Crawlspace and Consequences

Trapped. The word echoed Eleanor's final, frantic entry. Panic tightened its icy grip around my chest, making it hard to breathe the thick, dead air of the tomb. The security guards' voices faded slightly as they moved towards the boiler, but they'd be back. And they wouldn't miss the gaping hole in the wall.

My eyes darted frantically around the small, dark chamber, illuminated only by my trembling flashlight beam. Was there another way out? A hidden passage? A ventilation shaft?

The beam swept across the rough stone walls, the debris-strewn earthen floor, the niche where Eleanor's diary had rested. Nothing. Just solid stone, damp earth, and the scattered bones of the forgotten.

Then my light snagged on something low down, near the floor in the corner opposite the entrance. A darker patch, almost hidden by shadows and a small pile of rubble. It looked like… another opening?

Scrabbling over, heart pounding, I aimed the beam directly at it. It was a crawlspace, barely two feet high and three feet wide, framed by crumbling stonework even older than the walls of the chamber itself. It plunged into absolute blackness, smelling strongly of damp earth and something else… roots?

Could this lead somewhere? Or was it just another dead end, a place where rats nested or foundations settled? It looked impossibly tight, claustrophobic, and utterly uninviting.

But the guards would be back any second. Staying here meant discovery, capture, questions I couldn't answer without revealing everything, potentially ending up just like Eleanor. Going back through the hole meant confronting them directly. This crawlspace… it was a desperate gamble, but maybe the only one I had.

Making a split-second decision, I shoved my backpack ahead of me into the opening. It barely fit. Then, dropping to my hands and knees again, I wriggled into the tight space, the rough stone scraping my back, the smell of damp earth filling my nostrils.

It was even tighter than the entrance hole. Progress was agonizingly slow, pushing the backpack ahead, then hunching my shoulders and wriggling forward like an earthworm. Darkness pressed in from all sides, absolute and suffocating. My flashlight beam, aimed forward, barely penetrated the gloom, reflecting off tangled roots and damp, packed earth just inches from my face.

Behind me, I heard the guards' voices returning, louder now, echoing in the brick corridor.

"See? Told ya. Nothing."

"Still don't like it down here. Let's check that wall again, make sure no pipes are leaking behind it."

Panic surged. They were right outside the hole. Any second now, their beams would hit the disturbed bricks.

I pushed forward desperately, ignoring the scrapes, the claustrophobia threatening to overwhelm me. The crawlspace seemed endless, twisting slightly, dipping downwards. Roots snagged at my clothes. The air grew even thicker, harder to breathe.

Then, their voices again, sharp with alarm. "Hey! What the hell is this?"

"Someone's been down here! Broke through the wall!"

"Fan out! Check the corridor! Call the Dean!"

Flashlight beams stabbed through the hole behind me, momentarily illuminating the crawlspace entrance before I squirmed around another bend. Their shouts echoed, muffled by the earth and stone.

I had to keep moving. They might find the crawlspace. They might even follow me.

The tunnel narrowed further. My shoulders scraped painfully against the sides. Panic clawed at my throat. Was I stuck? Was this how it ended? Buried alive in a forgotten tunnel, just like Eleanor in her chamber?

My fingers, scrabbling ahead in the dirt, brushed against something smooth and cold. Metal.

Angling the flashlight beam downwards, I saw it – an old, rusted ventilation grate, set horizontally into the floor of the crawlspace. It was thick with grime and corrosion, but through the slots, I could feel a faint draft of slightly fresher air.

A vent shaft? Leading where? Upwards? Sideways?

Using the tip of the crowbar, which I'd somehow managed to keep hold of, I pried at the edge of the grate. It groaned in protest, rusted bolts resisting. I put all my weight into it, leveraging frantically, the sounds of the guards searching echoing faintly from behind.

With a final, screeching tear of metal, one corner of the grate lifted. I jammed the crowbar underneath, heaving upwards. The grate tilted, heavy and awkward in the confined space, revealing a dark opening below.

Shining the light down, I saw a narrow, vertical shaft dropping away into blackness. Old ventilation pipes ran down one side. It looked terrifyingly deep. But it was another way. A potential escape.

Taking a deep breath, trying to quell the vertigo, I swung my legs over the edge and into the shaft. My feet found purchase on a narrow ledge, then a rung of an old service ladder bolted to the shaft wall. It felt precarious, slick with damp and grime.

Gripping the rungs tightly, flashlight clenched between my teeth, I began to descend into the unknown darkness, leaving the crawlspace and the shouts of the guards behind me. The rusted metal rungs groaned under my weight. Each movement felt perilous. A fall from here…

Below, the shaft seemed to bottom out. I dropped the last few feet onto what felt like another concrete floor. Clicking the flashlight back on, I found myself in another narrow service tunnel, smaller than the one above, filled with thicker pipes and conduits. Which way to go?

Suddenly, my own diary pulsed sharply in my backpack. Not demanding, this time. Urgent. A warning.

I froze, listening intently. And then I heard it. Faint, but getting closer. Not from the direction I'd come, but from further down this new tunnel.

Footsteps.

Not the heavy tread of security guards. Lighter. Faster. Someone else was down here. Someone who knew these hidden ways. Someone alerted by the commotion, or maybe by the disturbance of Eleanor's tomb.

My blood ran cold. This wasn't security. This was them. The facilitators. Maybe even one of the elite students initiated into the secrets. They were coming.

And I was lost in the labyrinth beneath Blackthorn, with nowhere left to run.