Tunnel Of Bones Quotes

I would never see him again. But as I watched the tunnel race before my eyes, I was certain of one thing: I did trust him. Now I had only to trust in myself.

I'll get them out and come back. I promise." "On your word as a cutthroat and a pirate?" He touched my cheek once, briefly. "Privateer." Another explosion rocked the grounds. "Let's go!" shouted Mal. As we sprinted into the tunnel, I glanced back and saw Nikolai silhouetted against the purple twilight. I wondered if I'd ever see him again.

What you can't see is always scarier than what you can. Your eyes play tricks on you, filling in the shadows, making shapes.

You are my best friend. In life. In death. And everything in between.

It's hard to believe in ghosts, until you see one, and then it's hard not to.

He seems happier, lighter, after sharing his story. I feel a little heavier after hearing it, but that's okay. That's how friendship works. You learn to share the weight.

But it's easy not to care what other people think when none of them can see you.

Cinder grinned."I love you too." "Why are we not moving?" said Storm, his voice rumbling through the tunnel. "We grow inpatient to shred Levana and her court into tiny, bite-size pieces. We will suck the marrow from their bones and drink their blood as if it were fine wine." Iko fixed an uncomfortable look on Cinder. "Good thing they're on our side.

It's important to take care of the past. To revisit it, to study and learn. Understanding the past helps us move through the present and discover the future.

Language is the most valuable currency.

Maybe is a rope in a hole, or the key to a door. Maybe is how you find the way out.

Do you remember,” George went on, “what we found in the tunnels beneath Aickmere’s? Aside from a massive pile of human bones.” “I found Lucy,” Lockwood said.

The Blake family: two parents, a ghost-seeing girl, her dead best friend, and a rather unhappy cat.

Calling the Tuileries a garden is like calling Hogwarts a school.

First comes mischief, then comes menace, then mayhem. The more trouble poltergeists cause, the more powerful they get.

MY MOTHER GETS DRESSED It is impossible for my mother to do even the simplest things for herself anymore so we do it together, get her dressed. I choose the clothes without zippers or buckles or straps, clothes that are simple but elegant, and easy to get into. Otherwise, it's just like every other day. After bathing, getting dressed. The stockings go on first. This time, it's the new ones, the special ones with opaque black triangles that she's never worn before, bought just two weeks ago at her favorite department store. We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toes into the stocking tip then a smooth yank past the knob of her ankle and over her cool, smooth calf then the other toe cool ankle, smooth calf up the legs and the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist. You're doing great, Mom, I tell her as we ease her body against mine, rest her whole weight against me to slide her black dress with the black empire collar over her head struggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve. I reach from the outside deep into the dark for her hand, grasp where I can't see for her touch. You've got to help me a little here, Mom I tell her then her fingertips touch mine and we work her fingers through the sleeve's mouth together, then we rest, her weight against me before threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicep and now over the head. I gentle the black dress over her breasts, thighs, bring her makeup to her, put some color on her skin. Green for her eyes. Coral for her lips. I get her black hat. She's ready for her company. I tell the two women in simple, elegant suits waiting outside the bedroom, come in. They tell me, She's beautiful. Yes, she is, I tell them. I leave as they carefully zip her into the black body bag. Three days later, I dream a large, green suitcase arrives. When I unzip it, my mother is inside. Her dress matches her eyeshadow, which matches the suitcase perfectly. She's wearing coral lipstick. "I'm here," she says, smiling delightedly, waving and I wake up. Four days later, she comes home in a plastic black box that is heavier than it looks. In the middle of a meadow, I learn a naked more than naked. I learn a new way to hug as I tighten my fist around her body, my hand filled with her ashes and the small stones of bones. I squeeze her tight then open my hand and release her into the smallest, hottest sun, a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.

You, Doctor Martin, walk from breakfast to madness. Late August, I speed through the antiseptic tunnel where the moving dead still talk of pushing their bones against the thrust of cure. And I am queen of this summer hotel or the laughing bee on a stalk of death. We stand in broken lines and wait while they unlock the doors and count us at the frozen gates of dinner. The shibboleth is spoken and we move to gravy in our smock of smiles. We chew in rows, our plates scratch and whine like chalk in school. There are no knives for cutting your throat. I make moccasins all morning. At first my hands kept empty, unraveled for the lives they used to work. Now I learn to take them back, each angry finger that demands I mend what another will break tomorrow. Of course, I love you; you lean above the plastic sky, god of our block, prince of all the foxes. The breaking crowns are new that Jack wore. Your third eye moves among us and lights the separate boxes where we sleep or cry. What large children we are here. All over I grow most tall in the best ward. Your business is people, you call at the madhouse, an oracular eye in our nest. Out in the hall the intercom pages you. You twist in the pull of the foxy children who fall like floods of life in frost. And we are magic talking to itself, noisy and alone. I am queen of all my sins forgotten. Am I still lost? Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself, counting this row and that row of moccasins waiting on the silent shelf.

Think of what it must have been like in the Scholomance for all those years it was closed,” said Dru, her eyes gleaming with horror-movie delight. “All the way up in the mountains, totally abandoned and dark, full of spiders and ghosts and shadows . . .” "If you want to think about somewhere scary, think about the Bone City,” said Livvy. The City of Bones was where the Silent Brothers lived: It was an underground place of networked tunnels built out of the ashes of dead Shadowhunters. “I’d like to go to the Scholomance,” interrupted Ty. “I wouldn’t,” said Livvy. “Centurions aren’t allowed to have parabatai.” “I’d like to go anyway,” said Ty. “You could come too if you wanted.” “I don’t want to go to the Scholomance,” said Livvy. “It’s in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains. It’s freezing there, and there are bears.” Ty’s face lit up as it often did at the mention of animals. “There are bears?” “Enough chatter,” said Diana.

