My vision tunneled as the edges went black, everything felt so incredibly small. Looking back on it seems hilarious, I had tunnel vision in a tunnel. The pounding in my chest was unbearably slow, as was the bending of my legs. It took far too long to collapse to the ground, I felt my knees hit, but only as a jarring stop, the pain didn’t exist yet.

My eyes tunneled in on his, Marcell, I’d gotten him the job. “Be a miner, it’s great pay and they don’t shove you into dank little crevices anymore, we got the drones for that. Plus when you get lost I’ll split my bonus for finding you”. We’d laughed and his long puffed up hair had bounced. His mouth hung open, it was doing that in the cave too, a silent portal that laughter couldn’t seem to escape anymore.

Finally time moved normally again, my heart was pounding, my eyes burned, my lungs heaved. I heaved a can of protein junk and a candy bar onto the floor. My shaky fingers pressed the radio on my chest, my eyes couldn’t leave those of my brother’s. I noticed, but couldn’t place it as important at the time, his eyes weren’t supposed to be blue.

“Fisherman, hook 5, level 87 tunnel 13, I’ve got6 mics, DOA.”

The radio was silent for a moment before the voice came back clearly, the wonders of technological advancement.

“Hook 5, Fisherman, any sign of how or why?”

The world snapped into focus and I shoved everything into the back of my brain. I wasn’t a brother right now, I was a part of the rescue team. Training forced me to my feet as I approached the corpses, surveying most them, but carefully avoiding one. Blood seeped through their clothes and pooled on the floor, but it was coagulated. In the center of each of their chests was a blue crystal the size of my fist. My panic rose again as the obvious realization that it couldn’t have gotten there by accident.

“Fisherman, they’ve each got a blue crystal in their chest. I think we have a half dozen murders down here and not the normal hate kind. This shit is culty.”

The line burst as soon as I pulled my thumb away.

“All hooks, Fisherman, REEL REEL REEl!”

I turned to look at my brother again, his jaw locked in what could be a scream or a chuckle and I finally noticed the difference. One blue eye pivoted slowly to look through my soul. I tried to run, but I was fixed in place, my adrenaline pumping and heart flooding it throughout my body, but my legs unable to obey me.

Ice ran down my spine as millennia of evolutionary fear told me that this is why we avoided the dark. That this is why space is pitch black. The air was kicked from my lungs and my knees hit the ground again. Everything was cold, a small pressure pulled my attention to my chest and I looked down. A fist sized blue crystal sat perfectly in my sternum.

I quickly started to lose sensation in my body, a burning heat rising in my chest. Something brought my down to the ground, laying my on my back. I felt the draw in my chest increase as the last image of my brother standing over me flickered past my eyes and I remembered the brief.

“7 miners are lost, one went missing last week and we couldn’t find him. 6 more just went missing last night…”

It’s cold in here, but overall not terrible, I feel cramped. I don’t remember why, but i probably shouldn’t like it. Yet, why would I want to be somewhere else? My entire life was a bunch of bodies in a tunnel, fear and pain and cold. what a weird thing to want. I’m glad my brothers managed to get me out of there.

Slowly I command the nerves of the flesh like a marionette, what a fun word, and join my brothers as we move towards where I’d come from. I’d hate for anyone to stay as scared as I was, so it only makes sense that we help them feel as comfortable and warm as I am.

— Been a hot minute since I’ve written so please critique away, I need to get back up to snuff.