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CH 4

Way Out

Aeddan stepped into the veil of darkness and was instantly blind. He couldn't see a single thing, this darkness was the essence of dispare and felt like it was sucking the life from him. If it wasn't for Miia next to him, supporting him so he could walk, he would have gone mad from the fear that had invaded his mind.

"close your eyes a for a little bit" Miia said to his left.

"huh?"

"just do it, trust me on this one. You may know a lot but this is a trick i learned a while back as a kitten" Miia said "just shut your eyes for about five minutes. It really does help"

"fine, but i've never heard of this trick before" Aeddan said reluctantly, cloing his eyes.

"and you won't unless you talk with and hang out with thieves" Miia said smuggly, giving Aeddan a pat on his rump.

"Hey!" Aeddan exlaimed, opening his eyes.

When Aeddan opened his eyes the darkness was less dark and it no longer felt like it was sucking the life from him. Infact, Aeddan began to notice shapes and familiar forms. Soon he was begining to see depth and not just shapes and forms. Aeddan held out his right paw in front of him and he could start to see each of his indevidual digits. Aeddan looked to his left, towards Miia. Her eyes were glowing like blue flaming disks.

"Wah! Do your eyes always do that? Glow i mean" Aeddan said startled and a little disturbed by what he saw.

"your eyes are doing it too you know, they're like burnished greenish gold disks" Miia retorted "here, watch this" Miia tilted her head slightly and he eyes seemd to extinguish them selves.

"woah, that's acctualy kind of cool. I know a lot but this is new to me. You'll need to explain it to me some time later" Aeddan said, taken slightly aback by the fact Miia knew some thing he did not. "i think my eyes have gotten used to the darkness now, i can see things much more clearly now. We should get going or we could end up being left behind by the others" Aeddan concluded taking a hop step further in to the shadows.

"right, we need to go this way" Miia said, turning Aeddan in a direction while supporting him.

The two of them soon reached a tunnle in the side of the crevas wall. It was ten feet high and eight feet wide. From what the two of them could tell it looked to be carved out of the stone by hand. Aeddan suspected how ever that since they were still in a training facility, that it was made using drills and blasting equipment and was then gone over with chizzles and hammers to make it look old and authentic. Also as far as Aeddan could tell, the tunnel seemed to stretch far enough that it was dark at the end.

"ready?" Miia asked, her eyes aglow again.

"ready as i'll ever be. Let's see where this goes. And if it's a dead end, then we turn back and wait to see if the others come looking for us" Aeddan answered, turning to look at Miia "besides, I've got the only map and compass right here" he said patting his slightly bulging front pocket of his pants where he kept the map and compass.

The two slowly made their way in silence through the tunnel, the lioness supporting the folf willingly with her shoulder. If this was seen in the outside world on a random street in a random city, it would probably cause quite a stir. You see, things were not black and white any more with canis and feline type anthros, but they were darker and lighter shades of grey that seemed to somehow still create animosity between the two racial cultures. Sometimes this animosity would boil over a bit and a fight or two would break out. Sometimes it would even happen in broad day light in front of the general public. The worst part of it was that these conflicts seemed to affect the other races, and sometimes an innocent bystander would get caught in a said conflict. But sometimes there was an individual or two that got along with the other race because of some connection they shared, or they just seemed to have a fondness for the opposing race. This was usually frowned upon in both cultures and would sometimes come with consequences. It seemed that both Aeddan and Miia shared a connection and fondness for each other that went beyond the animosity that their two races usually had for each other.

It wasn't long until Aeddan and Miia were engulfed in a darker darkness again, a dark enough darkness that made it almost impossible for either Aeddan or Miia to clearly see properly, and that's when it happened. Aeddan was beginning to feel a little better and was trying to walk on his turned ankle when suddenly he tripped.

"Whoa" Aeddan said as he began to fall for the third time that night.

"I got you" Miia said catching Aeddan. But she didn't have him "ahhh" Miia exclaimed as then she began to fall. Unfortunately she was still holding on to Aeddan when she did fall.

Miia hit the ground with a thump, and then Aeddan with a muffled wump as he landed on top of her. Their legs and tails had become tangled together so that didn't help their matter. It did however trigger a series of events that would happen later on down the road.

