(Warning: Content that is Criiinge)

[Previously: I smell something delicious and realize it’s human food. I scramble upright and shove it in my face, closing my eyes, making an mph of pleasure. 

Kris fixes his headlamp and securing the metal clamp he calls, “Ready!” As the search and rescue team lowers the sturdy rope to help him repel into a hole. “Ray?!” He yells into the pitch darkness. The rope continues for 20ft of the space before his feet hit a ledge. “Ray?” He looks around at the thinning space, he continues to repel for another 20ft until he can no longer fit. Bracing his back against the wall he shines his light down the hole and there’s obviously nobody down there. “It’s empty!” He calls, “Pull me up!” The rope starts getting wound up and something catches on his arm. “Hold up!” He calls. He twists around and there is Ray’s cane. His heart stops but also picks up beats with hope. “I found his cane, he must be close by!” He calls excitedly, ‘Oh please be okay, I’ll never forgive myself if this is my fault.’

He throws his head back chugging water, sweat dripping down his face and body. ‘Wish I wore a better shirt for this,’ he thinks, pulling on the saturated material. His clearly defined muscles have caught unwanted attention from some of the search and rescue members. ‘That’s why I automatically feel so comfortable with the other visually impaired students. They can’t make immediate assumptions and can only judge my great attitude and personality.’ He chuckles at his cocky thoughts knowing he was truly just insecure and untrusting of sighted people. Especially since they wouldn’t let Susan join them. He growls a little bit in anger but they said they’d search with the other cave guides and wouldn’t let him give them a piece of his mind. 

One of the search and rescue guys, surprisingly young, comes up and offers another water. 

Maybe it was because he was already angry but he kind of just blows him off, “He’s got to be close, his cane was dropped in a hole forever ago.” “Actually, we’re going to need to call it quits tonight.” The man says awkwardly, “We need to backtrack and go down a different tunnel, there’s no way he made it this far without his cane.”

“That’s not how cane’s work, he can use the wall. He doesn’t need it to walk.” Kris informs. The man’s face holds the quiet disagreement that he doesn’t voice. “Fine then you go, I’ll keep searching.” 

“But.” The man says and resigns, “Okay fine but only because you’re a trained professional.”

“I have my phone on me, in case I find him.” Kris holds out his hand, “Give me a backpack of supplies and a medical kit.” 

Hiking for hours he keeps questioning why Ray might have panicked and started moving instead of staying still. It doesn’t make sense. In fact, they didn’t find blood, footprints, or anything down the steep incline that came right after where they found his cane. Taking a burst of strength from adrenaline, ‘What if the cane was planted?’ He starts sprinting deeper into the cave. ‘There has to be something, anything, to prove he went this way, if the cane was planted then he could be anywhere!’ The end of the cave rises up in front of him, confirming his worst fears. “No!” He screams, cursing. He turns back around and slowly makes his way back clenching Ray’s cane in his fist, then looking down at it he has a thought. A crazy, insane thought. He carefully holds it in the same spot, all the way back. 

Susan walks into the dorm to bump into a mess. “What’s this?” They ask. “Careful.” A familiar voice says, “Sorry I’ll have to clean all this up later, let me help you.” 

“What are you doing, Kris?” 

“I had a really crazy idea and it’s so crazy I had to try it because it actually makes sense.” 

“You lost me.” Susan groans laying on their bunk. 

“You know how I wanted to be a police officer and went to the academy until I found out about me having Best’s Disease?”

“Yeah?” Susan says sitting up starting to figure out where he was going with this. 

“I powdered the cane.” Kris admits a little embarrassed, “For fingerprints.”

“Did you find anything?” Susan asks leaning forward excitedly, the long pause answers them. “Other than my prints and his, no.” He sighs covering his face. “But that means that he must have-” He stops. “Susan!” He stands up. 

“What?!” They exclaim, confused. 

“There’s blood! And dents. Really small but…” He tilts it in the light. Then he holds the cane in a more aggressive way and looks at where the blood is. He tries to think of another way the blood and dents could have gotten there. “Even if he tripped and busted his leg or cut open his palms it would be in handprints and the cane would have never touched his leg.”

He stands heart thumping, “I’m going to the police.” Susan gets up, “I’ll go with you, I should report the needle marks too, it’s possible that he was being abused.” 

The questioning experience was horrible, they were both now number one suspects and Kris had a feeling that they wouldn’t even take the possibility that he was hit by his own cane by someone seriously. Especially after the, ‘Are you sure he didn’t do it to himself?’ Question. Holding his head in his hands he groans again in frustration, “And now we can’t even search for him until the police clear that it wasn’t us, why are they so stupid!”

“Kris please calm down, they wrote down everything we said right?” 

“Yeeess, I didn’t see their notes though.” 

Susan is quiet, “Well you know better than I the backlash they’d get if it got out that potential… murder and evidence was reported and they did nothing about it.” 

Kris relaxes a little bit. “So what do we do?” 

“We both have eye witnesses that prove we weren’t with him when he disappeared, we wait to be cleared and then scrounge up more and more evidence so that they have to listen to us.” 

“And if they don’t?”

“We release the information to the news.”

“What if the news doesn’t want to publish the story?”

“Are you kidding me? They love the whole, ‘disabled person gets ignored by police’ bit. Besides, I'd probably upload it to the internet first.” Susan sighs, “I just hate that they’re making it so hard, he’s already been lost for four days.”

“They’re going to be looking for his body now,” Kris says depressedly, “I feel like there’s a chance he’s still alive, drinking dirty cave water, slowly turning into golem.”

Susan throws their pillow at him, “You’re awful!”

“Making insensitive jokes is the only thing keeping me from having a breakdown!” Kris exclaims. 

“I know.” Susan says. The atmosphere gets heavy and dark again. 

“You don’t think he ran off because I yelled at his dad, right?” Kris sits down next to his partner. They hug him comfortingly, “No, I’m convinced he was being abused and that either the abuser or a random person tricked him to go with them.” 

Kris slumps onto the bed, “Let’s try to get some sleep, I’m sure he’s fine, he has to be.”