New Story: Rescue Process (Patreon)

Thomas crawled forward through the abyss. Rocks scraped against his body, digging painfully into his skin. He pressed through anyway, conscious of the companion urging him forward.

“They're getting further away,” Lincoln said. “Keep going, we're almost there.”

Normally he would just ignore him. But his next push tore his shirt, slicing into the skin beneath. He recoiled, then jerked to a stop, face flat in the mud. “Easy... for you to say. You can... fit.”

He wouldn't call the one trailing behind him a friend, exactly. They were only on this tour group together by chance. “I... might need to go back.”

In the failing light of his headlamp, the cave ahead curved and twisted, leaving him with little confidence he could make it through to the other side.

He couldn't even appreciate the glittering minerals in the walls, or the little buds of growing crystals emerging from damp spots. Some of his own blood now joined it, leaving shallow cuts that throbbed along with his heartbeat.

“No room to turn around,” Lincoln said, his voice still infuriatingly cheerful. Because of course it was. Lincoln was much more flexible. He could fit easily if he’d gone on his own. “I think we must be close! Can you hear them? The rest of the group is up ahead.”

Thomas grunted. “You’ve been... saying that... for an hour...” He tried to rise but smacked his head up on the ceiling. “Dammit.”

Lincoln remained silent for almost ten whole seconds. Then came the faint pressure on Thomas’s boots, insistent. “Going backwards will be worse. Can’t turn around. No idea how far we’ve come. Looks like it gets wider up ahead!”

“Does not.” As he said it, Thomas’s headlamp flickered once, then dimmed, restricting his view even further. “Crap.”

He started moving again—if only to keep his companion from more words of empty, pointless encouragement. Just a little further, he could keep going, he was doing so great!

The mud soaked through every exposed inch along his front, smearing into the gaps in his jacket, down his socks, and everywhere else. What little protection the jacket once gave was now gone, leaving him numb and shivering. Another reason not to stop.

Lincoln was wrong about the tunnel—it wasn’t getting wider. He could barely get high enough to put his weight on the plastic kneepads. With so much mud, they didn’t slide easily over stone either, but sank in with every inch, forcing him to lift them one at a time.

The light flickered again, and this time didn’t return. Blackness swallowed them.

Lincoln gasped, followed by a strangled whimpering, then another light tap on his boots. “Thomas? Why did you turn off the flashlight?”

“I... didn’t...” he growled, turning his head sharply back. It didn’t matter—he couldn’t see the one following, not even a suggestion. “Batteries went out. This shouldn’t... even... be a question. You’ve got one too.”

He didn’t see what Lincoln did, but from the quiet fumbling, he could guess. Plastic clicked, and Thomas could almost see an ember of light—but it was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. “Still dead.”

“Your headlamp would...” He took a deep breath, suppressing his anger. If he started shouting, that would only make things worse. The last thing he needed to do was panic with a thousand tons of stone crushing down from overhead. “Maybe yours would still work if you hadn’t gone under that waterfall.”

Lincoln made another sound, a pained, desperate squeak. “Y-yeah. Too late for that now.”

They continued there in the dark for a few seconds. Thomas switched on his own headlamp a few times. He leaned sideways, fiddled with the batteries, then slid it back on. Nothing changed.

He lay there in the mud for a few seconds, with nothing but his own faltering heartbeat and the occasional whimper from behind to keep him company. Lincoln’s confidence melted away to nothing in the darkness. No more empty encouragement came.

“I think I see some light ahead,” Thomas whispered, after a few silent minutes. “My eyes are... adjusting. I’m going towards it.”

“Okay,” Lincoln answered, a little too quickly. Back to the optimism Thomas expected, but too loud, too sharp. Stretched over too wide a gap. “I’m right behind you!”

Thomas crawled forward—he wasn’t even sure how long. Without the flashlight, he lost all frame of reference to the cavern, all ways to track his progress. Occasionally he scraped against the cave again, other times he continued for several minutes without a fresh injury, using his hands to feel his way along.

Lincoln didn’t say another word after that. His companion was still there, squeezing through the cavern just behind.

Until Thomas pulled himself forward along the wall, and the floor sloped out from under him. He yelled, flailing madly for purchase, but the tunnel was suddenly moving too fast. His legs scraped, bouncing him painfully into the stone ceiling. Somewhere behind, Lincoln’s voice came in a high-pitched, terrified scream, along with something grinding against the stone. Neither could stop their fall.

Seconds later, the floor slipped out from beneath him, and he was tumbling. The walls were gone, the ceiling–nothing remained but blackness, surrounding him on all sides.

He felt a sudden, strange clarity. The world tumbled, wind whipped through his hair, yet somehow his mind remained calm. This is how I die, he thought. I’m gonna…

The world jerked, and blackness swallowed him. Thomas woke in gloom.

Not total darkness—nothing like the abyss he had crawled through to reach the slope that should’ve killed him.

Except Thomas wasn’t dead—he could still feel. But what he felt—he must’ve snapped his spine. First thing to do... check for... He wiggled his toes or tried—but there was nothing. The same happened when he tried to move his fingers. No response, just a flat, numb sensation. He groaned, then tried again—and the arm moved. His legs did too, which only made the whole situation stranger.

How can I only feel them partway?