"Owww, that hurt" Aeddan said, pushing himself up on to paws and knees. The sight that met his eyes was like that out of one those vanilla mangas that otakus are so fascinated with. For underneath Aeddan, Miia was sprawled out like one of those 'random encounter girls' that the main character seems to always bump into at the beginning of the series.

"Mew!" Miia exclaimed with cute embarrassment "don't look at me, It's embarrassing" she said covering her face with her paws.

For some reason Aeddan couldn't not look at her right now. Something was beginning to stir in him as he looked at her sprawled out like that. It wasn't anything he had experienced before. All the same he shuffled on his paws and knees backwards until he was no longer standing over Miia. He then looked back to see what he had tripped over. What Aeddan saw had a familiar, yet different shape to it. It was odd, it was like Aeddan had seen it somewhere...

"Of course!" Aeddan exclaimed excitedly, reaching for the shape. Sure enough, Aeddan was correct in his assumption on what he had found.

"What? What is it?" Miia asked from behind her paws.

"You can remove your paws now. Just come over here and see what I found" Aeddan said, excitement still in his voice.

As Miia picked herself up, Aeddan began to brush away the sand from the object that had tripped him. Soon he had uncovered a good couple inches of the object. Aeddan shuffled back to confirm what he had uncovered.

"What is it?" Miia asked, looking over Aeddan's shoulder.

"Well unless I am mistaken, this is a supply crate" Aeddan said running his paw over the surface. It was cold to the touch and smooth too. "I think it's made of metal" Aeddan said, brushing a small pile of sand he missed off the crate.

"How do we open it?" Miia asked giving it a tap.

"Well, first we need to get it out of sand so we know how big it is" Aeddan answered, beginning to shovel more sand away from the area around the crate.

The crate it's self was about four feet in length and about two and a half feet wide. As far as Aeddan and Miia could tell, it was made of some kind of metal. Probably a metal that didn't rust very easily but was strong enough that it could be walked on and not be dented. As Aeddan and Miia uncovered the crate, it became more apparent that it was really a chest if anything. This piqued Aeddan's curiosity a bit. He had read in history tomes, adventure novels and diving books that chests usually held items of high value or worth. Remembering this only made Aeddan shovel sand out of the way faster. Soon, between the two of them, they had uncovered a good foot and a half of the chest. Testing the chest, Aeddan rocked it a little, confirming that the chest was now free of the sand.

"Ok, I think we can open it now" Aeddan said sitting back against the slightly inclined pit the two had dug.

"Yes, but how? I don't see a latch, a lid or anything on it that would let us open it" Miia said coming to sit next to Aeddan "how do we open something that has no way to open it?" she asked feeling a bit frustrated.

"Hold on, let me check something" Aeddan said getting back on his paws and knees again. Aeddan began brushing away the sand on one of the long sides of the chest, hoping that his hunch was correct. To say the least, it was. Aeddan had brushed away the sand to reveille two hinges on the bottom of the chest.

"Well there's the problem, the crate was buried upside down" Aeddan said with a laugh "help me flip it over"

It was the first time in a while that Aeddan had found something that made him smile. Why it made him smile and give him something to chuckle about he didn't know. All the same though, the last time he had smiled was when he was in the car on the day of his parent's death.

"What's so funny?" Miia inquired, wearing a look that said 'you're being weird' upon her face.

"I have no idea, just come over here and help me flip this. It's going to take the two of us to do it" Aeddan said taking hold of one side as Miia did the other "ok, one...two...three"

The two of them pushed the crate until it was on its side. They repeated this process again, each grabbing a side, and then flipped it over right side up. The crate was rather heavy so it wasn't as easy as just giving it a push. The two of them had to give it a good shove for them to just get it on its side, and then another good shove to get it up right. The crate, now right side up, revealed that it had a simple dual latch keeping the lid locked down.

"Well at least this part is simple enough" Miia said popping open both latches with a quick upward flick with both her paws "ready to see what goodies we found?"

"I seem to have been asked that a lot lately, but yeah" Aeddan said, gripping one side of the lid while Miia took the other "on the count of three. One...two...three".

The lid was actually rather heavy, like a lot of the weight seemed to be in the lid and not the items in side. As the two of them struggled to lift the heavy lid, a small hissing noise like air escaping from a blow up beach ball came from the opening. The crate apparently had been sealed and all the air sucked out of it to preserve what was inside. Because once the air pressure inside the crate was equal to air pressure outside, it opened rather easily. Unfortunately Aeddan and Miia were not expecting this, and once the lid had lost its suction they fell backwards; kind of like how in tug-of-war if one team just lets go it sends the opposing flying.

