Hi everyone :)

I have some good news. Act 1 of this story is done (20 chapters in total) so I'll be posting more often for a while.

Chapter 10

From the outside Blue appeared to be finally at rest, but the reality was quite different. After his long trek he was so overtired, sleep simply eluded him; his mind ached while also being filled with swirling illusion. Various dreams came and went, mixing into a heart pounding mental cacophony. After a few hours of this disturbed rest, his eyes shot open. His breathing was shallow and erratic as if he had just suffered a terrific nightmare, but his addled brain was totally empty and he was unable to remember where he was and how he had gotten there.

Blue sat up and look about, taking in the familiar interior of the Bull Ant. A deep veil of depression fell over the young man as he realised the true nightmare he faced. Calla and Abigail were still gone and he faced an unbearable future of unknowing their fate.

After taking a small amount of food and water, Blue raided the now empty rooms of his sister and his friend. Having borrowed several blankets, he retreated to his own room and buried himself under a considerable pile of stolen bedding before finally slipping into a state of temporary hibernation. The low rumbling of the Bull Ant's electric motors, along with the movement of the vehicle were nowhere near enough to keep the exhausted young man awake any longer and he slept for the rest of the night and most of the next day as well.

When he finally awoke the next evening, Blue was sorry to discover that his two days in the wild, and wearing damp clothes, did have some horrid consequences. He was very fortunate not to have a chronic case of pneumonia, but he did now suffer from a not so mild case of flu. With no medical attention to speak of, Blue had no choice but to rest when he could, eat when he should, and drink whatever he could manage; all the while DeGroot kept guiding the Bull Ant on to the east; whenever the batteries held enough charge for him to do so.

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Days of work digging at the tunnel entrance were starting to take their toll on the five workers. They had found two more breaks in the phone line but still had not managed to make contact with those trapped inside. And now a large boulder was causing more trouble.

"We're just going to have to dig around it" Oliver insisted.

"Are you kidding?" Calla argued "We've been going straight for so long, if we start digging out the side wall, it would be the virtually equivalent of starting over from scratch."

"Yes I know you want to blow it up, but that's just too dangerous. We may end up causing another rock fall, and on top of that we'd totally destroy the phone wire" Oliver retaliated.

Calla stamped her foot in frustration.

"Listen; we drill into the rock first, and then use only a small charge. I only want to crack the, not send it to the Moon."

"What about the phone wire?" Oliver sneered.

"What about it? We're bound to find the end of it again and besides, we may have all the time in the world, but the people in the tunnel are on a really tight schedule; assuming they are still alive."

"She's got a point" Stanley agreed.

Unable to argue anymore, Oliver picked up a heavy hammer and cold chisel, and started to drill into the rock. In less than ten minutes the group had moved on to using a seven foot crowbar. It took till late in the afternoon but eventually, they managed to get a hole close to the centre, ready to take an explosive charge.

"So how does it work?" Calla asked as Eric pondered the equipment he had taken from the storage shed on the far side of the compound.

"I must admit I'm not totally sure; I'm not part of the blasting team" he admitted. "As far as I know we attach this detonator to the main charge and place it in the hole. Then we run the attached wire out to a safe distance, connect the end to the dynamo, turn the handle and... boom... I hope."

"Dynamo... like on the phone?" Abigail asked.

"Yup; it's just something to create an electric charge; but this time instead of making a bell ring..."

"Make rock go boom" Calla said in her best cave man voice.

"In a nut shell... yeah" Eric nodded.

Everyone took cover by sitting behind the nearest building while Eric carefully placed the charge. Even though the explosive was stable until the detonator core was activated, he was still very nervous. Moving slowly backwards he un-spooled the long wire until he finally reached the others. It only took a minute to connect the terminals and they were all set to go.

"Ready?" Eric asked as he placed his hand on the dynamo handle.

"WAIT! Aren't you supposed to shout something to warn anyone in the area?" Abigail wondered.

"But we're all here!" Oliver stated.

"If it will make you feel better" Eric sighed "LOOK OUT! WE'RE ABOUT TO BLOW UP A ROCK!"

With that said, everyone put their fingers in their ears as Eric turned the handle. There was no doubt at all; it had worked. To say there was loud noise would be a gross understatement and they all wished they had moved much further back. First there were the rocks; both large and small flew over the town, except for the ones that flew through the town. Everybody held their heads down as rocks punched straight through the wooden building, some missing them by only a few millimetres. Next came the dust cloud, moving much slower over head before settling down and turning the entire area a light dirty yellowish brown.

