Faithful Pebble:
Part Twenty-Three
For a second, a minute, a moment, the man considered his options before taking off into the western bound tunnel. Headed towards the village, only one thought plagued his mind pulsing like the steady steps of the second hand marching down, prancing down, counting down somewhere deep in his pocket.
Tick
Tick
Where are you?
It weaved, the tunnel. It turned, twisted, coiled and spiraled as time passed, as his steps paced steadily and wearily on until he could no longer perceive the direction where he was headed. The wanderer stuttered to a stop. His breath heaved in time to the pulse of his watch. In. Out. In. Out. He rubbed his eyes. The man sighed then looked around. Perhaps, just running in wasn't the best idea. He looked further up the tunnel, looked back from whence he came. There had been no exits, no entrances that he had seen or at least that was what he thought. Taking a breath, he pushed forward, his mind racing, vaguely focusing unlike his vis tunnel had to lead somewhere. He narrowed his eyes, their glittering irises dimming slightly, the darkness around him growing in proportion. "Pebble," he whispered. He pressed on thoughts of her pushing him forward. Where was she? Where did she run to? Did she—
He stumbled falling almost face first back into the vortex, the bottom of that much wider puzzle of a well.
He'd returned. Through a new tunnel?A different one? He couldn't tell. He couldn't tell where the original tunnel was. He grabbed hold of the dangling rope and pondered climbing it once more to get his bearings, but as he looked up, doubt and confusion eating at him, he decided against it. He, once again, pulled out his pocket watch, the light filling him with light, the backwards minute hand tick, tick, ticking, the second hand, less visible, tock, tock, tocking telling him wordlessly that an hour had passed. Night was coming. He didn't want to waste more time climbing, more energy that could be spent reaching dirty hands and frozen skin. He licked his lips, running forward into a tunnel only to exit from the left, into the right to come out the front, from behind, from the side.
He yelled. She hadn't even spoken. His head whipped back and forth his eyes scanning from tunnel to tunnel to tunnel. Discouraged, he exhaled and moved to sit against the inner wall of a passage way. North? South? He no longer knew.
The wanderer pushed back his hair and stared up through the well shaft into the night sky, above at the few lonely stars he could see. They glittered dully not brilliantly like the sun had earlier that morning. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and leaned back against the rock closing his eyes, his thoughts wandering to what he would do next.
Thank you reading and reviewing, guys! - Calla