Nicho held up his hand to have the others stop behind him then cautiously walked over to the hole, carefully stepping on the rocks, wanting to get a better look down into it. When he got a step away from the edge, he stopped and leaned over slightly as he peered into the darkness below.

“Nicho, I don’t think…” Tonia started, but before she could finish, there was a tremendous rumbling as the floor beneath them suddenly began shaking violently.

Nicho realized too late that he was standing too close to the edge of the gaping hole and before he could step back, the loose rocks beneath his feet began to crumble.

Instantly a look of surprise and fear clouded his face. Before he could regain his footing, his feet began to slip over the edge of the hole as the torch he was holding fell from his hand into the depths of darkness. It hit the outer edge of the hole before disappearing, out of sight.

“Noooo!” Nicho yelled, looking helplessly at the others, fear filling in his eyes. They jumped forward and tried to grab his left arm as it flew up into the air.

Their reaction, however, was too slow and Nicho slid over the edge of the hole, falling into the darkness. Seconds later they heard an audible thump!

Immediately Micah, Diam and Tonia were lying on their stomachs, looking into the dark chasm. They could see and hear nothing.

“Nicho!” Tonia shrieked, lying on her stomach at the edge of the pit, trying to see her brother.

The tremors that caused Nicho to lose his balance ceased as suddenly as they had begun.

The tunnel was silent except for the whimpers from Tonia. She looked at Diam and Micah in disbelief, seeing the same look on their faces reflected back at her.

Down in the depths of the abyss, they could vaguely see the flickers from the torch as it struggled to stay lit in the surrounding dust. It appeared to have fallen into a spot that was under an overhang, or bounced partly into a tunnel. As the dust began to clear, she could vaguely see Nicho in the nearby shadows, lying motionless in the dust.

“Nicho!” she yelled frantically. “Nicho, answer me! Are you okay?”

They continued looking over the edge of the abyss down into the darkness, feeling completely helpless.

‘This can’t be happening’, Diam thought to herself.

Micah got back up on his knees and crawled back a few feet. He removed his bag from his back and
started hastily rummaging through it.

Diam looked back at him and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Did we pack any tarza vines?” he asked the girls. “I can’t remember.”

He was trying hard to maintain his control, but both of the girls could hear the uncertainty and fear in his voice.

“Nicho?” Tonia called, starting to cry. “Nicho, please answer me! Are you okay?”

Diam scooted back next to Micah and began doubtfully going through her own bag. She was almost sure that tarza vines, especially long ones like what they would need in this situation, were something that none of them had thought to pack.

Unable to find anything of use, she put her bag on the ground and crawled back to Tonia, who was now crying unashamedly.

“Tonia, come on. We’ve got to keep ourselves together if we’re going to be able to help Nicho. Come look through your bag. We’re looking for tarza vines, but I don’t think any of us packed any. It’s worth a try though. Come on,” she said, encouraging Tonia to scoot backwards towards where Micah was still sitting.

Tonia looked up at her friend with smudges on her face from the dirt and the tears. She reluctantly dragged herself away from the edge of the abyss after one more shocked glance down into the darkness.

She crawled over to where Micah was sitting, still riffling through his bag with no luck, then Diam helped her pull her bag off her back. After gently placing it on the dirty floor, Tonia used her shirtsleeve to wipe tears away from her eyes.

“What are we going to do, Micah?” she asked, looking up at her brother who was now in charge.

“I know we didn’t pack enough tarza vines to be able to reach that far down into the hole. We don’t know where we are so we can’t even go back the way we came to try to make it into the forest to find some vines that we can use!”

She could feel herself beginning to panic but felt helpless to stop it.

Diam put a steady hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“Tonia, take a deep breath! We’re not going to do Nicho any good if we fall apart! Get control of yourself and help us figure out what we are going to do!” she admonished her friend.

Tonia looked at Diam and nodded her head. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and said, “Okay”.

A moment later, they came to the expected conclusion that indeed they did not have what they needed to rescue Nicho. Even if they did, Micah thought, they didn’t know if Nicho would even be able to climb out on his own. If he was seriously hurt…

Tonia interrupted his thought when she began crawling back over to the hole. She got to the edge, looked over, and called out, “Nicho? Are you all right? Please, answer me!”

While they were looking through their bags, the torch that had fallen into the hole had gone out. Tonia’s question was answered by both silence and darkness.

Tonia sat up, about to cry again.

Suddenly, the rumbling in the tunnel surrounded them once again, like before, without warning. Afraid of falling down in the hole with her brother, Tonia immediately backed up and joined the others.

In addition to the tunnel shaking around them, they now heard another sound, indistinguishable at first. As the rumbling subsided, the other sound increased, and soon they all recognized it for what it was… an evil, guttural growl.

“Who has the nerve, the absolute gall, to wake me from my sleep!” an angry voice cried out from the darkness of the hole.

The explorers looked at each other in shock. Who or what was the owner of this angry voice?

“My slumber is NOT to be interrupted, under ANY circumstance!” the infuriated voice boomed.