We ran until our chests burned with cold air. She stopped and I bowled into her. I'd heard a lot of words as a kid, but none of the ones she spoke while stumbling to her feet.

"You're a real mole brain, you know that?"

I knew it, and I liked the fact she called me that. Even though I had no idea what a mole brain was.

"Where are we?" I asked.

She shushed me, her breath a sharp whistle that cut the air around us as if it were a knife. I quieted, held my breath, and listened.

It came as a splashing noise first, then when you really listened, you could hear the thunderous roar. A beast resided in this tunnel, one so large and loud that it sent shivers through the dirt making little stones scutter past my feet, running for their lives.

"Is it blind?" I asked.

"You're asking me if a rush can see?"

The question didn't seem so bad. If a creature - this rush - could see, we should avoid it. "Are you going to kill it?"

She chuckled, a little musical laugh that silenced even the thunderous giant. "It can't see, and if I killed it, we'd lose something very precious."

Our lives. We wouldn't want to lose those. But if she didn't want to fight the beast, maybe she too valued survival above all. That could earn me some respect, killing the beast. Then we would be even. She could be my light and I would be her shining star.

She took off, feet padding down the dirt. I followed, racing down the bumps and grooves until her pitter patters stopped. This time I dug my feet into the dirt. Wet dirt. It sent me sliding forward, but I only tapped the bag of her feet with my toes before stopping.

The beast thundered down here. I could hear it breathing, taking big heaving gulps as a sleeping giant would do. It made my bones shake, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Everything in my body told me to run, but she stood, and so I stayed.

"Kneel down and put your face into the rush," she said.

"Won't that wake it up?"

Fingers ran across my neck. She touched me and it made my heart race. Her grip tightened around the flesh, nails digging into my skin.

I needed to survive.

My fist went sailing at the darkness without a second thought. It hit something, hard. She yelped and squeezed my skin, pulling us both down. We hit the belly of the best, its thunderous roar everywhere at once.

I gulped for air. Shards of ice pierced my throat and lungs. It all came so fast. I fought against the world, against the rushing darkness, against the cold that was death which pulled me into its embrace.

Nails pinched skin again. This time they pulled me up, and I didn't mind the pain because it meant I would survive.

I hit the dirt in a thud. My stomach turned and everything came rushing back out. I coughed until the shards numbed the insides of my chest as much as they had my lips.

"Idiot," she hissed.

She had tried to take my light.

"Open your eyes, dammit."

I couldn't, the furnace man had taken them.

"Are you listening to me? Open your eyes!"

"I can't."

"Fight, open them!"

I squeezed my eyes which had been sealed shut by the skin, and slowly they opened. The light stung, there was more pain now than there had been the day my vision had been taken away. It shouldn't hurt so much to look into the light.

"What have you done?" I said, blinking my eyes until the fuzzy world came into sight.

She stood above me, her clothes soaked with water, a river rushing a few steps behind.

The rush.

"They never took our sight," she said. "They stuck us shut, they gave us fear so we could survive."

I scratched at my eyelids. Black goo peeled away, and it felt so much like skin.

"But the furnace, the man-"

"An act, you fool."

I tried to catch my breath, but it had raced away from me. We had been doomed, it couldn't have been a trick, such a sick joke.

"Relax." She knelt next to me and grabbed my shoulders. "Breath with me. One, two. One, Two."

I followed her lead and the breaths slowly came back.

"Look," she said, nodding to something at the other end of the cavern.

I turned, to see a door, light peeked through the gaps.

"It takes two to get through. That's our way out."

She walked away with confidence, her white nightee dripping water, and her dark hair tight in a bun that dripped even more. She couldn't have been a day past ten, just like me.

She turned with her eyes knotted and her lips turned up in a scowl. "Are you going to sit there or what?"

"What about the other children?" I asked.

She shook her head. "We only need two, there's no room for extras."

"But they're trapped in the darkness."

She continued walking. "Then let them stay there, safe. They'll find the light eventually."