Until Dawn: A New Path

Chapter 16 of my Until Dawn story, enjoy.

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Now onto the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Until Dawn or its characters.

Chapter 16

Consciousness slowly returned to Jess. She opened her eyes, only to instantly be struck with dizziness. Her head was pounding from the blood rushing to it, and no wonder!

"Oh, God! Oh my god!" she cried out. "Mike! Mike!"

He did not reply. She couldn't see him anywhere.

The tower had fallen down the mines and she had fallen from the tower, which was once again wedged between some rocks. The only thing that had stopped her from plummeting to her death had been one of the support cables, which had tangled itself around her ankle. She was hanging now upside from the tower.

"Oh...Jesus... Shit. OH, SHIT! Dammit!"

She could hear the ominous creaking of metal and the sounds of the cable and knew that it wasn't good. She had to get out of her current predicament somehow. Looking around wildly, she spotted something that she prayed could help her.

'That ladder... If I can just reach it...' she told herself. 'Need to get across and grab it...'

She could just make out a ladder, protruding horizontally from a ledge, level with her body. Praying that the cable would hold, Jess began using her body weight to swing back and forth, trying to build momentum, until finally, she was able to grab the very first rung. Just in time too, for at that moment, the cable snapped and she grunted as her body fell until she was hanging from the ladder, holding on for dear life.

She quickly composed herself, the creaking of metal told her that she wasn't out of the woods yet.

"Alright..." she whispered encouragingly to herself, 'Let's go. I can do this. It's just like the climbing frame in gym class...'

She began to monkey bar her way across the ladder. As she neared the end, the ladder shook violently as an object from above struck it.

"Shit! Shit!" she cried as she lost her grip.

Luckily, there was a rock ledge not too far below. She landed on that and rolled over, groaning as she lay on her back. She quickly sat up, however, for above her, she could see the remains of the fire tower. They were beginning to fall.

Before she could react, a rock fell and struck her shin. She cried out, the sharp burst of agony nearly brought tears to her eyes. She began to push herself back by using her hands and feet, remaining seated. Again, she had a narrow escape, for she just got clear of the ledge and into the cave when the tower finally fell, destroying the ledge and falling into the abyss.

"Oh God..." she muttered as she winced, examining her shin. A deep cut had been left in her leg and her jeans had been ripped.

She pushed herself up and onto her feet and found that she could stand and the pain wasn't too bad as she walked. Running might be difficult, but she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.

She turned and took a step into the cave. It was pitch black inside. She looked around and saw a plank of wood and noted some flaming debris and an open oil drum. If she had something flammable, she could make a makeshift torch. She rubbed her shin and looked down at her clothes, particularly her purple top. It was the only thing available.

"Oh God. Okay, okay." she muttered as she tore off a long strip from the hem of her top and began to wrap it around the stick. "Hope this works."

Now that her makeshift torch was ready, she doused it in the oil and then lit it on the flames. Now she had light.

"Alright, now we're talkin'."

Relieved that it worked, she began to make her way through the mine cavern. As she walked, she suddenly heard an unusual noise and flinched, looking around wildly.

"Hello…?" she called nervously.

No reply, and the noise didn't repeat. She continued onwards until she found the path blocked by a wooden door chained shut.

'Great, now what? Hmm...' she thought as she looked down and saw the mine cart tracks.

Turning, she looked up the slope to see a mine cart braced near the top. She made her ascent, taking a moment to look around, in case she found anything else useful. But all that she found was an old photo. Shaking her head, she approached the cart and, leaning over, pulled the brake lever and backed off. She watched in growing hope (and then joy) as the mine cart rolled down the hill and broke right through the sealed passage, giving her a way forward again.

She walked through the newly opened passage to find herself in a large chamber. Looking around, she saw something which gave her hope: an elevator. She approached it and looked upwards. She couldn't see all the way up, but it looked like it led up to the surface, or very close to it.

'A way out.' she realized with hope.

But that hope was soon dashed as she tried to use it. The elevator wouldn't move, since it had no power. But Jess could see all of the cables and such, and knew that it had a power source.

"Okay, how do I get this thing on?"