On the fourth day, we came upon a cavern with a perfectly still pool that gave the illusion of a night sky, its depths sparkling with tiny luminescent fish. Mal and I were slightly ahead of the others. He dipped his hand in, then yelped and drew back. “They bite.” “Serves you right,” I said. “‘Oh, look, a dark lake full of something shiny. Let me put my hand in it.’” “I can’t help being delicious,” he said, that familiar cocky grin flashing across his face like light over water. Then he seemed to catch himself. He shouldered his pack, and I knew he was about to move away from me. I wasn’t sure where the words came from: “You didn’t fail me, Mal.” He wiped his damp hand on his thigh. “We both know better.” “We’re going to be traveling together for who knows how long. Eventually, you’re going to have to talk to me.” “I’m talking to you right now.” “See? Is this so terrible?” “It wouldn’t be,” he said, gazing at me steadily, “if all I wanted to do was talk.” My cheeks heated. You don’t want this, I told myself. But I felt my edges curl like a piece of paper held too close to fire. “Mal—” “I need to keep you safe, Alina, to stay focused on what matters. I can’t do that if . . .” He let out a long breath. “You were meant for more than me, and I’ll die fighting to give it to you. But please don’t ask me to pretend it’s easy.” He plunged ahead into the next cave. I looked down into the glittering pond, the whorls of light in the water still settling after Mal’s brief touch. I could hear the others making their noisy way through the cavern. “Oncat scratches me all the time,” said Harshaw as he ambled up beside me. “Oh?” I asked hollowly. “Funny thing is, she likes to stay close.” “Are you being profound, Harshaw?” “Actually, I was wondering, if I ate enough of those fish, would I start to glow?” I shook my head. Of course one of the last living Inferni would have to be insane. I fell into step with the others and headed into the next tunnel. “Come on, Harshaw,” I called over my shoulder. Then the first explosion hit.

He tunneled into stories where weak men changed into strong half-animals or used eye beams or magic hammers to power through steel or climb up the sides of skyscrapers. He was the Hulk when angry and Spidey the rest of the time. When he felt his heart hurt he turned into something stronger than a little boy, and he grew up this way. A heart that flashed from heart to stone, heart to stone. As I watched I thought of what Grandma Lynn liked to say when Lindsey and I rolled our eyes or grimaced behind her back. "Watch out what faces you make. You'll freeze that way.

You are my best friend. In life. In death. And everything in between.

Here, ghosty ghosty,' calls Jacob.

There's a great maze of tunnels, a Labyrinth. It's like a great dark city, under the hill. Full of gold, and the swords of old heroes, and old crowns, and bones, and years, and silence.' She spoke if in trance, rapture. Manan watched her. His slabby face never expressed much but stolid, careful sadness; it was sadder than usual now. 'Well, and you're mistress of all that,' he said. 'The silence, and the dark.

Maybe is a match in the dark.

the air that had been still before swoops and tunnels through the clearing, raising dust, making the boys close their eyes. Maybe Daddy is right; maybe Katrina is coming for us.

My parents don't follow fairy tales. They follow ghost stories.

Thomas isn't my problem anymore. He's everyone's.

Thomas Alain Laurent has officially made his way to mayhem.

He seems happier, lighter, after sharing his story. I feel a little heavier after hearing it, but that’s okay. That’s how friendship works. You learn to share the weight.

The monster’s name was Izumrud, the great worm, and there were those who claimed he had made the tunnels that ran beneath Ravka.

Some places just scream haunted ... but this isn't one of them.

Don't let looks fool you, Cass. Paris is brimming with ghost stories.

I feel like I've stepped into Alice in Wonderland.

Here, dear daughter,' says Mom, offering me the crêpe. 'Educate yourself.

Sometimes, even psychic ghost best friends have secrets.

History is history. It is past. And private.' With that, she shuts the door in my face.

I’ve only ever known Jacob the Ghost. What that really means is that I’ve only known Jacob from the point when he entered my story. I didn’t think so much about the fact that he had a story of his own. A whole life, short as it was, before we got tangled up, before he became my best friend.

It’s important to take care of the past,” muses Dad as we walk between exhibits. “To revisit it, to study and learn. Understanding the past helps us move through the present and discover the future.

Do you want to hear a story?” she says, her voice soft and sweet and creepy. And just like that, we all shuffle closer. Mom has always had that power over people, always been the kind of storyteller who makes her listeners lean in.

Your name is Jacob Ellis Hale, I think. You were born in Strathclyde, New York. Two and half years ago you dove into the river, and last year, you pulled me out. You are my best friend. In life. In death. And everything in between.

persistent, flowing through fallen shadows, excavating tunnels, drilling silences, insisting, running under my pillow, brushing past my temples, covering my eyelids with another, intangible skin made of air, its wandering nations, its drowsy tribes migrate through the provinces of my body, it crosses, re-crosses under the bridges of my bones, slips into my left ear, spills out from my right, climbs the nape of my neck, turns and turns in my skull, wanders across the terrace of my forehead, conjures visions, scatters them, erases my thoughts one by one with hands of unwetting water, it evaporates them, black surge, tide of pulse-beats, murmur of water groping forward repeating the same meaningless syllable, I hear its sleepwalking delirium losing itself in serpentine galleries of echoes, it comes back, drifts off, comes back, endlessly flings itself off the edges of my cliffs, and I don’t stop falling and I fall

Belief is not a blanket, Cassidy. It doesn’t cover everything. Forgive me. There’s a big difference between believing in the supernatural in the general sense and believing the twelve-year-old girl you’re escorting across Paris is a ghost hunter with a dead sidekick.

Kieran?" I asked as we made our way down the narrow tunnel. "Poppy?" "I swallowed, my throat dry. "Are you...are you doing ok?" He didn't answer right away, and I thought the hand he held the torch with trembled. "No." I briefly closed my eyes. "Are you?" "No," I whispered.

Wild eyes were another sign. It is something I have seldom seen — the expression of an ecstatic state — though much is foolishly written of them, as if they grew like Jerusalem artichokes along the road. The eyes are black, right enough, whatever their normal color is; they are black because their perception is condensed to a coal, because the touch and taste and perfume of the lover, the outcry of a dirty word, a welcome river, have been reduced in the heat of passion to a black ash, and this unburnt residue of oxidation, this calyx, replaces the pupil so it no longer receives but sends, and every hair is on end, though perhaps only outspread on a pillow, and the nostrils are flared, mouth agape, cheeks sucked so the whole face seems as squeezed as a juiced fruit; I know, for once Lou went into that wildness while we were absorbing one another, trying to kiss, not merely forcefully, not the skull of our skeleton, but the skull and all the bones on which the essential self is hung, kiss so the shape of the soul is stirred too, that's what is called the ultimate French, the furtherest fuck, when a cock makes a concept cry out and climax; I know, for more than once, though not often, I shuddered into that other region, when a mouth drew me through its generosity into the realm of unravel, and every sensation lay extended as a lake, every tie was loosed, and the glue of things dissolved. I knew I wore the wild look then. The greatest gift you can give another human being is to let them warm you till, in passing beyond pleasure, your defenses fall, your ego surrenders, its structure melts, its towers topple, lies, fancies, vanities, blow away in no wind, and you return, not to the clay you came from — the unfired vessel — but to the original moment of inspiration, when you were the unabbreviated breath of God.

