ONWARD IMAGINES

Our Ending (the alternate ending) | Barley Lightfoot

i am staying up way too late to write this lol but i have to feel loved by writing 

/ / /

You woke up on your back with a splitting headache and the annoying sound of distant voices that were making you wonder if you were still dreaming. It took a long minute for you to realize that you were waking up inside of a cave, with rocks piled up above you and blocking your only way out. 

But there were voices above you. 

"Hey!" you screamed. "I'm down here!" 

As your voice echoed around you, sat up and scooted away from the pile of rock that went from over your head down the wall and to a pile in front of you. You looked around.

You were on the verge of a panic attack. Suddenly, all you could think about was how horrible it would be to be trapped in here. If no one could hear you, then they wouldn't know where to look for you. They probably thought that you were crushed by the rocks. Barley and Ian probably thought that you were dead, and if you didn't find a way out, you soon would be.

"Don't panic," you said to yourself, using the wall to get on your feet. Your ribs ached; something was clearly wrong. "Just think."

Surprisingly, it wasn't pitch black in the cave you were trapped in. It was a strange dim blue. You glanced around. Surely the light was coming in from somewhere.

You felt along the walls, digging your fingers into any cracks that may lead somewhere. It wasn't until you brushed your arm across the wall and heard the sound of pebbles breaking through that you realized that what you were pressing against was rock packed in somewhat tightly. 

You stood in front of it. Of course, you were risking the chance of letting it all pour inside and kill you by suffocation. Or maybe this would be an easy way out, because there's always the chance that things are really as easy as they seem to be in movies or fantasy-romance novels or even fanfiction. 

You began to pull the rocks out. Some were as big as your fists, others were just clumps of pebbles that you scratched out of the pack until they scattered around your feet. You clawed and yanked and pulled, and eventually, your hand was able to push through the rest of the rock. 

You gulped in the air that flooded in from the gaping hole you'd made; it tasted slightly like seawater. 

Tears pricked your eyes as you smiled and hurriedly pulled out more rock, giving you more room to step over into the next part of the cave. You stepped through and looked up at your chance of freedom. It was another part of a cave, with a mouth that showed you the sky. It was getting dark; the sky was blue and overcast. 

And you were on your way out. 

You held your arms tight against your chest as you shuffled your feet forward. You had to climb several slabs of rock. You cut your knees and palms against the scratchy surface. You slipped twice and felt you face collide with the stone each time, because you hurt too bad to catch yourself. 

Barley was out there, you reminded yourself, and right now, he probably thought that you were dead. You had to get to him. He was all that mattered.

/ /

"Hey, son," Bronco said, his ears pressed all the way down. "We, uh, we really ought to be going. Your mom... she's on her way. I'll let her drive you home, okay?"

Barley shook his head. His knees sank deeper in the sand. He looked down at the note that was in his hands still. "No," he mumbled. "No, I'm not going anywhere."

"Barley," he sighed, taking off his hat and holding it against his chest. "It could be hours or days until we find her. It's best if you go home---"