Alysium by Tiffany Pelletier

Author:Tiffany Pelletier [Pelletier, Tiffany]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-15T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Late the next morning, the teenagers all woke to find Gideon already up, packing their supplies.

“We leaving?” asked Abree groggily.

“We can stay here until the supplies are gone, then try to find our way out of here, or we can explore and come back if we hit a dead end,” he explained.

“Where are we exploring to?” asked Charlie, who was stretching out his tired muscles and wiping the sleep from his eyes.

“There's only one way to go,” Ranelle replied, “deeper into the mine.”

“But, won't it eventually just end?” Lara asked, sitting up and pushing her blanket to the side.

“It may,” replied Gideon as he stopped to look at the group, “but don't you want to find out?”

“You mean you’re doing this because you're curious?” asked Abree, sounding thoroughly unimpressed.

“If we get to the end and it just stops, then we will turn back toward Ashbourne. We can't just stay here in this supply station until we rot.” Gideon's last word echoed in the quiet of the room. The rest of them grew uneasy, casting anxious looks at each other.

“We get your point,” Charlie piped up, which was unusual for him as he was usually the least opinionated of their bunch.

“Perfect!” said Gideon happily, dropping his satchel to the stone floor with a thud. “Ranelle, why don't you pack any medical supplies and herbs we might need. Lara and Abree, you can pack the food while Charlie fills up the water bladders.”

“And you?” Abree asked pointedly, her eyebrows lifting as her hands snapped to her hips.

“I'm getting the weaponry. I don’t know what we’ll face on our way, but these weapons are down here for a reason,” he replied, walking off without waiting to see if his explanation satisfied her.

Abree huffed indignantly but chose not to respond.

His mind focusing on the task at hand, Gideon advanced on the wooden cupboards, taking stock of what remained after each teenager had taken what they needed.

There were stacks of sheathed knives and daggers of various shapes and sizes, as well as other weapons Gideon hadn’t seen before. Unsure of what they might need, he inspected the weaponry he was familiar with.

There were two medium-sized bows with matching quivers of arrows. Gideon had seen a bow before; it was hanging on the wall in his house. It had always seemed like a strange and clumsy weapon to him. The arrowhead was far too large to kill any of the rodents in Alysium. When he was little, his governess had told him stories of giant river monsters. They would drag their smooth bellies up and onto the riverbank, swallowing small children when their parents weren’t looking. Perhaps the arrowheads had been used on those creatures. Somehow, he doubted they would face river monsters in the tunnels ahead.

Gideon then observed several axes, which made him grin. There wasn't a miner in Ashbourne afraid to handle an ax, no matter the size or shape. Finding the familiar weapons made him feel more prepared for any obstacles they might face.

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