Chapter Text
Air!
Nick was caught in a cold freezing hell and despite the fact that he tried his hardest to breathe…to fill his lungs with fresh air…his lungs continued burning.
Cold darkness and burning fire from within made him feel like he had never felt before.
His thoughts were dominated by one single desire, the desire to breathe.
But, no matter how much he tried, with each unsatisfying gasp for oxygen he felt like the burning sensation inside his lungs went worse and he felt utterly nauseous.
He had almost given up on trying when a pain in his chest was followed by a warm sensation embracing his nose causing his lungs to finally be filled with the so eagerly anticipated air.
What followed was a rough awakening.
Nick found himself lying on his side and heavily wheezing while he was coughing up water he had obviously swallowed.
Panic embraced him once more when he realized that once more his labored breaths were giving him barely enough oxygen to survive.
He rolled to sideways and could hear a muffled squeak while he propped himself up on his arms and opened his eyes.
What he saw was brilliant amethyst as the rabbit doe he had taken prisoner hours ago stared at him in a mix of fear and relief.
This view before him was so perplexing that he actually stopped breathing for a moment and a sudden kick to the gut from the lagomorph below made him cough up the remaining water.
Nick recovered quickly and was about to pummel the insolent flat tooth into submission when an unfamiliar female voice asked in a soft concerned tone.
“Are you okay now? Can you breathe?”
He stared at the rabbit who was eyeing him with the same mix of fear and concern from before.
An answer was already on his tongue when another coughing fit shook him hard.
Causing him to almost plunge muzzle first into the ground.
The ground below was made of rough dark stone which was covered by a thin layer of water which glistened in the soft blue light which filled the area around him.
Soft blue light?
His head snapped upwards and he mustered his surroundings for the first time.
The tunnel, if it could be called that at all, was wide enough for a rhino to fit through and reminded him more of a cave than of a mammal made structure.
It was rough and filled with jagged stones which broke through the water on the floor in chaotic intervals.
What was most fascinating was though was the fact that the walls and the ceiling were covered in small blue shining lights.
To any normal mammal they would have been weak and barely bright enough to see the entirety of the room.
But to a normally nocturnal predator like him they shone brilliantly like the stars on a clear night sky.
It was mesmerizing in its calm subtle beauty.
If anyone had told him that a place like this existed in the tunnels then he would have laughed in the face of said mammal, before shooting it for lying to him like that.
But here he was staring into the tunnel where the murky water reflected the soft shining light ever so slightly which made the room look like a tunnel of light to him.
Where did that tunnel go he wondered?
Where would he end up if he went through it.
Naturally he had to answer this question and so with strained movements he pushed himself up onto his paws and started staggering deeper down into the tunnel.
The rabbit was completely forgotten and Nick made his way deeper and deeper into the tunnel.
And he wondered how far he would have to go to find the end.
He was so caught up in his trance that he did not notice the rabbit’s frantic attempts to follow him.
She even tried to call out to him but his thoughts drowned out any noise he could have heard.
Minutes passed and his ears were filled by a strange humming sound. Not only was it strange, it also became louder and louder as he continued to move forward.
Suddenly there was a loud squeak, accompanied by a rather alarming splashing sound.
Instinctively he turned around to find the same rabbit he had all but forgotten about, frantically paddling to keep afloat in what could have only been a really deep hole in the middle of the tunnel.
Judy found herself struggling to keep afloat as the cold from the water seemed to seep deeper into her bones.
Her wounded leg was slowly but surely giving out and it made keeping afloat that much harder.
Not to mention that her broken arm was anything but usable at the moment.
She could not help but instinctively squeal in panic as she was blinded by her instincts.
In her current state of mind, she barely even noticed how the fox before her turned around and looked at her.
Something brushed against her wounded leg and Judy knew that she had to get out!
But that was easier said than done.
Judy tried her best to pull herself out of the hole she had fallen into. But wherever she reached she only found water and slippery stones which her wet pad less paws could not hold onto.
So, there she was, centimeters away from solid ground and yet not able to reach it.
Hope flared up in her heart when she saw the fox stagger in her direction.
His movements were sluggish and dull somehow.
Like they had been the entire time she had been following him.
Something was not right, he had changed from the time he had woken up.
And just as her savior was about to arrive she saw something else in the dark.
She almost stopped struggling against the water for a moment when she saw what lurked behind the predator in the dimly lit tunnel…
Painted in the soft almost nonexistent light of the tunnel was a creature that would visit her in her nightmares if she’d manage to survive this.
It was taller than the fox by a significant margin and had something insect like about it.
Strong pincers adorned a small head with curly antennas made of a glistening material.
She could not identify any eyes, but the creature was covered in small fish like scales and its insect like head continued into a long and slender neck which snaked majestically through the darkness.
With every step that the fox took it followed and revealed more of its intimidating monstrosity.
The creature had a slender rump which was adored by six grasshopper like legs which ended in reptile like claws.
A long fish like back fin adorned its back, which just added to the weird creature’s fish insect look.
She wanted to scream for the fox to turn but it was too late.
The creature stopped and readied for a pounce.
For one moment it, everything was eerily still.
Then the head of the creature darted towards its prey and the strong pincers found nothing but air.
