Hi guys, next chapter is here. I hope you guys like this one. I tried to make it interesting and over all a good chapter… next chapter I am bringing in a new character POV, so I’m pretty excited to see what you guys think of it. Crossing my fingers that you’ll like this chapter and the next one as well. Any tips, feedback, or criticism is welcome as I would like to honestly know what you think, so type what you would say to me if you were sitting right in front of me….lol…anyway happy reading!

Kayti

Forsythe backed away, feeling sick, no, no, no! It couldn’t be true, Kyter couldn’t be dead. Someone brought Kay Jack water and he drank some and started coughing. His chest rising and falling rapidly, his breathing wheeze and short, his face twisted in pain. The miners pulled him away from the mine entrance and leaned him against a rock. Then one of the miners hurried off to find a medic.

When Kay Jack stopped coughing, his eyes were blurry and he said with great effort, “He’s in there. I stayed trying to get him out. I was going to pick him up when it… it caved in.” Kay Jack coughed some more and said, “He was alive, the last I saw of him he was alive, hurt but alive. I tried…” Kay Jack was seized by a coughing fit so bad that he couldn’t go on and one of the miners had to hold his shoulder to keep him from falling over.

Forsythe was horrified as he looked at Kay Jack, if he looked like this what did Kyter look like? Was he alive? Was he in there crushed beneath the weight of the mountain? Stop it, he rebuked himself as terrifying images presented themselves to him. They danced across his mind unwilling to go away though he wished they would. Lord Blackstar’s voice broke the spell the thoughts had woven around.

“How bad?” Lord Blackstar had approached the scene and was now casting longing looks at the mine.

Kay Jack looked at him, once the coughing fit was over, then he looked down, “I’m sorry Fleck, I failed you. He tripped… hurt his leg… I think… said he couldn’t get up… so I was going to him… then it…I told him I would get him out… I’m really sorry Fleck…so sorry… I…”

“It’s fine Kay Jack,” Fleck said with more control in his voice. Forsythe knew that Lord Blackstar had passed through his initial grief and shock and now that he knew Kyter might be alive and in there somewhere he would set to work. They all would, but Forsythe knew Lord Blackstar wouldn’t stop until they found Kyter and neither would he.

Darkness. Deep, dense, black, darkness. It was hot, stifling, almost suffocating, and it felt empty, lonely. He moved and cried out. Pain in his leg worse than before and he could hardly move. The pain shot up his leg in bolts, making him feel sick and become dizzy. Trapped, alone, abandoned, stuck. He began to panic taking rapid breaths as his fears crashed upon him one after the other like waves on the shore of Ayman lake.

Kyter fought the panic, the urge to scream, and cry, that wouldn’t do him any good. Right now, he needed to keep busy, something to take his focus away from the growing fear and welling dread inside him. But it was hard, fear and dread welled so quickly like a newly dug well they gushed from the depths of his mind. He took a deep breath, trying to focus on something else, and then began to check himself over.

He moved his right arm, if felt stiff but not too bad. He moved his left arm it hurt, especially the hand something about it felt very wrong. His head pounded, definitely hurt, he remembered being struck by a rock. He tried moving his left leg and found it was stuck, he didn’t dare to try and move his right leg, the pain was already more than he could bear. He leaned forward his back protesting with short burst of pain that tingled up his spine. He felt in front of him with his hands and found that his legs were pinned to the floor by boulders. His broken one possible crushed, his other somehow okay.

Now that he knew where he stood injury wise, he pulled his hands close. He held his left hand in his right and felt it tenderly. As young as he was, he knew something was wrong with it. He couldn’t move his fingers and it hurt when he touched the back, it felt mangled, stuck in an awkward position. He tried to move a finger; a bolt of pain shot up his arm. The pain was so strong and quick it made him gag. He laid back gently still holding his hand tenderly, he could feel the dried, crusty blood in his fur. He whimpered softly, he was stuck and alone, hurt and abandoned.

He felt something hot crawling on his face and then realized it was his own tears. He was alone and injured, afraid of everything around him. “Kay Jack? Kay Jack?” He called softly into the darkness around him. He hoped for an answer but didn’t expect one, he could feel that he was alone, completely alone and trapped.

More tears coursed down his face and he whimpered softly. He couldn’t run, could barely move, had no way of escaping the fears pilling up inside him. His only hope of escaping the fear and the pain was sleep and the innocence that came with it. He sniffed as he tried to fall asleep, his body prone in an awkward position, rocks jabbing into him, and pain and fear beckoning him to acknowledge them.

He couldn’t fall asleep because at the faintest sound of any falling rock he thought someone might be coming to get him. A few times he called out, but he never received an answer, soon realizing that it had only been settling debris. In this lonely time, he tried to keep his mind on other things like memories. But the more memories he thought of the more alone it made him feel. For all his memories involved someone else, but here there was no one else. No one to talk too, no one to take care of him, no to help him free his legs, no one.

Alone.

That world rang in his head like the toll of a bell. He couldn’t shake it, nor the trembling that came with it. When you were alone and lost or hurt nothing good ever happened, not till you were found. But what if you weren’t found? What if you were found but it was too late? What if you died alone? Suffering a miserable slow end…Stop it Kyter! He reproached himself that was no way to think, not in a time like this.

His stomach rumbled and he groaned and realized how dry his throat was. How long had he been here? How long would he be here? How long until someone found him? He shook his head wondering if he really wanted to know the answers to those questions, probably not.

He coughed the dust which still hung in the air irritating his lungs. The coughs were harsh and shook his small body causing him more pain, but the worst part was once he started coughing it was hard for him to stop. So, he laid there coughing, every cough bringing a hundred other pains. Every time he coughed it felt like someone was stabbing a knife into his chest. Finally, out of breath and in so much pain he hardly remembered anything, the coughing subsided and he fell into a sort of sleep, if you could even call it that.