This Beast-Tamer is a Little Strange

The cavern shuddered again.

A deep, groan from the ice above sent a fresh cascade of powdery frost drifting down on them. Kain barely breathed. Every sound felt like it could be the last thing that they ever heard.

A single wrong move, a whisper too loud, and the entire space could come crashing down, crushing them before they even had the chance to run.

After this round of shaking, the silence that followed was thicker than the ice above them. Kain's pulse roared in his ears, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts—as if exhaling too hard might bring the entire mountain down on their heads.

Then—

A voice, muffled but unmistakably alarmed, filtered through the pencil-thin hole in the ceiling. "You… alive?" The words were stilted, heavily accented since he was attempting to speak a language he was unfamiliar with instead of relying on Kain to translate, but the concern was genuine.

Kain swallowed hard, forcing his voice to remain steady. "We're here." Kain replied in his native tongue before switching back over to the Southern language, this time being much more cautious with the words he chose. *"Don't—don't—try to dig again. The structure's too unstable."* He hesitated, then added, *"Do you understand?"*

A pause. Then, slower this time: *"Understood."*

Serena's eyes narrowed. "Tell him again," she murmured, her voice a blade sheathed in ice. "Scout the tunnels. Find a stable path. No. More. DIGGING."

Kain relayed the message, over-enunciating as if his life depended on it—because it did. A grunt of acknowledgment echoed back, followed by retreating footsteps.

Outside, the stranger grunted in acknowledgment. Then, faintly, the sound of retreating footsteps echoed through the cavern walls.

For a long moment, neither Kain nor Serena moved. The air still hung heavy with the threat of collapse, the ceiling's fractures a stark reminder of how close they'd come to being buried alive.

The reprieve lasted seconds.

The cavern shuddered again.

"I don't think we can wait for him to return and help us get out…" Kain said to Serena.

Serena's eyes flicked toward him, nodding in agreement but completely void of any fear. They had both already grasped the reality of their situation: waiting meant death and the next few minutes would determine whether they lived or died.

Kain inhaled carefully through his nose, steadying his thoughts. They had to move, and they had to do it now.

Kain took another slow breath in thought. The ceiling was already unstable, so attempting to break through the walls supporting it would just make the collapse worse. Moreover, they weren't even sure what areas of the walls even led to a tunnel or how far it was until they reached a stable area.

But, although poorly executed, their 'rescuer' had essentially mapped out the closest path between a tunnel and their cave. After all, if it was possible to reach their location with a drill like object, assuming this 'drill' wasn't abnormally large, then it was probably less than a foot in that specific spot to freedom.

"We need to move toward the already breached section of ice," Kain said, knowing that this risky plan would be going against all of their survival instincts to move away from the original source of the collapse. "Slowly. Any sudden force might set everything off."

Serena nodded, already analyzing the structure. She ran a hand along the hole, her spiritual power was emitted from her hand and examined the location.

"It's fragile. But... I can melt a path through if we're careful."

Another groan rattled through the cavern. A jagged fissure tore further across the ceiling, and Kain barely pulled Serena back before another slab of ice crashed down right where she had been standing.

Shit.

There was no more time.

"Do it." Kain ordered, urgency sharpening his voice. "But make sure the heat is gradual—if the ice contracts too fast, it'll fracture even more."

Serena lifted her hand, and a glow of soft ember-red bloomed at her fingertips. She pressed her palm against the thickest section of ice, letting a warm current of energy seep into it instead of forcing it. Slowly, so slowly, the ice began to sweat, then drip. A thin sliver of space widened into a narrow gap. A gap became a path.

Another tremor. "Go." He gestured for Serena to move first, placing his hand beneath her to provide a boost through the narrow opening above.

She hesitated only a second before climbing through the opening first and then reaching down to pull him up.

Then, just as Kain reached for her hand and was halfway through to the other side of the passage, the entire cavern screamed.

A violent crack splintered through the chamber beneath them, and Kain could see the ceiling of the cavern—now the floor of the tunnel Serena stood in—give way.

"KAIN!"

He was still halfway through the passage.

Serena's hand clamped onto his wrist at the last second, her grip the only thing stopping him from plummeting into whatever abyss waited below. Kain barely had time to register the moment before a fresh quake rocked the tunnel, and Serena's footing slipped.

"Let go!" Kain shouted. "If you don't—"

Serena's eyes flashed with defiance. "Shut up."

A burst of strength surged through her limbs, and with a fierce pull, she yanked Kain back onto solid ground.

She hit the ground with him on top of her, Kain's weight driving the air from Serena's lungs while the ground she had just been standing on gave way as the cavern below caved in.

A deafening roar consumed everything as their previous 'home' (or prison depending on the perspective) caved in completely, sending a plume of ice and rock crashing into the space they had occupied mere seconds before.

Thankfully, their sudden combined fall, landed them around a foot away from the edge of what was now a massive sinkhole.

Not that either of them cared about that at the moment. Kain was more distracted by the sudden soft sensation against his face.

His lips had landed on Serena's.

Time froze. His brown eyes, wide with shock, locked onto Serena's equally stunned blue ones. The world around them—the sinking cavern, the dust-filled air, the fading tremors—ceased to exist for a few seconds.

'K-kis—'

A sound from the far end of the chamber snapped them back into reality.

And with a sharp inhale, Serena pushed him off...violently.

Kain rolled onto the frozen ground beside her, blinking rapidly as he tried to form words. He came up empty.

Footsteps.

Kain tensed, shifting into a defensive stance even as his body protested the movement. Serena followed suit, her fingers twitching in preparation to summon a contract.

Then, a familiar voice called out.

*"You're alive? Thank the gods!"*

They both looked up to see the face of their 'rescuer', who was more familiar than they'd expected—Malzahir.