19 Chapter 17

Another chapter. Ive been busy watching Kamen Rider Agito and OOOs to actually get any writing done. Sorry. The fact that Ne' is super close to Tian in personality wise was done for a reason. Itll rear its ugly head in time.

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      The routine set within a few days of being there. During the mornings they carried loads out to the other cavern where the men waited patiently. Once Axel had gotten the hang of it, it was just him taking the loads across the water. Ne'igalo had expressed quite a few times how controversial he was for the people across the water.

      The boy stuck to the small cavern for most of the time, anyway. He dove and carved out tunnels beneath the lake before sending iron up to Axel. He didn't talk much the whole time either. He attempted to sleep alone in the same cavern he worked but the nightmares kept him awake. Axel could hear the fear in his voice, and could see the rings around his eyes easily. But the boy didn't complain, nor did he offer to sleep amongst the other men. Unlike everyone else who huddled together in torch light, trying to survive the cold nights together.

      There was an unconscious fear that something would come crawling out of the dying room to grab them. Strange multi-legged monsters or whatever else the imagination conjured up. They could hear screams that echoed through the caverns late when all the levels started to go to sleep. Things scratched at the walls, hauntingly, just out of reach, but they were always there. Axel had never believed in monsters until the first night he'd slept there and something whispered through the tunnels. It sounded like Tian, but there was nothing down there that even knew Tian's voice. Most of the men used their pick-axes to carve cultural symbols over the entrances. There were three cave openings within the room, leading out towards a vast, dark maze. Each one had at least a hundred different warding symbols, all looking different but mean the same thing. 'Don't come here'. It still wasn't enough for most of the men, though, they clutched their digging tools close to their chests every night as if pick-axes would save their lives. 

Every morning though, or at least they assumed it was morning, a loud piercing sound would echo throughout the whole mountain. Once it passed a level, that level had to copy the sound and send it deeper. Being the last level, they didn't have to bother with it, but it definitely woke the men from dead sleep. They got up, and got to work once more. They wield their torches as they shakily stepped into the caves for another day, but the fear was constantly present. Even in the waking hours. 

      When the day was over, though, the men all wandered back. Mirik did a head count before they sat down and he dished out the food. He tried to hold some semblance to normalcy, forcing everyone to meet up to get their food and talk. Even Ne'igalo was forced to join. He said it kept people sane, and had told stories the first night of the men who didn't reach out. They died in the endless caves on the upper levels, screaming and pleading with ghosts that didn't exist until their hearts gave out from fear. He'd also brought Axel up to speed on how the cave systems worked for the mountains.

      The cave he was currently in was the only one that produced Phosphoric Iron, which was a mutated brand of metal. No one had ever figured out what was creating it, nor why it grew so abundantly deep beneath the mountains. The Appalachian mountains had once been a home for the second Iron Chief and clan. So their best guess was that the residue of their lives had grown the metal. However, a chain reaction set off in major pockets of the mountains, creating a poisonous gas. The men blocked up the pockets as they went with rock, but it was only a matter of time before something shifted wrong and the whole mountain was sent careening down.

      Another thing he'd learnt in the time he'd been there. The mountain was alive, or at least that's what most of the men said. It shifted and groaned every now and then because it was situated on top of two unstable tectonic plates. The mountain itself was weakening. He'd been awoken quite a few times during the nights when whole chunks of rock freefell to the ground near their heads. Occasionally, someone did get hit and panic would ensue after that. They huddled close and prayed for the rumbling to stop, sleep eluding them. They didn't dare step into the tunnels without their light and they were too afraid to sleep and get crushed. It was a constant battle. 

The mountain had 5 levels to the cave system, being the smallest out of the eight. However, their level was the smallest. All the other levels were more expansive and longer whilst the bottom level was paving new paths in the rock at all times. Every day the lowest level's terrain grew, inch by inch. The upper levels though were more selfish from what Axel heard. Huge fights broke out regularly for food, and many had already starved to death up there or been killed for food they hoarded. The warriors did nothing to stop the fights, either. They simply shot and killed whoever tried to escape.

