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Snakes on a Plane                                                                   Chapter   1   2   3   5   6   7   8

by spikeNdru

Written for the Snakes on a Plane Challenge.  Any fandom, anything goes, as long as there are snakes on a plane somewhere in the story.

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Genfic, Action/Adventure

Story takes place in the Wishverse

 

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Chapter Four

Buffy stretched her arms out in front of her, placed the palm of her left hand over the back of her right and kicked hard with her legs. Her body slipped into the tunnel and she opened her eyes. She felt a moment of disorientation when she couldn't see anything. The darkness was absolute. She hadn't taken into consideration the fact that the above-ground world is seldom completely dark. There is generally some ambient light source; even as far from civilization as she seemed to be, there was still the moon or the stars. Here—underground and underwater—there was nothing. She fought down the atavistic fear of the dark that seems to be hard-wired into the human species and metaphorically smacked herself in the head for not having decided to hold her mag light in front of her as she swam. Oh, wait! She had thought about it, on some level of consciousness, and decided against it. She realized now that she'd been afraid she'd drop the light and not be able to recover it, or that she'd need her hands free to pull herself along the tunnel. Both were good reasons for safely stowing her only source of light in the safety of her pocket, with the flap buttoned closed. But she hadn't realized it would be this dark.

She felt the panic rising in her and concentrated on flutter kicking with her legs. She'd never been claustrophobic before, to her knowledge, and this was certainly a piss-poor time to develop a sense of claustrophobia! She gritted her teeth and silently muttered to herself: I am not claustrophobic, I am not claustrophobic, I am not stuck in a tiny space that seems to be getting smaller . . . is it getting smaller? The walls aren't really closing in—they can't be; it's just my imagination. I am not claustrophobic!

She kicked her feet harder, until her left shoulder wedged against a rough spot and she felt her panic soar to new heights. She frantically twisted her body in an attempt to dislodge the obstacle. Her heart thudded loudly, roaring in her ears, and she could hear the blood pumping through her veins and arteries. She kicked as hard as she could, felt the cloth of her shirt tear on something jagged and there was a feeling of warmth on her shoulder although the rest of her body was ice cold. She couldn't feel the cut or scrape that she knew must be the source of that warmth, and hoped it wasn't too deep, but at least she was free.

Free? Laughter tinged with insane cackling sounded in her head. Free? She was trapped underwater with no light and no air in a rapidly shrinking tunnel—“free” was about the last word she'd use to describe her predicament, although “comfortable” and “serene” would probably be right up there at the top of the list.

Her lungs burned and she had to force herself not to expel the remainder of her air and take in a nice, refreshing lungful of spring water. Dark red spots in the corners of her vision relieved the total blackness, which was kind of nice, for a change.

Buffy felt lightheaded and knew that if she lost consciousness, she would die. The moment her brain and her will lost control, her stupid body would attempt to breathe, and she'd drown. Would that be so bad? a traitorous voice whispered from somewhere inside her. She felt herself falling into a pair of electric blue eyes, exactly the color of the neon tetra fish she'd had as a child. A sneering mouth whispered against her ear “Every slayer has a death wish.” She drew back her right hand to punch him in the nose. “Not me!” she snarled. Her hand thrust out, and instead of feeling the satisfying crack as her fist connected with flesh, her fingers curled around an edge. An edge. That means something. What? Oh, yeah. It means the end of this fucking tunnel, that's what it means!

She grasped the edge and dragged her body forward. She was no longer in a restricted space, like a sausage being drawn through a casing. She could move her arms and legs freely. Well, what the hell are you waiting for? Do it! She angled her body toward what she hoped was “up” and kicked with all the power she could send to her numb legs. Her head broke the surface and she gasped for air, laughing and crying simultaneously.

She began to tread water as she sucked air deeply into her lungs. Her right hand brushed against rock and she slid her hand up the rock wall until it made a ninety degree turn. She placed both hands on the flat surface and rested until her breathing stabilized. She took a deep breath, kicked hard with her feet, put her weight on her hands and vaulted out of the pool. She lay shivering on the cold stone floor and laughed. She'd done it! She'd made it through the tunnel safely. She tried to remember her goal in doing so. Oh, yeah. To explore. Now she could explore.

