Chapter Four
Lights in the Abyss
Pain.
Mind-blowing pain.
His whole body was on fire.
"Uuuunnnnhhh…"
Okay, Ryan. All you gotta do is roll your body to the left a bit…
Ryan dimly realized that there was another body sprawled at a very grotesque angle across his back. Breathing? Yes. Conscious? Doubtful. Male? Umm… not likely.
Why the hell don't I just open my eyes?
He did.
And, after a few moments of thinking, squeezed them shut again.
Blackness.
Absolute darkness stared him bleakly in the face, no matter which way he craned his neck. It enveloped him and the form across his back tightly, as if an opaque blanket determined to throttle them.
The form slumped over his back moaned gently and stirred.
"Unnnnhhhh… wha…?"
Oh, god…
"Audrey? Is that you?"
"Yeah… Ryan?"
She sounded absolutely terrified.
"I'm here…"
"Unnhh… it hurts to freaking move…" Audrey groaned, shifting positions awkwardly.
There was a long silence, then Audrey murmured, "Where the hell are we?"
Ryan shrugged, then, realizing he couldn't be seen in the pressing dark, sighed. "I dunno."
Silence.
"Dang it, Audrey, what the heck were you thinking?"
An embarrassed silence fell.
"I… crap… I dunno, Ryan… sorry."
"Sorry doesn't begin to cover it," Ryan seethed. "You almost got both of us killed."
"Almost? How d'you know we're not dead right now?"
"Because, if we were, this is Hell. And even more reason to be ticked off at you."
Another embarrassed silence.
When Audrey spoke again, she was clearly tearing up.
"Look, I-I-I'm s-s-sorry," she stuttered thickly, "I d-d-dunno what g-g-got into m-m-me…"
Fervently wishing he was anywhere but stranded in the dark with a crying Audrey, Ryan resigned himself to his role of Human Tissue and let Audrey bury her face in his shoulder.
"Look… I… I'm sorry, Audrey…" Ryan muttered sheepishly as she nestled her face into the corner where his neck met his shoulder.
Warm… mmmm…
Suddenly realizing just who she was snuggling up to, Audrey pulled away quickly, quietly thanking the fates that the darkness hid her furious blush.
Ryan seemed a little uncomfortable as well.
"Mmmlllp…"
He sat up and gasped as first excruciating pain, then nausea rushed to his head. He lay back down with a hurried thump.
Audrey, on the other hand, seemed to be sitting up, as was deemed when she spoke again.
"You okay?"
"Fine… but what're we going to do now?"
He caught the faint mental imprint of a frown from Audrey, and felt her fingertips on his forehead. He inexplicably experienced a sudden shortness of breath as she laid a soft hand on his forehead and spoke a few syllables.
Instantly, the pain and nausea receded, and Ryan sat up, woozy and tired, but alive.
"Okay… much better, thanks a heck of a lot. You didn't answer my question, though: Now what?"
A faint glow penetrated the darkness, and it shrank back from them as Audrey's manual fell open, emitting a soft golden light as the auburn-haired girl placed it on her knee and flipped through a few pages.
"Okay… here."
She removed a basic spell matrix from inside the rear cover of the manual, then began adding syllables and alternating others, occasionally glancing at the manual for confirmation. The spell quickly took shape, sparking green in the pale light of the manual. Audrey spoke a sharp syllable, and a dazzling light suddenly bulleted out of the matrix.
Audrey picked up the matrix, played with it, then widened the beam sufficiently enough for her to point the light at Ryan and not fry him.
"Well, then… let's start walking."
Blinking in the unfamiliar light, Ryan sighed and followed Audrey out onto the vast, shadow-covered wasteland.