Descent {Ch. 2}

[Robin]

Here chu go, as promised~

    Everything in the pit was so silent yet so loud. The simplest of noises, from breathing to a mouse's scritch of claws over the ground seemed like a sonic boom. Huddled in what he considered "the corner" of this place, the boy stared blankly out at nothing.
    Since he had come down to the pit, food came once a week and water every other day, with the exception of Sunday to Wednesday. Or at least, that's what he estimated. His sense of day and night were quickly fading away. At his best guess, he thought it'd been roughly three weeks, since he'd gotten food thrice.
    What was really killing him was the lack of contact. 21 days, and not a soul to speak to but himself. There were mice down here, squeaking and scrambling around, but they weren't much company. They weren't exactly what you would call "talkative". Giggling lightly at his own joke, the boy ran a bloodied hand through his hair.
    The first time he'd gotten food, soon after he'd been pushed into this hell hole, he'd had a hell of a time finding it. All he'd heard was a light thump, and then bright red eyes flared into existence. A voice had growled out, "Think like a bat." before he'd heard a metallic crashing sound and the eyes disappeared. For a long time, he'd thought about what Red-eyes had said. Think like a bat.
    From what little he remembered, bats were like flappy mice. But bigger. So flappy rats. They either drank blood or ate insects or fruit. He wasn't sure exactly which one it was though. There was something else he was missing though, some important bit of information.
    Hours later, it finally clicked. Bats used sound to figure out where stuff was, right? maybe that's what Red-eyes meant. In this large empty pit, every sound sen back echoed. testing it out, it took him until what his internal clock said was the next day to figure out what different echoes sounded like.
    Then, he'd finally found the food on a metal tray. On the verge of collapsing from lack of energy, he could barely lift the b;t sandwich that he had gotten. It was strange that he remembered what all the ingredients in this were, but he got the feeling that he had some sort of history with the sandwich. Maybe he ate it a lot? He definitely felt like he'd had it before though, but whether or not he had was something he just couldn't discern.
    With it was a glass of water. Struggling to hold it right with his bound wrists and shaking arms, it eventually slipped from his grasp and shattered. Distraught, he'd reached out to see if maybe some part of it was still left on the metal tray. All he'd gotten was a deep cut on his palm in reward. That gave him an inspiration though.
    Grasping the thick shard that had cut him, he sawed away at the binds on his wrists awkwardly. The glass cut up his own hands as well, leaving jagged rips and tears on the fleshy skin of his palm. It didn't matter to the boy though. once he was done, he'd be free.
    It took almost until what his clock said was sunset of that day to cut through the thick ropes with the glass. But his legs were finally free, as were his arms. Dropping the bloodied piece of glass, the boy went back to his corner and curled up in a ball once more, nursing his aching hands. They burned and stung for the next two weeks before finally they stopped.
    It was the day after his third feeding, day twenty two, that something different happened. He didn't know times anymore, just general feelings of when a day switched. For hours on end he contemplated why he was here, what his life had been like, and who these people were. Green-eyes had said he pitied him. Did that mean he cared? Then there was that supposed therapy they put him through. A'da-something therapy. The memory was a bit foggy.
    If he did have a family, did they miss him? Think he was dead? Had they even looked for him? Perhaps they hadn't even noticed he was missing. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth and a painful feeling in his chest. Of course they had looked for him. That's what his memory told him families did, so they had to.
    For the first time in a while, he felt himself slowly drifting off. Sleep was so hard to fall into in this hole, despite the never-ending black. Every time he did, something would always disturb him. Sipping into that place closer to sleep then wakefulness, where you just barely registered you were awake, the boy started to smile softly. He never dreamed, but there was a pleasant feeling of nothingness in his dreams. Just the light, smooth black of unconscious sleep. It was so different from this choking blackness...
     An uncharacteristically heavy thump resounded through the room, and the boy blinked in confusion. It didn't feel like two days had passed already. It still felt like Monday. Had he totally lost it now? Hadn't he just been about to fall asleep?
    "Wh-... Who's t-there?" He questioned, rising to his heels in a squat. He needed to preserve energy, but be ready in case this person was a danger. The familiar Red eyes hadn't flared into existence yet, and he was unsure of who was there. Even if his voice faltered, he hoped he came across as authoritative sounding enough to get an answer.
    "Shh... I shouldn't be here. If they found out, I'd get in big trouble. Follow me, I know how to get out of this place."
    Soft and high, he figured that the speaker was a girl. The boy didn't pay a single thought to the fact she might be tricking him or leading him into a trap. The thought of a way out sent his heart soaring. Hope flared up in his chest, before he heard rough scraping sounds. A smooth hand grabbed hold of his own, before pulling him to his feet. Walking slowly so he could keep pace, the girl led him through the black. How she navigated it he had no clue.
    "In here," She whispered, before shoving him into a rocky space. Scraping his body up against the rough walls of the small passage, he eventually came out in a small room where he heard a rush of running water, the volume of it buffeting his ears. There was still no light in here, to his sadness. The girl's hand slipped out of his, and he looked around for her, confused. Why had she done that? His only way of figuring out where stuff was wouldn't work in this loud place.
    "Bye. Find the Guardians. They're the heroes of this world."
    He barely had time to process the information before he was shoved forward roughly. Slamming down into ice-cold water, pain flared up where his skin had made contact harshly with the surface of the river. Twisting and tumbling around, struggling to stay above the water as it swiftly carried him away, he felt his body being slammed against the walls of the cavern the river flowed through. A sudden pull on his leg dragged him under, and he clawed against the water to reach the surface. There was none though. Rock covered the space above his head.
    Lungs burning, the boy was carried along by the raging river. He could feel the pain in his hands returning, and new pain blossom all over his body. Black encroached on the edges of his vision, and he stopped struggling. Just before he passed out, his head broke the surface. Gasping in mouthfuls of air greedily, he regained the urge to struggle his way out of this dark tunnel. He never got the chance though. A sudden hit to the back of his head had him flowing along with the river's currents, body limp and out cold.
    Heart racing, he bolted up from his lying down position. Panting, the boy looked around him in confusion. Bright sunlight filtered through the leaves of huge trees that towered above him, and he lay in the midst of a small clearing. The sound of birds chirping came from all sides, and he saw the white tail of some animal raised up as it fled through the foliage outside of the clearing. Hadn't he.. where was the... ?
    Looking at his hands, he found them covered in faint scars of cuts. He was wearing the same clothes he'd been in, but they weren't so torn up anymore. Had it... had it all just been a dream? But he still couldn't remember anything! Was it some clue to his past? Thinking of the girl, he remembered her last words, about the Guardians. They were the supposed heroes, right? They'd help him. That whole fiasco had just been some sort of messed-up nightmare.
    Standing up stiffly, he was suddenly hit with a bad sense of vertigo and fell right back down. A face flashed through his head. Handsome, but with soft features and a gentle smile. Bright blue eyes sparkling, matching well with perfectly straight short black hair that fell around his face. Along with the image, a phrase filtered through the haze of forgotten memories. "I'll protect you forever."
    A sense of determined need filled him. Those thoughts he'd had in that nightmare weren't true. That person, whoever he was, was looking for him. He had to be, right? He just had to find some place a lot of other people were, where he could be found. His mind supplied a word, city. He'd find a city, whatever that was. There he could be found. Way out here wherever he was, he was as good as non-existent.