Thank

I hated Mel the most out of all the explorers around yet I couldn't figure out exactly what it was about him that got us to grow so close.

He was selfish when it mattered most and plain unreliable at times. While he may share his food with you or treat you to a drink at that rundown wannabe pub in Main Chamber Six, he would laugh in your face and tell you with a palm on his chest that he hopes you'll never make it out of The Warren as long as he's around.

Were you to be going through a breakup, he wouldn't hesitate to tell you how glad he is you're rid of her and have more time to spend together. He wouldn't even think twice about leaving you behind if he ever had the chance of escaping The Warren. If anything, he was a despicable person, however you looked at it.

"Yo, when we get back, I have someone I'd like you to meet. I keep telling her about you, and she seems really interested. Who knows, you two might hit it off!"

Yet all of this faded to the back of my mind whenever he would tell me things like these. Sometimes I wonder if he even realizes how much of a walking contradiction he is.

"The Unreliable Reliable."

"Huh? What was that?"

"Nothing you should be worrying about. Eyes on the road or we'll derail before we even reach the next chamber."

Maybe it was hate keeping me around him. Maybe I only wanted to see him meet his demise for how clueless he could be.

"Mel, are we friends?"

"Huh? What kind of question is that? Of course we are. Aren't we?"

"Now you're asking me? I guess, yeah… Ah, whatever! Look! We're almost there. Slow down damn it!"

The place where we were headed was yet another chamber in The Warren—the deepest one our brigade from Main Chamber Six had ever got to explore. At least I concluded that based on the information we last got from Main Chamber Four, before it went completely silent ten or so years ago when I was but a child.

"Coln, aren't your parents from a main chamber around here? What was it, Main Chamber Nine?"

"How are you going to call yourself my friend if you can't even remember where my parents are from?"

"Ah, what does it matter? It's not like they're around to get mad at me. When did you talk to them last time anyway? Are you even keeping in touch?"

I turned around, the luminite crystal propped in the lantern on my hat blinding Mel as I lifted my pickaxe, ready to swing it down on him.

Instead of reacting to my pick, Mel covered his face, blinded by the luminite ore shining on him. I stood there for a second and looked at him as he rubbed his eyes, completely unaware that his life was about to be cut short.

My hands trembled during that second until I let the tool down. In the end I got of the trolley doing without doing anything to him.

"Come on, let's go see what kind of ore this chamber has to offer. The railway ends in the middle of the tunnel. We've got plenty to walk."

I could hear Mel's steps energetically catching up to me, his voice that came closer complaining meanwhile.

"Ah! That really hurt my eyes. Did you buy new luminite without telling me? I thought we were friends!"

"Yeah, that's what I thought too. Though I expect my friends to at least know what chamber I am from."

"Whatever, man. Don't we get updates from every chamber like once a year at best? It's not like it matters that much where you are from once we get drafted. Plus, living underground our whole lives sure doesn't help in keeping track of the date. I haven't talked to my parents since last year, but what even is a year?" he started going on and on.

"I tell you, man! Our human bodies have been struggling to adapt to this environment for so many generations I don't even know what a year is anymore. Last time, you woke me up after a full week's sleep, apparently. What kind of friends let my bio-whatever rhythm get thrown so out of balance?

"And what kind of friend can't remember that I am from Main Chamber Four!?" I wanted to shout at Mel, but I didn't. I knew well enough that once he starts throwing blame, there's nothing he would listen to. The last thing I wanted was to tell that to him and hear him find a way to turn that into my fault.

"Huh, someone's awfully quiet. Don't tell me you're sulking—"

I slapped Mel over the mouth and kelp my hand there. Although it felt very satisfying to do so, I didn't do it out of anger but to shut him up.

"What is it now?" he asked, completely ignoring my attempt at assessing the situation.

"Maybe if you shut up for a second you could hear it too."

"Hear? Hear what?"

Mel finally took a second to listen. From further ahead resounded some type of weird reverberation. It sounded akin to an earthquake heard from the epicenter; only the sound was faint and echoed through the corridor while the ground and walls remained completely still.

"I don' hear nothin'," said Mel with a sudden, forced accent. I turned my head at him, but this time he was prepared and covered both my and his luminite so that it would only shine a faint light on my face.

"You're not serious. It sounds like a canyon is opening up somewhere in the distance!" I shouted before realizing my voice was too loud.

