Shadow Slave: Rainy Days

A few hours had passed since the group arrived in the underwater cave. Things seemed to have been peaceful till now, but they had also only been staying at the same place the whole time, not having explored anything yet.

The group sat in a small circle, the cold stone floor under them uncomfortable. The dim light of the escape pod had already weakened, the power slowly going dry. The only sound audible in the room right now were the small water droplets that came down form the ceiling at a random rate.

Rain was pretty bored right now, she had been bored for many hours. She knew that something had to happen- the couldn't just wait till they died.

'Things can't continue like this. Don't they have any resolve anymore ? We need to get going !"

Rain cleared her throat, pulling everyone out of their minds and back into their dire situation.

"Listen. We need to do something. If we don't, we will all end up as a corpse in this shitty cave, and I don't think anyone us wants that."

John sighed, before standing up.

"I know we are all exhausted, but Maria is right. We need to get active. This place might have something we can use for ourselves."

Iris looked up at his answer, her eyes dried up and dead.

"Why bother ? It's not like there'll be a item that can magically help us at killing that beast. We'll only find some stupid stones and maybe ores. We're all dead anyways."

Rain looked at the poor Iris, with only one thing on her mind.

'Pathetic. This doesn't even come close to what I experienced in the outskirts. There's still hope in this situation, something we can still so.'

Rain slightly narrowed her eyes at Iris, seeing the woman in front of her as someone spoiled.

"Stop it..", Rain started. "You think that there is no hope ? That there is nothing we can do ? Then you're already dead. But don't you dare drag any of us down with you. The longer I look at you, the more disgusted I get. The only thing you've been doing is crying."

Iris whole body flinched at Rain's rude words, her dead eyes suddenly burning with anger.

"Disgusting ? What did you do till now, you bitch?" she snapped, her voice echoing through the cave. Iris stood up and dashed towards Rain, her arms raised in a pitiful attempt to punch her.

Before Iris could hit her, Mark pulled her back, attempting to stop the fight.

"What I did ? I'm the reason why we even found this ca-"

Rains sentence was cut off by John, who snapped to at seeing his friends fight, his loud voice fighting its way through their ears, making everyone flinch at his anger.

"SHUT UP! WE DON'T HAVE ANY TIME TO FIGHT. MARIA, STOP BEING SO RUDE TOWARDS IRIS."

"I was just telling the truth.", mumbled Rain.

John exhaled deeply, trying to calm down, since he of course didn't want to scream at his friends.

"I'm sorry for yelling but we can't get mad at eachother now. We need to work together- we might never get out of here alive if we don't."

The air grew thick again, as John's voice faded away, the weight of his words settling over everyone in the group. Rain crossed her arms, not realizing that her words had indeed been rude. For her, for someone that had only experienced the worst parts and horrors of live, there was only the truth. The concept of rudeness didn't even cross her mind, since for her, there was only survival. And someone like Iris was a obstacle in her way of surviving.

Mark put a gentle hand on Rain's shoulder.

"He-hey, Maria. That wasn't nice. You should apologize, really."

Rain raised and eyebrow, looking directly at Mark with confusion.

"I wasn't lying, was I ? Crying won't help us …" Rain pushed his palm from her shoulder. "So let us finally do something, I can't wait here anymore."

Mark's expression transformed into one of pain, a kind of pain Rain didn't understand why it was there. Rain already had made up theories before, but this validated them. There was something more than a friendship between Mark and the old Maria.

Rain walked towards one of the tunnels of the cave, having chosen just a random one. Before truly walking the path, she turned around, giving everyone one last glance

"You can either follow me or chose your own path, but I won't keep waiting here."

Mark looked down at the ground, his arm still in the air, where her shoulder was just a moment ago, while he bit his lip.

"I'll follow you … Maria."

Iris spoke up again, absolutely not intending to follow Rain now.

"I won't follow you, you're not the same Maria I know."

John looked at everyone, now knowing how to keep the team's peace up. He wanted to let things stay friendly, but he didn't know how to. The only thing he could now, was to stay fair.

"I'll.. I'll stay with Iris, so no one will stay alone. If you find anything, you can come back here, we'll build a small base with the things we have in the pod."

And without even answering, Rain turned back and went off. She knew that she might've acted a little bit petty, but the police officer had told her to not see the people in her Nightmare as humans.

'As long as I survive, everything's fine.'

The tension in the main area of the cave lingered, John and Iris watching Maria and Mark go off on their own. Both sighed, one of relief and one because of frustration.

***

A few minutes into walking through the really dark passage, Mark spoke up, his voice quiet and hurting.

"You've changed", he said before letting it drift off into silence. "You're not the Maria I married. I .. just don't know YOU. You hold yourself different, you speak different, you walk different, everything is different !", his voice cracked, before transforming into a slight sob.

"Come back, Maria, please."

Rain stopped walking, not because she wanted to, but because her body acted on autopilot. This had already happened before- the original emotions of this body coming back.

"I'm not the Maria you know- I'm the person I need to be to survive. So shut up and stop crying. If we get out of this Nightmare, I'm sure that the real Maria will come back.", she said, since it was also kinda the truth. If Rain survived this Nightmare, she wouldn't be Maria anymore. If the Nightmare disappeared, or if it just continued without her, she didn't know. But if it did continue, the real Maria would come back, no ?

Mark's sobs slowly died down, as he calmed down again.

"You're right, I'm sorry for overwhelming you. Let's find something that can help us in a shitty situation like this."

***

A hour had passed since they had walked off on their own. It was very dark, since they only had a small and weak flashlight that Mark had taken with him.

In that time, Rain and Mark had pressed further into the tunnel, not having found anything of importance yet. There were only rocks, more rock and even more rocks. Oh ! There was also a snail inside here, somehow.

Their close to silent footsteps echoed through the walls, the only thing created sounds in this place, except for their voices and small, falling stones.

Their hopes weren't dead yet though, since there surely was a reason why this tunnel was so long and perfect. One thing that Rain had noticed was that the walls were too smooth to be entirely natural. While it varied ever so slightly, the curves and symmetry hinted at something human shaped.

Rain stopped unexpectedly , making Mark walk into her back.

"What is it, Maria ? Why did you stop ?", he asked, his voice full of confusion.

Rain looked around again, taking in every single detail and scanning her whole surroundings.

"This isn't natural. Someone or something carved it. There is a purpose for this tunnel. I don't know which though."

"What do you mean carved by someone ? And there is a purpose ?"

"This tunnel- it's certainly leading us somewhere. We just need to continue."

And she was right, since just a few minutes later, her suspicion had been confirmed by the tunnel, which was widening up into another chamber, this time an even larger one.

What she saw made her gulp. In the distance stood a large shrine of sorts. No, it wasn't a shrine. It was a large and broken temple.

But what really made her heart throb out of fear was the creature in front of the temple. The same Creature that had destroyed their large submarine ship and followed them to this cave.

'Why can this bastard breathe ? We aren't even in the water !'

How it got inside her, or known that it needed to wait at this place, Rain didn't know. But what she knew was, that things were about to get bad.