The oxygen meters had been screaming at us for the last half hour but that was the least of our worries. We were more concerned with the fact that we were being followed and had been followed since I accidentally dislodged a boulder that had been blocking a flooded tunnel when we swam through the underground river a few hours back.
I knew I hadn't been imagining something swimming just out of our torchlight, hadn't imagined hearing a fourth splash after the three of us made it to the entrance cave, hadn't imagined someone breathing like they were drowning in air.
It struck when AJ 's light stopped working and in that split-second of confusion he was gone. He didn't even have time to scream, there was just a loud crack, wet tearing and nothing left behind but blood and his broken helmet. I feel awful for thinking this but I don't know why it's still following us when it already took and probably ate AJ.
We headed for the closest exit - a small chute that was apparently still open at the top and not blocked by debris or collapsed somewhere like most of the old mining chutes were. We sure as hell couldn't go back, neither of us wanted to risk facing something that only attacked in the dark and was well adapted to the underground river we'd have to swim back through.
When we finally got to the chute we decided to drop our oxygen tanks, even though the meters were blaring and the air was making our heads feel cloudy. All we wanted was to get back to the surface and come back with enough people to recover AJ's body, if any of him was left.
As soon as Mo dropped his tank it rolled away into the dark. We didn't think much of that, too busy preparing our ropes for the climb when the tank came flying back from the darkness and caught Mo clean on the side of his head. He collapsed, head completely caved in on one side and blood began to pool all around him.
I've never climbed so fast in my life. I've never abandoned someone so quickly - I never even checked to see if he was still alive, I just left and by the time I got to the surface I felt like I was still being followed. When I was safely back in sunlight I turned around and looked back down the chute.
It had been so close behind me the whole time.
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