nadiathesaint | The preserve, Wednesday night [NFB]

Nadia didn't notice when the sun went down, tonight.

She didn't notice that Steerpike never came by for his nightly taunt.

She didn't notice these things because she wasn't in the hole, any more. She was in a tiny, cramped, pitch black tunnel that she was slowly and painstakingly digging in a bid for freedom.

As it turned out? Metal artificial limbs made halfway decent digging implements. By the time midnight rolled around, though, she was beginning to wonder if she was screwed. There wasn't enough air in the tunnel, she was exhausted, dehydrated, extremely hungry, filthy, aching . . . she was sure she had some scrapes and cuts that were getting infected. . . . The only thing that kept her digging was inertia. She had a rhythm. Shove the foot into the dirt, scrape it away. Repeat.

Still, she was close to passing out when a sudden flare of light hit her eyes and forced her to close them with a startled gasp.

It took awhile before her eyes adjusted enough for her to be able to see that the light was actually only a dim glow, not a piercing glare. Still, she could feel air moving and see light, and she didn't think she'd ever felt or seen anything better than that in her entire life. She shoved and scraped with renewed energy until the opening was finally enough for her to push herself out of the tunnel and into . . . .

An underground cave system.

Oh for chrissake.

[ooc: establishy, NFB, you get the deal now, yeah?]