Chapter Two Page Three, Mary and Dani, The Tunnel

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“Sorry,” Dani said. She turned around and Mary caught a flash of genuine guilt on Dani’s face for a moment before Dani turned back to look ahead.

            “It’s fine,” Mary said, “I do get afraid easily I guess.”

            “Especially by snakes,” Dani said, “I’ve never understood that.”

            “My dad told me when I was really young that I should stay away from things with poison,” Mary said. She wasn’t sure why snakes were the only thing that bothered her. Spiders seemed plenty dangerous too.

            Dani shrugged and resumed her walk down the tunnel.

            “Yeah whatever,” Mary said, “What was it your parents yelled at you about that made you want to hang out?”

            “They didn’t really yell at me,” Dani said, “They said they were disappointed in Will, and I told them that I wasn’t trying to impress them or anything. I said I’m just fucking good at school and I don’t know why.”

            “Uh?”

            “I hate it when… look, when I do something wrong, they let me know. But when I do something right, all they do is yell at Will for not doing better than me.”

            “Hmm,” Mary said, intending to sound interested, which was her current state of mind.

            “It’s like, I get a ridiculously high score on the Standards, and I don’t get recognized for it, and now I’m mad about being adopted by parents who don’t understand how to be parents. It’s like they’re trying to make me feel bad for Will,” Dani said, “You know?”

            “Maybe,” Mary said, “Like they’re trying to get you to help him so that he can do better?”

            “There’s an easier way of getting me to help him,” Dani said, “It’s called; get him to quit being such a douche.”

            “Is he though? A douche, I mean?”

            “You don’t know him as well as I do,” Dani said, “He spends so much of his time moping around about how hard he has it, with the challenges he’s been given by mom ‘n dad. We used to talk about it a lot, but eventually I got sick of hearing about how much they expected of him, because, like, they hardly expected anything of me. And now that they expect something of me, he doesn’t listen to anything I have to say. Because they yell at him constantly and I guess he doesn’t see why I can complain about anything.”

            “Yikes,” Mary said, “What is this about challenges?”

            “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but since you’ve let slip so many times about your dad’s weird cult, I guess I can tell you.”    

            “It isn’t a cult,” Mary said, “But please, enlighten me.”

            “I don’t know Mary, if it’s not a cult I’m not sure I can do much enlightening,” Dani said.

            “Where did this sass come from?” Mary asked.

“What sass? I don’t really see any sass right now.”

“That sass is off the walls,” Mary said, “You better get a purse to put all that snark in so you can use it later. Snark is supposed to be recycled.”

            “My purse is stuffed so full of sass that it can’t hold any more,” Dani said, “I’d ask to borrow yours but it’s already full of laaaaame.”

            “Ha, oh, burn, or whatever,” Mary said, “So what were the challenges?”

            “Oh, right,” Dani said, “They want him to be, like, the… How do I put this? The hero?”

            “Hero?” Mary asked.

            “Yeah, by now you probably think I’m fucking with you but that’s sort of the easiest way of describing it. They’re convinced that something is going to happen and that someone will need to step up to bat and knock a great big moment of salvation out of the park.”

            “That’s weird,” Mary said, “What do they… expect?”

            “You mean, what is it they think is going to happen?” Dani stopped.

            “…yeah?”

            “Shh,” Dani said, “Shh shh shhhhhhh.”

            Mary stayed silent.

            “D’you hear that?” Dani asked.

            Mary strained to hear. Above the sounds of their walking she’d been conscious of a soft noise that she was convinced was just the passage of wind through the tunnel. It’d sounded like someone breathing in. Mary held her breath and could still hear it. But then, there was a shift. It was suddenly like someone was breathing out. And then in. “Yeah,” Mary said.

            “Some crazy massive… thing… must be shifting enough to make the air change… either ahead or behind us,” Dani said. A knife appeared in her hand.

            “I vote we turn around,” Mary said, “I hope this doesn’t sound ridiculous kinds of craven... But as soon as we started discussing the possibility of some kind of awful calamity striking us, it seems like something down here took notice.”

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