Chapter 3

Mel's POV

I woke up to a start expecting one of Cedric's pranks or him yelling for me to come down for breakfast, but all I heard were gentle snores around me. The memory of yesterday came crashing down on me, making me tear up, I stood up and walked to the tunnel's opening not wanting anyone to see me cry. I sat down folding my legs in front of me and finally let the tears out. After what seemed like ages,I tried to push down the lump that seemed to be stuck in my throat.

"Uhm, not to be rude or anything but are you done crying",Adrian asked as he sat besides me folding his legs just as I had done and staring at the massive city ahead.

"I'm not really good at comforting, so I decided to let you be", he added shyly while I tried to hastily clean up the left over tears with the back of my palms.

"Its okay, all of this is just so overwhelming, I don't know what to do, what if we get captured and imprisoned down there, what if everyone back home thinks we're dead and don't try to find us"I asked all at once holding my breath.

Don't worry, I'm sure our families have alerted the police and they are doing the best they can to find us", Adrian answered although it sounded like he wanted to convince himself too.

Silence took over as we stared ahead deep in our own world of thoughts. I sighed thinking about my family, mom and dad were probably freaking out with worry, mom was most likely doing the search herself or worse knocking the neighbors' doors all over town even at an ungodly hour. Dad would've put out some fliers already and probably would have told the news too, I could only imagine the headlines, "Seven teenagers mysteriously disappear while at the beach''. Sighing again,I thought about Cedric and Joey, I'd give anything to see or hear Cedric yell my name or prank me, I never thought there'd be a day in my entire life I'd admit to missing the troublemaker.

"What's that?",Adrian asked bringing me out of my thoughts. I looked at him and noticed he was pointing at the city's atmosphere. I looked up to see something that looked like a massive ball of fire making its way high up the atmosphere.

"What the fuck is that?",Tyler whispered behind us making us jump a little in fright.

"I don't know but it looks like its making the darkness clear up",I replied.

"So its like their sun?,cos its getting hot too",Adrian asked looking at me.

"Looks like it'',I shrugged, staring at what I suppose is an artificial sun which had already gone way up in the atmosphere and was rested magically on one side of the city.

"Aren't you guys missing something?", Seth asked as he came behind us. We looked at him confused,our stares urging him to continue.

"Good morning everyone",Tiffany mumbled as she walked towards us raking her fingers through her dirty blonde hair, Melanie right behind stifling a yawn.

"Woah, what the hell is the sun doing here?",Melanie asked her eyes wide as saucers.

"Seth was just about to tell us, its artificial by the way",Adrian replied. By now we were all sat in two rows, each row facing the other, our eyes fixed on Seth.

"I wouldn't conclude about the sun being artificial just yet, there are two possibilities as to where we are",Seth began. Seeing as there is no sunlight here and an artificial sun was needed, if we use that theory, I'd say we are under the earth's surface where the sun cannot reach",he stated, his eyes calculating our reactions.

"Wait, isn't that supposed to be like millions of kilometers away from the earth's surface?",Tyler exclaimed. Seth nodded.

"Yup, we're in the earth's fucking core",Tyler added, throwing his hands in the air.

"What other possibility is there",I asked Seth refusing to the believe we fell into the earth's core, others nodded clearly thinking the same.

"Well its either that or we're on Mercury, and we just witnessed sunrise cos you know Mercury is the planet closest to the sun and they can probably see the sun almost its real size this close", Seth said shrugging nonchalantly.

"What the fuck,another planet, seriously Seth?",Melanie exclaimed,frustration clear in her voice.

"That's why I said possibilities, both of them have a 98% chance of being true. We might have entered some sort of portal into the earth's core or another planet Melanie", Seth fired clearly annoyed.

"Wait a minute, where's Stephanie?", Tiffany asked looking around. We all got up at once looking at each other in panic.

"This is not good",I mumbled. Great, not only are we far away from home and in the earth's core or possibly fucking Mercury, we couldn't find Steph and we have no goddamn clue about where she could be, whether she wandered off on her own or if she was taken.

Author's note: I know its short but don't worry, the ones coming after it will be longer, so long you might complain(hopefully). Pls tell me what you think in the comment section.

💖Gee