Young Writers Society

Word count is somewhere about 1500 I think. It's really short. 

Alice

Only after ten minutes long crawl through the passage she had noticed their ‘Insider’ is actually a boy, not older than fourteen. And he was crawling last, right behind me… looking at… who knows what… aaaaah!

She just wasn’t able to take her eyes off her two wounded partners. She was either going crazy, or Daston’s breathing rate increased rapidly, and he was slower too. Dan didn’t seem way too affected by his own wound, except for few moans.

Their crawl was finally finished when they reached a small room where they were able to stand. There, boy turned on a lamp and they were finally able to see the strong light again. And not being pointed directly into our eyes.

“We have to rest here” boy said. “We have a long climb before us now, and a long walk right after, too.”

“No”, Dan answered. “We have to climb our way now. No stops.”

“But, it’s dangerous up there, and you are all wounded and tired!”

“Kid, whose orders do we follow?”

“Mr. Dan’s, Sir.”

“And my name is?”

“Mr… Dan. Sir.”

“Right. Daston, move in.”

“One second, Dan. Something is pinching my knees…” He stood up and shook his pants; something clanged on the floor. It was three bullets.

“When we are safe, Alice” Daston interrupted her question. She rolled her eyes and seemingly ignored him.

The boy pointed his lamp to the ceiling, revealing long, black whole. Daston jump without a question, caught onto the ladder and pulled himself in. After Dan did the same, with a helpful push from Alice, it seemed as if boy was waiting for something.

“Oh, no” Alice laughed. “This time, I go last.”

The boy shyly smiled and shrugged, and jumped to barely catch the ladder. He was rather tall for the fourteen years he had. Alice finally followed and then, the long, painful climb begun.

She could not discern the time passed, but she would be ready to bet they spent more than an hour climbing without a stop. How high could have they gone? Few hundred meters maybe, or even more.

Finally, the boy’s lamp shone upon the opening. Dan had barely pulled himself out, now crying in pain. Even Alice’s arms hurt a bit. This was a long climb indeed.

She knew where they were supposed to go, but what was before her right now exceeded all of her expectations and imaginations.

“Welcome to the suspension room 36/2”, the boy announced with a smile. His voice echoed through what they were in.

The light of the boy’s lamp lit through the whole place. It was now slightly lighter than complete darkness, this giant square cave made of concrete. There was a large numbers of pillars supporting its roof, more than hundred meters high, and the pillar-shades spread all around them.

“So this is what the fabled suspension rooms look like”, Dan announced, slightly impressed.

“Hey, you two”, Daston suddenly spoke. “I think you will need to carry me. I can’t go on any longer.”

What? The wounded old man instantly crashed his face to the ground. The boy was the first to jump to his help. Alice stood there for a bit longer, frozen in fear, but she joined him too.

“How heavy can an old man be!” the boy complained. Alice was only now able to actually take a good look at him. He was rather muscular, which she didn’t really notice at the first glance. She thought he was tall and skinny, but his arms tensed under the Daston’s rather surprising weight, and revealed muscles. He had a longish hair, reaching a little bit over his ears, and darks eyes.

“Let’s move” Dan stood there, observing them. He didn’t even make a step to help Daston. He was wounded himself, but that shouldn’t make him completely ignorant.

The boy turned his head around, taking a quick glance at one of the pillars. “Okay, we are at the 36/2/102. We have a long way to walk. This way”, he started moving to his left. “Mr. Dan?” he added. When Dan had noticed him, which actually did take few moments, he finished what he wanted to say:”Look around us carefully. There are scary things out there, y’ know?”

Dan completely ignored him.

He is such an asshole!

They carried Daston past dozens of concrete pillars. Since everything was grey, she had almost failed to notice the box’s wall was right in front of them. They took a turn right, and, seven large pillars later, they were at the steel door.

It was Dan who opened it, turning the large knob at its center, using only one hand. He somehow looked… strong, while doing it. She had always perceived him as a weakling of the group, the brain. He was nothing like it. He had barely moaned a few times after getting shot. His posture has actually changed, now that Shael wasn’t around them anymore. He didn’t look like his sweet puppy, he was rather a mountain bear.

