Chapter Three. No Choice but to Go.

"What? What!" Charm panicked behind me. "I can't see around your big butt. What's up?"

I sat down and leaned myself up against the icy wall so Charm could see. I didn't think it needed any commentary, but Charm didn't seem to notice the problem. "If this is another one of your spazz outs," she growled, peering ahead into the murky darkness. "What's with you? I don't see anything." Even as those words left her mouth, I could see by the look on her face that she knew exactly what was with me. But I decided to spell it out for her anyway.

"There's a FORK in the tunnel. That's what's with me!" I shouted. The word FORK echoed somewhere down the tunnel. If I hadn't been so agitated, I might have been amused.

"Maybe it was already there?" Charm said hopefully, scratching her head.

"No, it wasn't! Don't you think I would have noticed a fork in the tunnel while I was taking your snow out? Come on Charm, there's something seriously, seriously wrong here." I turned around as much as I could to face her. To my amazement, she actually looked…excited.

"Freaky," she whispered, a slight smile of awe on her lips.

"Shut UP!" I squeaked, hitting her on the arm. "This isn't a joke! Which way do we go to get out of here?"

"Which way seems right?" Good question. Both passages seemed dark and infinite. And neither seemed right. "We could split up, and each take a side," she continued.

"I don't think so!" I exclaimed.

"I think it's the best option," she said, peering past me into the darkness ahead.

"No, no, no, please," I cajoled, grabbing onto her coat sleeve. "You wouldn't do that to me, would you? I don't want to split up. It's too scary!" Besides, what if this really was just a joke…something Charm put her brother up to or something? Hmm. That thought made me look at her a little suspiciously. "Is this a joke?"

"I was just going to ask you the same thing. Did you do this while I was digging?"

My mouth dropped open. "I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing!" I forced a little quiver into my lower lip.

Charm rolled her eyes in defeat. "Don't cry, I'm just confused, that's all."

"Promise we'll stick together?" I asked hopefully, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye.

"Promise," she replied. "Now let's get moving. I'm starting to get cold."

"Seems like there's a breeze coming from the left. Wanna go that way? Maybe that'll get us outside."

"Let's go."

The tunnel's walls were smooth and icy, just like the ones we'd dug out of the pile. "Hey, wait a minute," I cried, hesitating. "How come I'm going first? I didn't want to go first!" I didn't want to go first! I wanted Charm to be the brave one.

"You really think we're going to be able to switch spots in this place?" Charm reminded me. Sighing, I continued down the narrow passage, Charm shuffling right behind me. "Funny," she huffed, "I don't remember the pile being big enough for all these tunnels."

I didn't really think it was either. And what was really worrying me were the twists and turns this path was taking already. But I kept on crawling. It was too late to turn around now. It was so dark. I could barely see the trail in front of me. And then I felt it…the biggest indication we weren't going the right way. The floor of the tunnel ahead started to feel less like snow and more like the ice surrounding us on the walls and ceiling.

"Oof!" Behind me, Charm slipped, sprawling lengthwise in the corridor. "Keep going, I'm OK," she called. I had my reservations about going on without her, but there wasn't anything I could do anyway. The tunnel took a sudden jog to the right, then I felt the floor start to slope down. A lot.

"Hey, uh…Charm?" I asked, nervously feeling the icy floor in front of me with my hands. It was slick. "Is it too late to turn…"

I didn't finish my sentence. Charm came barreling around the turn, oblivious to the fact I had stopped. She fell into me and forced us both to careen down the sloping tunnel. I stretched out my hands, arms, legs—anything to stop us. But there was nothing to grab onto but slick tunnel walls. So what else could I do? Nothing—so I started to scream.

I don't have a clue what happened from there. All I know is I woke up on my back, staring into an enormous, sparkling blue dome. The floor was hard, cold, and ripply—almost as if a river had been frozen in an instant. And that tingly pressure in my sinuses was back. I wondered if I had passed out from that, or the stress of sliding into nowhere, or a combination of the two.