The whole underneath of Paris was an ant nest, Metro tunnels, sewer shafts, catacombs, mines, cemeteries. She'd been down in the city of bones where skulls and femurs rose in yellowing walls. Right down there, win the square before them. through a dinky little entrance, were the Roman ruins like honeycomb. The trains went under the river. There were tunnels people had forgotten about. It was a wonder Paris stood up at all. The bit you saw was only half of it. Her skin burned, thinking of it. The Hunchback knew. Up here in the tower of Notre Dame he saw how it was. Now and then, with the bells rattling his bones, he saw it like God saw it -- inside, outside, above and under -- just for a moment. The rest of the time he went back to hurting and waiting like Scully out there crying in the wind.

The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati turn their trusting faces to the sun say to me care for us nurture us in my dreams I shudder and I run. I am six in a playground of white children Darkie, sing us an Indian song! Eight in a roomful of elders all mock my broken Gujarati English girl! Twelve, I tunnel into books forge an armor of English words. Eighteen, shaved head combat boots - shamed by masis in white saris neon judgments singe my western head. Mother tongue. Matrubhasha tongue of the mother I murder in myself. Through the years I watch Gujarati swell the swaggering egos of men mirror them over and over at twice their natural size. Through the years I watch Gujarati dissolve bones and teeth of women, break them on anvils of duty and service, burn them to skeletal ash. Words that don't exist in Gujarati : Self-expression. Individual. Lesbian. English rises in my throat rapier flashed at yuppie boys who claim their people “civilized” mine. Thunderbolt hurled at cab drivers yelling Dirty black bastard! Force-field against teenage hoods hissing F****ing Paki bitch! Their tongue - or mine? Have I become the enemy? Listen: my father speaks Urdu language of dancing peacocks rosewater fountains even its curses are beautiful. He speaks Hindi suave and melodic earthy Punjabi salty rich as saag paneer coastal Kiswahili laced with Arabic, he speaks Gujarati solid ancestral pride. Five languages five different worlds yet English shrinks him down before white men who think their flat cold spiky words make the only reality. Words that don't exist in English: Najjar Garba Arati. If we cannot name it does it exist? When we lose language does culture die? What happens to a tongue of milk-heavy cows, earthen pots jingling anklets, temple bells, when its children grow up in Silicon Valley to become programmers? Then there's American: Kin'uh get some service? Dontcha have ice? Not: May I have please? Ben, mane madhath karso? Tafadhali nipe rafiki Donnez-moi, s'il vous plait Puedo tener….. Hello, I said can I get some service?! Like, where's the line for Ay-mericans in this goddamn airport? Words that atomized two hundred thousand Iraqis: Didja see how we kicked some major ass in the Gulf? Lit up Bagdad like the fourth a' July! Whupped those sand-niggers into a parking lot! The children in my dreams speak in Gujarati bright as butter succulent cherries sounds I can paint on the air with my breath dance through like a Sufi mystic words I can weep and howl and devour words I can kiss and taste and dream this tongue I take back.

bone tunnel

Understanding the past helps us move through the present and discover the future.

Time suddenly seemed physically present, rushing past her like air through the tunnels.

You know better than to underestimate a woman, Jensen,” a feminine voice scolded as the owner stepped around the corner of the tunnel.

It was a relief to be moving through the tunnels, to finally be doing something after so many weeks of confinement.

C'est la vie.

We let our hands linger, one above the other. The closest we can get to comfort.

Do you remember,” George went on, “what we found in the tunnels beneath Aickmere’s? Aside from a massive pile of human bones.” “I found

ARRÈTE! C'EST ICI L'EMPIRE DE LA MORT. Stop! This here is the Empire of the Dead.

A shudder, a plunge, a second of darkness, and I'm back in the in-between.

She wept and suffered, and finally, when Father had left the house again, she went to one of her secret places where a bottle was, and drank a tunnel away from the pain.

On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world, where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the earth and recede to the first slime of love.

Am I pushing or dying? the light up there, the immense round blazing white light is drinking me. It drinks me slowly, inspires me into space. If I do not close my eyes, it will drink all of me. I seep upward, in long icy threads, too light, and yet inside me there is a fire too, the nerves are twisted, there is no rest from this long tunnel dragging me, or am I pushing myself out of the tunnel, or is the child being pushed out of me, or is the light drinking me. Am I dying? The ice in the veins, the cracking of the bones, this pushing in darkness, with a small shaft of light in the eyes like the edge of the knife, the feeling of a knife cutting the flesh, the flesh somewhere is tearing as if it were burned through by a flame, somewhere my flesh is tearing and the blood is spilling out. I am pushing in the darkness, in utter darkness.

Out of the long tunnels of his eyes Adam saw his half-brother Charles as a bright being of another species, gifted with muscle and bone, speed and alertness, quite on a different plane, to be admired as one admires the sleek lazy danger of a black leopard, not by any chance to be compared with one’s self.

Maybe is a match in the dark,” I murmur, half to myself. It’s one of Mom’s favorite sayings, for when she gets stuck on a story. She starts giving herself options, potential threads, turning every dead end into a new path with one simple word: maybe. Maybe is a rope in a hole, or the key to a door. Maybe is how you find the way out.

The years were never an element, because my parents didn’t age, they simply sickened. My father was mean and cocky like Cagney all the way to the dump. Flat on his back, his bones poking this way and that like the corpses in the camps, he still had a fiery eye, as though, but for those two coals, the grate held ash. There’s no easy way out of this life, and I do not look forward to the day they put those tubes up my nose, and a catheter shows my pee the way out like some well-trained servant. I saw how my father’s body broke his spirit like a match; and I saw how my mother’s broken spirit took her body under the way a ship stinks after being disemboweled by an errant bag of ice.

Something tells me they didn’t mine this far just for limestone.” “Maybe for gold. Or it could have been a siege tunnel…Or they were looking for another realm. We want that, I think. We crawl into the deepest caves, touch the bottom of the sea, try to reach the stars.” He gestured upward. “We are forever looking for other worlds. Stranger ones.

Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that gray vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History. First, there was the heaving oil, heavy as chaos; then, likea light at the end of a tunnel, the lantern of a caravel, and that was Genesis. Then there were the packed cries, the shit, the moaning: Exodus. Bone soldered by coral to bone, mosaics mantled by the benediction of the shark's shadow, that was the Ark of the Covenant. Then came from the plucked wires of sunlight on the sea floor the plangent harp of the Babylonian bondage, as the white cowries clustered like manacles on the drowned women, and those were the ivory bracelets of the Song of Solomon, but the ocean kept turning blank pages looking for History. Then came the men with eyes heavy as anchors who sank without tombs, brigands who barbecued cattle, leaving their charred ribs like palm leaves on the shore, then the foaming, rabid maw of the tidal wave swallowing Port Royal, and that was Jonah, but where is your Renaissance? Sir, it is locked in them sea sands out there past the reef's moiling shelf, where the men-o'-war floated down; strop on these goggles, I'll guide you there myself. It's all subtle and submarine, through colonnades of coral, past the gothic windows of sea fans to where the crusty grouper, onyx-eyed, blinks, weighted by its jewels, like a bald queen; and these groined caves with barnacles pitted like stone are our cathedrals, and the furnace before the hurricanes: Gomorrah. Bones ground by windmills into marl and cornmeal, and that was Lamentations - that was just Lamentations, it was not History; then came, like scum on the river's drying lip, the brown reeds of villages mantling and congealing into towns, and at evening, the midges' choirs, and above them, the spires lancing the side of God as His son set, and that was the New Testament. Then came the white sisters clapping to the waves' progress, and that was Emancipation - jubilation, O jubilation - vanishing swiftly as the sea's lace dries in the sun, but that was not History, that was only faith, and then each rock broke into its own nation; then came the synod of flies, then came the secretarial heron, then came the bullfrog bellowing for a vote, fireflies with bright ideas and bats like jetting ambassadors and the mantis, like khaki police, and the furred caterpillars of judges examining each case closely, and then in the dark ears of ferns and in the salt chuckle of rocks with their sea pools, there was the sound like a rumour without any echo of History, really beginning.

Azriel dragged Bryce back, sword and dagger calling to her to draw them, use them. But he kept pulling her away, deeper into the tunnel as the undead thing and the Wyrm grappled with each other. The ceiling shook, debris shattering on the floor. Azriel arched a wing, shielding them both from its slicing rain. But there was nothing in that world to shield them from the being standing a few feet away. Hair drifting on a phantom breeze, Nesta glowed with silver fire. Still wearing her mask. A finger pointed toward the fight. Commanding that creature of bone and death to attack the Wyrm. Again. Again.

Don’t you dare,” Azriel began—but not to Bryce. Dread paled his golden skin. “Nesta—” Something metallic gleamed like sunshine in Nesta’s hand. A mask. “Nesta,” Azriel warned, panic sharpening his voice, but too late. She closed her eyes and shoved it onto her face. A strange, cold breeze swept through the tunnel. Bryce had endured that wind before, in the Bone Quarter. A wind of death, of decay, of quiet. The hair on her arms rose. And her blood chilled to ice as Nesta opened her eyes to reveal only silver flame shining there. Whatever that mask was, whatever power it had … death lay within it. “Take it off,” Azriel snarled, but Nesta extended a hand into the darkness of the tunnel. Mortal, an ancient, bone-dry voice whispered in Bryce’s head. You are mortal, and you shall die. Memento mori. Memento mori, memento— Bone clicked in the darkness. The earth shook. Azriel grabbed Bryce, tugging her back against him as he retreated toward the wall, as if it’d offer any shelter from whatever approached. The Starsword and Truth-Teller hummed and pulled at Bryce’s spine, and her hands itched, like she could feel the weapons in her palms— She didn’t see what it was that Nesta drew from the dark before the Wyrm found them.

It was just a story, but in the White Cathedral, people were careful not to stray too far from the passages that curled around the main caverns. Strange sounds echoed through the dim warren of tunnels, groans and unexplained rumblings; cold pockets of silence were broken by low hisses that might be nothing or might be the sinuous movement of a long body, snaking closer through a nearby passage in search of prey. In those moments, it was easy to believe that Izumrud still lived somewhere, waiting to be woken by the call of heroes, dreaming of the fine meal he would have if only some hapless child would walk into his mouth. A beast like that rests; he does not die.

We need to help her,” Bryce panted to Azriel. “I promise you, she’s fine,” Azriel countered, urging them further into the tunnel. Out of the impact zone, Bryce realized. The Wyrm must have sensed the sword’s approach, because it bucked against the bones and claws pinning it to the rock. It managed to nudge the undead creature back, but only for a heartbeat. Nesta raised her free hand again, and the undead creature slammed the Wyrm back into the ground. The Wyrm thrashed, desperate now. With a dancer’s grace, Nesta scaled the undead beast’s tail, running along the knobs of its spine like rocks in a stream. Getting to higher ground, to a better angle. The Wyrm shrieked, but Nesta had reached the undead beast’s white skull. And then she was jumping, sword arcing above her, then down, down— Straight into the head of the Wyrm. A shudder of silver fire rushed down the Wyrm. That cold, dry wind shivered through the caves again, death in its wake. The Wyrm slumped to the ground. The silence was worse than the sound. Azriel was instantly gone, wings tucking in tight as he rushed toward Nesta and the undead beast that still held the Wyrm in its grip. “Take it off,” Azriel ordered her. The female turned her head toward him with a smooth motion that Bryce had only seen from possessed dolls in horror movies. “Take it off,” Azriel snarled.

His booted feet pounded out an insane, frantic rhythm underneath him as he raced into the cavern across from Baba Yaga’s den at a dead sprint. Pieces of dragon dung flew off him and hit the ground behind him in miniature chunks. He didn’t dare look behind him to see if the dragon had risen from the ground yet, but the deafening hiss that assaulted his ears meant she’d woken up. Icy claws of fear squeezed his heart with every breath as he ran, relying on the night vision goggles, the glimpse he’d gotten of the map, and his own instincts to figure out where to go. Jack raced around one corner too sharply and slipped on a piece of dung, crashing hard on his right side. He gasped as it knocked the wind out of him and gritted his teeth, his mind screaming at him to get up and run, run, run. He pushed onto his knees, nursing what felt like bruised ribs and a sprained wrist, and then paled as an unmistakable sensation traveled up the arm he’d used to push himself up. Impact tremors. Boom. Boom. Boom, boom, boom. Baba Yaga was coming. Baba Yaga was hunting him. Jack forced himself up onto his feet again, stumbling backwards and fumbling for the tracker. He got it switched on to see an ominous blob approaching from the right. He’d gotten a good lead on her—maybe a few hundred yards—but he had no way of knowing if he’d eventually run into a dead end. He couldn’t hide down here forever. He needed to get topside to join the others so they could take her down. Jack blocked out the rising crescendo of Baba Yaga’s hissing and pictured the map again. A mile up to the right had a man-made exit that spilled back up to the forest. The only problem was that it was a long passage. If Baba Yaga followed, there was a good chance she could catch up and roast him like a marshmallow. He could try to lose her in the twists and turns of the cave system, but there was a good chance he’d get lost, and Baba Yaga’s superior senses meant it would only be a matter of time before she found him. It came back to the most basic survival tactics: run or hide. Jack switched off the tracker and stuck it in his pocket, his voice ragged and shaking, but solid. “You aren’t about to die in this forest, Jackson. Move your ass.” He barreled forward into the passageway to the right in the wake of Baba Yaga’s ominous, bubbling warning, barely suppressing a groan as a spike of pain lanced through his chest from his bruised ribs. The adrenaline would only hold for so long. He could make it about halfway there before it ran out. Cold sweat plastered the mask to his face and ran down into his eyes. The tunnel stretched onward forever before him. No sunlight in sight. Had he been wrong? Jack ripped off the hood and cold air slapped his face, making his eyes water. He held his hands out to make sure he wouldn’t bounce off one of the cavern walls and squinted up ahead as he turned the corner into the straightaway. There, faintly, he could see the pale glow of the exit. Gasping for air, he collapsed against one wall and tried to catch his breath before the final marathon. He had to have put some amount of distance between himself and the dragon by now. “Who knows?” Jack panted. “Maybe she got annoyed and turned around.” An earth-shattering roar rocked the very walls of the cavern. Jack paled. Boom, boom, boom, boom! Boom, boom, boom, boomboomboomboom— Mother of God. The dragon had broken into a run. Jack shoved himself away from the wall, lowered his head, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

