“Zoey!” Sara struggled as Lee held her back. She watched as the frail form disappeared into the darkness below.
“There’s nothing we could do,” said Lee. “And without the bridge, we can’t go back.” He slowly released her. “We can only keep moving forward.”
Sara sank to her knees. “Please give me a moment.” Neither said anything for a moment; they quietly secured their winter clothing before entering the next room. The merciless cold assaulted them as Lee opened the door.
The room was an inclining set of stairs that disappeared around the bend. Lee was about to enter the room when Sara said, “Wait.”
She brushed aside the snow covering the stairs. “There’s a mechanism here, probably a trap.”
“It’d work too,” added Lee. “If it weren’t for the ice covering the wall.” He pointed to small holes in the wall, barely visible beneath the sheen of the ice.
“Just watch your step,” said Sara.
The stairs led to a large, expansive room. There was an opening on the top of the roof; snow gently trickling down. Towards the middle of the room was a large altar surrounded by some ritual statues, all covered by a thin sheet of ice.
“This must have been their main meeting area,” said Lee. “They must held meetings or even worshipped in this very room.” As he said this, the very floor beneath him shifted as his weight pushed down on it. Sara grabbed Lee before he fell, and they both watched the circular slab stop at a perpendicular angle to the floor. Warmth and light radiated from beneath the floor. Sara and Lee peered down to see a seething river of lava flowing in the catacombs beneath the temple.
“Or maybe they sacrificed people here,” added Sara dryly.
Lee walked up to the altar. “If only I had time to study all this. Just think of what we could learn about these people.”
“I just want to find this item and get off this damn planet,” said Sara, not bothering to hide her weariness. Lee pointed to something behind her. Sara turned slowly to see another white creature, similar to the one that attacked Zoey earlier. White fur had camouflaged it within the piles of snow.
Lee started to take off his backpack. “I probably have a…”
“Can’t you see?” cut off Sara. “It’s no threat to us.” She started to make a low-pitched whistle. It eerily resonated throughout the large chamber. Sara slowed walked towards the creature, while continuing to whistle. The creature did not move; its eyes followed Sara as she got closer. When she was close enough to touch it, the creature laid down in the snow. Sara ran her gloved hand along its side, feeling its prominent rib cages and shallow breathing.
Sara continued her strange medley as Lee summoned the courage to get closer to the creature. Eventually, the creature, once fierce and terrifying, closed its eyes, and Sara stopped whistling.
“What did you do?” asked Lee.
“It was half-starved and suffering from hypothermia. The best thing for it was to just let it sleep,” said Sara. She absently rubbed its head. She sighed inwardly.
“Let’s get going. If we don’t find this item and a way back to your camp, we’ll end up just like that poor creature.” Lee didn’t have a reply for Sara. He wordlessly chipped off the ice on the turning mechanism for the door to the next room. The door eventually yielded to them, revealing a room of stairs similar to the one they had just exited.
The stairs were identical to the previous ones, right down to the trigger switch and the iced holes in the wall. They proceeded silently to the top of the stairs, where, unfortunately, one of them stepped on a second one. They looked around to see some half-frozen booby trap in action, but nothing happened.
Neither of them looked up to see the large shaft above their heads or the wall of spikes falling down upon their heads.
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Written by J M Emmons. The story and all characters are copyrighted by J M Emmons.
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