A Seething Stream.

A hole was formed in the floor with an area of about one and a half square meters, a stone sloping at an angle of forty-five degrees led to the lower floor.

David grabbed a lantern lying nearby and without looking back jumped into this hatch, "Elena!"

"I'm here, everything is all right," the woman's voice came out. David lit up the direction where he heard her voice from and seeing that she was not injured, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you sure you're alright? Did you hurt your head? Any pain?" he began to examine her from all sides, while the twins went down and examined the new space in which they found themselves.

"No, I just hit my bottom a bit when I fell, so don't worry. Where are we?" she turned to Marcus.

The man carefully examined everything around, but the new niche did not look any unusual, "Hmm, well, we are clearly where I haven't reached yet, so I suggest that we are extremely careful. I go first, the rest follow me."

"Or maybe you just go first, and we'll wait here. Or even outside?" David crossed his arms over his chest, "It's good that nothing happened, but who knows what will happen next? I realized that Elena's knowledge can help you find this kukri of yours faster, but what prevents you from taking your phone with you, taking a picture of the new inscription and showing it to us? To translate it, my wife does not need to follow you even deeper underground."

"I ag-ree."

"What did you say?" David asked as the man's response sounded more like thoughts aloud than a conscious decision.

Marcus lit up the walls of the room, trying to find some new signs, "I said that I agree."

His answer put everyone in a stupor, David mentally prepared himself for a serious conversational battle, or even a physical confrontation, because if their forces were not working at the moment, then natural physical strength was the main weapon. And even if Marcus's body was stronger, David did not mind taking a chance and knocking him out to take Elena and return to the surface.

Knowing how persistently and principled Marcus behaved in the search for this knife, the man was genuinely surprised when he heard this answer.

"Oh, don't be so dumbfounded. Let Elena help with the analysis of characters in this room, then we will do as you suggested."

"Hmm, okay, deal," David agreed with this condition, they were already in the room, so it would not be difficult. "Have you found anything?"

The room in which they ended up was longer than the previous one and looked like a wide corridor from which there was only one exit. And although the further path was obvious, any missing detail at the moment could have serious consequences.

"Does it seem to me or am I hearing some strange rustling?" Elena asked the others. When she fell to the floor before, it seemed to her that the room was filled with rustling or swishing.

"No, it didn't seem to you, I hear something too," Armand confirmed her assumption.

"This is water."

"Water?"

Marcus's response was perplexing, they were far enough from the ocean, where there could be water.

"This area is known for a large number of underground rivers. I suppose that one of these water streams just passes somewhere nearby," Marcus noticed this sound as soon as they went down to this level. But what others did not notice, is that the sound source was very close and had great power. It was not just a thin flow, but a seething stream.

This was the main reason why he agreed to David's proposal, but naturally, he didn't intend to voice this reason out loud.

"Found it," Marcus pointed on a point on the wall with his flashlight and asked Elena to come closer, "Look, it looks like one of those characters that we met a level higher."

The woman narrowed her eyes, the lighting here was worse than in the room before, but it was enough to understand the image on the wall. "I'm not sure, but it seems to me that this symbol means "go." Give me a flashlight."

Marcus handed Elena his flashlight, she took a few steps forward, trying to make out the combination of characters on the wall. The words were simple, but it was this simplicity that caused complexity. Which of their definitions was meant in this case?

She walked a couple of meters from the main group while the men were examining another wall and the ceiling.

"Marcus, I'm sorry, but I can't understand what this means. Here the same word is repeated - go, go, go. Just go and that's it."

"Maybe it means that we need to go further and that's it, without stopping? Well, like at the airport, between security screenings," Armand suggested.

"I'm afraid, my dear brother, it's not so simple," Marcus scratched his head, he doubted that after the previous riddle, this one was so primitive. "Go, go, go...," the man quickly repeated these words to himself, something shuffled under his feet, he lowered his head and looked at the floor.

Even if his abilities were limited, his vision was still strong enough. Dozens of small cracks on the floor did not hide from his eyes.

Shit.

"ELENA, RUN!"

Marcus turned to David, who was closest to him, and with all his strength pushed the man toward his brother, "Armand, get back!"

The floor under their feet trembled and began to fall at a breakneck speed. The rumble of falling stones revealed a seething stream of water flowing with noise beneath them.

Elena was standing pressed against the wall at the opposite exit, and opposite her, there were David and Armand, next to the place through which they had reached this level. Between them, there was a hole of at least three meters, at the bottom of which water was seething, as in a fast mountain stream.

Their two flashlights fell to the bottom, and through the water, their flickering light only emphasized the speed with which this water was flowing underground.

Marcus was nowhere to be seen.

Elena heard an incomprehensible rustling beside her and soon saw the man's hand clutching the edge of the slab. The woman sank to the floor and crawled cautiously to the edge. Marcus was hanging over the seething abyss, holding onto a small sticking piece of stone.

"Give me your hand, I will get you out!"

"Elena, get away now! This is dangerous!" the man shouted at her, trying to pull himself up, but his fingers only slipped below each attempt.

The woman, ignoring his demand, moved closer to the edge and, with all the small strength that she had, pulled Marcus towards herself.

David was watching this scene, afraid to utter a word, his heart was ready to jump out of his chest with fear, his eyes did not leave a fragile woman trying to save another person.

If Marcus hadn't reacted so quickly and pushed him back, most likely David would have already been washed away by this stormy stream.

Elena's little help for Marcus was enough to lift himself a bit and grab hold of a stronger ledge. He pulled himself up and climbed onto the surface where the woman was, "Thank you," he answered quietly, his breathing was heavy, he was generally surprised that he was able to climb out of the abyss.

Elena sighed with relief and looked at her husband with a smile, their look in each other's eyes was enough to understand what they wanted to say.

CRASH!

The last thing she felt was the hands, that held her very tight, in the eyes of the girl darkened. Her body was pulled down, the rumble and burning ice water turned off her last feelings.

"LENA!!!!!!"

Armand barely managed to grab David when he instinctively rushed forward.

Opposite them, in the place where Elena and his brother had just stood, an empty abyss gaped, below which icy water was swirling in a bubbling stream.