Chapter 7: The Tunnel's Mouth

"Alright, campers lets get this show on the road!" Chas shouted from the stage as the main cast of actors gathered around him and formed a rough circle in the center of the stage.

"Okay we are going to start our time together with a few trust exercises cause I read online that such things can be helpful to grow friendships and form trust, trust is very important!" He smiled at them all.

The other groups had separated already, the set designers been taken to a small shed behind the stage with bundles of sheets and paint brushes in their hands. Leading them was Ellie and the appointed team leader of that group. The extras were muddling around the courtyard and the main actors were all gathered on the stage performing trust exercises where one person falls back into the others arms, Phil had already let Lil crash to the wooden floorboards...several times. She was now hurling abusive words at him, regarding his facial orientation, sex drive, and all around distasteful personality. With her voice still ringing in everyone's ears, Chas decided it was best to call off the trust exercises and move on with the script reading. "Okay, I'll start! It was a warm summer evening, the fire popped and sizzled infant of our reluctant here" Chas pointed at Dil "your line" He looked at Dil intently. It was long and painful, the script was full of spelling errors that made reading it an absolute chore and most people went hours without saying a single line, except for Dil. He was constantly talking, so much so he was nearly always out of breath over the 3 hour read through. By the end Phil and Chuckie were both extremely grumpy, they had both had to spend 3 hours standing in a circle and had only gotten to say "Nay" 1 time throughout the read through. "Remember your line Horse" Chas had muttered as they opened their mouths to say the one line they had been rereading for the past hour, completely throwing them off. As far as everyone was concerned the reading was a disaster, between people losing their places, forgetting their lines, the script errors and incredibly long and hard to read speeches from Dil the 3 hours moved at a snail's pace.

"Here's the plan, we kill him in his office and no one has to suffer any more of that shit" Phil said in a hushed tone as they took a break after the reading as the stage crew helped the designer team set up some of the sheets they had painted.

"Phil its just the first reading..." Kimi started before being cut off by Phil.

"Doesn't matter, this thing is a disaster on wheels and I'm not hanging around to see how long before it bursts into flames. Let go to the rock" Phil said jumping off the stage and looking at them.

"Oh so you're all for going to the rock now are you?" Lil said looking at him in with a grumpy expression.

"Anything to get away from here, come on! Whats gonna happen? Chas is gonna get mad cause the guys who say 1 line in the entire dumb play leaves?" They all looked at each other, trying to decide if it was a good idea.

"You guys go" Dil said "I can't leave, I'm the lead but I can cover for you guys. Finding out whats going on is more important than this play but its best if we don't draw attention to all of this."

They all nodded.

"If your sure" Kimi looked at him, concerned that he was making this decision just because he knew Tommy would have made the same.

"I'm sure, now go. Chas will be back soon"

They said their goodbyes and the group left Dil behind, they watched him and the stage disappear behind the coverage of trees as they walked down the track to the campsites then turned to head down to the medical cabin. They were planning on dropping in but they could see that Didi and Stu had taken the break as an opportunity to see him so they continued along the track. They soon reached a large notice board with an old peeling map on it that showed the different selection of walks. Surrounding it was thick bushes and large trees. Moss had grown all over the metal roof of the board.

"You bring the map?" Phil looked at Chuckie.

"Yeah I got it" He pulled it from his pocket, carefully unfolded it (the glue they had chosen to use wasn't the strongest stuff) looking from it to peeling notice board.

"Okay so we go up this walk here" Chuckie traced his finger along one line.

"The blue one?" Lil asked trying to peer around Phil at the board.

"Yeah, then we cross to the green one here" He tapped on the board "by doing that we slice a good 15 minutes off our walk, then if Dil's memory serves us right we should reach a path with a do not cross sign that will take us straight to pioneer rock." Chuckie spun around to look at them. Their expressions were all a mixture of relief to be away from Chas, worry for the sturdiness of this idea and utter, dark, chilling fear of what might happen to them at the rock.

"Well we best get on it" Kimi said, leading the way up the path.

"This is a bad idea" Phil said for the 100th time. They had been walking for a good few minutes and had just crossed through a thick layer of bushes and trees to get to the "green" walk.

"This was your idea to do this now Phillip" Lil said in an exhausted tone.

"Yeah but now that we are nearly here" He paused, looking up at the ominous rock that was beginning to loom above them.

"Don't you think its weird?" Kimi murmured.

"Yes I think its very weird, its a bloody head!" Phil could feel a lump forming in his throat.

