Something caught Shane's eye. He noticed a gray looking mass between the trees diagonally next to them. He immediately recognized it as some kind of rock or stones, so it would most likely just be a dead end if they ran straight towards it. He couldn't see how high up it went, but it seemed like it was at least as tall as the trees surrounding them. Suddenly he saw black breaking up the gray stone and he was pretty sure it had to be a small opening. They had already passed it, but Shane felt like it was going to be their only chance and hoped it would be a small cave. He decided that it was worth a shot.

"Follow me," he said just loud enough for her to hear him.

He made a wide left turn toward the gray stone and could hear Rowan's footsteps behind him, which confirmed that she was actually following him. The left turn they made was dangerous, since they already passed the opening once and now had to go back in the opposite direction. Luckily, the beetle didn't seem as agile as the wasp and they had gained some ground on it.

They ran along the rock formation, dark green moss covered it in places and camouflaged it. It was several feet high, but not high enough to really qualify as mountains and it explained why they didn't see it before. A few seconds later, which seemed to last forever, he saw the black opening, which turned out to be a crack that wasn't very wide at all. Their sudden turnaround had caused the beetle to gain ground on them and was getting closer. Shane stopped running so suddenly that Rowan almost bumped into him.

“See if you can get in,” he told her.

He let her try first and she tried squeezing through. He watched the beetle anxiously as it came closer and closer and felt the ground vibrating slightly under his feet. The beetle had to weigh at least several hundred pounds, such a humongous beast. His eyes darted back to the crack Rowan had squeezed into.

“Are you coming?” she hissed quietly. “There’s plenty of room.”

That relieved Shane for a bit, who was worried it was just a small crack that the thin young woman could easily fit into it but there would be no room for him.

Now it was his turn to squeeze through the narrow crack, but his body was a lot broader than hers, which became painfully obvious very quickly. He tried to hold his breath to slip through the stones, but it didn't work. He seemed to have gotten himself stuck, there was no movement possible.

“What is taking you so long?” Rowan asked impatiently.

“I’m stuck!” Shane answered, panicked.

His eyes widened in fear while he watched the beetle coming closer. This was it, he would be torn apart by a huge insect in a strange world and no one would even know what had happened to him. He was already closing his eyes until Rowan started pulling on his arm from the other side.

“Can you cooperate for a bit?” Rowan huffed.

She pulled pretty hard on his arm, the strength on such a petite looking woman was astonishing. Meanwhile, Shane tried in every way to hold his breath, hold his stomach or exhale and wiggle himself in other positions. Eventually she pulled so hard that he was afraid she pulled his shoulder out of its pocket, but he finally fell through the crack, just as the giant beetle's head slammed into the stones. The ground seemed to shake beneath their feet and bits of debris and small rocks fell down from the cave's ceiling.

Shane took a quick breath, feeling like he was on the verge of having a heart attack, especially with the sound of the beetle hitting the outside of the cave, albeit intermittently. He moved his arm and his shoulder around for a bit, but it seemed to be fine.

The beetle didn't seem to give up as quickly as the wasp did, so Shane and Rowan both tried to keep quiet. The only sounds were the two young people's panting and the pounding outside of the cave. Eventually the sound started to subside and the intervals lengthened until it stopped completely. The two exchanged brief glances into the dark.

“I think it gave up,” Roward whispered hoarsely.

Shane nodded in agreement and started to look around. They were in a very spacious cave, the rocks above them were just a dark mass except for one point. There was an angular hole somewhere above them, through which a trickle of orange light from the rapidly setting sun shined through so it wasn't completely dark. Not for long, anyway. Just a little longer, and then the sun would have completely set.

“So… what now?”

Shane felt like he had asked something like that a lot the past couple of hours. He also kind of expected that he would ask it more often, expecting her to have all the answers. Rowan took her eyes off the rocks above them and looked at Shane. Every now and then she had this distant look in her eyes, just like she did now. She blinked and the distant look disappeared from her eyes while Shane wondered what she was thinking about.

She pulled the device out of her pocket and started pushing some buttons on it without answering his question. Shane waited anxiously, but nothing happened. A sigh escaped from her mouth as she put it back in her pocket.

“I think you better try and make yourself comfortable,” she said.

“Comfortable…” Shane scoffed, stone wasn’t very comfortable.

“Yes, comfortable. I don’t know how long it will take,” she snapped at him.

Shane made a face at her, but she didn’t see it or pretended she didn’t see.

She sat down on the floor and took off the bulky black sweater, after taking off her backpack and putting it down next to her. Underneath the sweater she wore a dirty camisole top that looked like it had been white once, but had turned into some kind of indistinguishable faded color with unidentifiable stains.

Right now Shane could really see how thin the young woman actually was. He could see the muscles move underneath her pale skin when she extended her arms. She took the band that held her messy ponytail out, causing it to fall down her face and over her boney shoulders. It was very long and because she was sitting down it almost touched her thighs. Her blonde locks looked kinda muted and it seemed to be greasy. Without paying any attention to Shane, she rearranged her hair into a new ponytail.

He also decided to sit down eventually and unbuttoned his shirt further so that he could take it off as well. The air in the cave felt cooler than outside and kind of murky, but he still felt scorching hot, probably from the running.

Fatigue suddenly hit him hard, his eyelids felt heavy and it seemed almost impossible to keep his eyes open.