"Piece of cake," he said, his voice shaking.
The hard part was over and I breathed a sigh of relief, staring into the mouth of the abyss that had so terrified me yesterday. We stumbled forward a few paces, keeping our lights off until the equipment room was out of sight. Halfway along the tunnel we heard movement behind us and ducked down. Through the gaps between the boards we saw the blacksuit dragging the unconscious Skull toward the yard, and waited for him to vanish before pressing on.
"Man, I hear it," said Zee as we reached the end of the tunnel. It was pitch-black ahead, but the faint roar filled the darkness. Once again I panicked, thinking that the sound was a growl from the warden's dogs, or the wheeze of a gas mask. But when I flicked on my helmet lamp the only thing it illuminated was rock.
"Jesus, look at this place," Zee whispered, switching on his light. The twin beams did practically nothing to combat the dense blackness of the room, the pale tendrils of light reaching no more than a few meters before surrendering to the shadows.
"Five minutes," I said. "That's all we've got."
"Well, far as I can tell, it's coming from that direction," Zee said, turning his helmet and pointing a trail of light toward the back left-hand side of the cavern. The roar seemed to come from everywhere, but I took Zee's word for it. My hearing never was my strong point.
We made our way across the cavern, forced to scale the massive boulders that littered the floor. Every now and again I'd see a shard of white, or a suspicious stain on the floor, but fortunately the bodies of the kids who'd died here had been removed. Once again I wondered if their souls still remained, but quickly put the thought out of my head.
I wasn't sure how many minutes it took us to cross the hall. Too many, I knew that much. More than once we had to double back after reaching a blockage, or duck under a treacherous archway formed by unstable blocks of stone. But with each step we took, the roar got louder and more distinct, the sound becoming less like a growl, more like the thunder of a waterfall. The closer we got, the fresher the air became. I could have sworn that there was even a fine mist suspended in the cavern, one that clung to our skin and gave us the strength to proceed.
And then, like finding an oasis in the desert, we rounded a truck-sized mound of stone and saw it. Our way out. It was a crack in the floor of the cavern, one that stretched over twenty paces from the far wall to our feet. There was nothing but darkness through the rift, but we didn't need to see. Where we were standing we could practically feel the river that raged beneath us, the torrent that would set us free.
"We were right!" I shouted at Zee, no longer caring about the noise. "I don't believe it, there's a way out!"
But he didn't share my enthusiasm.
"Are you seeing something I don't?" he muttered. "I mean, did you happen to bring a crate of dynamite with you?"
I looked back at the cracked rock and frowned. Then, feeling like someone had just punched me in the gut, I saw what he meant. The rift in the floor may have split the cavern wide open lengthways, but the solid stone had only parted a few centimeters. Our way out was no wider than a fist.
MY DARKEST HOUR
ZEE PRACTICALLY HAD TO drag me back through the rocky labyrinth of Room Two. The sudden switch from thinking we were home free to knowing there was no way through the slit in the ground was unbearable. In the space of a second I had lost the will to carry on, and with it had fled the part of my brain that could remember how to do simple things like walk and talk. I must have bumped into a dozen rocks, scraping my shins and arms and even my face. But I didn't care. It was over.
Several wrong turns later and we found our way back into the tunnel. Zee switched his lamp off, then mine, leading the way toward the wooden planks. Beyond them the equipment room was empty, but we had no idea where the blacksuit was. He could have been right outside, waiting for us to emerge so he could pump us full of shot. The thought didn't bother me. At least it would be quicker than festering away in Furnace for the next seven decades.
I dived down onto the floor and pushed my way through the loose board, ignoring Zee's frantic protests.
"Wait, for God's sake!" he hissed, but by the time he'd repeated himself I was already out. The coast was clear, the guard nowhere to be seen. Zee pushed himself through, scrambling to his feet and grabbing our picks from where we'd left them. "Let's get back."
"What's the point?" I asked, not moving. Zee grabbed my sleeve and hoisted me forward, pulling me into Room Three. With the heat and the noise nobody even saw us enter.
"Come on," he said, his words almost lost in the hammering. "Did you really expect it to be that easy?"
We spotted Donovan hard at work and shuffled over. He took one look at our expressions and his shoulders slumped.
"No river, then?" he said matter-of-factly.
"It's there, but the gap is too narrow and the walls are too thick," Zee explained when I didn't open my mouth.
Donovan nodded then returned to work, mumbling something like "too bad" over his shoulder. Zee shrugged at me, then started hacking away at the wall. I lifted my pick halfheartedly and took a swing, but I just couldn't find the energy to make it count. I mean, why bother? If a lifetime in this sweaty room was all I had to look forward to, was all any of us had to look forward to, why didn't I just ram the pick into my brain?
I'm sorry to say that my thoughts were like that for the rest of the morning-a slide show of ways to put myself out of my misery. Not that I think I ever would have gone through with it, but I'd been so set on an escape that was now impossible, and the only form of freedom left to me was death. It was a terrible kind of freedom-one from misery and pain, yes, but also one from lightness and laughter and life. It was an absence of everything.
We walked from the chipping rooms with all the enthusiasm of death-row prisoners going to the electric chair, showering and dressing without a word. Silence followed us as we grabbed our food in the canteen and sat down at an empty bench. We all made a good job of thoroughly poking our mush, but nobody seemed to be eating it.
"So are you saying we need to lose a little weight before we fit in the crack?" asked Donovan after a few minutes, pushing his plate away and folding his arms. " 'Cause I think I can do that."
"Even a baby wouldn't be able to get through," Zee replied, holding his hands a few centimeters apart to demonstrate the size of the gap. "My cat wouldn't be able to squeeze its bony ass into that hole."
As usual, lunch was interrupted by the sound of crashing plates and yelling. I peered over Zee's shoulder to see the Skulls going to work on some kids in the middle of the room. From here it looked like the other new fish, Ashley and Toby. They were getting food poured down their overalls and rubbed in their faces, but I didn't even think about trying to help. After dreaming of escape the reality of Furnace seemed even heavier, even more claustrophobic than before. The oppressive air pushed down on me like a weight, I felt like I couldn't move a muscle.
"And we couldn't chip it?" Donovan went on.
"Even if we could all get in there it would be too noisy," Zee answered. "Besides, it would take us weeks to break through."
"Any of you guys know how to make a bomb?" Donovan went on, smiling, but he got no response. "How about the gas tanks in the kitchen? They'd blow a hole in anything if they were lit up."
"You've seen those things," Zee countered. "They're bolted and strapped and secured tighter than the gold in Fort Knox. There's no way you'd be able to get them loose, let alone smuggle them across the yard."
Donovan wasn't willing to give up.
"Come on, you get me all excited about this, then you're telling me it's impossible? That's just cruel."