CANDLES
Chapter 1
Lost
"It's got to be here, the map says it right here." Jack points to a small dot on the map, showing his sister, Lilith, what he meant.
"Jack, we've been underground for longer than I can remember. It's not here, let's just go home." Lilith started toward the mine entrance, referring to her own map to the way out and stopped, turned, shot a glance and yelled toward her younger brother who was just a small dot of white in the dark cave they had been staying in. For 35 years now, civilization had been burrowed underground. No one knew how they got there, all the elders had passed, all their vast knowledge of the outside world had gone with them, no one had dared to ask them what it was like outside of the dark place they had been living in, for each person asked would go into a flurry of random gibberish, unable to describe it. Lilith yelled toward her brother last time and he sprinted toward her.
"Must… Come. Follow," Jack was out of breath from running such a far distance, "Lost, wrong direction, wrong map." Jack paused to take a deep breath. "We are lost, we have the wrong maps. We grabbed the mineshaft 'A' map instead of the shaft 'H' map. We were in such a rush me might not have noticed, at least we have our picks."
Lilith stared down at her worn pickaxe.
"Why'd I even agree to come down here with you, mom said to be back to our cave by the time the candle went out! It's been one and a half candles by now!" In the city of 'candles' as they called, each day was represented by a candle, an entire candle was to go out in an estimated twenty-four hours. The people however, were called the flames, when a person dies, their 'flame goes out'.
"Fine, at least I know the mine better than you, we can tunnel out way out."
Chapter 2
Outside