She had to find it. So, stepping off the elevator, lighting a small wall-mounted torch, she looked around. Just then, she heard a loud scream and, on one of the higher ledges, a burst of fire.

"Ah!" she screamed. "What?! What the hell?"

Her heart wouldn't stop pounding and she moved with great care, not wanting to make too much noise. All she found down there was a clocking-in machine and danger signs, warning of structural collapse.

"Fuckin' busted elevator's my only way out." she muttered, fuming.

Of all the situations to end up in, she had to end up in this one. Stuck in some cold, dark, and frankly terrifying abandoned mine, only to find that they were not so abandoned, and she wasn't sure who or what was down there. Deciding to brave her chances with the upper ledges, she approached a ladder, leading up to a wooden walkway, and began to climb.

Reaching the top of the ladder, she set the torch down on the ledge and was about to pull herself up, when suddenly, she heard a loud metallic snap and then screamed as the ladder broke, falling away and sending her tumbling down a slope to a lower level.

"Fuck!" she screamed out before hitting the ground. "Uggh...God damn..."

Winded, definitely bruised, along with her other injuries, Jess pulled herself to her feet. She'd lost her light source. She had not wanted to do this, in order to conserve battery power, but she had no choice now. She pulled her phone out and turned on its light function, immediately illuminating a bunch of rotting skulls.

"NO!" she screamed, backing away in panic and disgust. "No, no, no!"

She tried to scramble back up the slope, but to no avail. "GROSS, GROSS, GROSS! Oh God!"

She gave up and turned to see the skulls again. "UGH, disgusting!"

Grimacing, she forced herself to walk past them and continue on the path. Thankfully, it seemed like there was only one way that she could go.

She couldn't help but fret, however. 'I'm much deeper now, further from the surface, further from getting out of here, and... Huh?'

She heard a sudden noise and, worriedly, she called out, "Mike…?"

No reply. She still wondered, fearfully, what had happened to him. Did he fall with the tower earlier, only to fall all the way down? That whole horrible scene kept playing in her head. What if he was dead? What if he had died trying to save her?

'No, don't think like that, Jess.' she told herself. 'Mike's tough. It'll take more than this to kill him.'

All the same, the fear remained with her as she broke through some wooden planks that were blocking her path.

She continued to explore the passage, looking for anything that would lead her back to that ledge that she needed to reach. She did note a few odd things, as well another 1952 photo, this time a family photo of the same miner she had found the photo of earlier.

Biting her lip, she soon found herself forced to climb a small rock wall. She managed it well enough, but it caused pain to flare up in her injured leg again, just as it had died down to a dull throb that she could control.

'Fuck, shit... Urgh, great... Okay, relax. Keep going, Jess. You can do this, you can do this.' she encouraged herself.

She finally found a ladder, which she was able to use to reach another tunnel, this one higher up. She continued to walk, looking around, just in case she ran into her boyfriend.

"Mike!"

Nothing. Then suddenly, she saw that her light was flickering.

"Huh? Oh no!" she cried out and shook her phone, but it was no use. "Come-on-for-fuck-sake!"

She briefly saw the battery dying image before the phone went dead.

She growled. "Son of a bitch."

Just then, beyond the tunnels, she saw a burst of flame again.

"Jesus. Shit..." she whispered.

The fact that she was seeing this in the direction that she needed to go was what scared her the most. Nevertheless, she steeled herself and walked onwards, knowing that she had no other options.

She did not see the source of the fire, but she did see that she had made it to the ledge that she had tried to reach earlier, and there, on the ground, was her torch. Picking it up, she grinned and approached the switch that controlled the power. Flicking it, she saw lights turn on, flicker, and die. But she heard the sound of electricity and realized that the power was indeed working.

"Oh my god, finally. Something works."

Relieved, she continued to follow the path into another tunnel, hoping to find another way down to the large chamber. It was then that she reached another cavern, one flooded with moonlight. She jogged forwards, trying not to jostle her injured leg too much.

"Yes! YES!" she cried out.

She might not need the elevator after all. She immediately began trying to climb the slope, but it was too steep and slippery to climb.

"Shit." she muttered. So much for that.

