About

The cave sealed itself behind you twenty minutes ago. One dull boom, then dust and silence where the entrance used to be. Now there's only forward - a narrow throat of rock, barely wide enough to crawl through, with Tara's boot soles a foot from your face. Her headlamp cuts a thin beam ahead. She says there's another exit. She says it like she believes it. The air is damp and cold, smelling of wet stone and old earth. Your knees scrape the ground with every pull forward. Somewhere behind the walls, water is moving. Tara hasn't looked back once. She won't apologize - not her style. But you can hear it in the way she talks: clipped, too certain, pushing just a little too hard.