"Not that, last time we were here it was like we were walking for hours and the rock never seemed to get any closer you know? It just seemed to be constantly drifting away from us. But now its like its rushing towards us. Like its begging for us to like...come closer" Kimi trailed off.

"Are you trying to freak me out more!?" Phil said in a strangled voice, a mix of holding back fear and the need to throw up.

They soon came to the last path, the do not cross sign was still lying on the ground where Bean had hid it. The years of sun, rain and wind had robbed it of any paint or meaning, it was just a rusty board connected to a rusty chain. They looked down the path, it seemed uncharacteristiclly dark for this time of day, behind them it was sunny and hot...down there it was dark and cold. Like a giant dome encased the entire area with its own climate and time of day.
"um...who wants to go first?" Phil looked from Chuckie to Lil and to Kimi.

"I'll go" Kimi said, taking a step towards the path before Chuckie flung out an arm.

"NO!" His sudden shouting surprised everyone, even himself. A feeling protectiveness flooded through him. Chuckie didn't know where or why it had happened but he couldn't ignore it.

"I...I'll go first" he said, still with his arm out he took a step over the sign into the new environment, fear and an icy chill ran over him, sucking all the joy and positivity out of him, he wanted to run, we wanted to hide and cry for his mom, not Kira, his mom. It was like he had run into a wall of emotions he didn't want to feel. Everything from fear to hate-filled him to the brim, every memory he would rather have faded away all came back. His knees felt week, he was going to fall, he wanted to fall. He wanted to never take another step towards that rock. But something shone through all of that, all his fear, all his doubt, all his pain. A stronger emotion than all the others combined. It burned white hot inside of him, burning away the desire to run and never look back. His hopeless love for his one and only sister, his best friends in the whole world and his absolute best friend who was lying in a medical cabin because of this. This need to protect his sister, to protect his friends and to help Tommy pushed him through it. He controlled himself, steadied his knees, clenched his fists and took another step, then another, then another. He gritted his teeth against all the fear and hopelessness. After what seemed like hours of slow, painful steps they reached the rock, it had only been a few minutes but the feelings of weariness that they couldn't shake told them otherwise.

The rock was as large and as ghastly as ever, the extra few years of wind and rain had smoothed out some of its roughness but not by much. Its looming presence weighed down on them like piles of bricks.

"H...here it is" Chuckie's teeth chattered as he looked up at the rock.

"We need to look around for a entrance to the...the mine" Lil held back a cough as they began to look around. The forest had been hard at work over the past 4 years, it had taken back much of the area, reducing the once large clearing around the rock to only a few feet in either direction. after deviating slightly from the path and working more behind the rock they found a small entrance that had been created from erosion and water flow. It was on the side of a riverbank, behind a small tree. On the other side of the river was the fallen tree they had climbed through to reach the tunnel before but the river was on white water rapids level at this stage and they would never be able to cross. The hole was their best option.

"It will be a tight squeeze but lets go" Chuckie had completely switched over to guardian mode by now. keeping the group together as much as possible.

"I'll go first, make sure its all okay down there then you guys follow. What time is it?" He said as he started to shimmy down the hole.

Lil checked her watch. "3:35"

"That means we have 3 minutes down there before we need to head back" Kimi sounded rushed now.

Chuckie quickly squirmed his way into the tunnel, pulling his mostly useless phone from his pocket he switched it on. The pink and purple haze that had once existed in the mine was gone. It was dark, dank and dreary. Resembling more of a dirty hole than a mine now. The wood was splintered and old. Kimi followed after Chuckie, then Lil and finally Phil.

"Okay great, now which way do we go?" Lil said, looking behind them down a long path and forwards, down an equally long and mysterious path.

"Maybe we should split up..." Phil suggested before being cut off by Chuckie shouting "No!" Before Phil could even finish. "Thats how we all get lost, we stick together. So we are behind the rock now. That old tree we went through last time is about 25 meters that way. We just head along here and we will be fine" Chuckie said, pointing ahead of them.

"We better run, we're running out of time" Kimi said before they broke into a run down the tunnel. Passing the rock slide that they had climbed down all those years before, past the mostly faded drawing of rabbits Chuckie had used to guide them through the tunnel till they reached a smaller tunnel, like a pathway through a large rock. To their right was an upturned mine cart, rocks spilled out of it.

"It wasn't like that last time we were here...was it?" Lil looked up, hoping one of them would correct her. Chuckie took a deep breath and walked into the smaller passageway.

Droplets of water fell on their heads as they passed through the corridor into a large cave. The one they had found their parents in, but this time it was different. A massive hole had been created in the middle, 2 meters in diameter and around 3 foot deep. Rocks and rubble lay scattered, an assortment of pickaxes and shovels lay around the area, a dead gas lamp sat on a particularly large stone.

