Christ almighty, I can't see out my window. Too much snow. If this doesn't get posted on time it's because I didn't have Internet access, which I currently don't. Hopefully that will change soon.
Anyway—yay, I wasn't the only one who noticed the irony/symbolism! I'm not crazy! I knew I wasn't crazy (I say to my cat).
Come on, I can't be the only one who talks to my cat. Cats are actually really intelligent; they understand a couple of hundred words of the human languages they grew up around. Although obviously mine doesn't understand "get down". Sigh.
Anyway. Chapter. Enjoy.
O-o-O
-earth-
Sadie simply could not run anymore. Her joints felt as though they were turning to molten lava, her lungs seemed to have shrunk to a fraction of the size they needed to be, her feet were ready for a full-scale revolt and her head felt like it was going to fall off.
"We should…stop," she gasped, her pants echoing through the tunnels. "Get some…sleep."
Carter knitted his fingers and put his hands on his head while he caught his breath. "You sleep," he finally said. "I'll keep watch."
She nodded. She was hardly going to pass up a chance for some rest. They'd lost their bedrolls an indeterminate measure of time ago, so there was nothing to do but sack out on the stone floor of the cavern and hope the spiders stayed away.
Carter leaned against the wall, turned his face to the ceiling and closed his eyes. Under any other circumstances Sadie would've taken this as an opportunity to tease him about his lousy watching skills, but he'd hear anything that was coming and anyway she was hardly in the mood.
She'd discovered a while ago that there was no comfortable position with which to sleep on a floor, so she curled up on her side with her back to Carter. She'd let him have his moment to wallow. He needed it.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the last time they'd been in this tunnel, all five of them, with Zia taking first watch because she ran on batteries and Carter and Walt snoring away and Jaz laughing with Sadie about the boys' snuffles and Zia trying not to look amused, and now…
Now she had to stop herself from vomiting.
She could hear Carter sniffing, but she was too exhausted to crash his pity party. She slept.
When she woke up, it was to Carter shouting incoherently over a mysterious rumbling sound, shoving her against the opposite wall. She looked up and screamed. The tunnel was collapsing; chunks of stone were falling all around her and Carter was ordering her to move and she scrambled back until she was pressed against the opposite wall—
Just as Carter's side of the tunnel caved in and fell on him.
Her throat was raw from screaming before she heard him pleading for help.
His shoulders and head were free, although it was hard to tell that he was alive, since he was trapped face-down. She crawled to him and wrapped her hand around his fingers, caked with dust and dirt and dried blood. He groaned and raised his head.
His lips were bloody.
"No," she said. "No. Listen to me. You're okay, you're fine, you're going to be fine."
"Terrible liar," he croaked back.
He squeezed her hand and coughed.
"Come on," she pleaded, "you don't want to leave your baby sister all alone."
He smiled weakly. "You c'n…take care'f yourself."
"No," she said, "no I can't. I won't."
"You will," he said, and closed his eyes.
She slid on the floor and slid her shoulder under his head, and he draped an arm over her torso, and she laid there with him as his breath rattled and gargled until finally it stopped.
She sat up. Dusted herself off.
She drifted down the tunnel in a daze, with nothing to hold her down.
O-o-O
Woohoo, Internet!
Also, woohoo no school tomorrow due to ridiculous amounts of snow!
And last but not least, yay not-entirely-unintentional symbolism: the earth is, you know, kind of the ultimate history textbook—it basically recorded everything, you know? So I figured that the "earth" chapter would be the best one in which to briefly address the aftereffects of the other deaths. Plus, you know, Carter being put under tremendous amounts of pressure throughout the series, and then…
Teehee. I do enjoy being evil.
I'm going to watch more Crash Course videos and whine about my back and the yucky weather, so ta-ta for now!
