Buried Alive -

At the crack of dawn, Johannes was awoken by his fellow miners. Birds we're chirping in the trees, and water could be heard flowing in the pond outside of the building. It was early, and the small village of Felkiv was still silent as most others were still asleep, but for the miners of the town - the ones who made it possible to get the town out of terrible financial difficulties - they had to get up bright and early, or else the town would surely be hit with a huge loss; because time, is money.
Johannes Rein, a man of mediocre stature, with barely any of the muscle that a miner should have on him, groaned as he was awoken by his friend and bunkmate Travis Garrett. "You better hurry up, 'less you want to go explore the new cavern with an empty stomach." Travis said to him as he tried picking his friend up from the bed. Johannes gently tossed him off, and yawned loudly. "Right, right, give me a minute to wake up though, would'ya?" he groaned as he let out another deep, long yawn.
Johannes sat up from his bed, feeling the cold wooden floor on his bare feet. He looked out the window from the side of his bed, and noticed it was still rather dark, as if they had gotten up much earlier than usual. He thought nothing of it though, and decided it was best to just get dressed and head to the dining hall for some bread and meat. As he put his clothes on, he noticed that the building was eerily quiet; nothing like how it usually was in the morning, with people laughing and chatting with each other. Again though, he shrugged it off, and went to go get his fill.
After a half hour of nothing but silence and chewing in the dining hall, everyone grabbed their equipment, and headed off to the cavern they had marked for the day.
"So how exactly did we find this place? And what's it like?" Johannes asked Travis as he ran up next to his friend, them being about 1/4 of the way to the mine "A man came into town a few days ago, yelling frantically about it," Travis started "as for what the place actually looks like, we don't know. All we know is that it's suppose to be insanely rich with ores, and that it's fairly large." Johannes nodded slightly, deciding that was good enough for him. But then Johannes noticed something terribly wrong. "By the way, has it gotten... darker out here to you? As if time moved backwards somehow?" he asked. Travis gave a simple shrug in return. "The rooster woke us up, so we assumed that it was time to get to work. I mean it was at least a little light when I woke you up, remember?" Johannes nodded once more, confirming what Travis said. If it was light when they woke up, why was it suddenly pitch black outside? There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Johannes has a odd feeling in his gut, but, again, he simply shrugged it off. Eager to just get to the new-found cave, Johannes and Travis walked in silence as they made their way to it, just like everyone else.

When the group of miners reached their destination almost and hour later, they all seemed surprised at the sight. The entrance to the place was simply a deep, deep hole, with a rope leading down into it. One of the miners spit into the hole, and it wasn't until several seconds later that they all heard a faint splat below.
"So... who wants to go in first?" one of the miners asked. "No way in hell am I going down there! I'll just stay up here and retrieve ores from below." another said. "Y-yeah... um... i'm not sure we should really go down there anyways. I-it looks rather dangerous." another miner near the front of the group said. Johannes recognized him as Relvin Channer, possibly one of the worst miners he's seen yet. "Oh, shut it Channer! Don't be such a wimp!" the first miner said to the nervous man.
"Listen up people," the lead man in charge said "time is money! We can't be wasting it out here! Either you go in, or we go to one of our previous locations in the area!" The rest of the miners shifted in their place, suddenly seeming as nervous as Relvin. It wasn't until Johannes spoke up that people broke out of their nervous fit into a mixture of joy and pure shock. "I'll go down there." he said. Travis grasped Johannes' shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes. "Rein, you're going to get yourself killed. Don't be an idiot here." Johannes looked him back in the eyes as well, more intensely than his friend. "Someones gotta go down there, Travis. Time is money. And like he said," Johannes pointed towards his boss "we can't waste it around here acting like a bunch of worried children." Travis let out a heavy sigh, and let go of Johannes' shoulder. "If that's what you're going to do, then i'm coming with you." he told his friend, with a faint smile on his face, still obviously a little nervous like the rest of the miners.
Their boss smiled, and nodded once. "If you boys plan on getting anything, you might want to hurry up then." he told them. Both of the men nodded, and went to the caves entrance as others made way for them.

As they finally got to the caves floor while shimmying down the rope, they were taken aback by the cave. Moss and vine grew rampant on the walls of the cave, and they glowed a faint lime-green. The size of the cave was massive. The ceiling had to be at least 100 feet above them. And the cave itself was a very wide and open area, with smaller tunnels and pockets in the walls. Stalagmites and stalactites were everywhere in this ginormous cave, and Johannes made note that he should probably be careful when trying to get into the tunnels that resided in the walls. It was obvious how rich the cave was in ores; they were sitting right in front of them! In the ground, in the walls, even small boulders were constructed out of things like tin and coal. Travis was especially taken aback by the sight. "Mesios be praised..." he said, as he stumbled forward a couple small steps, only to slip onto the spit the other miner had sent down. Travis tried to find something to hold onto, and in his short window of time, that something was the rope that gave them access to the cave, and access back to the surface. As he pulled down on it, hoping to not hit the ground, the man unfortunately did in the end, as the rope snapped under the pressure. Cursing as his body hit the floor at his stupidity, Travis laid there for several seconds until finally the men above said something. "We sent someone back to the village to get a new rope. We have some here, but it's just not enough to reach all the way down there! While that's happening, perhaps you could start mining some ores?" he yelled down to the two men. Johannes let out a sigh, annoyed at his friend, but decides it would be best just to get to it like the people above suggested. As he pulls out his pickaxe from his pack, Travis sits in awe at his friend. "How are you so calm about this situation!? We could die down here for all we know!" he yells at the man who, was now, picking away at the coal stuck in the ground below them. "We could," he says as he brings his tool down to the rock once more "but we won't. They sent someone to get another rope long enough to reach down here, didn't they?" he asked his friend in reassurance as he brought his pickaxe into the ground once more. "I... suppose you're correct. I'm sorry. I shouldn't worry too much." Travis said, letting a faint smile touch his face. Johannes smiled back, and both of them got to work on clearing the cave of its resources

