the silence of a beating heart {Derecho Day 5}

Where is he?

Derecho looks left and right trying to find his friend, but right now Kaius isn't around. It's hard to see anything through the thick fog and the smoke, and it's hard to focus on anything that's around other than trying to keep himself alive.

It's terrifying.

Fear is something he never thought he'd feel before. It's something he never wanted to feel, and all the training doesn't push it away. Volunteering for the games became his lifelong dream since he wanted to build a legacy for his family, and to prove that he's worth stronger than anyone ever believed.

And now he feels like he failed.

Losing Quinn crushed his soul, yet every day he found a way to wake up and continue going despite the nightmares, visions, and lack of sleep holding him back. All he wants is a chance to curl up during the day when the visions seem to die away and find a place to rest, but that's too much to ask for.

To top it all off, Derecho has no idea where Kaius ran off to.

A heavy sigh leaves his chest, and he starts feeling worse than he's ever felt before.

What if I'm alone?

All his life he's had someone by his side, and now he has nobody.

Or maybe he found a place to hide, and I'll see him again someday.

It's hard to tell how long he's been walking because everything starts blending together, but that's when he sees something different. Bones of some sort of deceased creature spread across the ground, and part of him wants to run away and pretend to have never seen this. It's mixed with the land of the mountain, and it feels like it's been here for so long.

And a roaring of something opening echoes through the air -

What is this?

Taking a deep breath, he decides to venture inside knowing it's dangerous, but he wants to know what it is. Maybe it's a place to hide, a place to rest, a place to mend his wounds, but this doesn't seem like this is it.

The cavern is glowing red, and the red illuminates the walls, and the heat is almost unbearable, and it's hard to breath. Beads of sweat roll from his brow. Every fiber of his being begs him to run away, yet he keeps going further and further. Lava drips from the wall.

Be careful.

He tells himself to remain calm and not to fall, but his heart is racing, his mind is almost frozen, and every breath catches in the back of his throat wondering if it'll ever escape.

The further he gets into this cavern, the scarier it becomes.

"Endless power can be yours… Touch the heart and it’ll be yours."

These words echo over and over, and he keeps trying to figure out where it's coming from, and Derecho turns in every direction, and that's when he sees it. Something is alive inside this place, and he wants to run, and yet he runs and jumps trying to grab the heart, but then he fails, and it seems like everything stops and ceases to exist.

A heavy sigh leaves his chest as he ventures out of the cavern, running as fast as he can without looking back. It's time to find his friend because he needs him to be okay because the fear of being alone is terrifying him more than death itself.