Darkness.

Darkness was all that had waited to greet Sabrina as her eyes finally began to slowly flutter open. She awoke to find herself laid out against the cold rocky surface of what she could only assume was one of the deeper levels of the mines. The jagged debris that sat scattered across the unforgiving earth poked up through her dress and lightly brushed up against her. It wasn't enough to pierce her skin but certainly enough to cause more than a mild discomfort.

"How long have I been out?" She thought to herself while calling upon what felt like all of her remaining strength in order to just slightly lift her chin off the ground. She tried to survey the area around her but everywhere revealed the same dark abyss. Gently laying her cheek down against the cold dirt she began to take a series of deep breaths. The last thing she could remember was watching as Mark smashed his giant hammer down upon yet another hodgepodge of minerals they had come across in the mountain's mine before it seemed as though the earth had attempted to swallow them up whole. As the boulder burst into pieces the entire ground decided to mimic it and collapsed beneath their feet, sucking them both down into the very depths of its caverns. During the plummet it felt to her as though time was almost at a standstill but now she could hardly recall any details of the chaotic mess. She could vaguely recall how in the initial seconds of the incident it seemed as though Mark had tried to reach for her but…

"MARK!"

Sabrina's eyes widened as a rush of energy quickly overtook her. "M-M-M-Mark?"

She planted her hands on the ground at her sides and began to try and lift herself up but a surge of pain began to throb from the wrist of her right arm causing her to collapse yet again. In any other instance this would have likely been the point at which she would simply break down and admit defeat but her sense of determination appeared to be working overtime in full force, if only for the moment. Focusing her mind on her effort to raise herself off the ground and not her injured wrist she swiftly boosted herself up off the floor and scooted up to her knees.

"Mark?" She called out once more as she brought her aching arm into her lap and held it.

She received an answer this time, but it was only her own words as they echoed through the cavern.

"M-Mark?" She asked for a third time, her voice now almost reduced to a whimper.

Still no reply.

Her eyes quickly wandered about the darkness once she noticed her breathing rate had begun to steadily increase. It seemed that fear was beginning to rapidly set in. A glimmer of hope came to her from above she spotted the faint light of one of the lanterns that hung from ceilings of the mine's initial levels, yet it just as quickly drained away when she realized how far away it must actually be. Mark had already taken her down a good distance below the official mining levels and it was anyone's guess as to how far they had managed to fall. It seemed so small and blurry, like a twinkling star in the night sky.

"Wait… why is it so…?"

Sabrina temporarily released her throbbing wrist and slowly brought her hand up to her face, trying her hardest to ignore how violently it trembled with dreaded anticipation as she did so. Sure enough, just as she had feared her fingers were able to gently stroke beneath her eyes unobstructed. The forces that be appeared to have decided that trapping her alone in the mines wasn't terrible enough on its own but that she had to be essentially blind as well.

"No... no, no, no, no, no, no, no..." She started to stammer to herself relentlessly as she leaned forward and frantically began to comb the ground nearby. Her glasses had to be around somewhere, they just had to be. Eventually as she crawled across the floor her fingers brushed up against something soft amongst the rubble from the ceiling above. It definitely wasn't her glasses but it was too unnatural to be something from the mines. With all her might she gripped it with her good hand and gave it a decent tug to remove it from the debris. Raising it up to the pale light from above revealed the fuzzy shape of a blue and white hat, Mark's hat.

It took all of her willpower to try and remain calm as her attention returned to where she had found it. "M-M-Mark…?" She uttered quietly.

She dropped the hat into her lap and reluctantly reached back out into the mess, hoping with all her heart that he wasn't trapped beneath it. When her brief search came up empty she wasn't sure if she should be relieved that there was a chance he hadn't been crushed to death or afraid at the fact that it was looking more and more likely that they were possibly floors apart from one another.

She brought his hat close to her chest and hugged it against herself in vain attempt to relax as she raised her head up. "Mark!" She cried out. "M-Mark, w-where are y-you!"

When only her echo called back once more she tightened her grip around herself and prepared for the worst.

A/N: Writers block has a tight grip on me in regards to TBaI so I thought a short story regarding Sabrina and courage would be an interesting way to get the creative gears going.