After much time, Travis and Johannes found themselves in a long tunnel, with no end in sight, and it was obvious Travis didn't like it. Both men were covered in the faint glow of the nearby plant-life. "... really don't think this is a good idea Rein." Travis said to the other man. "Oh come on, don't be a wimp. Who knows what lies at the end of this tunnel? It could be another cave as amazing as this one... though I suppose Mesios isn't always that kind. Worth a shot though, right?" Travis shuffled in place, but nodded at his friend. Johannes smiled, and the two started to make their way down the tunnel.
After several minutes, there was still no end in sight. The two men looked back, and they could no longer see the entrance to the tunnel either. Travis was still quite nervous, but Johannes had the urge to press on. The walls of the tunnel were bare, with no ores in sight; however, they did have the glowing moss and vines that the main cave had. As they ventured deeper, several minutes later, they noticed carvings in the walls, and occasional, something dried, that was either a brownish colour, or a dark, dark red. These only added to Travis' worry, but again, Johannes pressed on, hoping to finally reach the end of the tunnel.

At the end of the tunnel, what they saw could only be described as horrific. The tunnel ended in a small room, which seemed to be perfectly round. Blood stained the walls where the glowing moss and vines would be, and there were bones everywhere. The carvings were now larger, and seemed to be words like "HELP" and "DEATH". In the middle of the room, was something. It was unclear what it was, but it was something. And it was alive. As Travis and Johannes made their way into the room, the thing looked back at them when they stopped at the sight. They realized, after looking at the thing, that it was a man. Not just any man, but Relvin Channer, the nervous miner they know so very well. His clothes were ragged to oblivion, and his originally short brown hair was now long and black. The man was, overall, a lot thinner than he used to be as well.
"Oh, OH! There you are! My, my, we've been looking everywhere for you two!" he said at the sight of them, obviously happy for some reason. "R-Relvin? Is that you? But, but it can't be! You were on the surface! No less than an hour ago!" Travis said faintly, trying to comprehend just what was going on. "An hour? No, no, no! It's been much longer than that! Years, decades even! It's been at least 19 years by now, I would say!" Travis and Johannes traded looks at this point, both obviously very scared at the situation. "Yes, 19 years, it's been. You see, we sent a search party for you two! Yes, a search party! You never came back, see? We tossed you the rope, and then, well, you weren't there! We tried to find you two, but nope! You refused to be found!" he babbled at the two men. "After that, no one could find the entrance! No entrance! Just tunnels and pockets and sorts! We resorted to eating moss and vines after awhile! So delicious! But even then we grew tired of that! Men need meat, you know? So, we sort of, ate, each other." Johannes jaw dropped at the last sentence, not believing that they resorted to something such as that. He looked over to Travis, who was visually sick at the idea. "Yes, yes, that was 2 years after we got stuck in this forsaken cave! Abandoned by Mesios for our greed, only to be sent straight to Yerietia! We were angry, so angry!" the, what used to be a man, said as he slammed his hands on the ground furiously. "But! But, but, but; we were able to survive! Every day we were able to go out and search for the entrance again, and every day, we tried once more! Only every so often did we have to go to such lengths as eating each other!" he said "Though now that I think about it... the taste of them was so delicious. And we were able to wash the meat down with their wonderful blood," Travis and Johannes exchanged worried looks at these words, somewhat knowing what was about to occur "and i've been very, very hungry."
At this point, the two men started to run back down the tunnel, and, the what-use-to-be-Relvin-Channer, raced after them with a hope to fill his belly for the next couple weeks. Johannes was able to run quite fast, due to his light build and the fact that he left his pack back in the main cave. However, Travis was not as lucky, as he did not have the slim body that Johannes did, nor did he leave his heavy bag back at the cave. And it was because of this that he was the first to go. As Relvin Channer pounced on Travis, all Johannes could do was look back and watch as his best friend was killed by the monsters long and sharp nails, as it gouged out Travis' eyeballs and proceeded to then bite his limbs off. But Johannes didn't stop running. With tears in his eyes, he pressed on.

Barely a minute later, Johannes found his way back to the main cave. Was the tunnel always that short? Or did it just seem shorter because he was being chased by a monster? Either way, Johannes made his way back to the cave, but he didn't stop. He didn't stop until he collected his pack that he left near the tunnels entrance, and sprinted towards the entrance of the cave. To his delight, there really was a new rope in place, and he happily started to climb it.
However, with escape in sight, so was Channer, who suddenly ran out of the tunnel that the 3 men were in. The beast let out a demonic roar, and ran after Johannes. At the sight of the fiend, Johannes tried to climb faster, and was at least 1/3 of the way there. Channer had begun climbing the rope as well, and with amazing haste. Johannes had to move fast, unless he wished to face the fate his friend has faced.
As he finally got to the surface, Johannes wasted no time in trying to make sure Channer could not follow him. He grabbed a knife from his pack, and began cutting the rope. As he finally cut through it, he heard Channer release an un-human sound as both him and the rope fell to the ground. After Johannes was satisfied with the faint thud he heard, he looked behind him, and noticed something. It was day. There was light. It was no longer the darkness that he had experienced during the time he set out to the cave.
Johannes Rein dusted himself off, and decided to set out back to the town of Felkiv. He had a lot of questions, and he really wanted them answered. With tears in his eyes, he began walking, with a faint smile despite the loss of his friend. Because as he looked up, all he could see was light and a bright blue.
Without a cloud in the sky.