POV Ava

  Water danced through my fingers, dragging rugged stone shards into the squealing head of yet another bat, cracking its skull as it fell to the floor to join its dead kin, only for two more to take its place. At the start of all this, the wheels and the dead rising, I gagged at the sight of death. My stomach would clench at the sight of a mutilated corpse, my blood running cold, having to put down the monsters in human skin.

  Now I barely flinched, not that I was proud of this. I didn't want to get used to the bloodshed, no matter how normal it was starting to feel. I curse as yet another bloody claw leaves a mark on my wrist to join the spider web of bleeding cuts slowly growing across my body. The motocross padding protected me from most of it, but I still wish Ella would stop babying Sam and help heal the rest of us. She may be sweet on him, but healing a mental breakdown or finding something in his mind may be beyond her abilities. But her only response when I asked her to join me was a clipped nod.

  I see Noah's hammer smash another bat into a bloody pulp, where Jacob should be standing out of the corner of my eye. I turn to the side, hoping everything is ok, just as Jacob comes back around and steps back into place next to us. Only he looked to be panicked and in pain with a large bat stuck to his quickly reddening neck. I hear him grunt something and inhale sharply, but quickly have to focus back on the patch of darkness in front of me. It was hard to see the monsterised mammals, or hear anything over them, for that matter, so I kept spinning my kinetic water hammer in front of me like a shield, trying to hit any of my would-be attackers.

  Until all at once, the darkness was pushed back by pale blue lightning that flowed through the air like a floating stream of light that sparked and sizzled against the burning flesh of the dying bats. I jumped at its sudden arrival and whirled my head around to see Jacob, bright red with glowing blue eyes, launching the sparks of electricity from his neck of all places. My mouth fell open in my silent question, but no answers appeared through the storm of blood and guts.

  The black furred creatures howled in pain but kept throwing themself at us like their only strategy was to drown us in their bodies. Bodies that quickly found themselves as a grotesque spear that Jacob threw somewhere. It was hard to keep track of everything happening; lightning danced, and monsters howled until a wrong movement here and a spark of power there had my blood joining the crimson spray. By the Gods did it hurt, burning power whipped out, melting my armour and scorching the flesh below. A scream bursts free from my throat as I fall backwards and away from my friend, scrambling to distance myself from him.

  But when I looked towards him, I froze at the sight. Amour and clothes mostly melted into a pool at his feet, revealing dozens of scars contrasting against scorched skin that radiated steam from the heat alone. Liquid stone fell from the ceiling onto his bald head, pushing him to his knees, which slowly sank into liquid rock. Tears streamed down his face from his two glowing eyes that shone bright enough to light up the collapsing cave. I struggled to my knees in an effort to help, or at least cool down his burning skin, but that's when a spark of lightning struck a patch of black moss, and I realised it wasn't the eyes that were lighting up the cave. It was the moss.

  It fizzled and sizzled quickly, turning an angry red in increasingly violent shades of yellow and orange. Another lightning strike sends me stumbling onto my back before I can run away from the now smoking moss. But before I could see what would happen, Noah's broad form blocked my view as he shielded us both from the explosion that shook the cavern. Flames and shards of rock crashed against Noah's slab of metal, and a resounding ringing filled my ears.

  I look up to see his grim face as he stares over his shield. I look around the modified door to see most of Jacob fully submerged in stone, and the whole of the black cave now glowing an eerily orange. "Oh my God." I stare at the sight before panic sets in, imbuing my limbs with strength I didn't know I had. I jump to my feet and pull a frozen Noah away from the drowning Jacob and ticking time bomb. For a brief, horrible moment, he didn't budge until he found his face dripping wet from a slap of water.

  With a startled yelp, he comes too and follows me to the others, away from our trapped friend and certain death, just before the mouth of the cave collapsed behind us in a liquid avalanche that sealed the following explosion behind a wall of rock. The shockwave was still enough to shake the tunnel, bringing me to my knees as what sounded like an ancient dragon waking up in a rage rattled my bones and burst my eardrums.

