Something was off.
He had entered the tunnel that morning, as he
planned to, and had seen, as he expected to, abandoned cars and decaying structure
from a lack of maintenance over a long period of time. What he did not expect
or plan for, however, is the tunnel being many miles long. He had walked for
around eight hours and the tunnel showed no obvious signs of ending.
He began to think about turning back and finding a
different route when suddenly the abandoned cars just stopped, and an empty
road stretched ahead. The darkness of the tunnel seemed to deepen down that
empty stretch, and Jack couldn’t see anything past a certain distance. He took
the flashlight out of his pack and shone it down the expanse. While it lit up
the sides of the tunnel, the beam vanished down the center, never illuminating
anything but road and walls.
Jack turned back, determined to investigate the
depths of the tunnel, but knowingly refusing to do so without ample supplies.
The eight hour walk back put him back out front of the tunnel sometime after
dark, so he quickly made his way to the guardtower to sleep.
The next morning, he ventured into the surrounding
area to scavenge for supplies from both the abandoned cars and the lightly
wooded areas. He found batteries, food, a few bullets (only a few of those for
his rifle), and yet another book – this one a copy of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. Satisfied with his
scavenging after a few days, Jack prepared for his trek into the tunnel.
He opted to wait for a new morning, mostly to
assuage the paranoia that was still associated with nights. He killed the time
by reading the book he had found. He fell asleep quickly that night.
He was awoken the next morning by a strange
crackling sound. He stood up and looked out the guardtower to find the plains
at the foot of the mountain set ablaze, with the fire creeping up the side of
the mountain. He quickly gathered his things and took off down the tunnel,
looking back and noticing the glimmer of the flames on the tunnel walls.
This did not help his paranoia.
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