But now 'tis the modern ole Coast Division S.P. and begins at those dead end blocks and at 4:30 the frantic Market Street and Sansome Street commuters as I say come hysterically running for ther 112 to get home on time for the 5:30 televisions Howdy Doody of their gun toting Neal Cassady'd Hopalong childrens. 1.9 miles to 23rd Street, another 1.2 Newcomb, another 1.0 to Paul Avenue and etcetera these being the little piss stops on that 5 miles short run thru 4 tunnels to mighty Bayshore, Bayshore at milepost 5.2 shows you as I say that gigantic valley wall sloping in with sometimes in extinct winter dusks the huge fogs milking furling meerolling in without a sound but as if you could hear the radar hum, the oldfashioned dullmasks mouth of Potato Patch Jack London old scrollwaves crawling in across the gray bleak North Pacific with a wild fleck, a fish, the wall of a cabin, the old arranged wallworks of a sunken ship, the fish swimming in the pelvic bones of old lovers lay tangled ath the bottom of the sea like slugs no longer discernible bone by bone but melted into one squid of time that fog, that terrible and bleak Seattlish fog that potatopatch wise comes bringing messages from Alaska and from the Aleutian mongol, and from the seal, and from the wave, and from the smiling porpoise, that fog at Bayshore you can see waving in and filling in rills and rolling down and making milk on hillsides and you think, "It's hypocricy of men makes these hills grim.

A ROW OF SKULLS glared from atop a wall of intricately stacked femurs and tibias. Though it was June, and she knew the sun was shining on the streets of Paris sixty feet above her, Dr. Maura Isles felt chilled as she walked down the dim passageway, its walls lined almost to the ceiling with human remains. She was familiar, even intimate, with death, and had confronted its face countless times on her autopsy table, but she was stunned by the scale of this display, by the sheer number of bones stored in this network of tunnels beneath the City of Light. The one-kilometer tour took her through only a small section of the catacombs. Off-limits to tourists were numerous side tunnels and bone-filled chambers, their dark mouths gaping seductively behind locked gates.

Metal bit into her throat. Icy, deathly cold. “Do not,” Nesta said quietly, panting, “move.” Bryce glared up at the female but didn’t shove the blade from her throat. Her very bones roared at her not to touch the sword more than necessary. “Neat trick with the shadows.” Nesta just stared imperiously at her. “Get up.” “Put down your sword and I will.” Their gazes clashed, but the sword moved a fraction. Bryce got to her feet, wiping dust and debris from her clothes. “What now?” Her knees buckled with exhaustion. Her magic was spent, her veins utterly devoid of starlight. Nesta glanced to the cave-in. Whatever shadow magic she possessed seemed to have little ability to move it. The warrior nodded to the tunnel ahead. “I suppose you’re getting your way.” “I didn’t mean to cause that—” “It doesn’t matter. There’s only one way out now. If there’s a way out at all.

At noontime in midsummer, when the sun is at its highest and everything is in a state of embroiled repose, flashes may be seen in the southern sky. Into the radiance of daylight come bursts of light even more radiant. Exactly half a year later, when the fjord is frozen over and the land buried in snow, the very same spirit taunts creation. At night cracks in the ice race from one end of the fjord to the other, resounding like gunshots or like the roaring of a mad demon. The peasants dig tunnels from their door through the drifts over to the cow shed. Where are the trolls and the elves now, and where are the sounds of nature? Even the Beast may well be dead and forgotten. Life itself hangs in suspension - existence has shrunk to nothingness. Now it is only a question of survival. The fox thrashes around in a blizzard in the oak thicket and fights his way out, mortally terrified. It is a time of stillness. Hoarfrost lies in a timeless shroud over the fjord. All day long a strange, sighing sound is heard from out on the ice. It is a fisherman, standing alone at his hole and spearing eel. One night it snows again. The air is sheer snow and the wind a frigid blast. No living creature is stirring. Then a rider comes to the crossing at Hvalpsund. There is no difficulty in getting over­ - he does not even slacken his speed, but rides at a brisk trot from the shore out onto the ice. The hoofbeats thunder beneath him and the ice roars for miles around. He reaches the other side and rides up onto the land. The horse — a mighty steed not afraid to shake its shanks - cleaves the storm with neck outstretched. The blizzard blows the rider's ashen cape back and he sits naked, with his bare bones sticking out and the snow whistling about his ribs. It is Death that is out riding. His crown sits on three hairs and his scythe points triumphantly backward. Death has his whims. He takes it into his head to dis­mount when he sees a light in the winter night. He gives his horse a slap on the haunch and it leaps into the air and is gone. For the rest of the way Death walks like a carefree man, sauntering absentmindedly along. In the snow-streaked night a crow is sitting on a wayside branch. Its head is much too large for its body. Its beady eyes sparkle when it sees the wanderer's familiar face, and its cawing turns into silent laughter as it throws its beak wide open, with its spear-like tongue sticking far out. It seems almost ready to fall off the branch with its laughter, but it keeps on looking at Death with consuming merriment. Death moves on. Suddenly he finds himself beside a man. He raps the man on the back with his fingers and leaves him lying there. There is a light. Death keeps his eye on the light and walks toward it. He moves into the shaft of light and labors his way over a frozen field. But when he comes close enough to make out the house a strange fervor grips him. He has finally come home - yes, this has been his true home from the beginning. Thank goodness he has now found it again after so much difficulty. He goes in, and a solitary old couple make him welcome. They cannot know that he is anything more than a traveling tradesman, spent and sick. He lies down quickly on the bed without a word. They can see that he is really far gone. He lies on his back while they move about the room with the candle and chat. He forgets them. For a long time he lies there, quiet but awake. Finally there are a few low moans, faltering and tentative. He begins to cry, and then quickly stops. But now the moans continue, becoming louder, and then going over to tearless sobs. His body arches up, resting only on head and heels. He stares in anguish at the ceiling and screams, screams like a woman in labor. Finally he collapses, and his cries begin to subside. Little by little he falls silent and lies quiet.

