Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn.

A/N: So yeah – still need to finish the last chapter of my Josh-really-is-a-serial-killer AU but this is the story that inspiration came for this evening, so this is what got written. :) Been kicking the idea around for this one for a while too, because I love the Stranger and wish he got more screen-time. Plus, I really want a few more Hannah and/or Beth survives/isn't a Wendigo AUs. And some Josh coming to the rescue of his sisters, because what better way to help alleviate his guilt over not being sober enough to be aware they needed help in canon. And also some Josh x Sam because I love me some of that too, and my other story makes me desperately sad because it's likely not going to have a happy ending for them. *ahem* Anyway, on with the story.

And All the World Comes Tumbling Down

Chapter One: Do Not Dream; Wake, Sister

Hannah woke slowly. Her eyes opened and she squinted to adjust to the sight in front of her. She was lying on her back, looking up at a rocky ceiling. Pale, wan moonlight streamed in through a hole in the roof, illuminating a long, steep icy slope, studded with rocks that looked black in the low light.

That's where you fell in, a part of her brain supplied helpfully. She tried moving and groaned as pain flared all over her body. She tried to ease herself onto her elbows but the pain was so fierce she had to stop. Oh God, what if my spine's damaged?

Hannah swallowed, her throat suddenly dry as dust. Won't know until you try, Hannah! A cheerful voice that sounded like Sam at her most encouraging spoke up in the back of her mind.

Focusing on that instead of the sudden bitter taste of fear in her mouth, the older Washington twin eased herself slowly upright. Tears sprang to the corners of her eyes and she let out several shaky gasps that might have been closer to sobs, but she eventually made it to a sitting position despite the agony movement caused. Okay, spine is not broken. The relief barely had time to register before her gaze fell on the still form of her twin, lying not far away, and suddenly there was no room for any other thought in her head.

"Beth!" she cried, lurching to her feet, and oh God, that hurts and the pain nearly sent her to the floor again, but she kept going. Gamely, she managed to limp and stagger her way to Beth's side, and there was definitely something wrong with her left leg, it could hardly bear her weight, but she ignored it, please, please be alright Beth –

Hannah managed a barely controlled collapse to the ground at her twin's side and frantically reached for her, fingers searching desperately for the pulse point on Beth's neck. Her sister's face was serene, as if she were merely sleeping but Hannah couldn't feel anything except absolute dread at her stillness.

Then her fingers found it; a pulse, slow but steady, just under Beth's jaw and Hannah made a strangled sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "Oh God, Beth…"

The relief was overwhelming in its intensity. Hannah leaned forward to press a kiss to her twin's forehead and only realised she was crying when a tear landed on Beth's cheek, gleaming silver in the moonlight. "Oh God, Beth, I'm so sorry," she whispered, guilt and grief and self-loathing all tangling up into an ugly snarl in her chest. "This is all my fault – I swear I'll get us out of this. We'll see Mom and Dad and Josh again." Her voice broke halfway through the last word, and she blinked back her tears, determined not to let more fall. "I promise."

xxx

This, Hannah was quick to discover, was easier to promise than to do. They appeared to have fallen into some kind of underground cavern – not entirely natural, judging by the regularity of its shape and by the wooden support beams spaced along the walls. Mines, some part of her brain supplied. She vaguely remembered Dad talking about them, the first time they had come to the mountain. Mainly it had been a 'don't go anywhere near them' speech – they had been condemned back in the sixties and no one had bothered maintaining them since.

"So, more good news then, basically," Hannah muttered with uncharacteristic sarcasm to her twin. "Not only are we in danger of dying from cold or hunger, the roof might also collapse on our heads. Fantastic."

Beth made no reply, as usual. Hannah was excruciatingly aware of the silence, broken only by her own voice, sounding thin and quiet in the oppressive hush of the mines. It was like the weight of hundreds of tonnes of rock were pressing down on them, extinguishing any attempt at laughter or levity.

Not there was much to laugh about. Hannah was still shaky from the discovery of the wound on the back of Beth's head. A careful search for injuries had led her to find the frightening amount of blood matting the hair at back of her twin's skull and staining the ground underneath her. That wasn't the most terrifying part though. The skin had been split, which had caused the copious bleeding – but that was normal for any head wound, Hannah had reassured herself. What was truly frightening was the dent in Beth's skull. Hannah had been too scared to even consider moving her twin after that, in case it aggravated her head injury.

