The Cursed Extra-Chapter 147: [3.20] Buried Alive (But At Least I’m Alive)

Chapter 147: [3.20] Buried Alive (But At Least I’m Alive)

"The good news is you survived. The bad news is everything else." — First rule of borderland medicine

***

The first thing Rhys noticed wasn’t the pain.

It was the taste.

Powdered stone coated his tongue like flour gone rancid. It ground between his teeth with every shallow breath. He tried to spit and couldn’t. His mouth was too dry. His throat was too clogged with debris.

The air itself felt solid. Thick enough to chew. It carried the metallic tang of blood and the acrid smell of extinguished magic.

His ears rang with a high, constant whine that seemed to come from inside his skull rather than anywhere external. Not silence. Something worse. The complete absence of the world he’d known moments before.

No dripping water from the tunnel’s moisture. No distant echoes of life elsewhere in the mine. No whisper of air movement through passages that connected to the outside world.

Just the oppressive weight of tons of rock pressing down from above. And the sound of his own breathing. Ragged. Wet. Wrong.

Rhys pushed himself up on his elbows.

Every muscle in his body protested. His shoulders screamed. His back felt like someone had taken a hammer to it. His left shoulder burned where something heavy had clipped it during the collapse. When he reached up to touch it, his fingers came away sticky.

Blood he couldn’t see in the darkness.

His ribs ached with each breath. A deep throb that suggested bruising at minimum. But nothing felt broken.

Small mercies.

The darkness was absolute. Not the gentle darkness of a moonless night on the borderlands, where his eyes could adjust after a few minutes and pick out shapes by starlight alone. This was the darkness of burial. Of being swallowed by the earth itself.

He could have held his hand an inch from his face and seen nothing.

His hand fumbled across rough stone and debris until his fingers found the familiar weight of his pack. The leather was torn. One strap had been completely severed, the edges ragged where stone had sheared through. But the contents remained.

Inventory first. Panic later. Always inventory first.

His father’s voice echoed in his memory. Calm even when everything was going wrong.

Flint and steel in the side pocket, wrapped in oiled cloth. Emergency torch rolled tight in the main compartment. His father’s hunting knife still in its sheath at his belt. Waterskin, half full by the weight. Some dried meat and hardtack that would taste like sawdust but would keep him alive.

The locket around his neck. Elara’s portrait safe against his chest.

The flint sparked on the third strike. Brief orange stars danced across his vision like fireflies in summer.

The second time his father had ever hit him was for wasting sparks when they were low on tinder. That lesson stuck.

The torch caught with a hungry whoosh. Dry material swallowed the flame with an eagerness that spoke to how long it had been stored. Wild shadows jumped and writhed across a landscape that belonged in nightmares.

The tunnel behind them had vanished.

Where smooth passage had led back toward safety, toward the surface, toward the academy and the professors who monitored these assessments, a wall of broken stone rose from floor to ceiling.

Chunks of rock the size of wine barrels lay scattered across the floor. Mixed with smaller debris that crunched underfoot like broken teeth. Some pieces were still settling. Shifting and scraping against each other with sounds that made Rhys flinch.

The phosphorescent moss that had provided their earlier light was buried beneath the rubble. Only the torch’s flickering flame pushed back the darkness now.

Rhys turned slowly.

The collapse had been complete. Not a crack or gap remained in the wall of debris. Just solid stone sealed with the mountain’s own weight. As final and impassable as if it had been built that way on purpose.

His hand pressed against the rubble. Feeling for any hint of air movement. Any suggestion that escape might be possible through hard work and stubbornness.

The stone was cool under his palm. Slightly damp from underground moisture. He held his breath and waited, hoping to feel even the faintest current against his skin.

Nothing.

The rock was cold and final as a grave marker.

They were sealed in.

Well. This is really fucking bad.

A low moan drifted from the darkness ahead. Barely audible over the torch’s crackling.

Rhys moved toward the sound. Stepping carefully around chunks of fallen ceiling. The torchlight carved a small circle of visibility in the black, and he found himself reluctant to move too fast. Afraid of what he might see when the light reached the edges of their prison.

The torch revealed Petra first.

She was slumped against the tunnel wall with her dark hair matted with dust and blood. Her usually sharp features were slack with confusion. Her eyes were open but unfocused. They tracked the torchlight without really seeing it.

A trickle of blood ran from somewhere beneath her hairline. It followed the curve of her cheek like a dark tear.

"Petra." Rhys knelt beside her. Set the torch where it would illuminate without blinding. He checked for obvious injuries with hands that had done this on wounded villagers more times than he wanted to remember.

A gash across her forehead had bled freely but was already clotting. The edges of the wound were crusted with dust that would need to be cleaned if infection was to be avoided.

Her breathing was steady. Shallow, but steady. Her pupils were the same size.

Good signs. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"Hey, can you hear me?"

She blinked slowly. Her gaze sharpened as awareness returned by degrees. He watched the confusion in her eyes give way to recognition. Then to memory. Then to fear.

"The ceiling..." Her voice came out as a rasp. Broken by coughing that brought up dust and phlegm. "Where’s Jorik?"

Rhys looked into the darkness beyond the torchlight.

He didn’t have an answer.