"Woah!' Abigail gasped "That was close."

"I thought that was a small charge!" Oliver snapped.

"So did I" Eric shrugged.

"What made you think it was a small one?" Calla wondered.

"Well... it was bright yellow" Eric admitted.

Calla pondered his words for a second before coming to a conclusion.

"I have no idea what you're talking about" she stated.

"Unfortunately, neither does Eric" Stanley smirked.

"Well you see... I couldn't understand any of the technical terms on the side of each charge so I figured the darker the colour, the stronger the charge would be and there were red, orange and... um... yellow ones."

"Here's hoping we don't have to try another round of Explosives Bingo" Calla decided "Let's go see how it went."

"Err... before we do, I appear to be bleeding" Oliver noted, holding up a very red left arm."

As a senior student on Mars and genuine Space Cadet, Abigail Dias had received quite a lot of emergency first aid training and so she naturally went straight into action.

"Looks like you've got a very nasty splinter of wood just below your shoulder" she said.

"That's not a splinter, that's a tree!" Calla gasped at the size of the wood.

"Can you stand up?" Abigail asked.

"I think so" Oliver replied.

While Abigail led the injured man off to the same infirmary where she and Calla had been sleeping, the other three went to inspect the aftermath of the explosion and were quite pleased with what they found. They had expected to split the boulder in several places, making it a simple task to remove the smaller pieces with pickaxe and crowbar. But instead they found the large rock completely gone, along with about half a ton of the dirt behind it. This new section of dirt wall soon caught everyones attention because protruding from it, about two meters up from the ground, were two shielded wires.

"Is that the phone line?" Calla asked.

"Sure is" Eric nodded "May as well hook up the handset and try again I suppose."

While he went to fetch the old telephone, Calla and Stanley dug around the wire, filling one of the wheelbarrows. By the time Eric had returned, he had another meter of line to play with making the connection process much easier. With the ends of the wires cleaned and screwed into place, Eric made yet another attempt at contact. He turned the crank handle a few times, picked up the handset and placed it to his ear, just as he had done several times before.

"Anything?" Calla asked after half a minute.

"No nothing" Eric replied.

Once again he replaced the handset and tried again while not far away, Oliver had to admit he was impressed.

"I have to admit, I'm impressed" he said as Abigail stitched up a rather deep flesh wound on the man's left shoulder.

"Thank you" she smiled "Considering this is the first time I've done this on a real person, it's going pretty well I think. In first aid training we only had simulation limbs made of a kind of vinyl plastic."

"I'm just glad I don't have to watch" Oliver admitted "It's bad enough just knowing what you're doing."

"It certainly was quite a big chunk of wood that hit you" Abigail declared.

"Yeah... I guess we're lucky this was the only injury" Oliver noted.

"You're lucky it got your arm and didn't go through the back of your head."

The man went silent for a short time while Abigail continued her work but after a few minutes, he managed to gather up enough courage to tell her what was on his mind.

"You know... it's not just your first aid skills I find impressive" he began.

"You like the way I cook fish too?" Abigail smiled.

"Well... yeah, but I also like the way you girls decided to hang around after the rock fall. Me and the guys were ready to give up but what you said about rock structure and stuff, it uh... gave us... hope."

"I could be wrong you realise" Abigail stated bluntly "but I just couldn't leave without trying. If there is anyone alive in there, they'll need us."

"Yeah... that's right" Oliver took a deep breath "Listen... I know that by the time you turn eighteen I'll be almost thirty, but I was wondering..."

"You can stop wondering right now" Abigail interrupted as she picked up the scissors to snip the last thread.

"I can tell you now, there is no way I would even contemplate making any important decisions about my future right now, but I will tell you this; if by some chance I am still here in three and a half years and you ask me this again, I promise not to laugh at you" Abigail stated.

Replacing the scissors, she started to clean around the wound and wrap it with gauze.

"I err... I suppose that's reasonable" Oliver nodded.

"But won't say yes either and I can't guarantee I won't hit you" she admitted.

"Oh... I thought your friend was the violent one" Oliver pondered.

"She is" Abigail noted "but she's a good teacher and I'm a fast learner."

With her job done and everything put away, Abigail was about to suggest they return to the tunnel excavation site when a very excited Calla burst through the door.

"THEY'RE ALIVE!" she shouted.

"What... who?" Oliver asked somewhat stunned.

"Who do you think" Calla grinned "EVERYBODY!"

