>Chapter 12<

Walking through the cave, the boys were getting colder and colder the deeper they went. Not only was the temperature changing, but the size of the cave was slowly getting bigger as well. The cave was now 10 meters wide and 9 meters tall so the boys were now slowly walk side by side.

They started seeing some see-through crystals on the cave walls, but they didn't really pay attention to them. The only thing that was weird about the crystals was that they were shining but other than that they were pretty normal compared to the other things they had seen before.

Soon, they arrived at a crossroad. It was divided into two roads.

"So, which way are we going?" Patrick asked.

"Well, before we talk…" Phillip didn't finish his sentence as he went to pick up a stone.

The other boys just silently looked at him as they knew what he was going to do. They saw as Phillip threw the stone into the first passage and they could hear echoes. The some happened with the second passage.

"Well then, let's split up. We still have telepathy after all." Timothy said before continuing. "Me, David and Phillip go into the first one and Patrick goes into the second one with Jacob."

The others just nodded as they didn't really care who goes with whom.

After splitting up, the two groups went their own way for a few minutes before the first group, being Phil, Dave and Tim, found a 'room' if you could call it that. Looking around the boys found something what could be described as a workshop. They could see a wooden table with a chair facing the wall. They also saw some closet made out of the same wood. All the furniture in the room was dilapidated, indicating that it was not used in a long time. Looking at the room the boys wondered why there was no water in here. I mean, this entire cave was underwater, but this whole room was as dry as it could be.

Searching further, the boys opened the wardrobes and found some old clothes. Better than what they were wearing right now though. Next, they moved on to the desk. The desk had 6 drawers in total, 3 on both sides. They started searching the drawers. Nothing of importance was found other than pencils and paper.

"Looks like all the important things were already taken." Phillip said.

"What a pity, could've found something that would've helped us." David sighed in disappointment.

"Hey look over here! This drawer has a lock on it." Tim exclaimed in excitement. "Maybe we'll find something useful."

They approached the drawer and tried to open it with force by pulling on the handle, punching it, but all they got were some splinters in their hand.

"Hmm let's try to find a key or something." Phillip said.

"Ok, I'm going to check the drawers and the desk again." Tim replied.

"Then I'm going to search around the room. Phillip you search the closets again." David said as he looked around.

"Sure." Phillip replied before walking over to the closet.

The boys went around searching and searching for over 10 minutes before Tim said in frustration. "Ah, this is so boring, there is nothing here." before kicking the desk.

As he kicked the desk, a drawer fell out and what was revealed was a small hole in the wall.

"Huh?" Tim exclaimed in wonder.

When the other two boys heard the commotion they came over and saw the small hole in the wall as well.

"Well, looks like we found something." Phillip said as he stretched out his hand and grabbed a key that that was just lying there.

He put the key in the lock and slowly turned it.

*Click*

A clicking sound was heard as the lock was unlocked and fell to the ground. Phillip then proceeded to open the drawer and what they found was a book. They couldn't read the title as most of the letters were washed away by something. Turning to another page, the boys looked at the letter and realized… that they didn't understand the language at all.

"What language is this?" Tim asked as he tried to read the words.

"Hmm, I haven't seen these characters before." Phillip said as David nodded before saying. "Yeah, me neither."

"I would still take this with us you know? Maybe we can learn something from the pictures." Said Tim as he pointed at one of the pictures depicting an animal silhouette behin a human. Though, the animal was a giant black raven.

"I wonder what it's supposed to mean-" Tim didn't get to finish his sentence as they heard a voice in their mind.

(Hey guys! Come over here, we found something!) Patrick shouted excitedly.

The boys looked at each other and immediately sprinted out of the room. Going into the second passage, they ran for 5 minutes before finding Patrick and Jacob standing at the entrance of what looked like a giant hall. They ran over and asked.

"Hey, what was all that abo-?" Tim asked but was interrupted by Patrick.

"Shh, just look ahead."

Tim looked ahead of him and saw a big room, but this one wasn't in the shape of a rectangle. Instead, the room didn't have any particular shape. It was just a big hole with roots on the sides, probably holding the cave up from collapsing. But what caught the attention of the boys was the big pineapple-like fruit in the middle of this space hanging from the ceiling.

The boys wanted to walk over there and just grab a piece of the fruit but stopped them from even moving. The silhouette of the lion that appeared on the outside was sitting next to the fruit, looking at it with hungry eyes.

The boys stood there frozen, not even trying to move, watching from afar.

The lion then looked at the boys and they immediately felt an overbearing pressure surround them. The difference this time was that the pressure wasn't physical, but was affecting something on the inside. It was way worse than what they had felt before.

The lion watching them gave out a snort before it then turned into ash particles that flew toward the boys. The boys covered their eyes with their elbows as the particles flew by them, rustling their clothes and then dispersing into the atmosphere.

The boys just looked on before sighing in relief. They didn't know what that was, but they definitely didn't want to see it again.

Glancing at the big pineapple in the middle of the room, the boys walked towards it before each of them tore a small piece from it.

"Is it safe to eat this?" Patrick asked.

"Well, I don't know, but the feeling it's giving me is the same I got from the apples we ate before." Tim replied while looking at the fruit with a scrutinizing gaze.

"You only live once I guess." David said as he bit into his piece and the others followed up, doing the same…