To her utter surprise there was no bloodbath.
But Judy had no time to figure out how the fox had dodged as she herself found herself in trouble.
Even more so than before.
While she was struggling to stay afloat she felt another presence in the water.
Whatever had brushed her was back!
And soon she felt a strong and slippery segmented body snake around her and pull her down into the depths of the water below.
What she saw underwater was even more terrifying then what she had seen above.
The hole connected the tunnel to a gigantic cave below which was filled with water and was glowing in the same weird blue hue as the tunnel.
Algae where floating in the water and making it harder to see, but she could see.
And what she saw was that the cave was stretching farther than the light allowed her to see.
Naturally though the progress of taking in her surroundings only took a split second before she saw her adversary.
A huge worm like centipede which was a wide as she was, but in length it surely measured at least ten meters if not more.
She almost squealed, which would have been fatal with her limited air supply.
This centipede was now moving its head dangerously close to hers. Allowing her to see an eel like mouth which looked like a suction cup filled with irregularly placed teeth.
It was horrifying to look at and with a mouth bigger than her head she was sure that the beast could provide her with a truly gruesome death.
But Judy would not give up that easily.
She struggled against the creatures’ grip as much as she could but the aquatic predator would not budge.
Four pincers adorned the creatures’ head and formed a sort of gripping mechanism to bring food closer to its mouth.
A gripping mechanism which was now hellbent on turning her into food.
As the creature tried to slowly pull her closer to her inevitable demise she devised a plan.
She grabbed two of the pincers and pushed the creatures head as far away as possible.
At least that was how she imagined things to go in her head, but the creature would not budge.
And so, she went with plan B.
Nick snapped from his trance when he saw the fear in the rabbit’s eyes and realized that she was not staring at him.
Something was behind him, he knew.
He continued striding forwards and his senses confirmed that something was indeed behind him.
And whatever it was, it was stalking closer with every step he took.
When there suddenly was no movement at all he knew that an attack was about to come his way.
He dodged expertly and found himself confronted with a creature he had never seen before.
It was ugly, yes, but terrifying none the less.
And potentially dangerous.
Without thinking Nick reached for his pistol which was holstered on his right leg.
And as fast as he could he brought the weapon up and disabled the safety.
The creature was not stupid either and had started moving as well.
It started sprinting towards the prey which had so selfishly avoided its fate.
While sprinting it kept its slender body as close to the ground as possible and slithered around like a snake.
With its whole body moving like that it made for quite the hard target.
Not that the huge creature was a hard target to hit, but it made a well-placed shot naught to impossible.
A split second passed and Nick decided on his plan of action.
He fired twice before dropping on his back.
The two bullets missed the head of the creature barely and embedded themselves into its side.
Nick had anticipated the creature’s movements well though as it almost leaped upwards. Only to once more find air where he had been moments before.
With the creature now above him he opened fire once more.
Three more shots rang through the tunnel and three more bullets ripped into the creature, this time from below.
Causing green goo like blood to drop down into the water around Nick who now had a smug grin on his muzzle.
The creature itself hissed in agony and quickly dove into a part of the tunnel where the water was apparently deeper than elsewhere and disappeared from sight completely.
Despite his aching body Nick pulled himself onto his paws and slowly turned around his own axis to scan the tunnel.
He had to keep an eye on the entire tunnel.
If his guess was correct then the creature was trying to catch him of guard which meant that there was more than one place to pop out from.
For a moment he stopped scanning the space around him and his attention lingered on the place where the rabbit had been just moments ago.
Judy tried her best to reach for her knife which was still sitting securely under her chest plate. A hiding spot which had saved her life on numerous occasions.
Such as this one, or so she hoped.
Lucky for her the centipede worm seemed distracted by something and she was able to gain a little bit of time.
After fumbling around for a few seconds, she managed to get ahold of her knife.
Just in time as the creature had turned its attention back towards her.
Its head darted down towards her face and all that Judy could do was stretch out her knife with her still functional paw into the coming throat of her adversary.
The teeth pierced the skin of her arm and only by leaning back as far as possible was she able to avoid her face suffering the same fate.
She prayed to the sacred stars that her knife attack would be enough to deter her enemy.
And indeed, the creature shook itself violently, almost crushing her in the process.
Judy was almost to late when pulling her arm out of the danger zone that was her enemies maw and consequently lost her knife in the depths of its throat.
Before she could even contemplate a way to take advantage of the new situation though something else entirely happened.
The creature she had seen before behind the fox was now in the water and her adversary seemed to notice as well.
The other creature was engulfed in a thick green cloud and the centipede like creature surprisingly decided to let go of her and go after what was apparently a slightly juicier target.
Judy would not question this though as she tried her best to move towards the surface.
Not a second to soon as her lungs were declaring that her underwater journey had taken longer than it should have.
Her muscles were aching and her lungs were burning.
But she could already see the surface.
She was so close!
However, it was not meant to be, she could feel how her muscles betrayed her.
She could no longer move an inch.
Which left her just another stroke away from the saving surface, the extended paw almost being able to break through the surface.
But soon she started sinking back into the depths, or so she would have if not for that auburn paw reaching out for her and pulling her out of the water and up into the tunnel.