"Owww, am I the only one getting hurt today?" Aeddan moaned rubbing the back of his head where he had hit the sand.

"No, because now I hurt too" Miia also moaned, rubbing the area where her tail connected to her "at least we opened it".

"Yeah, I just hope it was worth getting hurt for" Aeddan said moving over to crate "hey Miia, it was worth it".

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

"YAWN, that was a good nap. Guess I'm next on watch duty" Marcus said, still yawning a little bit as he got up "now where did those two go to?" Marcus began to wander along the same path Aeddan and Miia had taken looking for the two of them.

Marcus was the "other loser" as he had pulled the third shortest "straw". He was meant to relieve Aeddan and then a little bit later Melody was supposed to relieve Miia. Marcus thought it unfair that Aeddan would have first watch even though he had done so much to help the group already. Marcus had even offered Aeddan a trade but Aeddan had told him it was ok and he was just unlucky this time.

"How Aeddan is able to keep going like this is beyond even what I can do. Poor guy must be running on adrenaline, he's going to crash here at some point" Marcus thought passing by the crevasse Aeddan and Miia had fallen down in to. A flash of reflected "moon" light hit Marcus in the eye making him turn to look for the source. It was the other knife that Aeddan had had on him when he went on watch duty.

Marcus rushed to the edge of the crevasse, careful to not fall in himself, and picked up the knife. "They must have fallen in" Marcus thought to himself "I need to get the others".

Marcus rushed back to where the others were sleeping and went over to Melody. He shook her lightly to rouse her, when that didn't work he shook her a little harder and said "Melody, Melody wake up. Melody!" this roused her from her sleep.

Melody was the skunk that had helped the shark man earlier today when he had fallen down one of the dunes. She was short, but not small for a skunk at her age. She wore the same outfit as everyone else. Close fitting t-shirt, cargo pants and combat boots. Her stripe down her back was flamed shaped.

"Whaaaat? I was sleeping mom, and I had this very strange dream" Melody said in a voice that would be more appropriate for a teen ager being awakened on a Sunday before noon.

"I'm not your mutter, and you weren't dreaming, now wake up" Marcus said giving Melody another little shake "we have a problem and I need every one awake so we can figure something out" Marcus said moving on to the next anthro. Soon the rest of the group was awake, and some a little grumpier than others.

"Why did wake us you drake? Do you even know what toime it is?" the snow leopard asked with a heavy cockney accent.

"No I don't, and neither do you. If you hadn't noticed none of us have watches" Marcus retorted.

"Then why are we awake?" the shark man asked through his respirator, his voice hissing slightly like pressurized water escaping a power washer nozzle.

"Well if you really must know, Aeddan and Miia are missing and I think I know what happened" Marcus answered haughtily.

"Awwww, who gives a damn if'n the li'l shit and that worthless skin rug of a lioness got in t' trouble" the southern wolf said from the back of the group.

"And who are you again?" Marcus asked the southern wolf.

"Ma' name be Johnny McLaren the third. But all y'all can call me mista' McLaren" Johnny said, a smug look spreading across his muzzle and giving an upwards head nod as if to say: "how you doin'"

"Yeah, no. I am calling you Johnny" Marcus said shaking his head "and I can also tell you why everyone here should care. First off, Aeddan has the only map and compass we have in our possession" this brought out a lot of "oh shit" looks.

For those of you who don't know what an "oh shit" look is, think back for a moment to when you told your mother or father that you are going to throw up or something along those lines. That's the look the group had painted across every one of them.

"Two", Marcus continued "Aeddan has a lot of survival info in his head that he is willing to share with us, freely I might add". Marcus paused briefly to let that thought sink in before going on "and three, so far everything we have been able to do so far is because of Aeddan. I very much doubt any of the other teams are as far along as we are considering our situation and where we are" Marcus concluded, gesturing out at the desert biome behind him.

"The Draaagon is rrright. We owe Aeddan a debt. Not to mention he has something we need" the ram bleated in a very goat/sheep/ram like voice you expect.

"Good, glad to see someone here has some sense. Now follow me, I have an idea as to what happened to the two of them" Marcus said jogging off in the direction of the crevasse with the other seven in tow.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Hey Miia, it was worth it" Aeddan said peering in to the crate.