      During the days he'd been there, Axel didn't have the time to stop and think of any of his siblings. They were all in the upper levels, and the fear that they were starving kept him up at night. He didn't listen to the unspoken rule, though. Mirik had told him a hundred times not to think of anyone throughout the day. And it wasn't until he heard his brothers' voices calling him through the caves that he finally listened and locked the thoughts away.

It was uncanny how close to the actual people the ghosts of the caves were. He'd almost stepped into the caves during the night if it wasn't for Ne'igalo suddenly appearing and grabbing his shoulder. He shook his head desperately, pulling Axel back frantically. The usual unnerving calm was gone from his eyes, replaced with unbridled panic. 

      "Don't go," Ne'igalo had whispered.

      How had he reached Axel so fast? He'd had to step over at least 40 men, and Axel should have been able to hear him. He hadn't. "You'll never come back."

      "My siblings..." Axel answered, peering into the dark caves once more. Something scuttled near the edge, and it was an inch from his face. He knew it because he could feel the overwhelming cold reaching out to him and the way his heart was gripped with fear. One more step and it'd grab him and he'd be drug in. His heart was sent into a panic at the thought.

      "It's not them Axel," Ne'igalo answered urgently, but the boy was shaking. He could feel the overwhelming sense of dread, too. "It's never them in the caves. You have to come back."

      As soon as Axel stepped back, Ne'igalo tackled him in a full body hug. Confusion replaced Axel's fear as he wrapped his hands around the boy's back. The fins on the boy's spine felt so alien to Axel's touch, and yet it felt normal. More normal than holding Tian had ever been.

      "Ne'igalo? What?" Axel stated under his breath. "What's wrong?"

      They'd only known each other for a few days, and Ne'igalo was already latching onto him like a scared child. The other men were different, they didn't hug as much as they included him in every little thing. Ne'igalo had been cold and distant the whole time he'd known him. Now, he was holding onto Axel like his life depended on it and it didn't seem like Ne'igalo was going to let go anytime soon. He'd essentially never had a hug that lasted so long in his life. Not even Axel's mother had hugged him this long. Seconds stretched into minutes and Ne'igalo was still there.

      What had his mother once said about the people of the ocean? They'd been affectionate people. They were closer to each other than any other tribe or village, sharing massive home boats with each other. Friendships were more intimate than land people's. Ne'igalo had pushed away from Axel awkwardly.  But Axel could easily see that he was just as surprised at what he'd done as Axel, he coughed nervously.

      "Sorry," Ne'igalo whispered stepping away like he'd been burnt. "I don't know why I did that."

      Axel didn't answer, pulling the boy back into his chest. He wrapped his arms around the boy tighter, resting his chin against the top of the boy's head.

"You've done nothing wrong."

      Tears welled up in Ne'igalo's eyes as shaky hands clutched onto Axel's shoulders. "Thank you."

      "How long has it been?"

      How long has it been since anyone touched you? Hugged you? Loved you, Ne'igalo? 

      "One year and 223 days," Ne'igalo answered quietly, finally stepping away.

      "Axel, they're hurting me," Alexander's voice whispered through the tunnel. A breeze pushed Axel's bangs up gently and something scuttled away from the entrance. "Help me. I'm so tired!"

      "What are they?" Axel murmured against the boy's ear.

      "It's the dead, Axel. Too many of the people I've cared about have followed the voices out. They never returned." 

      "Ne'igalo how could you leave us?" Something hissed against the rock, the air turned even colder than before.

      "They cut us apart Ne'igalo!" 

"Let's go back now," Ne'igalo commented quickly, eyeing the dark entrance ahead of them. "I'm starting to hear my father, and I don't want to."

Since that night, Ne'igalo slept alongside him in the main cavern. And every time Axel was awake, Ne'igalo was too. They'd lay and stare at each other, trying to block the voices from ever reaching their ears.  It became an unconscious habit to be touching in some way, shape, or form. Whether it was just a hand or Ne'igalo pressed against his back, Axel finally was able to get some sleep. The nightmares still laid waste to Ne'igalo's weakening body. As the days drug on, he got more tired and weaker. Blood dripped from his nose more often, but in the split second that Axel noticed, the blood had already been wiped clean. But the fear in Ne'igalo's eyes stayed in his mind long after the incidents.