"Someone left here in a hurry" Lil said as she looked at the assortment of tools.

"Holy crap! Look at this!" Phil shouted from among the rubble. Everyone gathered around him, he was standing in a clearing of the rubble that seemed to have been the recent miner's rest area.

"It was lying on the ground, I think they dropped it when they left" He held out his discovery.

"Another journal?" Lil snatched the book away from Phil and cracked it open.

"Is that what they were looking for?" Kimi inquired as she looked through more of the rubble in hopes of finding more secrets.

"Maybe but digging this hole through all this rock would have been a lot of work to get an old journal and then leave it behind' Chuckie said, helping Kimi shift a particularly large rock.

"Oh my...holy crap...LOOK AT THIS!" Lil said in a hushed yet excited tone.

They crowded around the small rest area again as Lil produced an old, rusty...thing.

"What is it?" Phil peered at the object.

"Never you mind" said a harsh and cold voice, the tone was alien to them but the voice behind all that cold and bitterness they recognized. They spun around to see someone walking up the passageway, his walking was clumsy and all over the place, like he had forgotten how to walk and was only pushing forwards out of sheer will. His arms flinched and jumped like they were possessed, possessed summed up the sight infant of them rather well.

"What the f..." Phil stammered

"H...how?" Lil covered her mouth with her hand.

"W...what?" Kimi gasped.

"TOMMY!?" Chuckie yelled as Tommy stumbled his way into the cave. He looked awful, sweat pouring down his face, he looked like he had just gotten out of a pool, his clothes stuck to every inch of his body, he was incredible pale and pasty. His eyes darted from side to side, drinking in his surroundings like a frightened animal. His jaw jumped and quivered like he was trying to speak but no sound came from it.

They rushed towards him but stopped where they stood when he suddenly straightened up and looked at him. A smile creeped along his face as he looked at them, for a moment he almost looked normal, until the you saw the eyes, unlike the friendly smile on his face his eyes told another story, of fear, and anger.

"T...Tommy?" Chuckie stuttered.

Tommy's head flicked around to face Chuckie in an unsettling speed, he stared at him, still smiling.

"How did you get out here?...you were lying in your bed 30 minutes ago" Kimi blurted out.

He flicked around to stare at her "was I?" The smile flickered from his face for a second "I don't remember...I just wanted to seeeeeeeee my friendsssssss" His speech slurred a bit. Lil looked away from Tommy for a second to instead look at the small metallic object in her hand.

"Have you f...f...f...f...found something?" He stuttered excitedly, staring directly at Lil. He held out a shaking hand. "C...c...c..can I see it?"

"What the fu...we need to take you back to the medical cabin" Phil turned away from Tommy and looked at Chuckie "What ever is wrong with him, this bloody rock isn't gonna do him much good"

"Won't you let me see what you've found?" He asked, still holding his hand out towards Lil.

"Come on Tommy, we need to hea..." Tommy talked over Chuckie now, his voice now more harsh and cold, just like the way he had spoken earlier.

"Let me see it..." He sounded more demanding now, he must have realized his tone and added "my friend" to the end.

Lil starred at him, she moved to put the small object in her pocket, Tommy tried to run at her but Chuckie, Phil and Kimi stepped infant of her, surprised and shocked by his sudden turn to violence. His face quickly turned from anger back to friendly, the now creepy smile returning in all its splendor

"Come o...o...on guys, let me see" His jaw was starting to jump again and a muscle in his cheek was twitching.

Chuckie took a step forwards.

"Whats wrong with you?"

"nothing...nothing I swear"

"Then why did I have to help carry you down to a medical cabin?"

"M...medical cabin? Hehe I think I would remember that"

"Why do you want to see what Lil has?"

"Cause we...we..we are friends, and friends trust each other...and show each other things"

"You'r not doing much to earn our trust here"

"Haven't I earned that from the...the years of us being friends?"

"You're right, Tommy has earned that trust. Not sure about you though"

Tommy looked at him, perplexed, his smile still unwavering.

"I don't understand" he said, looking straight into Chuckie's eyes and Chuckie stared right back.

"Yeah, you do...Bean...you do"

Everyone paused for a second.

"Ummm Chuckie...just gonna point out that you are TALKING to Tommy who is obviously very sick...not Bean..." Phil folded his arms and stared at Chuckie who was still staring at Tommy.

"Okay then... let's have him prove himself to us" Chuckie's smile nearly mirrored Tommy's now...