“Got it!” came the voice from above.
Soon, the dark pit was lit up by a beam of light. I remained still, not daring to move a muscle. I squinted against the brightness to see a figure looking down from above, seemingly belonging to a man.
Assuming that it was Armond, I called out in warning, “Armond, be careful. There’s a swamp here and the ground is soft. I’m worried that this area might sink at any moment. Please be careful!”
He didn’t respond, but tied a rope around his waist instead. With the flashlight in one hand, he used the light to find his footing while the other hand groped the soft walls of the pit as he walked in my direction.
The flashlight’s beam was aimed directly at me, so I couldn’t make out Armond’s features. Casting my gaze around, I spotted two slightly deeper pits a short distance away, probably left by my feet earlier.
There was also some muddied undergrowth all around the area, all of which were tea trees, which proved that my guess was right—the ground here had given way not too long ago.
The rain was getting heavier and my clothes were completely soaked by then. I wasn’t sure if the ground beneath my feet could hold my weight, but I had to try making my way forward. When Armond closed in on me, I called out again, “Be careful. Some of the areas are sinkholes!”
“Mm,” he responded just when he reached my side and I was taken aback to hear the familiar voice.
My head whipped up in surprise. “Ashton? What are you doing here?” For some reason, my nerves instantly loosened the moment I saw him and I breathed out an inaudible sigh of relief.
With his lips pressed into a straight line, he raised his brows in provocation. “What? Are you disappointed that it’s me?”
I froze for a split second, but ignored his sarcastic remark and urged, “Let’s get out of here now. This place could sink at any time!”
Needing no further explanation, he grabbed my hand and looked up at the entrance of the pit. “I’ve found her. Tie the rope to a tree and make a dead knot.”
Laurel answered from above, “Okay, got it. Be careful, guys!”
Then, Ashton tied the other end of the rope on his body around mine and instructed, “Follow me closely.”
I nodded and he reached out to hold my hand, but I instinctively drew away from him and protested, “It’s fine. I’ll follow behind you.”
He glanced back at me with unreadable eyes, then withdrew his gaze and reminded, “Be careful.”
I nodded and walked carefully behind him. The pit’s entrance was seven to eight meters above us and with the heavy downpour, climbing up would be challenging.
To prevent the entrance from collapsing, the people above had to stand a distance away from it and could only assist by holding the rope steady.
I wanted to pull myself up the rope, but my arms weren’t strong enough. When I slipped down after a few tries, getting out of here started to feel impossible.
With my whole body covered with mud, I felt miserable. Ashton had a good physique, so he could have easily climbed up on his own, but it was much more difficult with my added weight, not to mention, I could very well drag him down with me.
His clothes were completely drenched with rainwater and a layer of mud coated his skin. Even his usually neat and proper hair was stained with mud and rain.
Feeling slightly discouraged, I slumped onto the muddy ground and said, “You go up first. If this goes on, neither of us is getting out of here. The rain’s too heavy. This place may collapse at any second. It’s just too dangerous!”
He frowned and pinned me a hard stare. “Would you give up so easily if it was Armond?”
I was stunned by his question. Realizing that he had misunderstood, I sighed softly. “It’s not what you think it is. Our priority right now is to minimize the loss. We’re both going to end up getting injured if we stay down here.”
“That’s fine by me!” he retorted. Disregarding my struggles, he pulled me up and continued climbing the rope.
As expected, it was no easy feat and I fell down once again.
“How are you guys doing? Can you climb up?” A voice came from the pit’s entrance.
“The earth is too soft here. Throw down some tree branches!” Ashton ordered before shifting his gaze to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you here.”
While I was momentarily dazed by him, he had already broken all of the branches Laurel dropped down just now into shorter pieces.
I watched dumbly as he stuck the broken branches into the pit’s wall. Soon, more branches were dropped into the pit.
Rock climbing!
Right then, I understood what Ashton was trying to do, so I began snapping the branches with him. He found a rock on the ground and used it to knock the short branches into the wall, making sure they held firm.
This was a difficult and tiring job, but Ashton did not once complain as he scaled the wall and knocked in more stake-like branches as he went.
The distance between us increased to the point where I could no longer pass more stakes to him. Hence, I could only hand him whole branches and let him break them off piece by piece before knocking them into the wall.
The people at the pit’s entrance also caught onto Ashton’s idea. Hence, instead of throwing whole branches down, they broke them off and put them in a bag before lowering it down to Ashton on a rope.
With everyone working together, a large section of the pit’s wall was impaled with stakes. Ashton looked down at me and called out, “Try to climb up now!”
I nodded, naturally feeling more secure with the stakes to support my weight. Even though I had never learned rock climbing, my survival instincts had kicked in and I wasted no time in scaling the wall.