Especially if she already has brain damage, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind. Hannah shook her own head. You don't know that for sure, she thought sternly.

Then why hasn't she woken up yet? The little voice persisted. Hannah didn't want to listen to the sound of her worse fears, the thought that Beth might be in a coma, a coma caused by her stupidity.

The hole in the roof had granted one small mercy in that at least she had the ability to tell time and more importantly, see sunlight. She had nearly cried when the sun had risen that morning and the sight of a brilliant blue sky had greeted her. But it was joy and torment in equal measure. So near, and yet so far. And while it allowed her to tell time more accurately than Beth's watch, damaged in the fall, it also made her extremely aware of how long her twin had been unconscious for. The longer Beth didn't wake, the more the little voice in Hannah's head fretted that maybe she wouldn't wake up at all.

Hannah breathed out and blinked away the tears blurring her vision. "Stop it," she scolded herself out loud. "If Beth was awake she'd tell you to pull yourself together. Wouldn't you?" she switched to addressing her twin mid-sentence, trying to smile. If Beth was only asleep, maybe the sound of her voice would wake her up. And if she was in a coma…well, coma patients were supposed to be able to hear people talking to them right? Hannah wasn't sure how accurate TV was in that regard.

Probably not the best source for accuracy, she thought ruefully, looking down at her left leg. And I know fuck all about first aid too. Aside from some half-remembered facts she had heard from Sam, who had been on several first aid courses, she only had had basic bandaging at her disposal.

"Which is going to have to do," she muttered aloud. She couldn't afford to just sit here, waiting for rescue. Beth couldn't afford it, which was far more important. She needed to try and find a way back to the surface and to do that, she needed to be able to walk. And to walk, she needed to strap up her twisted knee, which was currently a horrible, bruised, purplish mess.

Hannah had found a worn – and probably hideously unsanitary – piece of cloth draped over a nail on one of the support beams. Beggars couldn't be choosers however, and she couldn't afford to sacrifice one of the few articles of clothing she and Beth had between them to create a brace for her knee. She was already fretting enough about Beth lying on the bare, cold ground, without the benefit of heat generated through exercise. Not that Hannah was exactly running anywhere with her busted knee, but it was better than nothing.

She finished tying the last knot on the makeshift knee brace and stood. She took an uncertain step forward; her leg shook but held. Good enough, she thought grimly and limped forward. Time to find a way out.

xxx

This resolution, Hannah discovered to her chagrin, was also easier said than done.

"Oh, come on," she said aloud, as another tunnel ended in a wall of rock. She clenched her fists and breathed deeply and evenly until the urge to cry faded away. Anger and frustration lashed at her, underpinned by urgency and a deep quiet fear, like a slow-moving current far, far below the surface. Maybe there is no way out, an insidious little voice whispered.

"No, stop it," she snapped at herself. She shook her head, as if she could physically dislodge the thought. "Stay positive. That's what Beth would do. That's what Sam do."

But you're not Sam or Beth, the little voice pointed out ruthlessly. Either one of them would be doing so much better in this situation. In fact, they'd probably be home by now, with help for their injured sister already on the way.

"Sam doesn't have a sister," Hannah muttered stubbornly, deliberately ignoring the point of the argument. She limped back down the tunnel, the light from her lantern bobbing up and down, sending long, black shadows ahead of her.

The old-fashioned oil-lantern had been a god-send, as was the realisation that she still had a lighter on her. She didn't smoke, but Mike did – and the mere thought made angry tears prickle at the corners of her eyes again. God, I'm such an idiot. And a pathetic one at that. Carrying a lighter on the off-chance he might need to borrow one.

Not the only pathetic thing you've ever done in the name of this crush, her brain reminded her helpfully. Like say, being so desperate for his attention and affection that you'd believe a dubious note left in the kitchen during an alcohol-soaked party where anyone could find it, including said guy's girlfriend.

Hannah's cheeks burned with humiliation and she cringed away from the mere memory of it. She had been so naïve. What did you believe had happened, Hannah? That Mike had broken up with Emily in the ten minutes he had been out of the room? Because if not, that would make him a cheater and you a terrible friend. And if he'd cheat on Emily, he'd cheat on you. Not to mention, the note made no mention of anything other than sex. What, did you think your non-existent seduction skills would be enough to keep him with you? No. You were just pathetic enough to take whatever he offered you, no matter how little.

