Author's notes: I don't really have to say much. After I finish the next chapter, this story will be put on hiatus, just so I can sort things out in my head and flesh out ideas to deviate from the actual game. I will be making another short story soon enough, so be on the lookout for that. Feel free to leave reviews and favorite my story. As for Leo's review on the previous chapter, we'll see what the future has in store for our protagonist. Without further ado, here is the next chapter:

Chapter 12: Close Calls

Making my way to the next section of the iron mines, many thoughts flew by me with every step I took. Anticipation, doubts, fear and curiosity were just few of my emotions in the turmoil of my mind. I didn't know what laid before me, or what I would find standing in my path. Nevertheless, I made my way to the door, entered the code on the keypad and opened it, not letting my composure go away for a second.

The next section didn't sport anything significantly different from the previous ones. It was still a wide array of partially lit corridors, a feral scouting for food in each one. Apart from the unlit parts, the corridors lacked any sort of physical cover. There were more of these steam traps which I doubted I would have to use, but besides the practical structures, there were only some old, rusted reservoirs behind the collapsed walls.

I had less options for venturing, which I considered a lucky break. The only possible places I could go to were: a frozen, underground lake, a chemical storage, and an incinerator. Seemed like a lucky break at a time, but as it turned out, it might have just been a ruse I've created for myself.

Silver, apparently aware of my approach, spoke to me, providing me with leads as to what to do next:

"Ah, as my doom is impending, so are you, my benevolent companion. To put aside the deceit, I've been speculating that the reaper has taken you into the unending depths, and so I harbor hope that you remain away from its grasp. As you have done many times before, so shall you be appointed the crown of destruction one last time before we meet. Refer to the written words that helped you during the first blast, and be prepared for a class in Chemistry. A concoction is to be brewed, but as a baby dragon, you must make sure to treat it gently, lest you rather die an untimely death.

As you acquire the components of fate, you may come across my feast on a platter of snow. Be mindful, poor Silver had put a bit too much faith in the ice plane, and it disintegrated before his eyes. While you traverse through it with the best of your abilities, don't mind the remains. In desperation, I ate ravenously of biped meat that day. But I did not start the feast until the signs of life were long gone, until only the putrid stench of decay remained."

Silver's ramblings seem to gradually become more and more devoid of sanity. Even now I could hear his desperation turning him into a lesser being, a monster with no sense of morality flowing through his being as nihilism takes over. I wonder how it would look like to be him, forced into cannibalism, no freedom of choice, no hope for freedom. Still, that's something I want to keep away from my being. Right now, I am only thinking about getting some answers here, and they are waiting for me patiently behind a single door.

Moving from shadow to shadow, throwing some beef jerky in separate direction to lure away the ferals, I eventually arrived in front of a door leading to the chemical storage. There were two doors leading to the storage, and keeping in mind the way how my whereabouts presented itself, one of them was probably locked or jammed. An ounce of luck decided my fortune, as the first door I attempted to open was letting me through.

A few moments later, that ounce of luck I assumed was proved to be nothing more than a hoax. This is not because I have discovered, at last, a room which held no relevance to my progress. It was because a terror I have only ever experienced once has come again to assimilate my soul into the darkness.

There was no period of time where I was unaware of the imminent danger, I instantly knew by the sounds of the quakes and devastation that I would be soon be evading the horrifying jaws of the beast worm. Any injuries I have suffered through have long dispersed, hence letting me exert all my force to run away as fast as I could.

I remember the time I was at the mercy of the ferals, my own blood trickling from my leg. Unlike then, I had no option to retaliate against this beast. Dread was starting to overwhelm me, I knew it would only be a matter of minutes before I perish, my last moments spent in anguish.

I escaped through a long hallway, which was unfortunately ornamented with various obstacles and even deadlier traps. I had an advantage in which I could seal the doors behind me shut, letting the beast spend a few moments breaking the door into pieces.

This, however, was marred by the many wooden barriers I had to obliterate with my pick, shaking violently, not paying attention to the many times the wooden shards lodged into my skin. Luckily for me, none of them were big enough to pierce deep into the skin, so I managed to escape with only minor scratches.

Another predicament I was being exposed to was the collapsed floor, the bottom filled with an acidic fluid, most likely the courtesy of the Sulphur deposits this mine has. The only way to traverse past these was to carefully hop onto the wooden boxes that found themselves there, sometimes having to push one in.

I couldn't tell how much time I wasted timing my jumps or breaking down the obstacles. Being chased by a ravenous being made my heart racing. My mind only had the willpower and concentration to cling onto the most arbitrary of tasks, the ones that would decide my fate.