Thomas rolled onto his side, opening one eye. He didn’t feel moisture anymore, but maybe—were his hands broken, or worse?

Something blue obscured most of his vision, larger than his nose ought to be. His arms were there, tearing through shreds of nylon windbreaker—but somehow those were blue too? And on the end, no hands at all.

A sharp scream echoed from nearby, so loud and shrill that his ears pressed flat against his head. That... didn’t make sense either.

The strangeness of that feeling brought its own confusion, though it faded to the background in the sound of that screaming, terrified woman. “Help! Someone, please! Help!”

Thomas tried to sit up, turning towards the sound. Only—his body didn’t move the way it should. He pushed off, or where they should’ve been. He flopped forward again, landing on his hands and—feet?

He couldn’t feel his feet either. He flopped wildly through the air, then landed again. There was no time to try and understand what he felt, not with that shrill screeching deafening him. Why wouldn’t she stop!

He stood in a vast cavern, stretching out in all directions, with the ceiling lost entirely in the darkness. Firelight flickered off from one direction, providing the diffuse light that illuminated him. And the screaming... animal?

Not a woman at all, despite how she sounded—the one yelling was a horse, one of her legs buried completely in the mud while her other three flailed madly for escape.

Not just legs, either—she had wings too, flapping wildly, without much effect. Her huge eyes finally saw him, and she fell instantly silent. “A horse? Why... where’d you get... Thomas’s jacket?”

With the screaming stopped, Thomas had a few seconds to think—and to see what he had first missed. Little details, like the hoodie wrapped around the animal’s waist, shredded and stained with mud. Underneath, a pair of jeans clung to her legs. Her huge body split them at every seam, but the ratcheting survival belt still held them in place. Lincoln’s belt.

“You talked,” he said, approaching slowly. “I’m not hallucinating, am I? That was you?”

The animal twitched again, struggling forward through the mud, covering much of her lower body. It did her little good—apparently, she wasn’t strong enough to get out on her own. She flopped forward another second later, resting on one foreleg. “Thomas?” she asked. “Why are you a talking horse?”

“Me?” he repeated, indignant. “Guess you haven’t seen a mirror lately.”

Neither had he. Thomas tilted his head to one side and found his neck far more flexible than it ought to be. He could turn far enough to look back, and see...

A horse, just like she said. A horse wearing the last shreds of his cargo shorts, along with one sleeve from his windbreaker. None of his clothes were large enough, and none had survived intact. His boots were nowhere to be seen.

That brought a flash of embarrassment—he was basically naked in the dark with this woman.

In other circumstances, that might be enough to make him retreat. But then she struggled again, clawing with her forelegs to try and pull herself out. She made it a few inches, stretching—then slumped forward, covering her face with both wings. She said nothing, just moaned quietly into the muddy ground.

Thomas approached slowly, dropping down to eye level with her. Nothing about this creature suggested a connection with Lincoln—except for everything she was wearing. More importantly, she knew his name. “We both changed. Why do you sound so different?”

She moaned again, pressing her face to the ground. “If I knew...” she whispered, barely audible. “Please... help me out. I’m stuck.”

Easier said than done. He looked down, lifting one of what should’ve been his hands. No hand remained, just flat leg ending in a hard hoof. No fingers meant no primate pulling.

“Hold your arms out,” he said, “I’ll help you.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes with her own. Way bigger than they should be—no animal had eyes that intelligent and emotional. No animal could talk, either. She obeyed, extending her forelegs in his direction. Like the rest of her, they’d been completely smeared with mud, turning her light fur into a mess of slime.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this...” he muttered. Thomas extended his own arms—his forelegs. They didn’t bend the way he expected, there was a joint near where he should have found his wrists. If he bent them...

Without a word from him, the horse girl did the same, and his legs caught on hers. He backed away, dragging along the ground to keep himself balanced. At first, she stretched, moving easily. Then her front was all the way out, and her back legs caught on the mud.

For a few seconds he tugged in vain, back legs scraping on the soft sand. “It hurts!”

“A little... farther...”

The mud squelched loudly, and she went tumbling forward, directly into his chest. She was so light he barely felt the impact—something soft and feathery, a splatter of mud, and she was on the ground, whimpering.

“Oww! You could’ve moved!”

He looked down, raising an eyebrow. “You are Lincoln, aren’t you?”

She glared stubbornly up at him, puffing out the feathers and fluff on her chest. “Thank you for saving me.”

He said nothing, turning away from her. Something moved in the distance—that firelight was getting closer. They ran through the darkness, loping along on two legs.

They’d found the tour group! “We’re here!” he yelled, shouting as loud as he could. So loud that Lincoln sunk back down, covering her face with her wings. “This way! We landed over here!”

“They’ll see us,” she whispered, when he stopped for breath. “We’re animals. They’ll... lock us up, or call the police, or...”

The running figure reached them. After adjusting to the total darkness, he was momentarily blinded, turning the figure into a distorted brown silhouette. He shielded his face with one foreleg, squinting.

The creature wasn’t human, though it was far closer than Thomas himself. It stood on two legs, wore armor across its chest, and held a sharply pointed spear in one paw, and a lantern in the other. Both pointed at his face.

“Pony,” it said, voice low and dangerous. “Come. Now.”