The truth, the truth that Hannah had avoided admitting to herself for so long, had settled in her chest like shards of glass. They made her chest ache with every breath, emotional pain in counterpoint to the physical pain jolting through her body with every step. Mike will never love you, she told herself brutally. And you behaved appallingly in pursuit of this doomed crush. However, he…also behaved badly, she admitted to herself, reluctantly. She was so used to defending him and glossing over his bad qualities, it was hard to do so even now. And to think it only took a near-death experience to reach this epiphany. That 'prank' couldn't have happened without him. And we were all at least tipsy, but it was still a horrible thing to do to me.

She reached a junction in the tunnel and turned down the right-hand fork. She had been using a soft, crumbly rock to scratch arrows on the walls, drawing them as big and as obviously as she could, pointing back to the cavern Beth was in. She paused to scratch a big 'X' on the wall next to the passageway she had just investigated, that had ended in a dead end.

"This place is like a fucking labyrinth," Hannah muttered, setting off back in the direction of Beth. She had found herself swearing more in the last six days than she had in her entire life, but then again she was pretty sure this was the kind of situation swearing had been invented for. These tunnels were also the creepiest place she had ever been in her life. When they weren't being eerily silent, Hannah often thought she could hear a screeching sound in the far distance. It kindled an instinctive terror in her that had her straining her ears to try and pinpoint where it was coming from, but it also happened infrequently enough that it had her doubting it existed anywhere outside of her imagination.

She took longer than she liked to reach 'Home Base' as she had mentally dubbed it. But then, she hadn't eaten for six days either. The realisation that she was gradually weakening had been a frightening one; her limbs trembled with more than pain now. She became tired more quickly, her head felt lighter and she was achingly, constantly, aware of how empty her stomach was.

The need for water had become an absolute priority after the second day too. She was aware of the rule of three; three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. She wasn't sure how accurate this was, but frankly, she'd take any survival tips she could get right now.

Not to mention her mouth had been as dry as a desert – a child could have deduced that she desperately needed water. She had found it eventually too, in the form of an underground lake with an old-fashioned water-wheel. The water had been as black as pitch and mirror-still. The sight had raised all the hairs on the back of Hannah's arms, something indescribably eerie about it. She hadn't wanted to drink it at all, actually, but the demands of her parched throat had taken precedence over superstitious fear. Well, it probably wasn't very clean water, so there might well have been reason to be wary. But if I've contracted some kind of water-borne disease, at least I'll hopefully live long enough to have it treated back in civilisation.

Hannah had again had a small stroke of luck, finding a couple of ancient canteens whose former owners had probably been miners. They were also likely not very sanitary but they were all she had. She had carefully carried them back to Beth and patiently dribbled miniscule amounts of water into her unresponsive sister's mouth. She was pretty sure coma patients were normally hydrated through intravenous drips – for there was no denying by now that that was what Beth was – but her twin had only Hannah's crude attempts to keep water in her system to support her.

That sort of thought was terrifying enough that Hannah tried to avoid thinking it altogether; it would only cause a completely unhelpful breakdown and she had no energy to spare at the moment for a hysterical fit.

Hannah sighed as she finally emerged out of the tunnel into Home Base. The light quality had changed again; night had fallen while she had been trying (again) to find a way out of the tunnels. She paused to scratch another tally mark on the Counting Rock, marking the end of the sixth day.

"Tomorrow will make it a whole week, Beth," she said quietly, lifting her voice to carry to her sister's motionless form, still lying on the cavern floor. She limped over to Beth's side. Despite the brace, her knee was definitely getting worse, probably because she wasn't resting it. Hannah sat down gracelessly and wriggled under the one jacket they had been them, tucking herself carefully into her sister's side, anxiously to both share and give body heat. She had no idea if this was the best thing to do or not and the not knowing was killing her. Along with the cold and lack of food, she thought, morbidly amused. If I get out of this, I swear I'm going to learn everything there is to know about surviving in the wild. And first aid.

Hannah stroked her sister's arm, pretending that it was just an affectionate gesture, that she wasn't checking for a pulse. It had become an almost obsessive-compulsive gesture, a desperate need to reassure herself that her sister hadn't slipped away when she'd been gone.

Hannah hated having to leave Beth, even to try and find a way out of the mine. Only the knowledge that Beth was less and less likely to recover the longer they were trapped underground away from proper medical facilities, made her able to leave her sister's side at all.