She tried to get to her feet, but her legs felt like cooked spaghetti. What's with all the food metaphors? she thought. Sausage? Spaghetti? Mmm . . . spaghetti with Italian hot sausage. I wonder if there's any spaghetti in the MREs, 'cause I could eat a whole plateful right about now! Yep. Just as soon as I get a little rest. Rest would be good. I'm so tired . . .

As the last of the adrenaline faded from her system, Buffy rested her head on her forearm, curled into a ball and slept.

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Buffy awakened sometime later, sore and stiff, but unquestionably alive. She stretched, and felt a twinge in her left shoulder where she'd cut it in the tunnel, but otherwise seemed to be intact. Fuck you, Bleach Boy—I'm alive! She fumbled for the button on the side pocket of her cargo pants and withdrew her mag light. She thumbed it on, and then threw her left arm over her eyes, as what felt like the brightness of a nuclear explosion seared her retinas. She took several quick peeks through the screen of her lashes until her eyes adjusted to the light. She blinked rapidly to dispel the after-image the initial flash of light had caused, and then looked around at her surroundings.

She was in a cavern of some kind, sitting on an apron of flat rock beside the pool. Golden brackets—which must have held torches in the distant past—were attached to the wall at intervals. The rock face was blackened above them where the open fire from the torches had stained the walls.

To her right, a set of stone steps had been cut into the rock leading up. Up is good, Buffy thought. She continued to shine the light around the cavern. She gasped loudly and almost dropped the light when she saw what was behind her.

A huge stone face appeared to be emerging from the rock wall behind her, over the tunnel she had come through. The forehead was curiously flat and sloped backwards over a jutting nose. The mouth was an east-west oval and showed squared-off teeth behind it. The ears were large, and gemstones set into the lobes caught the light and reflected it back. The eyes were inlaid with mother-of-pearl that matched the teeth, and surrounded lapis lazuli, with a vertical pupil like a cat's eye, made of some shiny black stone. Buffy shuddered and was glad that she hadn't kept the armband that had attracted her. She got the feeling that if she had, it would provide a link of some kind to this god . . . demon . . . whatever it was, and that would not be a good thing.

She turned away from the face, and a shiver fluttered down her spine. She abruptly shone the light back on the face, but there was no discernible change in it. Buffy snorted, dismissing the thought that while her back was turned the thing could be clawing its way out of the rock that imprisoned it. That was just crazy! The thing was carved out of rock—it wasn't alive!

Still, Buffy hurried to the stone stairs; the hairs on the back of her neck continued to prickle as she went.

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The stairs were narrow and steep. Buffy moved carefully. If she fell and injured herself, there would be no help from any source. The ceiling sloped downwards and Buffy's head nearly brushed the rock surface. Anyone taller than she would have had to stoop.

She had climbed twenty-four of the steps that were so narrow she had to walk on the balls of her feet, when she came to what appeared to be a dead end. The stone slab blocking her way was carved with a series of slashes in the rock that may have been words or numbers in a language she couldn't read. The Watchers are the ones with all the knowledge about ancient languages, not the Slayers, she thought to herself. Which really sucks at times like this when there doesn't happen to be a Watcher around. How the hell am I supposed to read this, if it actually says something and isn't just random scratches!

Buffy shone her mag light carefully over the slab of rock. This wasn't a random rockfall—it had been deliberately placed there. It might be a door, but there was no convenient handle or door knob. She'd just have to figure out how it worked, Buffy decided. Her only other option was another trip back through the tunnel, and she didn't think she could force her body to undertake that swim twice in one day!

She moved her hand over the carvings from left to right and nothing happened. She tried going backwards, from right to left—didn't some of the ancient languages, like Hebrew, read backwards? Unfortunately, the people who carved this door didn't seem to be Hebrews, because that didn't work either. Buffy studied the pattern again. She tried touching every other slash, every third mark, every fourth one, every fifth—was that a click? Buffy leaned on the slab of rock and pushed. She was sure she felt the rock give. She placed her left palm flat on the rock, used her right hand to carefully trace every fifth carving and pushed with slayer strength. The rock door swung on some kind of invisible hinge until it came to a grinding halt perpendicular to the surrounding rock. Buffy squeezed through the space and found herself on a flat landing facing two more possible doors—one directly in front of her, one to her right. She couldn't even attempt to open either until the original door had returned to its former closed state.

