Chapter 24: The Descent

"That could've killed us!" I shouted, stepping back from the ledge, only now noticing the yellow line on the ground saying 'Climb, don't jump.'

Yeah, real safe of you right there.

"What do you mean? It's just water," Egeers said, risking a glance. He'd gone quite pale, which was saying a lot considering he was already pale.

"Water? At this height? It'd kill us for sure," I said. I looked down the tube and saw that Prassus and Ratfinch were about halfway done. Neither of them looked very happy.

"We caught up to you," I called down to them. I heard Prassus cursing something back at me.

"He's in a good mood," Egeers joked weakly. He was standing up against the wall we had come in from, back pushed hard against the barrier.

"Come on man, we have to do this," I said, inching closer to the edge. I wasn't afraid of heights, but I wasn't a fan of them either.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you," he muttered, from a place that was decidedly not with me.

"You won't be getting down any other way," I said, kneeling to grab a rope. I was holding on as hard as I could. I didn't want to do this without him. Doing this alone, well, I wouldn't feel safer, but I'd be more comfortable.

"Ok, just let me…ok, let me come up there, let me…right, I can do this," Egeers said, pacing back and forth along the wall, hyping himself up.

"The Emperor rewards bravery," I said, trying to give him that little extra push. Egeers nodded, still pacing.

"I know, I know. Do I have to? I do? Oh, I can do it. Can I? I can. I can. I can," he muttered over and over again, still pacing with nervous energy. This didn't look good.

"Egeers! Just grab the damn rope and we can win this, yeah? We can beat Prassus and Ratfinch, and we're well ahead of the rest. Come on man, we can do this! No doubts, yeah?"

"No doubts. Yeah. No doubts. The Emperor protects," he shouted, joining my side and taking a rope into his one hand, looking at where it was anchored into the ground with dubious unease.

"You know how to land in water from this high up, right?" I asked him. He had his eyes shut and was muttering prayers under his breath.

"No," he said. "I can't even swim."

Oh. Right.

"Just don't land flat. Try to hit the water feet first, arms by your side, if you fall off," I said, stepping over the ledge, gripping the rope so tight my palms were burnt.

"What happens if I don't?" Egeers said.

"Uh…you go splat."

"Splat? I don't want to go splat," he whispered.

"Then don't. We'll climb down first, then work out what comes next, yeah?"

"No doubt, no doubts," he muttered nervously, taking his first step off the ledge. His legs were wobbling so badly it looked like he was being electrocuted.

"If I fall, catch me, yeah?"

"I'll try," I said, taking a few steps down the sheer surface, barely easing my grip on the rope.

"Don't try, do it," Egeers snapped. "I don't want to die."

"You won't die. Do you think someone would die in the Imperial Guard without ever seeing their enemy? That's nonsense!" I joked weakly. I decided to try a little bounding drop, tucking my legs around the rope and sliding down.

I slid a little faster than expected.

"Woah, woah, woah," I shouted, reaching out with my feet to stop me. My legs slid along the concrete wall for a metre before coming to a stop.

"Jesus Christ," I muttered, thankful I didn't just fall to an unpleasant end. I didn't know if a drop into water from a height of 10 metres could kill you or not, but I didn't want to put it to the test. Egeers was taking his time, inching downwards at a crawl. My little drop had put me at a third of the way down, a few metres above Prassus and Ratfinch.

Time to take a little risk.

"Egeers, I'm going to get a little ahead, that ok?"

"No," he said, eyes shut tight. "Don't leave me!"

"I kind of already have," I replied.

"Some teammate you are!" He cried.

"Remember when you tried using a knife to cut through a net we were both in without telling me?"

Egeers paused.
"Fair point," he conceded. "Just make sure you can still catch me."

"You won't fall, just hold on tight," I called out.

"If you fall, I'll catch you!" Prassus shouted.

"Who, me or him?" I looked down at him, and Prassus grinned.

"Either!"

"If you fall on me, I'm going to let you drop," Ratfinch said, way below all of us.

"Is that how you repay me for all the rats I gave you?" Egeers said, managing to sound offended at a time like this.

"Remember Payla?" Ratfinch shot back, to my confusion. Prassus just groaned at the name.

"Yeah, yeah, alright," Egeers muttered, taking a few steps down before pausing again. I was being bolder, and was almost matching Prassus, who I felt was being overly cautious.

"You can climb up them real fast but can't climb down a rope? What's with that?" I said, as I drew level with him. He tried to shrug as best he could when he had his arms gripped firmly to the rope.

"Don't like heights," he replied smoothly.

"Never seemed to bother you before," I pointed out. Prassus grinned back at me, taking a few steps to regain the lead. We could easily jump from this height, but I felt that was not the point of this test.

"Yeah, well, I don't let it bother me," he replied. I took another small leap downwards. Ratfinch dropped into the water below us and cried out when he hit the cold water.

"Gah, it's like bathing in ice-water!"

"That bad?" Prassus said.

"Yeah, it's not good," he said. "I don't see a way out."

Bracing myself for the shock of the cold, I let go of the rope and dropped into the cold water, preparing for the shocking sensation of icy water on skin.

The cold hit me like a sledgehammer. It was so cold it burnt. The air was forced from my lungs and my eyes filled with tears as I let out an involuntary gasp. Worse still, I had been submerged up to my chest and could not feel the bottom. Ratfinch was desperately hanging onto his rope, which dangled just above the surface of the water. He could only barely reach it with both arms above his head.