"I wish I could remember," Hannah mused aloud, brushing her fingers absently over Beth's wrist. "What happened six nights ago, I mean." Her memories from before they went over the cliff were a confused blur and she was pretty sure it was because she had hit her head at some point during the fall too. She could remember darkness and snow and a great bloom of fire, searing light etching itself across her retinas. She could recall feeling sickening, overwhelming terror and fleeing for her life with Beth at her side. An awful shrieking scream that had grated against her ears. She remembered Beth's fingers on her wrist in a death-grip, as they both dangled over the edge of the cliff, and looking up to see a strange bulky humanoid figure looking down at them, eyes like black mirrors, shining with reflected light…

"Yeah, either I hit my head, or someone spiked the booze at the party," Hannah muttered against Beth's side. Her only reply was the faint sound of her twin's breathing, which was frankly a comforting reply in its own right at this point.

Hannah curled up tighter against Beth, trying to not to disturb her in any way but still seeking the comfort of her presence. Tears pricked her eyes but she blinked them back. Crying was a useless waste of water. "I hope you wake up soon, Beth," she whispered and closed her eyes, trying to go to sleep. Like every other night in these wretched, cursed mines, it was a long time coming.

xxx

What I really need, Hannah reflected as she stared at yet another dead-end, is a more inventive range of curse words.

She didn't have adequate words for how frustrated she was right now. Bet Josh could set me up, she thought grumpily, turning to retrace her steps. He would know how to properly express frustrated rage in as obnoxious a verbal manner as possible.

She continued to grumble away to herself internally, aware on some level that this was a coping mechanism, but unwilling to acknowledge it. Acknowledging it would mean acknowledging what she was avoiding, and right now, she really didn't want to think about the acidic terror eating at her soul, the insidious voice curling through the deep waters of her mind, its whispering growing ever louder; you will never leave this place.

Hannah reached the main junction of the tunnel and paused to mark another 'X' on the wall next to the dead-end passage. She turned left –

– and came face to face with another person.

Absolute shock rooted her feet to the ground. Not ten metres away stood the bulky figure of a man. He wore a long, dark green overcoat and had a bizarre set of metal canisters strapped to his back in some kind of harness. He held something that vaguely resembled a power-washer gun – attached to the canisters by a hosepipe-type thing – with an easy two-handed grip. However, the faint blue flame and the ripple of heat emitting from the end of the gun spoke volumes about the actual nature of the device.

Is that an actual fucking flamethrower? Who even carries a flamethrower? Hannah's brain tumbled around nonsensically, even as a smaller, steadily growing part of her was giddy with an almost hysterical joy. A person, an actual honest-to-God person, someone's found me, if I'm not hallucinating this, I might be, I mean who carries a flamethrower, oh my God, Beth, Beth, Beth, I need to tell him, we need to get her out of here –

She stumbled forward two steps, on shaky, coltish legs, and only then got a closer look at his face. Or rather, didn't. A black-and-white patterned scarf covered the lower half of his face and his eyes…his eyes were covered by round black goggles...

...she remembered Beth's fingers on her wrist in a death-grip, as they both dangled over the edge of the cliff, a strange bulky humanoid figure looking down at them, eyes like black mirrors, shining with reflected light…

The bottom fell out of Hannah's stomach and she came to an abrupt halt. Oh God. She was vaguely aware of making a whimpering sound but that was secondary to the icy fear condensing into a ball in the pit of her stomach. Oh God, this is the guy that chased us over the cliff – I wasn't tripping, I didn't see a monster, just a masked man carrying a flamethrower –

Her fear impossibly doubled at the reminder. A fucking flamethrower, oh God, he came back to finish the job, he's going to burn us to death –

Exhaustion caused by injury and lack of food burned away under the sudden flood of adrenaline coursing through her veins. She saw the stranger start forward, apparently shaking off his own surprise at seeing her but didn't wait for any further moves on his part. She turned on her heel and fled back down the tunnel, even as he called after her in a low, urgent undertone, "Wait!"

Not likely, Hannah thought, forcing back a hysterical laugh. She ran, her mind racing to come up with a plan. She had to lead him away from Beth – on no account could she lead him straight back to her vulnerable comatose sister. Her only chance was to lose him in the maze of tunnels down here; the only downside was that she would likely get lost herself down here too if she wasn't stopping to follow her arrows –

Her arrows. Shit. Her heart was suddenly pounding even faster with renewed terror. If he found them, they would lead him straight to Beth. Shit, shit, shit! Her thoughts circled in panicked fashion. Even if she lost him down here, he would probably be able to retrace his steps – he clearly knew his way around these tunnels, if he'd descended from the surface and was confident he could navigate his way out. And retracing his steps would take him through the area she had been mapping with her arrows. Oh God, what do I do, what do I do –

Hannah tasted blood and realised she'd bitten her lip hard enough to break the skin. She could feel her reasoning and planning abilities breaking down under panic and exhaustion. The burst of adrenaline was already starting to recede, and her tired body was letting her know in no uncertain terms she was far too injured and lacking in fuel to be spending this much energy on flight.