Buffy considered carefully. The swim through the tunnel was scary and dangerous, but at least she knew it was a way out. What if she closed the door she had just come through and couldn't open it again from this side? If she did that, and couldn't figure out the pattern of either of these new potential doors, she'd be stuck on this small landing forever! What the hell should she do?

Buffy weighed the known terror of the swim against the unknown fear of being unable to either advance further or return. The possibility of drowning vs suffocating/starving to death. Neither option was at all attractive. She'd gotten through the tunnel once—she could do it again. On the other hand . . . she'd solved the pattern to unlock the first door. Even if each lock was different, trial and error would probably see her through—if her mag light continued to function.

Buffy took a deep breath and made her decision. The option of being on her feet, able to breathe—at least as long as the air held out—was marginally more attractive than the alternative. She closed the door behind her with the soft sound of rock brushing against itself, and shone her light on the carvings directly in front of her. She was guessing that the door on her right led to a lateral passageway and the door in front of her continued to lead upward. It made sense. And, if she was wrong, she could always try the other door.

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Buffy continued to navigate her way through the pyramid, always choosing the door that seemed most likely to lead upwards. She faced two more possibly lateral choices and wondered where they led. Weariness overrode her curiosity for the moment, and she just wanted out. As she got more adept at solving the locking mechanisms she thought she might like to explore further—at a time that wasn't now.

The passageway grew narrower and the steps steeper the higher she climbed, until she found herself pretty much in push-up position, using the tips of her fingers and toes to balance on the stairs, which had shrunk to little more than a depth of four inches. She was becoming dizzy from the poor quality of the musty air that had obviously been stagnating for centuries. She began to pant, filtering the air through her mouth. Buffy pulled herself up three more stairs and stopped to rest. Was it her imagination, or did she feel a breath of air on her left cheek?

She gripped the stair ledge tightly with her right hand and ran her left over the wall beside her. There was a definite horizontal crack in the rock. Buffy crossed her left foot over her right and felt around until she found purchase on the next step. She crab-walked on her right side up several more stairs as she continued to explore the left wall with her hand. This was definitely some kind of door, but there was no way it opened like the others she had encountered.

The previous doors she had come through resembled those revolving glass doors that swung in a circle which could be found in various older buildings in Cleveland. Buffy didn't have a clue what they were called, but you stepped in one of the pie wedge-shaped spaces and pushed on the enclosing glass until you arrived at a second opening opposite where you had come in. The rock doors she had seen so far operated on that principle, without the enclosing glass, of course.

The possible door she was now tracing with her hand was much smaller—more the size of a large pizza box—and it appeared to open up and down like a garage door, rather than side-to-side like the revolving glass doors. But she could definitely feel the night air on her fingers as she felt around the opening. If there was only something she could slip into the crack and use for leverage, she bet she could get it open!

Buffy felt in all the pockets of her cargo pants, looking for something to use. Fuck! There was nothing! Nothing at all. She slapped the wall with the palm of her hand in frustration and, with a grinding sound, the rock moved. A thin slab of rock bisected the opening, leaving about eight inches above the door and eight inches below, but the fresh air coming in through the opening revived her.

Buffy twisted her body in the narrow stairwell, wedging her back against the right-hand wall and clinging to the step/ledges above and below her with each hand. She drew her knees up to her chest and kicked out at the relatively thin rock standing between her and the fresh air. She heard a cracking sound and kicked again. Her third kick splintered the rock barrier and she tumbled through the pizza box sized opening to land with a splash. She looked up at the hole in the ceiling and laughed. She laughed harder and harder, splashing the water in her inflatable dingy as she laughed, until her laughter turned into gasps and wheezes. Buffy climbed out of her makeshift bathtub and shook herself like a dog.

She piled wood in her fire pit and shoved dried vines and grasses randomly into the pile to act as kindling. She struck one of her safety matches and cupped her hand around the flame as she touched it to the dry vegetation. When her fire was drawing nicely, Buffy looked through her store of MREs and decided that tonight she'd have two dinners.

Buffy figured she'd earned them.

 

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Continue to  Chapter Five

 

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