"Oh and how's that?" Miia asked, still rubbing the area where the humans call it the tail bone.

"well check this out" Aeddan said, pulling an un-identifiable bolt action riffle with a shoulder strap out of the crate "now we have a way to defend ourselves"

"Do you even know how to use that?" Miia said, eyeing the rifle with un-easiness "have you even held a gun before?"

"no, but there are a lot of Boy's Life magazines in the library and I have read up on how guns work" Aeddan said pulling the bolt back and forth once to check for any problems with the reload, "there was also this one time the orphanage took all of us to a gun range when Taurus turned fourteen and we all got to shoot a .22 rifle"

"Who's Taurus?" Miia asked, a small but inquisitive frown forming on her brow.

"doesn't matter, let's just say he's not a nice guy and leave it there" Aeddan said putting the riffle across his back like a veteran would, barrel pointed down for a quick draw "now come over here and help me with the other items".

"Other items?" Miia inquired, her interest suddenly piqued.

The other items that they found in the crate were supplies that their team would need to survive longer than a day in the desert. In the crate they found another seven canteens of water make the total count now ten. That meant one for each of them. Along with the seven canteens they found a few bags of MREs, enough to feed the ten of them for two days.

"If we ration them properly" Aeddan thought to himself.

For those of you who have no idea what MRE stands for, but know what they are. MRE stands for Meals Ready to Eat, and they are primarily used by the military to feed soldiers out in the field. All the soldier has to do is add some water to the bag and a chemical reaction heats and cooks the food in the bag in anywhere from five minutes to seven minutes depending on the dish.

Amongst the survival supplies they also found another combat knife, which they set aside. They found about fifteen clips of five .6mm rounds in a leather bag, which they also set aside next to the knife. A large bundle of nylon rope that weighed quite a bit all on its own, and a black military GI style large ALICE pack. Which they found to be empty unfortunately. The last thing they found were very large water purifier tablets in a clear, plastic cylinder.

"Guess that's all of it" Aeddan said, sounding a little disappointed.

"Well at least we have more food and water...this is food right?" Miia asked holding up one of the MREs, looking at it suspiciously.

"Yeah, I'll show you later how it works. Right now we still need to find the way out of here" Aeddan answered smiling at Miia's reaction to the MREs as he packed the food, water, and other supplies minus a couple of clips which he put in the two back pockets of his pants. "Here, I can't carry this pack but I can manage walking now that I have this" Aeddan said flourishing the gun butt first.

"Well I guess, come on. Let's see how much farther we have to go" Miia said hefting the pack.

The two set out down the tunnel, only to discover they had reached the end. The tunnel just stopped, it didn't split off in any direction or even come to a taper, It just stopped.

"Well now what do we do? How do we get out of here?" Aeddan thought, panic rising in him again. As if on cue Aeddan heard:

"AHHH!" then "ow" echo down the tunnel.

"They must have realized what happened and come looking for us" Miia said trotting back the way they had come from.

The two of them had found their way out. Not the way Aeddan had expected but the crevasse climbing skills he knew of required two or more people and now there were more than two. As Aeddan was trying to remember how the different knots went Miia snuck up on him, this time from the front, another mischievous smile.

"What? Did I do something funny?" Aeddan asked.

What came next startled Aeddan enough that if it hadn't been for what Miia did, he would have made an exclamation of surprise. Miia gave him quick kiss, the kiss was long enough that he got over the initial shock but short enough that it could have meant anything. And with that Miia pranced away a bit then looked over her shoulder and gave Aeddan a coy little smile.

"Well come on, we should go welcome our rescue party" Miia said innocently like nothing happened.

"Y-yeah, right..." Aeddan stuttered before limping after Miia.

Hey guys, Bleu here again. Hoped you liked this chapter. I realize I left out some details in this chapter, but that was on purpose. You'll find out in the next chapter what happened above ground and who fell down in to the crevasse. But I would also like to give thanks to a couple of you who gave me feedback on my last chapter. Thanks guys, you let me know I was on the right track. I also have my first watcher, yay! And if the ending felt a little quick, I apologize I couldn't find a better way to end the chapter without writing a whole 'nother 3-4 pages. Any who, I should get to bed before I fall asleep "at the wheel". Again thank you for reading, don't forget to leave a comment or shout for me, subscribe if you want, and keep those paws moving. Ciao every one.

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