"Can you swim?" I asked, treading water. He shook his head, looking absolutely miserable.

"Can you?" I asked Prassus, who was grinning like a maniac in the cold water. Guess it must be like home for these guys, huh?

"A little," he said, coughing up a mouthful of water. Very reassuring.

"How's it going Egeers?" I looked up, and saw he'd made it halfway down. Just a little further to go. He was making good progress now and seemed to have gotten confident enough to take full steps down, rather then little baby steps. Good on him.

"The exit must be underwater," I said, looking around, and Prassus nodded.

"Yeah, but where?"

"I don't know. We'll have to look for it," I said, taking a deep breath and diving underwater. The cold water was black, and almost impossible to see in, but I could make out the outline of a bright patch in the wall beneath us, backlit by something. An exit?

I surfaced, shooting cold water from my nostrils, face burning in the cold.

"Tunnel…under the wall," I managed, catching my breath.

"An underwater tunnel? No, no, no, no," Ratfinch muttered. "I can't swim!"

"Not to deep, and big," I spluttered, coughing cold water. This was bad. We shouldn't be staying in water this cold for so long.

"The tunnel is as wide as a blast door and its only a few metres below the surface," I repeated, when I could manage full sentences. Holy shit, was this water cold. It was consuming me in its icy black grasp.

"Is there something on the other side?" Prassus said, shivering. He didn't look quite so happy anymore.

"I don't know. I'll have to check. Egeers! Don't get into the water until I come back," I shouted up to him. He was only two metres up, and was holding on for dear life, but for once, he seemed happier to be on the rope then off it.

"Yeah, don't have to tell me twice," he said happily.

"What if you don't come back?" Ratfinch asked, shivering, his pale little face ringed with white.

"Uh…rescue me?" I laughed weakly, shivering even more.

"What if we can't?" Prassus asked seriously. I tried to shrug.

"Then I guess I'll die, and then it won't be my problem anymore," I replied. "But if that happens, well, just…figure out how to hold your breath longer or something. Maybe have to get Alexei to rescue you. He has to be watching us somehow, right?"

I tried to see if there were any cameras or observation modules, but all I could see was rope, water and concrete. Prassus nodded solemnly. Was this really it? The first life and death situation I find myself in was a fucking water course of all things.

At this point, I was a little incensed. Initially, I would've gladly taken death as an escape from this nightmare, and probably would've happily died of food poisoning from some rotten mushrooms if it meant I got myself back home.

But now that I was actually in a situation where I'd die if I didn't do something, a part of my brain clicked into action, forcing me to take action. It didn't matter that it would prolong my miserable existence in this place, it didn't matter it meant that I might die a horrible grisly death later on, it didn't matter it made no sense as to why I was fighting for this, but…but I couldn't control it. It felt as if a flame were lit in my heart, pumping burning oil through my veins, turning muscle to steel and flesh to iron. I felt like I was being pushed, pushed from something deep within me, a manic urge to continue, to go on, to live.

Flight or fight.

I chose fight.

I took a deep breath, filled my lungs with air, and dove underwater, forcing my way through the stygian blackness of the frozen depths. I pushed through the weakness in my body, forced my way past the barrier in my mind. The tunnel entrance loomed there, lit from within by several blinding spotlights. I forced myself to continue.

My arms were growing leaden, my eyesight swam with spots. My lungs burned.

Was I going to…no!

NO!

I…will…not…die!

I went through the opening, and immediately swam up. Up towards the surface, if it were there. If it wasn't…I didn't think of that. It didn't even cross my mind. I just knew it was there. The surface. Air. Freedom. I didn't know how, but I knew. It. Was. There.

I broke free of the icy black water and burst into the air of an underground tunnel, immediately grabbing onto the first thing I saw, a concrete ledge on the side of the tunnel. Coughing up half my lungs, I hauled myself onto the panel, pulling myself over the edge with the last ounce of strength in my weary arms. Rolling onto my back and breathing in the still air with an obvious sigh of relief, I allowed myself a moment of calm as I cleared my mind. My blood singed in my body. I felt the relief flood through me, dousing me in its comforting embrace.

"Thank God," I muttered, rolling onto my side to cough up some more water. Bleh. I froze for a moment when I thought of what I just said. Thank God. I was never really religious, having left that behind me when I was a kid, but…here, deities were a real, tangible, thing, right? The Emperors power was certainly very real. Would he protect me, a human from 38,000 years ago, and quite possibly even a different reality? Would he protect me, even if I didn't really believe in his power to protect? Did he even know I was here…could the Emperor even sense my presence, an anomaly in the vastness of the galaxy?

Was the Emperor the one who brought me here?

Dragging myself to my feet, I realised I had to keep going. Pushing such thoughts out of my head, I knew I had to focus on the here and now. The others needed me to get through this. I had to get them through this. Which meant going back into the water and through that entrance.

Twice.

Authors notes:

A week after the first chapter was published, here we are at Chapter 24! From now on, we'll be doing things at a rate of 3 chapters a week, which will be uploaded every (Australian) Monday. I'm glad to see you like this story so much, as its certainly been fun to write.

And we're just getting into the good bits. We haven't even hit the 'real' story, per se. This is all just one giant, extended prologue. The opening act, if you will, setting the scene.

There's a lot to look forward to, trust me!

But to conclude this week, I have a question for you. Who is your favourite character in the story so far?