Fic - The Irregularity of Death - Chapter Three - Caverns

[elfowlgirl]

For those that haven't picked up on it now, yes, this is a Mindcrack/Death Note fic. You don't have to have read/watched Death Note to enjoy it, though!

Chapter Three: Caverns

 

“This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected.”

The best way to describe Etho’s head in that moment would probably be “pounding harder than Pause playing Rockband on drums”.

He wasn’t sure what had awoken him - the cold, damp stone he felt distantly beneath his fingertips, the faint buzzing in his right ear, or the low groan of pain behind him.

He tried hard to think how he might’ve ended up wherever he was. The last thing the teen remembered was falling asleep in his bed after a long Friday… Pause, Beef and him had hung out together until almost midnight. He’d turned off his phone the instant he got home, ignored his homework (he had until Sunday to do it, anyhow, and it wasn’t much) before promptly drifting off to the sleep the second his head hit the pillow.

His eyelids were heavy, though he realized laying on the ground of some strange place such as this with his eyes shut would do nothing to help the situation.

Carefully, Etho blinked open his eyes. After a moment of adjusting he squinted through the wall of darkness around him in hopes of discerning his location. The only thing he could see was a small blue light coming from… somewhere a few feet away. He removed his sunglasses, too, and tucked them in his pocket, although that didn’t help either.

“Hello?”

The man - he assumed at first that the voice was male, its range was deep enough - called from the same direction as the light. His tone was bizarrely calm, supportively paternal, and almost shockingly familiar.

“Uh, hi?” Etho replied. “Coach Soares?”

“Etho? Etho Slab, from fifth period?” The quiet rustling of fabric came from his direction. “Why are - where are we?”

“I… have no idea.”

They didn’t have to wait long for answers before a relaxed murmur echoed into one ear, replacing the strange static noise. It was clearly altered and heavily artificial. “Welcome, gentlemen. Glad to see you are awake. You each might be familiar with this concept. Tonight, you are going to play a game.

“Meanwhile,” a loud bang sounded in parts unknown, “I will be serving as your gamemaster for the - I think the sun is rising right now, but who knows how long you’ll be down here? You are only the newest pair in a long series of trials I have been putting forth in an attempt to give those I find… less than worthy the chance to prove themselves. The rules will be introduced now and then the game can begin.

“First, if you disobey any of these rules in any manner, you will die. I know both your names and your faces… You cannot hide from me. Remember that.

“Do not remove this earpiece. Keep within the green lights on the floor,” - a stream of dimly glowing lime shot out across the ground - “at all times and do not stray from them unless your life depends on it. Speaking of which, keep a close eye out for monsters and traps and whatever else I might’ve hidden to keep you on your guard.

“Any questions?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a good one.” Soares hissed angrily. “Who are you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

The voice cut out and the darkness was filled with an eerie silence.

---

After a couple minutes fumbling around in the near-complete black, Soares managed to find a survival kit tucked away between two rough boulders. It contained a package of bandages, some fruit, a Swiss army knife, a compass, and, perhaps most worryingly, two classical revolvers.

With a slightly shaky hand, the Coach pulled one of the silver guns from the woven basket and checked its rounds. “There’s only a single bullet.”

“In case either of you are interested in a quick game of Russian Roulette, of course. Boredom often occurs after cave ins… or for when you eventually just give up. A few have, in the past.”

He scowled and dropped it unceremoniously back into the kit.

Etho, on the other hand, hunted through each of the numerous spare pockets that ran up and down his pant legs and in his jacket. The only thing of use he managed to find was his cell phone, which announced that there was no signal, wherever they were.

“It’s 6:58 am.” Etho’s finger ran rapidly across the screen before finding his flashlight app. “And I’m running low on charge.”

The light from the phone shone upon the Coach’s face, his familiar dark fedora hanging in front of his face.

“We’ll be fine. If we are where I think we are, I can get us out of here.” Soares pushed himself to his feet, grasping the basket tightly with one hand. “You lead the way, I’ve got the supplies. I don’t trust those lights.”

“Alright, Coach.”

“You don’t have to call me Coach. From here on out, feel free to call me Paul.”

They took off on a slow trek.

Etho kept his phone darting between the ground beneath him and the distant darkness. When the floor wasn’t visible, he kept tripping over small rocks and slipping on grains of sand. When he couldn’t see ahead, the teen was filled with an insatiable dread of what lay beyond.

They walked for a good hour before finally stumbling across something that wasn’t the same endless, damp, empty, monotony.

Two wooden pillars stuck out of the floor, a block of similar substance stacked on top in a manner that appeared to be holding the roof up. Another set of supports was enacted a few feet away, then another, and another as far into the distance as they could see.

“It’s an abandoned mineshaft?”

“I knew it!” Soares handed the survival kit to Etho, trading him for his phone. “We’re in the caves beneath the city. ‘Crofton’ is named for Lewis Croft, who led the mining expeditions here. There were large pockets of emeralds in these mines, and with the funds from the mining, they built the city above. It’s known as ‘Croft’s Quarry’.”

He faced the light deeper into the corridors. “I minored in history when I was in college, and came down here with some friends a few times. We do explorations occasionally for fun. If we can find a marker of some sort, I might be able to figure the way out of here.”

