Chapter 14: Surprising Progress Made

~ Andrew rubbed his bruised forehead thoughtfully.

"Water look lower to you guys?"

Takyle gazed out over the huge chamber.

"Yeah, yeah it does actually. It must still be draining through that door. I wonder if that's a good thing? What are you doing there Big Guy?" Jaden glanced up from his writing.

"Oh, I'm just logging what we've done so far." He checked his watch and jotted down the number. Andrew smiled.

"How are we doing then?"

"Well, we've all almost died, some of us more than once, and we've been in here for nearly three and a half hours now. I don't know if that's good or not. I wonder how the other teams are getting along...If we did something wrong we could be significantly behind."

"Eh," Andrew waved a hand in a motion that came off as flippant and lethargic. "I wouldn't bet on people doing any better than us, after all, we rock pretty hardcore."

Jaden gave him the sceptical eye. "Oh yeah, hardcore, rock, definitely, like friggin' geologists."

Takyle leaned over the edge of their shelf and peered down at the door.

"Hey guys, I can see a good two feet of the door now, this might just be our answer after all." She grinned at Andrew. "So perhaps you didn't get knocked out for nothing." Andrew was staring off into the distance.

"I once had a cactus that was named Bill...," he commented quietly. Takyle looked a little baffled and a little worried. Jaden stifled a laugh painfully. At the sound of his snort Andrew shook his head a little and caught Takyle's expression.

"I...You mentioned the water and that made me think of him- it. Made me think of it." He quickly transferred his attention to Jaden's notebook. "How's that logging going there Jay?"

Takyle shook her head silently and leaned back against the wall with the only book she had brought, a worn paperback, in hand. She kept an eye on the water level and it fell fast. Before long she felt that the time had come to rally the troops for another push.

"Better get your stuff together, I think we're just about ready to see what's behind Door Number 1," she said.

After they had re-secured their equipment they descended one by one down onto the wet floor from their perch using Takyle's rappelling rope, still anchored to the rock wall. Once on the bottom she tugged one tail through and re-coiled it at her belt.

Together the three of them turned to the open door. It was dark and forbidding. Jaden lit his flashlight and took point with an impressive show of non-cowardice. His first thought was that the beam from his torch did nothing to penetrate the deep shadows at all. With every step that he took forward though, the tunnel seemed to become a little bit brighter, until, in a surprising and unnoticeable transition he was standing in bright sunlight. Andrew and Takyle stood blinking to either side of him. Before them stretched a rolling, sun-dappled meadow, ringed by distant wooded hills and dotted with flowers.

"How- What the heck just happened?" asked Jaden. He turned around to look back through the doorway, and found it to be...missing. All that was behind him now was the edge of a shadowy pine forest. "Whoa. That's...interesting..." Andrew spoke up from his side.

"I'll say." ~