The end of the corridor greeted me soon enough, but unfortunately the metal door was lowered, prohibiting me from escaping. There was a valve which lifted the metal door off the floor, but the mechanism worked sluggishly and it took a significant amount of time to barely lift it, despite rotating the valve like mad.

I could hear the loud crashing reverberating through the corridor, and I didn't even have to glance to know that the last of the doors I closed has been ruptured. I faced the oncoming the beast just mere seconds away from my current location. And yet, it was enough for my intuition to kick in.

My eyes darted back and forth until finally stopping at a stone pillar. My subconscious must have instantly recalled the scenario in the spider caves, and a great surge of energy suddenly flowed through my veins. I swung at my pickaxe at the pillar twice before it broke, and the ceiling came crashing down. I managed to completely evade the descending rubble, but the worm collided with the mixture of stone and iron. The force wasn't enough to kill the worm, but enough damage was done, and the pursuit ceased.

I sighed a breath of relief and took my time opening the door without any more worries. The room I entered consisted of many shelves filled top to bottom with various books, save for some lab equipment. There was a piece of paper sitting on a table in the middle. It was a note listing six chemicals and an unusual sentence with each of the words having their first letter capitalized. I had my suspicions from the start that the sentence was a mnemonic detailing the letters with which the chemicals were labeled.

Scouring the room thoroughly, I managed to get all six chemicals accounted for. They were scattered in various places, seemingly at random. As suspected, the letters with which they were labeled corresponded with that of the mnemonic. With everything in order, I left the room through a door, which was the other door to the chemical storage, the one I didn't take.

My next stop was the frozen lake Silver explicitly mentioned. I had no proper idea what it was that I was looking for there, but I assumed something else was in my path besides the cave-in. It took a bit longer to get there, but I managed to sneak past the ferals successfully.

Like the excavation area, the otherwise paved corridors turned into a craggy, twirling cave. The mines were cold, but the frost that awaited me here took me by surprise, albeit it still wasn't as mind dampening and horrible as the surface.

There wasn't much to see regarding manmade objects. Just a decrepit wooden shed and a backpack in a pool of dried blood. There was an artefact on a table next to the shelf which I, as it is my habit, touched. Lately, I can't help but feel a sense of familiarity emanating from the otherwise foreign looking artefacts. It's as if I am not alone whenever I enter them, if it is entering that I'm referring to. But the others aren't strangers to me either. In fact, it is as if they are pieces of me, like the artefacts have plucked a piece of me every time I made contact with them. It is visceral, for a lack of a better word.

Examining the backpack, the only thing I could use was a bottle of painkillers. Though I can't say I left the backpack without some exposition.

There was a note in the backpack. The person who wrote it addressed it as his last will and testament, and promptly explained the chain of events that led to his demise. He explained that his colleague has suddenly become delirious, and attacked him while they crossing the frozen lake. The ice, as it should be expected, was fragile and collapsed right under their feet. None of them could escape the deadly frost of the cold water, and it only served to amplify their battle wounds, bleeding profusely. They ended up on the opposite sides of the lake, waiting for death to carry them away.

With no other choice, I attempted to cross over to the other side of the lake, hoping to reach the other man and check if he had anything of value. Just as I made a few steps forward, so did the frozen surface before me crumble. I stumbled back just enough to evade the frozen water.

I attempted to cross over several times on different parts of the lake, but to no avail as they broke off into pieces. I was forced to make a run for it, skid over the floating pieces before our combined weights submerge us both. I used bits of land protruding from the ice surface in the middle of the lake, and carefully timed my jumps, swiftly reaching a much more stable patch of ice.

From this patch of ice I could see a gortex glove protruding from the depths. I wasn't sure whether the glove was frozen in place or if it was still attached to the rest of the cadaver. What I did know was it was clutching onto a sturdy crowbar.

It required a lot of force to pull the crowbar out of the deathly grasp, but coupled with the pick I managed to knock the thing out. The crowbar seemed sturdy enough, no rust forming around it. There was an inscription on one side: "Freeman". Most likely the name of its bearer, either trapped below the water or long gone through the intestines of my ravenous lunatic friend.

The way back didn't hold any more surprises. Hopping over the unstable floating ice I made my way back to where I came from, armed with a crowbar. In just a few moments I am about to finally meet my companion and get some answers I desperately need.

Regardless of how I feel, I know that reaching him is only the beginning of my restless endeavor.