Beth. I have to get to Beth. Her mind latched onto to the fall-back plan. I'll pick her up and carry her out if I have to – like Superman, her brain added nonsensically. It's better than waiting for some crazy psychopath to find us and burn us alive.

She could hear the sounds of his pursuit, the sound of footsteps and the clank of metal muffled by fabric, and poured on all the speed she could muster, even though her ruined knee was screaming by now. Hannah darted through a set of confusing tunnel junctions that she'd mastered on the fourth day, hoping it was enough to slow him, and burst into Home Base. She half-limped, half-ran to Beth's side, falling to the floor beside her in a manner far less controlled than she would have liked.

Of course, it was then, to her absolute horror, that her bad knee gave out completely. "No!" she cried, trying desperately to rise from the ground. Her left leg was nearly completely unresponsive; it wasn't just agonisingly painful, which she could have pushed through, but so weak it actually wasn't supporting her weight.

A faint noise behind her made Hannah twist around, in time to witness the stranger enter their spacious cavern. He appeared to scan the area, although it was difficult to tell with the goggles hiding his eyes. Then his gaze snagged on the pair of girls on the floor on the far side of the room and he started jogging towards them.

"No, no, no, no –" Hannah was barely aware of chanting this aloud, as she shuffled backwards on her hands towards Beth, abject terror clouding her thoughts.

"Shh, shh, shh," the stranger extended a placating hand towards her. "Quiet…"

"Fuck you," Hannah snapped in a choked voice, equal parts fear and anger. Her head spun dizzily, feeling lighter than ever and she was excruciatingly aware that she hadn't eaten in eleven days. Her hands touched the familiar fabric of Beth's jacket behind her and she halted. This was it. There was nowhere else to retreat to, and even if she could run, she wouldn't have. Not without Beth. And no matter that it was futile, and that Beth would likely die right after her, Hannah wasn't going let this crazy pyromaniac kill her sister. Not while she was still had breath in her body to defend her comatose twin.

She stopped moving, trying to block as much of Beth's body as she could with her own, and glared up at him, trying to ignore the fear beating a rapid tattoo in her throat. "Do it, then. If you're going to kill us, just do it."

The stranger paused his advance for a moment, his body language radiating surprise. Then he spoke in a normal tone for the first time. "I don't mean to hurt you or your sister, girl." His voice was gruff and no-nonsense. "I've spent the last eleven days putting a lot of effort into finding you. I'm not gonna waste that by killing you. At least," his head turned slightly, light reflecting off the lenses of his goggles as he seemed to look at Beth's prone form with a considering gaze. "I won't if you don't give me a reason to anyways."

Hannah glared at him, utterly disbelieving. "Yeah, right. And what do you consider justification for killing someone then?" Her hands shook with both fear and anger, and she clenched them into fists to hide the tremors.

He surprised her by giving a sudden harsh chuckle. "Not so much a question of someone, as something."

Hannah shook her head. "What are you saying? That doesn't make any sense!" She felt herself sway a little, her vision darkening at the edges. The light-headed feeling intensified as her empty stomach clenched and her injured leg throbbed agonisingly. "You chased us off that fucking cliff! You wanted us to die!" Her own words sounded distant and far away.

The stranger snorted. "Are you blind, girl? It wasn't me that –" His voice changed abruptly mid-way through the sentence. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know," Hannah said, or tried to. It might have come out more garbled she had intended. I'm going to faint, she realised with distant surprise. How horribly stereotypical.

She pitched forwards face-first as the darkness rushed in and stole her consciousness, completely unaware of the arms that caught her before she could hit the ground.

A/N: Phew! *wipes brow* Wrote this all in one sitting. It's now nearly 3am and I'm very tired. Next chapter will include a panicking Hannah, a grumpy Stranger and the first appearance of Josh and Sam. ^_^ If you enjoyed, please leave a review letting me know what you think; it really helps with inspiration and pushing me to write more.