They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same.

Beneath the bed of the river, below silts almost a storey thick, rested the remains of almost sixteen thousand citizens of Letheras. Their bones filled ancient wells that had been drilled before the river’s arrival – before the drainage course from the far eastern mountains changed cataclysmically, making the serpent lash its tail, the torrent carving a new channel, one that inundated a nascent city countless millennia ago. Letherii engineers centuries past had stumbled upon these submerged constructs, wondering at the humped corridors and the domed chambers, wondering at the huge, deep wells with their clear, cold water. And baffled to explain how such tunnels remained more or less dry, the cut channels seeming to absorb water like runners of sponge. No records existed any more recounting these discoveries – the tunnels and chambers and wells were lost knowledge to all but a chosen few. And of the existence of parallel passages, the hidden doors in the walls of corridors, and the hundreds of lesser tombs, not even those few were aware. Certain secrets belonged exclusively to the gods.

When it begins it is like a light in a tunnel, a rush of steel and steam across a torn up life. It is a low rumble, an earthquake in the back of the mind. My spine is a track with cold black steel racing on it, a trail of steam and dust following behind, ghost like. It feels like my whole life is holding its breath. By the time she leaves the room I am surprised that she can’t see the train. It has jumped the track of my spine and landed in my mothers’ living room. A cold dark thing, black steel and redwood paneling. It is the old type, from the western movies I loved as a kid. He throws open the doors to the outside world, to the dark ocean. I feel a breeze tugging at me, a slender finger of wind that catches at my shirt. Pulling. Grabbing. I can feel the panic build in me, the need to scream or cry rising in my throat. And then I am out the door, running, tumbling down the steps falling out into the darkened world, falling out into the lifeless ocean. Out into the blackness. Out among the stars and shadows. And underneath my skin, in the back of my head and down the back of my spine I can feel the desperation and I can feel the noise. I can feel the deep and ancient ache of loudness that litters across my bones. It’s like an old lover, comfortable and well known, but unwelcome and inappropriate with her stories of our frolicking. And then she’s gone and the Conductor is closing the door. The darkness swells around us, enveloping us in a cocoon, pressing flat against the train like a storm. I wonder, what is this place? Those had been heady days, full and intense. It’s funny. I remember the problems, the confusions and the fears of life we all dealt with. But, that all seems to fade. It all seems to be replaced by images of the days when it was all just okay. We all had plans back then, patterns in which we expected the world to fit, how it was to be deciphered. Eventually you just can’t carry yourself any longer, can’t keep your eyelids open, and can’t focus on anything but the flickering light of the stars. Hours pass, at first slowly like a river and then all in a rush, a climax and I am home in the dorm, waking up to the ringing of the telephone. When she is gone the apartment is silent, empty, almost like a person sleeping, waiting to wake up. When she is gone, and I am alone, I curl up on the bed, wait for the house to eject me from its dying corpse. Crazy thoughts cross through my head, like slants of light in an attic. The Boston 395 rocks a bit, a creaking noise spilling in from the undercarriage. I have decided that whatever this place is, all these noises, sensations - all the train-ness of this place - is a fabrication. It lulls you into a sense of security, allows you to feel as if it’s a familiar place. But whatever it is, it’s not a train, or at least not just a train. The air, heightened, tense against the glass. I can hear the squeak of shoes on linoleum, I can hear the soft rattle of a dying man’s breathing. Men in white uniforms, sharp pressed lines, run past, rolling gurneys down florescent hallways.

The editor of the journal, Crab Riley, found her story hard to believe, especially because she could not provide evidence of the children disappearing, and he was inclined to dismiss it as fantasy until he researched archives, where mention of the disappearances was indeed found in National Geographic Magazine.   ‘Teachers and school children descended and did not return. Search parties and excavations found no trace. After weeks, they were given up as dead,’ it said.   The article, by archaeologist William Griffith, also made mention of the skeletons found when the caves were first discovered too, although the number was far higher than had been realised by most.   ‘There were human bones to account for thirty thousand people. It was a “restaurant” I rather think, for Atlantean descendants.’   Could underground races of carnivorous species really dwell in the deep substrata below ground, coming up momentarily to snatch and feed off humans?   Interestingly, in some excellent research, Dustin Naef says there are over 700 caves and tunnels in Lava Beds National Park alone, and over 150 in the Marble Mountain area near Mount Shasta, with over thirty miles of tunnels mapped so far.

Rolling across the floor, she reached Vigor. The monsignor crouched near the top of the firepit tunnel. She handed him her gun. “Down,” she ordered. “Shoot anybody that comes into view.” “What about you?” “No, don’t shoot me.” “I mean where are you going?

He comes to a stop, plants one foot on the ground firmly, and uses his other foot to kick start his bike. He revs the throttle back a few times and looks over at me with complete excitement in his eyes as he kicks the start back into place. He nods his head back over his shoulder. “Hop on behind me and wrap your arms around my waist. You’re going to want to scoot close up against me and hold on tight, but not so tight that I can’t move freely.” I step up beside him and he reaches out his hand for me to take hold as I throw my leg up and over the seat. I scoot forward enough that my center is pressed tightly up against his rear end, and wrap my arms around his waist. Even if we didn’t move any further than this position right here, I would be a very happy girl. Adam lets out a laugh. “Even though I’m really enjoying you being this close, you might need to scoot yourself back just a bit so you can actually lean and move with me. Having you’re coochie pressed against my body has crossed my mind, but it might have to wait until later. Right now, you’re just going to manage pushing me forward.” My cheeks feel like they are on fire and my mouth drops open. I release my arms from around Adam’s waist and scoot back on the seat. “Did you just call my woman parts a coochie, and should I even ask about the wait until later comment?” I’m not going to tell him right now, but with that one simple sentence Adam has gotten me very worked up, in a very good way. Adam looks back over his shoulder and I can tell he’s smiling by the look in his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t sure what type of girl you were as far as vagina terminology goes? Coochie seemed like a safe word, but I have many options you can choose from that you might prefer. There is always the common pussy and cunt terms, then there are the more original ones like; cockpit, mud flaps, love tunnel, bone cave, meat massager, theme park, dick mitten….” I start shaking my head back and forth. “Ok, Ok, I got it. Coochie will do for now, I guess, and I will give it some more thought later as to a term I more prefer. I don’t think we need to keep talking about this right now if you plan on actually showing me why I should be your biggest fan and you my favorite rider out at the races. This is just a big distraction instead.” Adam reaches back and places his hand on my knee. “Maybe it’s a major part of making you my biggest fan as well as showing you that I’m meant to be your favorite rider. It can wait, though. Hold on and we can head on out toward the field.” I grab back hold of Adam and keep my coochie slid back further on the seat this time. “That might be a very strong incentive, Adam, for us both. I agree. Oh and you forgot to mention; purple people penis eater, honey pot, poody tat, stop-n-pop….” Adam releases my leg and grabs back hold of the handle. “Ok, you’re right; we will continue this conversation later on.