Was it because of Shael’s immense presence that she had overlooked Dan’s abilities?

There were also small signs printed to the both sides of the door, into the wall; the left one was “36/2” and the right one was “35/2”. Well, it’s not like she didn’t understand the suspension numbering the first time she had heard it.

The steel door led them through a ten meters tunnel separating the suspension rooms. They had finally entered the “35/2”, and it was no different than the previous one.

Number 2 was there to tell the level of the suspensions; there were actually three levels, build vertically, above each other, with countless rooms in each of them.

“My name is Leiph”, the boy finally whispered, so that his words wouldn’t echo.

“I’m Alice”, she tried to sound friendly. “We are carrying Daston, and, well, you know Dan.”

“Oh, I know you all, don’t worry!”

“What are these built for, anyway?” Alice asked him. It seemed like they really had a long, long way to walk and talk would make their time pass faster.

“I’m not really sure. There is a story for kids up here though. Wanna hear it?”

“Go on, Leiph”, she told his name only to be able to remember it.

“All right. I won’t be too detailed though, you… you’re not kid.” Alice smiled him, which made him turn his head away, but he kept on talking. “So, according to the story, there once lived a really evil king here in the fortress. I mean, he was really bad, he was torturing his people and looked upon them as nothing more than servants. Finally, a young hero arose and gathered the army of mighty phoenixes; for ten days and ten nights they flew around this mountain and spit fire and threw giant rocks on it. It made the cave inside crumble and destroy the evil king’s castle.

Later on, the young hero became king, but the tale said he didn’t trust the phoenixes anymore, so he had the suspensions built. It is said that whatever happens to the outside won’t ever be felt inside the mountain anymore.”

“That is a fun story. But phoenixes? It is too much to be true”, she joked with him.

“Yeah. It is just a kid story, after all.”

But these suspensions had to be built because of something.

“Except for that it’s pretty much true”, Dan suddenly said.

“What are you talking about?” Alice was confused.

“I said that it is very probable that, at one point in history, there was a man who gathered some kind of aerial army and blasted this fortress from afar.”

“You mean, like Phoenixes?” Leiph’s eyes gleamed.

“Not really. The truth is, it isn’t really that hard to construct something that can fly. It’s just that The State doesn’t really want it. Nearly two hundred years ago, an engineer named Javerin Kristoph created a vessel flying with the help of hydrogen. But aerial traffic means world exploration, and that’s what The State was the most conservative about during its whole existence.”

“How do you even know that? I read many books, even the ones The State thought they got rid of, and I know nothing about it.”

“Believe me, this data is much more exclusive than that.”

“You are really cool Dan, when you’re not an asshole”, Leiph suddenly said, and it made Alice giggle. Dan just ignored them and focused on his notebook, but, for a moment, he did seem hurt by it.

They walked two more rooms in a straight line, reaching 32/2, but then they took a turn right and ended up in a 14/2 room. They even had to climb a ladder to reach it, which was really hard with passed out Daston. At least it meant they were getting higher into the mountain. Finally, at 13/2, Leiph led them to a hidden passage where the circular stairs led them up; opening another hidden door, they found themselves in 102/1 suspension room.

This room was quite the different than the 2nd level. The pillars were three times as thick, and everything was reinforced with steel beams, placed around them and even along the walls of the room.

“We need to hurry. His condition is getting worse”, Dan finally said.

Leiph nodded and fastened his walk. It seemed like Daston’s weight under his shoulder was getting too much anyway, but he decided not to complain, who knows why.

They passed through this room rather quickly, and the next one they took a turn right.

Finally, after passing through the long, dark tunnel connecting two rooms, but Leiph finally stopped in place. The tunnels were also longer up here than they were on the level two.

He knocked in a weird pattern to the wall before them. A mechanism was heard from behind, sounding rather heavy and rusty, but the wall finally parted.

“Welcome, we are finally here”, Leiph smiled to her. “Granny can’t wait to meet you!”