The Antelope's Journey

18. Lava

Betty would not want to rest. She was exhausted, hungry and mostly impatient. Still, she did not want to rest. Mbali had been nagging that they take a rest for hours now but Betty kept pushing forward. She only wanted to finish this thing already, and rest would only hold them back. She never thought that she would be stuck in the ‘game’ this long. This was pissing her off. The previous night, she had them walking, and all morning as well.

“Come on, Betty!” Mbali cried. “I said, we should rest!” Mbali was losing her mind. She was losing her sanity and Betty’s unfeeling behaviour contributed to that. Mbali was becoming frustrated and unstable. She rushed forward to grab Betty’s top from the back and pulled on it. Betty vigorously snatched herself back.

“What is wrong with you!”

“No, Betty!” Mbali cried back, “What is wrong with you! I’m tired…” she would take pauses to calm herself down, “…hungry and frustrated.”

“I just wanna finish this, Mbali. I—” Betty’s words would not align. She took out a piece of paper. On it were tally markings, “I’ve been writing this. 6 months!” Tears started rolling down Betty’s face, “We’ve been in here for 6 months now and people keep dying. And I—”

THUD!

They both turned to look back. Kali had collapsed. He must’ve been extremely tired. And hungry. He had been mum the entire journey. After what he did to Francina, he’d spiralled down into a pit of sorrow. When talked to, he would give no response. When approached, he would withdraw. There was a dreadful silence around him. Even Monkey would not dare bother him. Monkey would normally climb to the top of his head and go back around his shoulders. Monkey would basically be restless on normal occasions. Instead, that time, Monkey kept herself out of sight. She climbed into the backpack and stayed there. She slept the whole journey since they left Francina. The others had learned not to bother with him anymore.

Throughout the entire journey, since the loss of the last member, he had only been tagging along and doing whatever they were doing. No words were spilled. Now, he’d collapsed and no-one saw the signs beforehand. This sat very badly on Betty and Mbali. Kali was the youngest among them and to them, he was still a kid. They felt as though they failed their first adult(ing) test. This was an unsettling guilt for them, considering that they were planning on having a child of their own.

They had woken him up, given him water and prepared bat-meat for him to eat. They found baby bats hanging in the holes of the cave—somewhere dark and hidden. The mother-bat was not in sight, and so it was easy to catch the prey. It took Kali to faint for them to finally take a break and eat. It was not a delicious meal at all, since there was no seasoning and side dishes, but they made-do. They had to burn some of their clothes to keep the fire burning. Monkey was a vegetarian. Kali had remembered to bring along fruit and veggies for her. The supplies were spoiling, but these were adverse times and so the monkey only ate without the choice of being picky.

The ground started shaking and an earthly roar vibrated along the walls of the tunnel. Each one of them could suddenly feel a heat in the atmosphere.

“Oh, no. Not another obstacle,” moaned Betty.

“What is it?”

A sudden epiphany, “Lava.” Kali said, “We are in the lava tunnel. A lava tube.”

They had no idea where the lava would be coming from. “The heat is high,” Kali warned, “we have to get out now!” All they knew was that they had to find a way out and fast. They ran. They went through a few more opening tunnels. The torch in Betty’s hand started flickering. At some point, it shut off. “We have run out of battery!”

Now they had to cling on walls, hold hands and use their intuition to get moving—and moving together. They would trip, run into walls and stomp into ponds. The roar of the lava was rumbling along, the ground was even quakier and the heat could almost bake them alive. The heat was becoming too much that they had such difficulty breathing. They were well aware that their lives were in danger. More danger than they had ever been before. Mind that, they could see nothing and nor could they trace where the heat was coming from—it had already filled up the entire atmosphere. In fact, they could be walking straight towards the lava. Each one of them had a single question roaming in mind.

“Will we survive?”