We must have gone down several dozen flights of stairs; I lost track. What I did notice was that the water began to stop trickling downwards, and eventually the stairways leveled out into a dimly lit hallway. There was a distinct scent of stale air, and the long bar lights buzzed ominously. As Aria took a few steps down the dirty, tiled hallway, her footsteps made loud echoes.
"Another group discussion," Aria suggested. "What do you guys think of this…" She waved her hand wildly at the long hallway, which bent into the darkness about a hundred yards down, "…place?"
I shook my head gently. "I don't know," I admitted. There was lots of carbonation in my stomach now, as well as a good amount of butterflies. Somehow, I didn't think it would help to add that our escape route was closed up. "It seems…interesting."
"I can sort of hear the waves," Riley reported excitedly. "We must be under the ocean."
Aria switched to hold her candle in the other hand. "That's really safe, all right," she said, with the air of a mother scolding a rambunctious eight-year-old. "These hallways…they aren't here by accident. They're leading to somewhere."
"No duh," Laila whispered under her breath, though loudly for all of us to hear her. Aria shot her a dirty look, and Laila added, "What? I mean…" She smiled, and put one hand on her hip. "What've got to lose?"
Riley glanced at her. "A life?"
Laila closed her eyes, loosened her shoulders, and sighed deeply. "Riley's pro'lly right," she admitted. "We should turn back." She put heavy emphasis on the should, like she herself didn't agree.
That was when I started to freak out. After all, I hadn't told anyone when the our escape route started to close up, and I didn't know how to get back out. "I…I…" I stammered, subconsciously clenching my fists at my sides. "Well…"
Laila tipped her head to one side and sort of glared at me. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded. "You're acting so…"
"Weird?" Riley suggested.
"…stupid," Laila finished. "I mean it, Julianne. What do you know that we don't?"
"Absolutely nothing." Well, I've never been a good liar. I scrambled for the right words. "No, really, Laila. I just think…well, there's something in here."
Aria cleared her throat, twirling her thick, smoky brown braid around her wrist. "Other than cold, dingy hallways that twist on and on, leading to nowhere?" She said wryly. "Come on, Julianne. Laila must be right—you are acting a little stupid."
Anger and panic hit me, hard. "You guys!" I moaned. "You've only known me for like, two days! Stop acting like you know everything about me."
Aria sighed angrily. "It's just…well, I've never been in a tunnel under the ocean, leading to god-knows-where," she explained hotly. "And I don't like the feel of this place. It's…creepy." Her words were a little slow coming out, like she was searching for the exact right thing to say.
A short, awkward silence followed. I twisted my damp sneaker on the wet floor, Laila reached out to brush Chime with her fingertips, and Riley folded his arms across his chest, tapping the floor with the heel of his shoe and sighed loudly.
Aria sighed, waving the candle a little bit for emphasis. "well, I don't really have a choice, do I?" She said with exasperation.
For a moment, I thought she'd figured out the whole closing-of-the-stone-cave thing. I froze, a bitter taste creeping into my mouth.
"If you guys want to go in, I'd feel like an awful person leaving you," Aria clarified slowly. 'If that's…what you all really want, I guess."
"It is," I put in instantly, earning a suspicious glance from Aria and Riley. I have to admit, I was acting a little bit strange. I also couldn't forget that Riley and Aria had just met me the previous day, and now we were trusting each other with our lives. Laila had already turned to head down the hallway, and we all followed her, Aria slowly coming into the lead, illuminating the dim passageway.
I took a deep breath as I realized what this meant. It meant two things.
I was with three people my age, two of them nearly strangers, in an unknown place where I felt like we really shouldn't be.
And I was blindly trusting enough to let this happen to me.
One Hour later….
The hallways kept twisting and turning, but about an hour in, we came to a fork in the road. I sighed impatiently, knowing that this would most likely lead to one of those which-way-now arguments we seemed to take place in a lot.
Aria held our candle—now dripping wax and only half as tall as it had been when we entered the cave—up in the air like the Statue of Liberty. "We have come to a fork in the road," she announced.
"No duh," Laila muttered under her breath. Turning to me, she added, "When did Steven die and make Aria the champion?"
Knowing that Aria was staring at my best friend, I chose to keep quiet and glance at Riley, who was rifling through his backpack. "We should eat something," he said quietly. "I'm starving, and there's not an end in sight to these hallways." He pulled out a small brown-paper bag and handed everyone a chunk of cold bread and a handful of dried berries. I rubbed a blue-speckled berry in my fingers, decided it was a fairly-edible Oran Berry, and nibbled at its edges.
"I think we should vote on which way to go," Laila decided, talking with her mouth full of Pecha Berries and stale bread. "Any suggestions?"
"It's easy," Riley muttered dryly. "Right or left?"
Aria politely swallowed her mouthful of food before replying to her twin brother's question. "I think there's no rhyme or reason to it," she said fairly. "We don't know where we are, or why we're here, even. I think we could just…"
I dug through one of the outer pockets on my backpack, searching for the little bit of money I'd gotten from the trainer funds back in Fortree. "Flip a coin?" I suggested, holding a small, bronze coin with the head of a Latias engraved into it.
Laila rolled her eyes. "Right is heads, okay? Left is tails?" She exchanged a glance with me, raising her eyebrows playfully.
I couldn't help but smile back. Laila and I had engaged in lots of dirty-look contests back at home, which reminds me of how far away I was from my hometown. The fires seemed like a distant memory. My hometown burned to the ground, and now I'm in an undersea hallway leading to god-knows-where, I thought, clenching the coin in the palm of my hand. What next?
Riley nudged my shoulder. "Flip the coin, please," he said, sounding a little condescending. He had this look on his face like he was talking to someone a little bit delusional.
I tossed the coin in the air, taking the opportunity to cram the rest of my lunch into my mouth while the coin rolled on its side. When the coin fell, I think I could have heard the breathing of a Magikarp up above. The air was tense.
Aria picked up the coin. "Tails," she announced, popping the last dried Chesto berry into her mouth. "Left it is?"
Left seemed to be a good choice, I thought, as we started walking, the only noise being the clap of our shoes against the dirty floor and the gentle ringing of Chime as she hovered close to Julianne. Along with a slightly brighter light, a door popped up every now and then, though I wasn't sure where they led to. It had the certain importance of a government building.
But the air was still tense, and I still felt like we'd come across something we shouldn't. We didn't talk as we wound around corner after corner. I almost stopped thinking. With the brighter light, Aria's candle was unnecessary, dropped onto the ground after it was melted into a stub. We all started to spread out a little, feeling a little less endangered as it became clear that nothing was going to happen to us. I fell about twenty-five meters behind Riley, who was ahead of me, and maybe a hundred or so yards behind our leader, Aria.
I started feeling a little bit bored, and was thinking about catching up to Riley and striking up mindless conversation when I heard a soft shriek.
Riley glanced over his shoulder and hurried around the corner. I sprinted too, feeling a little bit winded. A lot of crazy thoughts of what had happened were rushing through my head—Aria had just hit Laila, Laila had unleashed Chime on Aria, a trapdoor had opened up underneath someone and sent them into a pool of spikes.
When I arrived, I realized it was a hundred times worse. A woman with short, spiky red hair tied with a blue bandana was standing behind a growling Mightyena. Chime hovered in front of Laila, who seemed to be frozen with terror. Riley put his hand on Laila's tensed shoulder.
"Give it up, kids," the red-haired trainer remarked. "We've got you."