They never found ore no matter how deep they dug or how many branches they made off the main tunnels. And I, a seaman for whom ports were mere pretexts for transient loves and brothel fights, who can still feel in my bones the sway of the crow’s nest when I climbed to the top to watch the horizon and give storm warnigs, to call out sightings of coastlines and pods of whales and dizzying schools of fish that approached the ship like a drunken mob, here I am, visiting the cool darkness of these labyrinths where a wind that is often warm and damp carries voices, laments, the unending, relentless toil of insects, the fluttering wings of dark butterflies, the screech of a bird lost in the depths of the mine shafts.

I felt myself become cold, as if ice was forming along my spine and in the bones of my hands. Scraps of memory fluttered through my mind: the death of Sherbourne Foss, cold marble roses, a brick-lined tunnel, beneath the city, a pale faded boy with inhuman eyes.

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer …’ Seeing Nona’s frown she spoke more simply. ‘We wouldn’t understand what we’re praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.’ Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand … that Nona believe. ‘I wasn’t always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy? Was it unique? All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we’re not like the fire, or the river, or the wind – we’re not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There’s a story written in us. Your parents – your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

Travel Bucket List 1. Have a torrid affair with a foreigner. Country: TBD. 2. Stay for a night in Le Grotte della Civita. Matera, Italy. 3. Go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef. Queensland, Australia. 4. Watch a burlesque show. Paris, France. 5. Toss a coin and make an epic wish at the Trevi Fountain. Rome, Italy. 6. Get a selfie with a guard at Buckingham Palace. London, England. 7. Go horseback riding in the mountains. Banff, Alberta, Canada. 8. Spend a day in the Grand Bazaar. Istanbul, Turkey. 9. Kiss the Blarney Stone. Cork, Ireland. 10. Tour vineyards on a bicycle. Bordeaux, France. 11. Sleep on a beach. Phuket, Thailand. 12. Take a picture of a Laundromat. Country: All. 13. Stare into Medusa’s eyes in the Basilica Cistern. Istanbul, Turkey. 14. Do NOT get eaten by a lion. The Serengeti, Tanzania. 15. Take a train through the Canadian Rockies. British Columbia, Canada. 16. Dress like a Bond Girl and play a round of poker at a casino. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 17. Make a wish on a floating lantern. Thailand. 18. Cuddle a koala at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Queensland, Australia. 19. Float through the grottos. Capri, Italy. 20. Pose with a stranger in front of the Eiffel Tower. Paris, France. 21. Buy Alex a bracelet. Country: All. 22. Pick sprigs of lavender from a lavender field. Provence, France. 23. Have afternoon tea in the real Downton Abbey. Newberry, England. 24. Spend a day on a nude beach. Athens, Greece. 25. Go to the opera. Prague, Czech Republic. 26. Skinny dip in the Rhine River. Cologne, Germany. 27. Take a selfie with sheep. Cotswolds, England. 28. Take a selfie in the Bone Church. Sedlec, Czech Republic. 29. Have a pint of beer in Dublin’s oldest bar. Dublin, Ireland. 30. Take a picture from the tallest building. Country: All. 31. Climb Mount Fuji. Japan. 32. Listen to an Irish storyteller. Ireland. 33. Hike through the Bohemian Paradise. Czech Republic. 34. Take a selfie with the snow monkeys. Yamanouchi, Japan. 35. Find the penis. Pompeii, Italy. 36. Walk through the war tunnels. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. 37. Sail around Ha long Bay on a junk boat. Vietnam. 38. Stay overnight in a trulli. Alberobello, Italy. 39. Take a Tai Chi lesson at Hoan Kiem Lake. Hanoi, Vietnam. 40. Zip line over Eagle Canyon. Thunderbay, Ontario, Canada.

If we spent our whole lives here we would have little to offer the world and know little enough of the world to have context for our prayer'' Seeing Nona's frown she spoke more simply.'We wouldn't understand what we're praying for. Without knowing the chaos and confusion that washes all around this plateau, our Rock of Faith, we could not appreciate the serenity we seek.' Abbess Glass paused and fixed Nona with dark eyes. It seemed important to her that Nona understand' that Nona believe.'I wasn't always a nun. I had a son and I breathed for him. When we buried him my sorrow consumed me. Was my grief holy' Was it unique' All our hurts and follies are repeated time and again. Generation after generation live the same mistakes. But we're not like the fire, or the river, or the wind' we're not a single tune, its variations played out forever, a game of numbers until the world dies. There's a story written in us. Your parents' your father and his ice tunnels, your mother and her Church of Hope, both of them, whether they loved you or left you, are in you bone-deep, remembered in your blood.

The tunnel was made of bodies. They were faintly luminous like noctilucae. They grew in and out of the walls in a deranged, pulsating anatomical puzzle, something that was part machine and part living tissue, a terrible excrescence of fleshy hoses and bone pipes and convoluted networks of tissue and gears and ribbed projections, jutting bones and limbs and agonized faces with hollow-socketed eyes. A nightmare, industrialized fusion welded into a common whole, horribly alive and functioning in some dire symbiosis.

Elen turned away, her hands knotting up into fists. “Damn him,” she muttered, “to the highest level of hell.” “Better make it a little lower,” Khat told her, sourly. “He could probably tunnel out of that one.

Whatever that last look meant, it was gone as he looked back into her eyes and spoke. “My name is Dernian. I’m here to get you to safety through the tunnels.

How does one enter Iliseeum if they cannot do so by land or sea?” Jasper didn’t answer for a long moment. “You know, you would’ve learned about it when you took the throne.” His gaze touched mine for a brief moment, and I knew what he meant. That Casteel would’ve learned when I took the Crown. “You don’t travel over or through the Mountains of Nyktos. You travel under them.” An icy wave of surprise scuttled through Casteel. “The tunnel system?” Jasper nodded. “The one from Evaemon leads into Iliseeum if—and that’s a big if—you know how to navigate it.” “Damn,” Kieran muttered, scrubbing a hand over his head. “All those years messing around in those tunnels and we could’ve ended up in the damn Lands of the Gods.