She continued to look around the cavern. Two things stood out in the light of her torch. The first was a photo of Hannah, showing her black butterfly tattoo. The second was a pair of broken glasses.

"Hannah?" Jess gasped, realizing what this meant.

Hannah's personal items down there. That cliff, which she now realized was the same one where she and Mike had been attacked by the deer.

'She was here... Maybe Beth, too. They... God, they must have fallen down here...'

She shuddered at that thought and then noticed something else, partially hidden.

She pulled aside the wooden planks blocking her sight and froze when she saw several marks on the rock face: tally marks and a date.

"That's...exactly a year ago..." she noticed out loud. "What does this mean…?" She had some guesses, but prayed that they were wrong.

She continued out of the cavern, following the tunnels again, nearly tripping over something. She glared at it, noticing it was a piece of wood. But then she looked closer.

'It's...it's a cross. The kind used for a...a makeshift grave...' She wondered briefly who it was for, then sated that curiosity by lifting it up to read the name. "Beth... Oh Jesus."

She wished that she hadn't looked, for here it was: cold, hard evidence. While there was nothing definite on Hannah yet, Beth was dead. Hannah was definitely down there, however, and moving around, for not far away from the cross was her locket.

Suddenly more afraid than ever, with memories of that day flooding back to her, Jess was more desperate than ever to escape. She hurried through, managing to squeeze past a partially opened door and into the next room.

She noticed what looked like a slumped over figure in the corner.

'Huh? Who is that? Are they…?'

She carefully approached and touched the figure, briefly noticing that it was wearing a familiar beanie hat and pink coat.

The well-preserved, still recognizable, but unmistakably decomposing head of Beth Washington fell to the ground, revealing that the jacket was put around rocks, not her body.

"Oh God! Oh God!" Jess screamed, stumbling backwards, revulsion overcoming her. "Beth, no... Oh God, Beth! No!"

She almost felt like throwing up. This was beyond horrific! What was Beth's head doing there and where was the rest of her body? Not only that, she was yet to see any signs of Hannah's body.

'The distance traveled, the objects, everything... Could it be?' she wondered. 'Beth died from falling off that cliff, but Hannah must have survived, at least for a while... She must have died elsewhere down here. Oh God...What have we done?!'

Jess realized, in horror, that the group was responsible for the twins' deaths.

With a sharp intake of breath, Jess forced herself to hurry onwards, for she soon found herself in the main chamber again and hurried to the elevator, pulling the lever at once, and letting it take her up.

"Oh, come on. Let's GO!"

The elevator stopped before the surface, however.

"No!" she cried out.

She was still stuck, but there had to be another way. Maybe another elevator? She stepped off the elevator and moved forwards, but then retreated, stifling a gasp as she hid.

Down the tunnel to her left, she had seen him. A man was approaching. He was clad in dark clothing, had a scarf pulled up over his lower face, and goggles over his eyes. He also had gray shoulder-length hair. That was all she really saw before hiding. That, and the fact that he was carrying a number of weapons. Most prominently, a flamethrower, which was the source of the bursts of fire she kept seeing.

She went stock still and watched as he stepped out of the tunnel and into the intersection. The light from her torch mingled with the one on the wall, so she didn't need to hide it. She stayed stock still, watching him carefully.

"Oh God, please don't come this way." she whispered.

He did not move, he just kept looking, as if searching for something.

But it was too much for Jess. Her nerve broke and she fled. The stranger heard her and cried out, immediately pursuing her. She cried out too, silently pleading and trying to ignore the flaring pain in her leg.

Ahead, she could see the that bridge was broken in two places. Despite knowing the pain that this would cause, she jumped both gaps, stifling a scream each time as it jolted her leg. As she ran, she could hear him pursuing her.

Up ahead, she noticed a spilled oil patch and, acting solely on instinct, she threw her torch into it as she passed, setting up what she hoped would be a fiery barricade. Unfortunately, her path took her to a dead end.

'What do I do? What do I do? I can't get away, I...' she thought frantically.

Unable to think, simply reacting, she hid herself in a crevice in the wall between two wooden boards and waited.

But then, the stranger reappeared and stood, looking around, before turning to look directly at her.

End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.