  My world shook for what felt like an age, brutal vibrations shaking my organs against my more rigid skeleton until it slowly faded into an eerie stillness. At some point, the lights went out, and I was forced to struggle around in the dark with only my stinging cuts for company. I was trying to make my way back to the others when a light appeared from somewhere, making me jump as I came face to face with twisted remains of a subterranean human lying upon the floor, mere centimetres away from the still trapped Sam. With a yelp, I bring forth a torrent of water that slammed into the unmoving monster with an almighty slap before I hear Mia's cries through my ringing ears that it's already dead. Prompting me to finally notice the arrow striking out of its eye socket.

  I feel a rattling sigh escape my lips as I slowly turn around to face what's left of my friends and the collapsed tunnel only a few meters away. A deep, heavy silence fills our patch of barren tunnel as sombre faces stare blankly at its walls. For a moment, all was still, until a grim-faced Noah approached the imprisoned and clearly dazed Sam and started pounding his sledgehammer against the brittle stone, producing resounding cracks.

  The sudden noise breaks me out of my stupor, allowing me to drink some healing tonic to close up the myriad of bleeding wounds and fill the silence between the shattering rocks with the only question I could think of. "What happened?"

  Another thud of a hammer punctuates the end of my question, causing chipped rock to fly into the air. "That. Thing" Mia pronounces with hate as she gestures at the arrow-ridden corpse "Was in Sam's mind, pushing him to come find it in the dark. I don't know what the lightning was about, but there are small vibrations from deep in the stone, but they don't appear to be getting very far." She finishes off, her pet Crawler chittering as it taps its many legs against the collapsed mouth of the cave.

  "He shouldn't have put us in danger like that." Ella butts into the conversation, "Going to have to spend it all on healing him again when he gets out." She flippantly adds on with annoyance.

  More brittle stone breaks as Noah's hammer slams into the floor, encasing Sam's legs. "Well, maybe it wouldn't have gotten to this point if you were healing us as we defended you." I retorted, surprised at the anger bubbling up within me.

  Ella bristles at my words and quickly tries to justify her actions. "I was making sure Sam was alright, and I killed the creepy Stalker, thank you very much."

  The rhythmic slams paused for a moment as Noah finally spoke, "Before or after it found a bloody spear in its gut?" before he continued trying to free the distraught-looking Sam. "Jacob should stop being a suicidal maniac. The pets should watch our backs. The fighters fight, and the healers heal. If we don't work together and pull our weight, we are going to die down here, let alone the other events." Each sentence was finished with a crack of splintering stone, driving home each point Noah made, but doing little to ease Ella's indignation.

  "I was healing Sam." She states again, as if it would make it better the second time around.

  "Could it not wait until after we weren't dying by a thousand cuts?" I ask, trying to stop the sarcasm from seeping into my voice. "Were you healing his mental state or just scanning his…" I start before Mia's timely intervention interrupts me.

  "Guys, please, we can't just point fingers. I let the stalker creep up on us, and obviously I'm going to work on that…" She pauses, likely trying to find the right words that wouldn't offend anyone, only for Noah to cut in, "We can all work on stuff," he finishes off her sentence with an uncharacteristically rough voice that hides poorly concealed anger.

  "We need positions and responsibilities. Someone to call the shots so the rest of us can focus." He pauses his hammering for a moment as if deep in thought, only to take a chisel and a smaller hammer from his inventory.

  "You can't just put yourself in charge of us. I'm not having that." Ella fills the brief silence with her opinion, causing Noah to roll his eyes.

  "Not me. Too short-tempered and in the thick of it." He gestures to me "Should be working on crowd control, slowing down the monsters," He turns his hand to point towards the quiet Sam "Too soft," He skips over Ella not wanting to get into another augment to point at a collapsed passage behind him "Too unstable," Before his hand finally landed on Mia "You can multitask and watch from every angle. If you are watching our backs, you should be able to call what's happening." He finishes off before crouching down and hitting the chisel with the smaller hammer to break off larger parts of stone.

  The reactions to his statement are mixed. I always thought of myself as a leader. I think everyone, deep down, thought they should be given a chance to take charge and change everything for the better, hoping they would be voted in. Maybe it was a draw to power or a desire to prove yourself. Yet when I was written off in favour of another task, I felt relieved that I wouldn't be holding people's lives in my hands. Sam's face barely flinched from the numb expression that appeared to be holding his emotions hostage when his name was mentioned. Ella looked annoyed and huffed at being skipped over, and Mia looked flabbergasted.

