Chapter Text
Night has fallen, the strange half-light fading away into darkness. In the culvert, everything is pitch black, save for the entrance, where twisted iron bars stand sentry against the monsters beyond.
The searcher can smell them. The scent is musty and cloyingly sweet, choking her each time she takes a breath. She tried breathing through her mouth, but the scent was so thick that she could taste it.
She can’t stop shaking, no matter how hard she tries. The culvert is cold and damp, but even if it weren’t she would still be trembling. This place is a nightmare, where all her deepest, most primal fears have come to life.
This fear isn’t like any other fear she’s ever known. It’s wild, and senseless, and all-consuming, threatening to drown her in mindless panic. It screams at her to run, it hisses to her to fight, it commands her to freeze.
A shadow passes before the culvert grate, and she sees the flash of eyes glowing green in the dark and the hint of claws before it’s gone again.
It’s still there, though. Watching. Waiting.
“Are we in Hell?” the searcher whispers.
She feels the other stick shift, his arm tightening around her shoulders. It hurts, but she stifles the wince and leans closer. This place is a nightmare, and he is the only sanctuary she knows.
“I don’t know,” he says. His voice is almost inaudible, but the searcher can hear the fear in it, the absolute terror that is tangled through his soul.
Another wave of pain passes through the searcher, leaving a sour taste in her mouth. She presses trembling hands against the wound in her side, noting distantly that the bleeding has slowed to a sluggish trickle. The pain has only increased, though. It’s sharp and burning, radiating in waves up the side of her body.
Gravel crunches, dirt shifting outside, and they both freeze as a few pebbles come tumbling down the hillside from up above. One of the rocks, a tiny, jagged thing, bounces off the twisted metal bars protecting the culvert.
The quiet ting-ting of stone and metal echoes down the culvert, and when it dies away they both hear the soft, keening cry that comes from the hillside.
A moment passes, and then it’s answered, the returning call faint and far away.
“They’ll leave eventually,” the other stick says. He lets out a short breath, and it hisses between his teeth. “They’ll have to. They’re hungry.”
The searcher’s eyes find the grate again, the iron bars that are the only thing standing between them and death.
“They can’t get to us,” the other stick says, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, too. “We just need to wait them out.”
“How long?" the searcher whispers.
“I don’t know.”
The searcher shifts again, and feels something inside of her move in ways that it shouldn’t. She gasps, her entire body tensing, as her vision goes white.
She feels the other stick pull away, his arm slipping from around her shoulders (nonono, please don’t leave me, please), but then he’s kneeling in front of her. She can’t see him in the dark, but she can sense his presence. He seems to have no difficulty seeing, because his hands are brushing the hair out of her face with gentle caution, and never once does he falter.
“Can I?” he whispers, and it’s only when she feels his fingers gripping the hem of her shirt that she realizes he wants to look at the injury.
She nods, and he lifts the grimy fabric.
She hears his breath stutter, and is abruptly thankful for the darkness. She doesn’t want to know what the wound looks like, doesn’t want to see what she suspects is there.
Coward, a sneering voice says, somewhere deep in her mind.
She bites her lip, holding very still as the other stick gently, carefully shifts her a little so that he can better see the injury.
“I don’t know what to do,” the other stick admits, sitting back on his heels. His voice is a raspy, uncertain whisper – disuse, a part of her brain says, but caution too – but it can’t disguise the choke of stifled tears. “I don’t know what to do,” he says again, a little more softly. “This place…it’s weird. Wounds just don’t…work the way they’re supposed to. Sometimes they heal. Sometimes they don’t.” He swallows. “This is bad.”
The searcher inhales, air somehow making its way into her lungs. She doesn’t want to think about it, she doesn’t want to speculate, she doesn’t want to know –
She just wants, for once, to be told it’s okay and for it to be true.
She is so tired, and she wants to go to sleep. She is in so much pain, and she wishes she knew why.
She feels the other stick settle down next to her again, hears the quiet, shaking breath he lets out.
The other stick’s hand is trembling as he carefully brushes the hair out of her eyes again. The searcher feels tears prick her eyes at the touch – gentle and loving and caring – but she forces them back.
He puts his arm around her shoulders again, pulling her close. His grip tightens, like he’s afraid to let go.
He is warm, but the warmth cannot push back the biting chill that has enveloped her.
They sit there in the darkness, silent and tense. The searcher lets her head drop, resting it on the other stick’s shoulder, and cries silently, no longer able to keep the tears at bay.
She cries, because she is afraid and in pain. And she cries, because she is not alone. Because someone cares.