Their walk continued.

They took a guess at the direction to take at each intersection, their path of choice often reaching sudden dead ends or looping back on itself. Sometimes a walk down would twist and turn until they were looking up at where they had started. The burnt remains of torches still hung from metal sconces on the walls, and the duo quickly took to removing the rotting rods and placing them on the floor to mark where they’d already been.

Stretches of well-rusted rail tracks covered the ground, reaching over holes where the thin floor had worn away. Occasionally a minecart would still be resting on the tracks, or turned on its side nearby, pushed over by some unknown force. A couple of carts still contained piles of slag and the occasional dulled gemstone.

Etho reached through the mound of dirt and gravel to pull out the shard of an emerald. He watched the light glance off of it before dropping it into a jacket pocket. “Find anything, yet?”

“Nope.”

“How much energy is -”

“Shh, shh, you hear that?”

They both stopped talking, each holding their breath and hoping to hear whatever it was that Paul had thought he heard.

“Is that… hissing?”

The Coach’s eyes widened. “Cave spiders.” He took off at a jog. “RUN!”

The two sped along the corridors, Paul attempting to choose whichever path wouldn’t lead to most certain demise.

“What’re cave spiders?” Etho asked as he sprinted alongside his teacher.

“They’re what they sound like - nasty little arachnids that like dwelling in places like this. They set up a nest and it’s almost impossible to get rid of them. Hundreds will swarm you at once, biting with venomous fangs.” He shuddered. “It’s not good.”

They skidded as they took another sharp turn, making it only a few steps before Paul threw his arm out to stop them both in their tracks.

There was the cave spiders’ nest.

Etho’s eyes widened as they each spun around and ran in the opposite direction. The hissing continued, quieter than it had been when they were next to the nest itself but still maintaining a constant sound. He dared to look over his shoulder, only to find a small platoon of the spiders crawling hurriedly after them.

They continued running for several minutes or more, the noise occasionally dulling but never ceasing. A few times they took disastrous turns that led them back on the arachnids, but somehow managed to make it out intact.

The little green lights lit up wherever they went, not bright enough to actually see anything, but producing a glow that outlined the entrances and exits of every intersection.

Except for one.

A small room branched off at their next choice, but it lacked the green lights. From the first glance Etho got, it looked similar to a break room or a mess hall. He turned to Paul, curious as to which of the two other routes they should take, but found to his surprise that he was venturing into the room.

“Are you crazy?” he shouted. “You heard what that guy said! He’ll kill you!”

“My life’s depending on it.” Soares replied. “And so’s yours. Come on!”

Etho glanced back over his shoulder only to find the spiders almost on top of him. A quick look down each side corridor revealed even more spiders. With a reluctant sigh, he darted in after Paul.

Paul slammed the heavy metal door shut, blocking the arachnids from getting in. “We should be safe now.”

“‘Safe’ being a relative term?” The teen looked around the barren space. “Where are we? Do you know this place?”

Coach nodded. “This is one of the markers I was talking about - the stairs, back there?” He pointed them out. “They should leave directly out of here.”

“While I admire your ingenuity, Paul, I think it’s quite apparent what’s going to happen to you next.” The familiar electronic voice crackled through their earpieces. “Etho, however... you are free to go. You were simply following him, and your life did depend on it.

“To answer your earlier question, my name is Vechs. Spelled V-E-C-H-S. Thank you for playing Super Hostile. Enjoy the rest of your life… or whatever’s left of it.”

Coach Soares, apparently ignoring the voice, started to head up the stairs out. After a moment, Etho followed.

The climb up the stairs was much easier than wandering around in the mineshaft, especially considering that the path was direct. Carved into the rock face, the steps did not falter under their weight or cause any alarm, either.

The voice returned. “Paul Soares Jr is not your real name, is it.” It wasn’t a question.

“No, it’s not.”

“Hm. Spoilsport. Don’t worry - I will still find you.”

It cut out again, though this time, the earpiece went totally dead, with no static. Etho cautiously removed it, waited to be sure no scolding shout would emerge from the device, before dropping it to the ground and crushing it beneath his boot. Paul - Coach Soares, or whatever his name was - did the same.

Finally, after its long time serving as their flashlight, Etho’s phone flickered and died. “Here.” Coach handed it back to him.

“So,” he spoke after several minutes of continued silence. “Not your real name?” Not that I can see it, under that hat.

“...It’s a long story. After an accident from a few years ago. It’s not important.”

“It is to him, clearly.”

The duo only found that they’d reached the top of the stairs when Paul walked face-first into the door leading outside.

“Whoops.” He pushed, hard, against the door, and finally got its rusted hinges to move.

Bright light streamed onto his face, making Etho remember his sunglasses. He fished through his pockets to find them and quickly donned them. They’d emerged from the caves on the northwest edge of town. It was sometime near noon, judging by the strength of the sun.

“I’m going home,” he stated. “File a police report or whatever, I don’t care, I’m gonna go sleep for a week. Or the weekend, at least. See ya on Monday.”

“See you.”

Etho wandered his way home, something distantly nagging him in the back of his mind the entire way there.