
I gave a triumphant "hmph," squeezed past him, and took the lead.
The corner was tight. Marcus struggled, wedging himself through with difficulty.
I walked ahead, laughing. "Can you even fit? Look at you, built like a polar bear—"
My smile froze.
Absolute terror seized my brain.
Around the corner, a sickly-pale face was smiling at me.