Chapter 9: Trapped Beneath the Rubble

“Ughhh…” Seifer moaned as he pushed himself up off of the hard, rock ground with his bad hand. All around him it was as dark as a moonless night. He couldn’t see a foot in front of his face. Seifer thought quickly and remembered his magic. Raising his good hand up into the air, he called upon the remains of his fire magic. He held the flaming ball high, lighting up the entire room. Ellone sat on the floor rubbing her head not even five feet from him. Seifer cast about the floor and found a large stick that he could light up as if it were a torch.

“Are you alright?” asked Seifer, holding his newly light stick high and offering to help Ellone up off of the floor.

“I’m okay,” Ellone answered, accepting his hand to help pull herself up off of the ground. “Good thing you knew about this little cave, though.”

Seifer sighed as he looked at the wall of gravel, rock, and dirt that blocked the entrance…and only exit…to the little cavern that had sheltered Ellone and himself from the blast. “Yeah, we’re alive, for now.”

“Oh, I hope Zell’s alright…” Ellone folded her arms across her chest and shuttered at the thought of what might have happened to her friend.

Seifer laughed, “You don’t have to worry about that. After all, there’s no food or water in this cavern, and we’ll never be able to break through that wall. We’ll be seeing ol’ Zelly-boy sooner than you think.”

“Please, don’t say things like that,” she whispered under her breath, obviously taken aback by Seifer’s last comment.

“It’s easier to deal with the truth than to have false hopes,” Seifer shrugged.

Ellone opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of the idea. Instead, she decided that changing the subject to a happier, or at least more productive line of thought, might be a good place to start.

“You’re hurt,” Ellone pointed to Seifer’s hand. “Come over here and sit down beside me. I don’t have any Cure magic, but I do have a first aid kit.”

Seifer smiled, “A first aid kit? Where did you get a thing like that?!?!”

Ellone laughed, “Quisty gave it to me. Just in case I found you guys and you were injured really, really badly.”

“That sound about right,” Seifer nodded as he scanned the floor for twigs, leaves, and anything else that he could use to make a fire. Finally, he had collected a little pile situated in front of the oddly shaped rock that Ellone had picked out as a sort of “bench”. Bending down, he held the torch to the pile until the flame caught.

“Alright,” Seifer sat down on the rock next to Ellone. “Didn’t you say something about a first aid kit?”

Ellone smiled and nodded. She picked up her knapsack and began fumbling through its contents. “Here it is!”

Seifer took the small white box from her hands and examined it with a look of disgust. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

“Give me that!” Ellone yelled defensively as she snatched back the kit. “Look, it’s not that bad. It has all these cleaning sprays, bandages, and…WATER!!!”

“Water?” Seifer peered at the opened first aid box.

Ellone smiled, “See, I told you. Things are looking better already.”

“Where IS she?” Quistis mumbled to herself as she looked at her watch. “She’s an hour late….”

“Hey, Sephie? Quisty?” Irvine poked his head out of the cockpit’s door. “I don’t think we should wait any longer.”

Selphie sighed, “Ellone’s just got held up….she’ll be here.”

“I hope nothing bad has happened to her,” Quistis said, more to herself than to the others in the room. “Irvine’s right, though. We can’t stay here waiting for her.”

“Alrighty then,” Irvine opened the exit hatch and held out his hand to Selphie. “Ma’am, ladies first.”

Irvine helped each girl in turn down the first steep step of the exit hatch that led to the boarding ramp, tipping his hat as they past, and finally getting off himself right after Raijin.

“Now,” Irvine rubbed his hands together in anticipation, “everybody ready?”

“Ready to go!” Selphie jumped up and down with excitement.

Quistis took one last look up and down the shoreline before nodding to Raijin to begin leading them to this cave that they’d been hearing about for the last hour and a half or so.

“It’s this way, ya know,” Raijin told the group proudly and began to march off into the forest with the three SeeD agent’s following close behind.

They turned this way and that, through high grass, plants, and swamp ground. Finally, Raijin stopped.

“Are we there?” Selphie, who had been trailing behind, asked the group when she reached the place where they were all sitting on a large fallen tree trunk. “Or are we just resting…”

“No, it’s just over this trunk,” Quistis answered just before gulping down a few mouthfuls of water.

“Ugh,” Selphie groaned, “I hate tree’s.”

Irvine laughed, “Don’t worry, Sephie. I’ll jus’ throw ya over it.”

“Sure you could do that,” Selphie answered sarcastically.

“Okay, you two,” Quistis stood up and brushed herself off, “Let’s get this over with.”

Raijin jumped up and walked over to the fallen tree and grabbed a hold. In a few minutes, he was sitting on the top with Quistis right beside him. They lent a hand to Selphie and Irvine, making sure his girlfriend made it up all right, picked up the rear. Going down was much easier. They simply jumped. As they straightened their clothes and fixed their hair, Raijin pointed to the cave. It was right there, and went into the wall of an oddly shaped bluff.

“Time’s a wastin’,” Irvine announced as he grabbed the nearest stick he could find, took out his lighter and made them a torch.

Quistis sighed, “What are we waiting for?”

“Ah, more crackers!” Ellone’s face popped back into view after having been hidden in her backpack for the last five minutes.

“Seifer reached over with his newly bandaged hand and took the box from her, “That makes two boxes of crackers, two apples, one salami sandwich, one peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bag of cookies, and one small bags of chips.”

“Poor Quisty, I can’t believe I accidentally took her lunch bag along with my own,” Ellone sighed.

Seifer cocked his eyebrows and smiled, “Lucky for us…if you hadn’t, we couldn’t even think about surviving in this prison. I’m sure if we make it, Quistis will be very pleased to know that her lunch fed me and kept me alive….”

Ellone giggled, “Oh yes, she’ll be so happy, but not as happy as Squall.”

“Squall?” Seifer hesitated, “How’s he doin’?”

“Alright, I guess,” Ellone shrugged. “He’s had a little to much to handle lately, and us being trapped isn’t going to help matters any.”

Seifer chuckled, “He’s goin’ to kill me when we get out of here.”

Ellone shook her head, “You’re exaggerating.”

“Just you wait and see..the minute we get out of here, Squall will hug you and then tell me how this was all my fault and how he’s going to get to the bottom of this, blah, blah, blah,….” Seifer looked at the floor, obviously disgusted at the thought of the meeting.

“Squall’s not that bad,” Ellone but her arm around Seifer’s shoulder in hopes of comforting him at least a little. “He’ll understand, after all you did save me. It’s true, he hasn’t been in the best of moods lately.”

“Yeah, he hasn’t been fun at all since the trouble at Trabia started,” said Seifer without thinking.

“What’s that suppose to mean?” Ellone looked at him as if she didn’t know that Seifer liked to tease Squall constantly.

“Nothing,” Seifer answered defensively, but Ellone was still looking at him strangely so he began on a different topic. “And Rinoa…how was she?”

“She’s fine,” Ellone smiled. “She’s been really happy lately.”

“Yeah, people tend to get like that when they’re going to have a baby,” Seifer casually commented.

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