Serial Micro Fiction: Zamy and Landric – Part 5

The temperature in the tunnel was dropping and every so often a stale breeze rushed past them from deeper in the dark. It carried with it a stronger scent of oil mixed with a touch of sweat, and blended with an ample scent of rock dust. They listened closely, but still only silence greeted them.

“Landric, did you hear that?” asked Zamy as they slowly continued in their blindness.

He had not, being lost in his own world inside his head, a coping mechanism he sometimes used when he was feeling overwhelmed. If he could make his problems disappear from within, he could make them go away outside as well, he reasoned. This was not always the case, but those times it worked reinforced his belief that it did.

“Landric,” Zamy whispered again, shaking his arm and pulling him from his thoughts.

“Probably not much longer,” he answered.

“What? I asked if you heard that noise up ahead.”

“Oh. Um, no?”

“It was a faint whistling,” it began again while she was talking and she slipped into silence. The whistle was a little bit louder and as they hurried forward, as much as they could in the blackness, they noticed there were several voices whistling complementary tunes.

Soon they turned a corner into a gigantic cavern. About a dozen lanterns hung on walls as shadows moved throughout the chamber. Landric took a step forward just as their world went dark again, and the smell of sweet perfume pulled them into a gentle slumber.