"Really?" Abigail gasped "How do you know?"

"We got the phone to work" Calla replied, jumping up and down with excitement.

"And they're ALL alive, everyone?" Oliver asked.

"Yes; isn't that wonderful?" Calla's smile grew wider.

"Well come on then" Oliver jumped off the table he sat on "We gotta get back to work."

Running across the compound after not bothering to close the infirmary door behind them, the three soon made it back to the tunnel work site. But instead of finding Eric and Stanley joyfully working with new found impetus, they found the two men looking very forlorn.

"Why are you two looking so down?" Oliver asked "Is anything wrong?"

Eric and Stanley looked to each other before Eric started to speak.

"They told us everyone was alright... and then they asked... if all seven of us survived the shockwave."

"Seven? But there were only six of us; five now that Blue is gone" Abigail noted.

"It seems that... Nancy noticed I wasn't in the main assembly area" Eric continued "She came out to check and see if everything was okay... and... they never saw her again."

Calla felt Abigails hand slip into hers and squeeze it tightly. Being one of the first people they had met upon being captured, the girls had gotten to know Nancy very well and had come to rely on her help. If she had disappeared, there was very little doubt about what had happened to her, but none of them wanted to accept it.

"Wh... where is she then?" Calla asked, still not wanting to consider the answer.

"Somewhere under all that I assume" Eric callously gestured to the huge pile of dirt and rock.

Abigail closed her eyes and started to take very short breaths.

"See what you've done?" Stanley hissed "Do you See WHAT YOU'VE DONE?"

Abigail and Calla took a step back as the tall man advanced on them.

"If you hadn't tried to escape, Nancy would still be alive!" he sneered.

Oliver tried to stop his friend, but his wounded arm made the task very difficult until Eric joined in.

"If we hadn't tried to escape, we'd all be stuck inside the tunnel" Calla argued.

"BUT WE'D BE ALIVE... ALL OF US! And they're digging out from the inside so... we would have been okay."

"Don't be ridiculous" Oliver told Stanley "If we were inside the tunnel, all of this rubble would not have been moved already; who's to say we would have made it out in time?"

"Yes and clearing all this away from the outside was hard, but it would have far more difficult to dig ourselves out from underneath it all" Eric agreed.

Stanley grunted loudly, turned away and stormed off a short distance away, purposely kicking a rock in the process and hurting his foot. He tried his best not to cry out or limp, hoping no one would notice what he had done. They did, but nobody said anything.

"Calla... could we really be responsible for Nancy's death?" Abigail wondered.

Calla grabbed her friend's shoulders and looked firmly into her eyes.

"While we can be blamed for trying to escape, Gran can be blamed for bringing us here in the first place, DeGroot can be blamed for insisting we travel this far north, the people who tried to shoot us down during re-entry can be blamed for setting us off on this journey in the first place and so on, and so on, and so on. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Yes..." Abigail managed a slight smile "sometimes things just... happen."

"You got it" Calla nodded "Life is just a chain of events. We try to do what seems right at the time, but who's to know what is a good decision, and what is a bad one until it all unfolds."

Abigail looked over at the man sitting on a rock, rubbing his foot.

"Somehow I don't think Stanley would see it that way" she noted correctly.

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With a loud splash, the small dragon plunged back into the bay to fetch its breakfast. Today was a very different day on the volcanic island because of a thick sea fog, hovering only a short distance from the shore. Having succeeded in procuring something fresh and tasty, the dragon sat down on the rocky beach and began to devour his catch until something other than fish began to fill his senses.

He couldn't see, hear or smell it but he knew it was out there. Each one of the thin spinal plates running down the dragon's back and tail, tapered to point finer than a strand of hair and acted like the whiskers of a cat. Each one of them could feel the presence of regular changes in the way the air was moving, and it could only be caused by the beating of very large wings. Considering the nesting season was still several months away, the only other reason another dragon would come to this island would be to feed; the same reason the small dragon was there.

Not wanting to get involved in a territorial fight with something many times his size, the small dragon abandoned his partially eaten meal and took to the sky. There would be other islands, and there would be other fish.

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Been a week now since the Steven Universe Movie hit my TV screen and I am still loving the music. I wish though that Rebecca Sugar would cut it up into 5 minute segments and then extend each bit into a 15 minute episode. There really is enough there for a whole season of shows.

The writing of Act 2 is coming along nicely but I may have to take a break next month to write this year's Snoggletog short story.

Bye for now :)