The sudden shifting of the earth flung Sloane off her feet, and she was tossed backwards forcefully.
She crashed into the ground, hard.
Pain radiated down her spine and head which had taken most of the impact of the fall. Her vision spun. Her heart pounding unsteadily against her ribcage, as she scrambled up to her feet, eyes wide and apprehensive.
All around her, cracks spread across the surface of the ground. A hissing sound echoed from deep within the fissure, like something sinister was awakening.
"Sloane! Run!" Denna called out, "Let go of me! Let go, you brute!"
Sloane whirled around quickly. The vampire, Ciaran had thrown Denna over his shoulder and was slowly backing away from the cracking earth to the tree line, his eyes narrowed cautiously.
Armenia, the female vampire crouched on a branch, a safe distance away. An amused grin on her lips, revealing her terrifyingly sharp fangs.
"Such a good bait, aren't you, darling?" She cooed, twirling a glinting dagger in her hand, "Now sit tight, and this should end swiftly."
It was then Sloane realized it. In the clearing, in the midst of the cracking earth, there was only her.
Sloane's heart faltered. She tried to take a step forward, but the cracks spread faster in response to the barest of movement.
She wouldn't be able to get across. Not before the ground broke apart and she fell right through it.
"Let go!" Denna cried, thumping her fists against Ciaran's back. "That bitch is using Sloane as bait!"
"I can only save one of you! She's already done for!" Ciaran hissed, his tone grim as he retreated into the tree lines, "So stop fucking fighting!"
As Denna's struggles slowed, Ciaran broke into a dash, disappearing into the woods in the blink of an eye.
Just then, the earth broke apart with a crash, and a giant worm-like creature shot up from the loose soil, dirt and debris raining down all around it.
The beast turned on Sloane.
A cold chill crawled down her spine.
It was unlike anything she'd ever seen before. A hideous protruded face. White, scaly skin oozing a pungent reddish goo.
The guidebook had said there were all kinds of horrid monsters in Evernight. But this...it was by far more terrifying than the armored boar from last night.
And not because it was thrice its size, or had an indistinguishable form...it was because it had its attention completely locked on Sloane, like it couldn't sense any other life aside from hers.
"Tsk. Tsk." Armenia clicked her tongue, taunting, "Your friend didn't even hesitate to leave you for dead. It must be heartbreaking."
"The blood worm has a taste for human flesh. We don't get that around here often. I thought werewolves wouldn't do too well as bait...but this..." Armenia cackled like it was the most amusing thing she'd ever witnessed. "Who would believe this?! An actual human in Evernight?!"
Sloane's heart sank to the pit of her stomach.
She was exposed. Just that easily. And she wasn't even through the gates of Eclipsera.
At this rate, she wasn't certain she would make it there.
But she didn't get the opportunity to break down.
The beast's protruded face parted in an ear-splitting shriek.
Sloane clutched her ears, the force of the shriek sent her dropping to her knees. But she never got to make contact with the ground.
The earth beneath her broke apart and Sloane plunged downwards into an abyss of darkness.
--------
Sloane awakened to a splitting ache in her temple, and a dripping sound.
But it wasn't like the one she'd heard earlier in the day. It sounded closer...too close,
Like it was right above her...
Sloane's eyes snapped open, and her awareness returned.
A cold, wet substance dripped on her cheek, and a damp, putrid stench flooded her nostrils.
A shriek crept up in her throat but she swallowed it down, scrambling away from the steadily dripping liquid.
Lifting a hand to her face, she realized the liquid was that dark, reddish goo.
Sloane gagged.
"Ugh!" She grunted in disgust, wiping her hands on her dress.
She might have mistaken it for blood, but the smell wasn't right. And she'd seen it on the blood worm from earlier...
If she could guess, it looked like some kind of digestive juice...
A crippling realization hit her just then.
Could she have fallen, into its den?!
She scrambled up to her feet, and only then did she take note of her environment.
She was in some kind of tunnel, she realized. But it was completely empty, no monster in sight.
"I must have fallen through..." Sloane muttered, uncertain if she should be grateful she hadn't gotten torn apart by the giant worm instead.
But any relief she might have felt was short lived when she glanced up and realised there was no crack or opening.
Which meant one thing...no escape.
"There has to be a way out..." She muttered, her heart thudding uneasily.
No part of Evernight was safe. That was something she'd realised quickly.
If she'd fallen beneath a red marked zone, didn't that mean she was typically still in a red marked zone?
"This isn't happening..." Sloane shook her head, frantically glancing around.
She could barely see a few inches ahead through the darkness, but it was obvious to her that the tunnel only had two distinct directions.
She glanced to the left and then to the right, uncertainly.
Any of these paths could lead her straight into the jaws of that beast. But she couldn't afford to stay in one place either.
'Keep moving'
That was the unspoken rule of this hunt.
If the blood worm had a taste for human flesh like Armenia had said, there was no hiding place...not while still in the red marked zone.
"Right. The guidebook!" Sloane quickly searched through her satchel, pulling out the small, leather bound book.
She skimmed past a part of it that contained a brief record of the different terrains in Evernight.
Every terrain that was a part of the official hunt to keep the girls from straying off course.
"Tunnels...tunnels..." She chanted, flipping through the pages.
It wasn't long before she got to the end of it, and then twice over.
But there was nothing in the guidebooks about tunnels. Not a single mention of it.
What did that mean? This, wasn't a part of the official hunting ground?!
Sloane's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. "Where the hell am I?"