They weren’t being so generous.
“Through the squeeze,” Evan said, again.
I followed the sound of his voice, Marco-Polo style.
My foot moved over, and I hit nothing at all. Open air.
I fell. My back hit more solid ground. I was left with one leg down a hole, arms splayed out, shotgun in one hand, my head wrenched at a dangerous angle as my eyes insisted on holding contact with that woman-Other’s single orb.
If I’d fallen in a different manner… snap?
I swept my good hand forward, through snow, bringing the shotgun with it. An augmentation to the wind, a push…
The connection was strong enough to push snow out of the way.
But not all of it.
For a brief moment, the link was broken. I turned my head, looking away.
Only to become aware of how close the rest of the Others were. Lying on my back, I could see them creeping around my peripheral vision. Some closer than five feet.
Evan was among them, standing through my leg.
He flickered, looking concerned, then jumped.
Jumping right into my stomach.
Through my stomach.
My ass and left leg weren’t touching solid ground. I drew my right foot back…
Gravity had its way with me, dragging me into the same hole that the little ghost had slipped into.
I landed on my back, and was momentarily blinded by the snow that had followed me down. My heart pounded, and my hand throbbed in time with each beat.
Others would be following. Pain aside, I needed to move.
I flopped over onto my stomach. There was barely any light, which somehow made it easier to make out my little companion.
It was… not a cave, but a collection of stones and roots that had made a kind of tunnel. The ground beneath might have eroded away, or it had simply grown like this.
“Through the squeeze,” Evan said.
“You’re a little less lucid,” I said. “How come?”
“Through the squeeze,” he said. He passed through me on his way to the tunnel.
I wasted no time in following, crawling after him. Was it weird that I was less bothered by the fact that he passed through me than the alternative? Probably.
I crawled on my elbows, shotgun in my right hand, barrel resting in the crook of my other arm, unable to even rise up enough to put weight on my knees. Every brush against the overhanging roots brought puffs of snow down.
“Squeeze for a, what, an eight year old?” I muttered. “What’s this to me?”
There was no response. I was talking to Evan the projection, the echo, the replay.
I stopped as the branches on my back snagged. I had to crawl backwards a distance, then shift them around so they were pressed between my body and the ground.
I pressed forward again, and I made it about two feet further as the chain caught. A quick check suggested it wasn’t the chain itself, but the bulge it made where my jacket covered it. More snow filtered through the overhang as I jerked to a stop.
The space didn’t look like it got any more open from here on out.
I backed up again, tried shifting my coat around, pulling it tight against my body, holding it like that with the shotgun-
I heard a growl behind me. A very inhuman growl. It was too cramped a space for me to turn around, to even look behind myself.
No time to waste, I tried again.
I stopped short at the exact same place, for the exact same reason.
“Fuck,” I swore, under my breath.
A snarl was followed by rustling, and snow raining down on me yet again, in larger clumps.
Whatever was behind me was strong enough to move the roots and stones, to push past them.
“Fuck,” I said again. Was an understatement like that bad enough to count as a lie?
Had I already wondered that?
What did it say that I even had to ask that last question?
I heard another snarl, felt another lunge shudder through Evan’s ‘squeeze’. Snow fell down on top of me, making my job harder. Some even landed in the crook between my face and arms, atop the holly branches I was squishing down with my body. For a second, between fear, snow, holly and the confined space around my body, I couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t want to die like this,” Evan said. He was sitting further up the tunnel, hugging his arms to his body, legs propped up. “Not like this. Not here.”
“Thank you,” I muttered, “For the commentary. I’d say it was doing lots for my morale…”
I struggled to make headway, failed.
I huffed out a breath, because the struggles were making me hold my breath to the point I might pass out. “…But I’m not allowed to be sarcastic anymore.”
I heard whatever it was behind me scrabbling for purchase on stones. Claws or something scraping.
Another movement of the roots overhead and more snow suggested it was succeeding where I was failing.
I didn’t have many options. June? No use. Too slow, maybe counterintuitive, with the ice thing. Loading and firing the shotgun? I could clear the snow out of the tunnel, maybe, but I could also kill myself with ricochet, and I’d have an audience if and when I made it to the other side.
I reached down, squeezing to one side, until I couldn’t breathe, to get my bad hand down past my pelvis, past my pocket.
Cargo pants pocket, reaching in while trying to keep from bumping my broken finger, failing.
A little jar.
I had to move closer to the thing that was behind me in order to get the room. The contents of the jar were cold as I jammed my three good fingers into it. I smeared the stuff along the chain, pulled on it until it rotated around my body, smeared more on, squeezing it down flat.
Not enough of a covering to be as meaningful as I maybe hoped.
The thing behind me pushed forward again, and I heard wood splintering and breaking. Snow rained down, twice as much as before. I could feel hot, fetid air waft past me.
Not the Hyena. The Hyena’s breath would smell worse.
Still not a good thing.
I heaved myself forward. A third attempt at that same snag that kept catching on the chain.
A little bit of metaphorical butter made the difference. I squeezed through, squeezed through the next bit, which was every bit as bad.
I was holding my breath, because I couldn’t afford to take up any more space. I forced myself forward, jamming my hand against something hard beneath the stone, and I very nearly gasped.
If I had, I might have expanded enough that I wouldn’t get back through. I might have lost the scarce forward momentum.
My vision was starting to act up, my head pounding, from the lack of air.
Last leg. I used my elbows rather than my hands to get leverage on the roots and stones, pistoning myself forward.
To freedom. An open area. Snow, trees, and a surprising lack of Others.
They wouldn’t be that far away. I was glad for the silence effect on boots and chain both as I ran over the snow, joined by my companion.
“Thanks,” I said.
He flickered.
Not the usual flicker, where he jumped to another part of the script, then jumped back.
Flickering as in a flame that was dying or going out.
“No,” I said. “No way. Stop.”
He stopped.
“I’m so tired,” he said. “They won’t let me sleep. I’m so hungry. I can’t stop to eat, and the only things I can find are things I know I’m not supposed to have.”
He sounded faint, in both senses of the word. Or were those two sides of the same sense?
“I just… I need to sleep.”