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  "But I don't know what I'm doing." She tries to deny the logical conclusion, but I found words spilling from my mouth before I could think about them. "None of us do, but you have the most information."

  "But. I. Ah…" She looks around at us before her eyes settle on me. Something seems to change as her expression hardens. "I will try my best." She simply states, her dark eyes boring into my own.

  "Hang on just a minute, you can't decide that, we need to vote or something. You didn't even mention me or give us a chance to prepare anything." Ella chimes in, annoyed at not having a say in what's happening.

  "Well, it's three for. Sam, you in?" Noah asks only for Sam to give a nod, his eyes still staring into nothing. "That's four in favour." Noah finishes, looking pleased with himself despite the dire situation and Ella's scowl.

  "Right, so, um." Mia flounders for a moment before catching her stride. "Stop helping Sam. We all need to help Jacob break through the stone. He's slow and probably running out of air. Pets will keep watch. Um, does anyone know formations and stuff?" She asks while talking out a chisel and hammer of her own, prompting us all to follow her towards the cave in section and chip away at the wall.

  The greyscale tunnel slowly filled with the sounds of breaking stone and chipped rock clattering to the uneven floor. Nervous energy powered hammer swings, determination guided chisels suspended in water as we slowly peeled away layer after layer of rugged minerals.

  Until, with little fanfare, a gasping, bleeding and mostly naked Jacob was birthed from the wall. He slipped out of the liquid rock and promptly plopped on the rough floor with rasping breaths that rattled against his exposed ribs. Blood pooled underneath his scarred form, seeping from countless cuts that led a trail of crimson deep into the hole he crawled his way out of. He smelled rancid, with patches of mystery goop clinging to his shivering form like a second skin.

  He made for a pitiful sight, scar ridden and balding complexion stretched across a narrow twitching frame. But if he noticed, he didn't care. He just let out a wheezing laugh that echoed off the walls as we all stared dumbfounded at the sight.

  "This whole dying thing…" blood splatters as a coughing fit breaks his rambling "Severely overrated, I didn't even get to eat God. Just stuck here looking at Noah's sparkling ass." He mutters, face down on the floor.

  "You're not dead yet, dipshit," Noah says with an almost audible eye roll as he stoops down to help his shaking form onto his back.

  "Oh. Anyone ever tell you you've got the skin of a killer?" Jacob cackles out, his delirious eyes swimming in their sockets as he weakly pokes at a patch of Noah's skin where the crystalline membrane reflected the glowing moss light.

  "Not since Tuesday," Noah responds before turning to Ella, who scowls and answers the unasked question.

  "Can't you wash him before I touch him?" She asks me, gesturing to the splotches of blood and grime littered across his shivering skin.

  I stare at his shivering form and turn back to stare at her until she swallows her pride and leans down next to our stinking friend. It took a while for Jacob to be coherent enough to hold a conversation and understand what we were saying without spouting obscure references and nonsense. Before long, we were able to share each other's perspectives, after which he became very interested in the exploding moss but didn't have many answers.

  "What happened back there? What was with all the lightning?" Mia asks the question on everyone's mind while Ella continues to heal his broken body.

  "No idea. I tried to bring out the raw energy that powers my ability to help with the bats, but I couldn't control it. Couldn't stop it. I'm sorry. Felt like something else was at the wheel, next thing I know I'm trapped and wrung dry." He stares off into the distance for a moment and shivers. "Was able to carve my way out but had to fight for control of my mind. Healing tonic stops working after a bit, by the way. Helped with the lack of oxygen for a moment, but stopped helping after a minute or two. Was a bad way to almost go." He trails off at the end, staring at his scarred wrists that looked like they didn't come from any kind of monster we had encountered so far.

  "So", my head turns to face the questioning Ella ", How are you going to make sure it doesn't happen again? You could have killed us," she asks pointedly.

  "No fucking idea," Jacob laughs out, not seeming to take in the serious tone of the question.

  "I'm serious. No one else will say it, so I will. You're a liability. You put us all in danger, and sorry isn't going to cut it." She demands from her patient.

  "I'm going to play around with the lightning stuff, but take it slower. But I don't know how mind fuckery works, so again I have no idea, sorry." He sounded confused more than upset, like being called a liability didn't affect him at all.

