Hive Queen by Sinclair, Grayson (positive books to read .txt) 📕

what ore I could in a large wheelbarrow that rested beside me. Normally there were rewards for bringing in a good haul, but per Balthazar, I got none of them no matter what I brought up.

When Maus’s time was up, I whistled and handed him back his pick. We contoured the slog until the next prisoner came and checked up on us. As they departed, and the coast was clear, I dropped my pick.

“Let’s go. We don’t have long.”

Maus smiled and tossed his tool next to mine, and we headed deeper into the shaft.

The tunnel we were heading for was at the deepest part of the mine and had been abandoned when there was no ore to be found. It was closed off by a slab of smooth stone that set it apart from the rest of the craggy and uneven rock surrounding it.

Maus and I had taken turns going at the stone until we’d broken through the day before. A rush of moldy, stagnant air rankled my nose, and I knew we’d found something that hadn’t been touched in years. Maybe it led to nothing but a dead end, or maybe there would be something hidden inside.

It took us over ten minutes of walking till we reached the tunnel. It was decided that this section of the shaft was barren, and as such, there were no tools or digging equipment around. It was just endless gray rock. We took a right when we reached the cavern, and in another few minutes, we were at the sealed-off tunnel.

Maus peered into the crack I’d made and recoiled. “Told you this would lead somewhere!”

“Yeah, but we still don’t know if it’s an escape. This could just be a waste of time.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“Then let’s take a look,” I said and reached into the crack. As before, chitin crawled from my pores, and I gripped the hunk of rock and yanked hard.

It crumbled under my fingers, bringing loud chunks crashing to the floor with a cloud of rock dust that clung to our throats as we inhaled. I spluttered and coughed to clear my airway, and when everything finally settled, we got a good look at what was behind the sealed door.

It was pitch black; we couldn’t see a thing.

Maus laughed as we stared into the abyss. “Got a light?”

“Well, if we’re breaking the rules anyway, might as well break them completely.”

I pulled a torch from my inventory and got it lit. The biting flame illuminated the wide corridor and chamber behind us, but only banished a couple dozen feet of darkness before it curved.

“Well, let’s get a move on. Once it’s discovered we aren’t working, they’ll come looking for us.”

“Good point, let’s scout it out and get back.”

We both stepped into the cavern and began our descent. It was wide enough for several people to move side by side, so it held with our theory of being an abandoned mineshaft, but I hadn’t seen one purposefully boarded up like it was, so I was wondering what the warden was trying to keep hidden. Signs of heavy mining littered the walls as we went deeper in, but after about three minutes of walking, the excavation slowed and then stopped all together, by the time we reached the end.

“Look at that,” Maus said, pointing upward.

Just above my head was a pretty large vein of iron, completely untouched.

“Well, we know they didn’t close it because the shaft ran dry, so there has to be something here they didn’t want discovered.”

“But what?” Maus threw up his arms and spun in a semi-circle. “We’re at the end, and there isn’t anything here.”

A thought struck me. “Maus, what abilities do you have for infiltrator?”

“A few,” he replied warily. “You know I’m not going to tell you them, though.”

“No, man.” I shook my head. “Screw game etiquette, do you have Layout?”

“Oh! You think something is hidden away here.”

“Has to be something along those lines.”

He nodded and knelt, holding his hand out, palm facing upward. A subtle brush of wind licked at my skin for a second before being whisked away by the stale, still air in the bottom of the mine shaft. Maus chuckled as he stared at the invisible map in his hand, which quickly turned to full-blown raucous laughter. “You were right. There is something beyond the rock.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

He closed his fist and stood up. “I don’t know what lies beyond it, but Layout showed empty space, and that means there’s something other than rock. That’s all I care about. Whether it leads to freedom is another story, but it gets us the hell out of here.”

He walked over to the back wall and rapped his knuckles on the stone. “That’s hard rock, though. Getting through it is going to be a bitch.”

I smiled. “Well, we best get started.”

***

With one last heavy swing of my pick, we carved a hole just wide enough to squeeze through.

“That was fucking miserable,” Maus said, as he doubled over, panting.

“Yeah, no kidding.”

It had taken us most of the day to excavate the wall. We took turns wailing at the unyielding stone until it relented and bent to our desires. We’d worked in shifts, mining until exhaustion to get the hole cleared. We’d been gone for hours, and the prisoners were sent into the mine looking for us, but thanks to Maus’s Chameleon ability, we were able to disguise the hole we’d made in the start of the shaft and stayed quiet until they left.

But after twelve hours, we’d knocked a hole four feet wide and five feet deep and finally broke through to the other side.

The downside was that we were both utterly spent. I could barely move, let alone fight, and whatever lay beyond the hole