~~~
“Hey.” Alexander patted his uncle’s face. He wished he could remember his name, which uncle he was. Shaw, Col, or something that started with an R. “Shaw. Col,” he tried. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The darkness covered everything and he was shivering so hard himself, it was hard to know if what he thought was the guy’s chest moving was really himself trembling.
The shapeshifter’s cheeks were cold beneath Alexander’s water wrinkled fingers. Or maybe it was just Alexander. Short gaspy shivers quaked through his body.
“Col, come on.” He decided this must be Col. He looked like a Col. He felt like shaking the guy to wake him up. Please don’t be dead. He didn’t want to be this close to a dead guy, even if they were related.
He moved his hand lethargically to the man’s sternum, feeling again for any movement in his chest.
“Wake up! Wake up!”
He was going to have to try rescue breathing. He’d learned how a long time ago, but never put it into practice. What if he did it wrong?
“Wake up!”
The guy suddenly lurched forward, squishing Alexander back between him and the dripping wall, and promptly threw up all over him.
Alexander drew back, pushing down his own gag reflex at the watery bile covering him while the guy hacked and coughed up more dirty rain water.
As gross as it was, relief that the man was okay and not dead choked his throat. He wasn’t down here alone with that monster.
A cold unsteady hand moved along Alexander’s thigh and up to his freezing chest. “Lad? What happened?” The voice was rough from coughing.
“You started glowing to change, but then you passed out and, and it’s raining and the water got clogged up and your elbow is stuck and you almost drowned.” He sounded like a baby. Sniffing, he wiped his nose on his wet sleeve.
The stranger was silent for a moment. “Ye got the water to drain?”
Alexander shrugged, though the guy couldn’t see it. “The hole was obstructed with dirt.”
“Braw lad,” the guy said quietly, and Alexander smiled at the praise. “The beast, what of it?”
“It’s still there, trying to gouge its way down bit by bit. That’s what clogged up the hole, pieces of the wall. Don’t you hear it?”
The dull scratching seemed to grow louder as they listened.
“It has not hurt you?”
“No. It’s stuck behind a narrow place where the walls come together.” His breathing grew shallow just thinking of the monster above. “What does it want? Why doesn’t it just go back up and get out of here?”
He felt himself hauled in against an unyielding chest. In the dark he could almost believe it was his father.
“Easy, lad, easy. I will not allow ye to come to harm.”
“How can you stop it? Your elbow is stuck and if you try to change into something that can get us out of here you’ll pass out again. How’s that going to help?”
“I am not…going to…pass out,” the guy grumbled. Frustration rifled through his slurred words. Yeah, that was convincing. “’Tis…I don’t know what happened.”
“You hit your head. Hard. There’s a lump and blood all over the side of your face.”
“Ah.”
“Ah?”
“’Tis difficult…to…shift when…” he paused as though he couldn’t grasp the right word. He really wasn’t able to think through a concussion very well.
They were so screwed.
His voice trailed off. His face fell heavy on top of Alexander’s. Great. The monster above squealed in frustration, making Alexander jolt.
“Hey, stay awake.” He shook the guy. He was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to let anyone with head injuries go to sleep. “Hey.” He pinched the swollen hand.
The noise from above scraped louder like the thing was growing anxious and clawing faster. Or getting close to pushing through.
The man groaned, but started coming to.
Alexander had to keep him awake and talking, long enough to get better so he could get them out of here.
“You’re my uncle, right?”
“A-aye.” Pain coated the man’s voice. “Yer father’s brother.”
“So which one are you?”
“Col.”
He’d thought so. “Then why haven’t I seen you before? I thought he made that stuff about going into the future up.”
“Made…it up? Why would he do such a thing?”
“To make me want to do magic.”
“Ye don’t want…?”
“No. I hate it.”
“But—“
Huge clumps of the rocky wall fell on them, hitting Alexander between the shoulder blades, then another on his arm.
Cursing, Col pulled him into his body with his free arm. Alexander felt Col’s muscles quiver as he tried to pull himself free. More rocky shards rained down with a clatter of something large dropping.
The monster had broken past!
Alexander winced, holding his breath for it to be upon them.
It fell, then there was shrieking as the heavy monster hit the protrusion that Alexander had first been pinned against. Rain water splashed, displaced by the monster and he felt the ripple as clawed hands swiped across the air above him just out of reach.
He ducked in tighter, curling as small as he could make himself.
The beast snarled and hissed, mud rained down on them.
Energy vibrated through him and a glow erupted around them from Col as he began a transformation. The sinkhole was thrown into light.
The horrible swollen monster stared just above them, reaching and clawing at the protrusion to get past it.
The glow wavered, then heightened. Squinting against the brightness, Alexander looked up into the glowing wavering face. Col’s eyes were rolling back in his head.
He couldn’t transform. Alexander didn’t question how he knew it, he just did.
“No!” he screamed, plunging his hands onto the glowing translucent shoulders. They didn’t feel solid like flesh anymore, but like an electrical current, buzzing into Alexander’s skin.
“No!” he shouted again and Col’s eyes snapped into focus just before he released the energy and they were plunged into darkness again. The beast continued to hiss. It knew it was inches away from reaching them.
Col’s chest rose and fell hard against Alexander. “I’m sorry, lad. I cannot hold onto another form. Ye have to kill it, lad. Use yer magic.”
“Me? I can’t.”
“Yer a sorcerer like yer father. Ye can.”
He curled tighter into his uncle. “I don’t have any magic. I can’t.”
Col gripped onto his arm. “I know ye as a man, Alexander. Ye’re a sorcerer to yer core.”
A jolt pierced his gut. “What do I do?”
“Draw fire from your essence deep within and blast the beast.”
Yeah, right. Easy. If he had magic he would have used it already.
The beast snarled. “Powerrrlesss sorcererrrrr.”
Alexander flinched, hating its mocking voice, hating that it could even speak. If it could talk, it could obviously understand everything they were discussing as well.
Claws swept across the top of his head, ruffling his hair.
He ducked again, lifted his finger like a gun and let the beast have it.
And just like when he tried to start the fire in the forge…absolutely nothing happened.
Except for the sharp hot pain that tore into his shoulder as a claw finally reached him and started dragging him up.