Meadow Whisp's Arc

Chapter 4 of 10

The tunnel swallowed the last of the light. Meadow crawled on his elbows, dragging his broken foot behind him. Each pull sent pain up his leg. He could not see his own hands. The passage curved left, then split. Two black mouths opened before him. He had no way to tell which led out and which led down into the earth forever. He pressed his palm to the right wall and felt it. The stone was slick. A thick, oily liquid dripped from a seam and pooled under his fingers. He sniffed it. Sharp, chemical, flammable. His mind raced. If he ever found a spark, this seep could give him fire. But fire needed light, and light needed something he did not have. He wiped his hand on his coat and chose the left passage, guessing. It narrowed fast. Soon his shoulders scraped both walls. He pushed on until his head struck rock. A dead end. His chest tightened. He was wedged in, unable to turn, and his foot screamed when he tried to back out. For a moment he thought the dark had won. Then a sound. Small claws, ticking over stone. Something moved ahead in the black. Meadow froze. A shape brushed his hand. He felt scales, cool and dry, the animal was the size of a house cat It was a lizard. A dragon-thing with a long body and a whipping tail. It did not bite him. It circled his hand, then turned and ticked away down the right passage, the one he had not taken. Meadow understood. The creature led him to an item on the ground a thick set of branches hewn together to form a torch, Now if only he had a way to light it, His mind raced he then realized the oil was flammable but how would he light it? He took his dead torch threw some oil on it took some stones and began to clash them together it worked he now had a torch but he had a new problem the cave was covered in the oil and he had just lit it.