Secondary Story - Chapter 5

I've edited every previous chapter of this story, lots of grammatical stuff, pacing etc

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Pen lets out a frustrated shout through her pursed lips as she grabs hold of the fabric fringe of the bottom of her ragged dress and rips off a large stripe of the dirty, oil and dust stained cloth. Pulling her leg forward she winces at the sharp pain as she looks at the deep cut that reaches to the bone, the wet in her eyes stinging from the biting of the cold, dusty air.

With a whimper she wraps the cloth around her the tender, oozing wound, the agonizing seer of the deep cut shooting even through her numb legs and feet. Twitching her foot to see if anything is broken, it barely moves an inch; hurting all the same as before. It’s either broken or numb and near frostbitten. The fabric is just enough for two passes around her leg, but already the blood from inside seeps through the cloth as she ties the ends together; adding a new stain to the material that barely ebbs the flow at all.

Shakily she rises to her feet, what else is there to do? The stone walls are ice cold as is the stone floor. Neither offer any comfort, neither offer any shelter from the steady stream of air blowing down the way as it seeps into the collapsed shaft behind her, rising up to a place higher still. For a moment she looks back the way she came, looks at the abyss without taking a step closer towards it. Then with a sniffle she turns and takes a step down the only way left to go, pushing against the subtle breeze.

She lets out another yelp and falls to the left, leaning against the  wall she is still next to and braces herself back upright. The burn of this new pain shoots up her leg and into her body the moment she places weight on the injured limb. Ignoring the crying sound she can hear around her, echoing around the hall she purses her lips tighter still and takes another tender step forward, holding one hand against the stone surface to stay upright.

Tenderly taking another step with her teeth biting into her lip she moves forward, ignoring the stinging in her leg, her eyes. Ignoring the missing warmth of the crystal she had held so dearly. She should have just left with the one. She could have just left with the one but she got greedy, she always gets greedy thinks the girl to herself in the brief pauses between each step.

She knew that dying down here was a real possibility. She had come down here knowing that, she had pressed forward further, deeper knowing that. But now that she was here, now that there was no way to go back, now the thought of it wasn’t so easy to argue away in her mind. The statements of her rather dying than going back up empty handed from before now seemed meaningless all of the sudden, in the face of this new situation. The reality was she didn’t want to die. Pen didn’t want to die.

As she takes another step forward and presses down on the foot again, receiving a fresh jolt of the pain, the thought of going back up seems like a welcoming idea. The thought of returning empty handed. At least with all of the things that happened to her up there she could keep walking, keep breathing. She was a wretch and lived a wretched life; but at least she was around to live it. Depression, desperation all fade away now in the heat of the moment; overpowered by the singular animal drive of survival. She grits her teeth and takes another step forward and returns to her senses, her emotions fluctuating wildly in the face of this ever changing situation.

No. She reassures herself. This is it. There is no going back now even if she wanted to, even if some dumb, stupid, cowardly part of her wanted to. No. She was going to get out of here and that horrible town, or she would die down here. That was all there was to it. She would see to it herself that it didn’t end in any other way than either of those two options. That much resolve she still had left in her, despite the back and forth shifting of her inner monologue.

So she walks forward, raising her hurt leg once more. Taking another step. Then another. Then another. Wincing with each movement, wincing with the aching burn of each step; she keeps moving. No rest. No rest for the wicked she repeats in her mind over and over, not even too sure what it means. She just wants to fill the void. To fill the empty space of her mind with noise, with words to take her mind off of the hurt. She walks like that for a time.

‘Kssch’ she stops, listening to the hiss of the steam in the distance. Her gaze turns around in fear, looking towards the darkness behind her that seemed to stretch on forever. The hiss of some piston winding up in preparation of a movement to follow. The ground shakes, she shakes with it as the thundering step rings out. As the strike of the heavy metal appendage against the stone floor of the tunnel strikes out behind her, strikes out in the distance she left behind not that long ago at the precipice.

‘Kssch’

The rumble shoots out through her bones as the mechanical creature takes another step with one of its many legs. They always had a lot of legs.

Gritting her teeth she turns back straight ahead and moves with everything she has left in her. For every step the creature takes, she takes two. But she knows it’s larger, much larger than she is. Every step it takes is worth five to six of her own. By the sound of it, it can’t be just a D-class. It’s larger. Bigger. The tunnel shakes again as it takes another step forward. It won’t take long for it to catch up to her at this rate.

If there is one saving grace it’s that it doesn’t seem to be hunting her. It would be much faster then, it would be running then; sprinting. No. It’s still just patrolling, it was just sheer dumb luck that it decided to go this way just now. Right? Or did it notice the collapse of the staircase in the cylinder? It had to have…

No, she reminds herself. D-classes aren’t capable of spatial memory. They just exist. Automata. No. It’s just dumb, bad luck. Typical. Despite the pain she still manages to build a small smile even though she is unaware of it herself. It’s just typical she thinks to herself, not surprised in the least that it decided to go down the same path she had. There is a shifting in the air that is audible in her sensitive ears, the chilly breeze always blowing past her this entire time sounds different, feels different. She can hear it up ahead from where it seems to whistle, to press together as it enters the corridor she’s in. As the sound lets her know that there’s a room ahead.