"What's with that weird comparison? Haha! Maybe some rats or something?"

He was, of course, not taking it seriously, but I couldn't calm myself down after hearing that. After all—

"Don't tell me you're still scared of whose legends are about The Warren. In all the years our Main Chamber has been running, nobody has ever encountered anything from that strange book of yours. Caves are just a lot of dirt, ore and stone, Coln. When will you get that through your—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Mel's eyes opened wide, and a blue light suddenly shone on everything behind around us. I quickly turned around, and what stretched before me was a sea of blue crystals, covering every part of a wide chamber that was not there seconds ago.

"Okay…" Mel continued. "That doesn't prove anything!"

*****

"So like, isn't it about time you pull out that book of yours and read out what the legends say about giant chambers filled with blue, luminescent crystal?" he asked as I drew a line with my marker on a stone right outside the chamber.

"Shouldn't you worry more about the goggles you've forgotten at the cart?"

"I just said the whole place is flooded with blue light. Why would I even need them?"

"Yeah, even then you have to…"

The way Mel looked at me and turned his head, I sighed and gave up on explaining to him things that should have been obvious. Of course, he couldn't have left some of the dynamite behind instead.

"You know I don't carry that book with me outside the main chamber. The last thing I want is to lose it here. Don't you remember that chamber filled with water? I haven't brought it with me ever since almost dropping it there."

On top of that, I knew well enough that were I to bring the book with me, Mel wouldn't let me hear the end of it about how much of a nerd I was for trying to solve our issues by relying on "fictional stories".

"See! I bet it doesn't even have anything about this. All those supernatural fantasies about stones and dirt…"

I didn't engage with Mel's embarrassing attempt at provoking me. Besides, there was little need for me to bring the book about in the first place. Considering how many times I had read it, I knew well enough what was written in it. This stood true when I looked at the ore that was now surrounding us from every direction. This looked exactly like a stone called "aparun" that the book talked about—a fluorescent crystal said to have the power of curing thirst even if the world were to go dry.

Whenever I read about it, I fantasized about how that would work, and I kept asking myself why the humans above hadn't used it to preserve the life on the surface.

"Why were we forced to hide underground like moles? What exactly happened out there?"

As I whispered questions with no answer to myself, I bent my knees to touch the ore. I deemed it safe after walking over it for the past five minutes, but nothing could have prepared me for what I felt when touching the aparun crystals.

"Woah! It's wet! It isn't dripping any water, but it feels like it's been covered in it!" Mel shouted out my thoughts.

The feeling alone made a jolt run through my mind. It was unlike anything I could have imagined, and I had no way to explain to myself what I was feeling.

Like a baby discovering the world for the first time, I caressed the aparun with the tip of my fingers. When touching it, I felt like I was handling stones taken out from an underground spring. It was smooth, old, and wet to the touch. However, even after wrapping my palm around a crystal and keeping it there, when I took my hand back, my palm was completely dry.

"Is this what they meant? Could this really be it?"

I spoke in riddles not because I didn't want Mel to understand me but because I myself wasn't sure what exactly I was going to say. Thinking that this could be the very ore that I had read about in the book Mother had left me with as she pushed me down the tunnel in that small cart, I felt tears of joy welling up in the corners of my eyes. I wanted to turn around and scream, but knowing that the only one around to hear me was Mel, I decided not to waste my energy on someone who wouldn't get it.

"A stone that cures thirst with no water…" I said while firmly grabbing with two fingers a thin piece of aparun that was sticking out, but before putting any force into trying to snap it, a page of the book flashed through my mind, and I stopped myself.

"Mel, whatever you do, don't—"

"Imagine the reward we'll get for bringing this home. We'll finally be rich, Coln!"

Of course Mel wasn't listening to a word I said, so before he could do anything stupid, I turned around and reached for his hand. To my surprise, Mel reacted the same and pulled me towards him, shouting that I should "watch my head".

I stepped towards him, breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn't broken any crystal, and then asked him what he was on about.

In response, Mel pointed at the ceiling of the chamber. There, with wide eyes, I gazed upon his pickaxe, stuck into a clump of aparun. The pickaxe dropped right next to me, and from the broken aparun above our heads, aparun dust started dropping like water out of a faucet.

The moment I saw it, my mind turned clear, adrenaline flooding my body. I wasted no time and grabbed Mel by the scruff.

"We're getting out of here. Now!"