  "Well, now that we are all working together." I place extra emphasis on the word all to get my point across. "We shouldn't have to resort to crazy ideas in the middle of a fight, right?" I ask, almost hopefully, into the now-awkward silence.

  "We can try to figure out the mental stuff together. I had to help remove the stalker from Sam's mind. It wanted him to come to it like he was a delivery meal." Mia finally adds.

  "I'm sorry." Sam finally adds to the conversation, his hollow voice startling me slightly.

  "Don't worry about it, mate," Noah quickly responds, almost as if it were by reflex.

  "What for?" I ask the still trapped young man.

  "For yelling at everyone, being an ass and calling you all crazy?" Sam asks in confusion.

  "Don't worry about it," Jacob waved him off with a bloodied hand. "You were possessed or some shit we've all been there, and we may as well be crazy at this point."

  "I haven't been possessed yet, and I really hope it's not a common thing," I added with a slight shiver at the thought.

  Jacob snorts, "Hopefully you don't turn into a rage monster, I don't want you ripping me apart from the inside out with my own blood. Or drowning me with sexual fluids"

  "Thank you, Jacob, for that mental image," Noah mutters.

  "You are most welcome." He responds before Sam tries to bring the conversation back around.

  "But I'm serious, I'm sorry for what I said and the panic I caused. How…How did you fight off yours?" Sam quickly asks before the coming tangent of traded insults and laughter that often derails our conversations.

  His question, however, makes the rapidly healing ball of manic energy pause for a moment. "I wouldn't really call it a victory, but it did fuck off. We probably need to be checked at meals, develop our mind palace's strength and…" He trails off, tapping his chin for a moment, allowing Mia to chime in.

  "It was harder to navigate through new things I didn't know how to experience when I went into your minds. If they don't know what they are looking at, it could be hard to take control or influence." She theorised.

  "Like tailoring our mind?" Jacob adds, seemingly catching on immediately.

  "What do you mean by 'tailor your mind'?" Ella asks.

  "Well, if we develop how we experience the world through our abilities, it would confuse an outsider. Like how I'm trying to see matter and voids through my powers, that, along with the mental discipline from a mind palace and growing stronger, might help. But fuck if I know." He answers, trying to express how little we actually knew or understood the topic we are discussing.

  "Hmm, it's worth a try," Sam says while Ella nods slowly.

  "Not sure mind tailoring will work for me, but on the topic of getting stronger, if we are going deeper, we need to be more organised, so we don't get overwhelmed again. Could run through drills and formations that Mia can call out in a fight," Noah states with certainty, leaving little room for negotiation on the matter.

  "I mean, do we want to keep going deeper?" I asked, trailing off, not sure how to phrase my thoughts.

  "If we want to do as well as we can and survive long term, then we need to push our bodies and powers so they can adapt, and collect crystals to sell sooooo yeah," Jacob added, as if he hadn't almost died four times in under 48 hours.

  "But what if we can't make it long term because we die short term?" Mia asks the next logical question.

  "Well, that's why we need to organise better, and if we can't survive the short term, then we definitely can't last the long term," Noah states again.

  "What would you suggest?" Sam asks him.

  "We need to practise making a kill box so we can be more prepared for overwhelming numbers. Push our powers and bodies to the absolute limits. Break them down and build them back up. We have venom and knives to adapt to at the very least. Also, if I start going on some random ass tangent at a critical moment, feel free to slap me." Jacob suggests seemingly serious about being slapped.

  "I'm not comfortable with self-harm, like really not comfortable with it," Ella responds, looking less than pleased at the topic, which made sense considering how her cousin passed a few months ago.

  "What if we did it to each other instead?" I ask.

  "That doesn't help." Ella shakes her head.

  "I'm also not comfortable with it." Mia agrees.

  I think for a moment, then respond, "Then don't watch, you managed to heal Noah before with his training. If we are doing this, going deeper than we need to adapt, but we can't be weak afterwards waiting to heal up when we could be on the move," I say with finality.

  "Fine, but I'm not a maid to clean up after you all. Just don't go too far." Ella finally agrees, while Mia just looks uncomfortable with the idea.

  With the initial groundwork laid, we spent another hour ironing out our new schedule and roles while Jacob healed, before we finally packed up and headed off to see what else the caves had in store for us.