But something massive and white slammed into the Wyrm instead. A creature of pure bone, larger than the Wyrm. The skeleton they’d encountered down the tunnel. Reanimated.

Ok Kevin," he said to himself, "We were born for this! If we are ever going to find Laura then we can't be scared of the dark, can we?" He knew he had to press on, for both their sakes. He felt so awful thinking of her alone and scared, and probably always in danger. He knew the best help he could give her right now was to never give up. He knew he would find her, but he also knew he needed more supplies. He was going to hurry to his base to stock up, and then resume his journey. Taking a deep breath he said aloud, "On the count of three we'll run... ONE...TWO ... GO!!!" Kevin sprang from the tunnel entrance and launched towards the direction of his home. As he zoomed through the valley, he was pretty sure he passed a dozen spiders, some skeletons (arrows whizzed past his head a few times), and definitely a few zombies (he could hear their deep moans all around him). But it didn't matter; he just kept on running, passing through low-hanging tree branches and leaves as he went. He was so intent on reaching his home that he didn't see the drop off just a few blocks ahead of him, and went flying over the edge before his mind even registered what was happening. Falling

Cyrus floats away from the glowing entrada entrance; there's a swooshing sound like an invisible rocket just blew past and then a flood of old African souls comes surging forth. They pour out into the tunnel, thousands and thousands of them, and barrel through the COD goons without stopping. They're wearing head scarves and raggedy clothes, carved jewelry and beaded necklaces; a few even have chain links around their arms and legs. I feel the wind of hundreds of years of pent up rage and frustration release across my face. Riley's screaming as loud as he can beside me and we're both laughing hysterically and crying at the same time. Everything

BLANKET On our bed there is a blanket It has been greeted by strangers Become a desert to missiles Filled with hurtful words and jealousy A pitched hillside Where hunched backs lay unmoving I’ve crawled into its darkness Night after night Dove into the wreckage With my lantern Hoping for some light At the end of this silent tunnel I’ve spooned with the grief Sifted through the ashes of our love Been reduced to the seasons Where people watch our bones As they lie down exposed Through our transparent cover Still warm among the cold winds But heavy with self-deception On our bed there is a blanket It has been greeted by strangers Become a desert to missiles Filled with hurtful words and jealousy A pitched hillside Where hunched backs lay unmoving

There were 9,780 living souls populating The Hollows. There were good people and bad ones, people with secrets and dark appetites, happy people, and people buckling under the weight of grief and sorrow. There were people who were looking for things and loved ones they had lost, and people hiding. There were lost people, trying to find their way home. Each of them was connected to the others in ways that were obvious or as hidden as the abandoned mine tunnels beneath the ground. Each had his purpose and his place in The Hollows, whether he knew it or not. Everything here had its time and its season.

Every man lives confusedly in darkness until he is willing to enter into light by exiting the womb of his life and leaves the safety of that environment. He has to make mistakes, he has to take chances, he has to be willing to be cut down by critics and applauded by praisers even at times ignoring what they say, while he finds out for himself what is true and false, and even then he'll never really know a thing until he leaves comfort behind. He must disregard everything told to him in all the safe passages he's traveled, and those tubes and tunnels. It's only when he's free of 'back there' will he understand what he left behind. Men will always be strangers to one another and themselves unless each learns by trial and error and ascertains the truth, that what he believed was only theory, and until he applied it, he was but a theorist and not a realist. Truth has a way of cutting through nonsense. He must make his bones, and sometimes he must pay some very big dues, but in the end, he'll know truth. What he knew before may have been right but it wasn't until he questioned it, and applied it will it sink in and make sense. The cause of any man's confusion is that he never found himself but finding means searching, and a halfhearted attempt often comes from halfhearted men who in the end are just kidding themselves.

Dang, spiders like Slinger are scary things... I heard the Glitch spider’s feet drumming around inside its cobblestone coffin. It hissed again. I think I heard it clack its fangs desperately against the stone. What a terrible way to go, I thought. “We should move on, my lord,” Skonathan said. “We’ve made a good bit of noise. Others may come.” I turned to look at the other side of the crisscrossing tunnel. It was also a dead end. This area was all there was to secure in between the Sleeping City and the bottom tunnels. “This area is clear,” I said. “Let’s go, but be careful. There are five or six Glitch mobs down there, at least. I remember zombies, a skeleton—maybe more than one—and at least one spider. I can’t remember if there were any creepers...” “Let’s do it the same way,” UltimateSword5 said. “Let’s be quick and quiet, and handle them one or two at a time.” “Good idea, if it works,” I replied. “Now, down there, there’s a gravel column I made leading up. I’ll have to make some stairs...” We moved on down the tunnel. The trapped Glitch mobs struggled and made noises on the other side of their cobblestone prisons behind us. Eventually, we stood at the edge of the big hole leading down into the open cavern where I built my way out of darkness with gravel before. I was feeling more confident, but looking down at that hole, seeing the bedrock in the cavern floor below, a cold dread started filling my bones. Soon, we would hear the low, dark moaning of the crimson portal—a lot like a Nether portal, but even more evil, if that was possible... My mind began wondering what lay on the other side of that gateway to another world. Another server, a strange voice echoed in my head. Had I heard that somewhere before? Server?? Where’d that word come from? These mixed-up memories were so confusing sometimes... I shook my skull, and pulled out some cobblestone. Reaching out carefully, I quickly built a crude staircase leading down for us to use instead of messing around with the gravel. “You’re good at that,” UltimateSword5 said. “Like ... you were a Minecraftian once or something.” I laughed. We slowly and quietly stepped down into the terrible tunnels. As soon as I set my bony foot on the hard bedrock floor, I heard the hiss of another spider, then, I remembered the creature that tried to chase me up the gravel last time I was here. As I pinpointed the glowing crimson arachnid eyes coming at me from a dark corner of the cavern, a chill fluttered up my bones when I remember that I had dropped gravel on that spider in my escape. It had glitched. There was another spider around here somewhere... “Spider!” I snapped quietly. Ulti ran down the stairs and stood next to me. As the red-eyed arachnid on the other side of the cavern charged at me, its clawed feet tearing at the stone and bedrock floor, Skonathan leapt down to stand in front of me! I suddenly

It was true; nothing good happened to gamers in steam tunnels. “We

smirk. “A creeper explosion down in these tunnels would kill us all.” “Nah...” the Minecraftian countered. “If we have to deal with it, I can do it—I can make it explode without killing us. I’ve fought plenty of creepers.” Skonathan shrugged. His bones clunked under