Page 29 of Alien Healer's Touch

We had to reach the settlement. We needed to share this knowledge, warn the Elders, plan a way to retrieve Claire and stop Hammond. The journey ahead would be difficult. The storms were gathering, and the tremors Selene and I had already experienced suggested the paths might be dangerously altered. Our supplies were meager. And Hammond's hunters would still be searching.

Protecting her would require more than a healer's skills. The thought no longer brought the sharp conflict it once had. Watching Selene sleep, knowing the dangers she had faced and the ones still to come, the warrior aspect felt less like a betrayal of my chosen path and more like a necessary complement to it. To heal sometimes required the strength to defend. The gleam-mite finished its exploration and retreated back into its crevice, its brief appearance a fleeting moment of simple life in our precarious sanctuary.

Dawn approached; the quality of light filtering through the water curtain shifted subtly. Time to prepare for departure. I focused, extending my senses, assessing the stability of our surroundings one last time before waking her. The air pressure felt subtly different. A low vibration, deeper than the waterfall's rhythm, resonated through the stone beneath my hand. It grew, not like the earlier, distant tremors, but with a focused intensity, a groan from the mountain's core. Something was utterly, immediately wrong.

SELENE

Kavan's hand shaking my shoulder tore me from sleep, the rough pressure instantly conveying urgency. "Selene, wakenow!" His voice was tight, stripped of its usual calm resonance—a tone I hadn't heard before.

Even as my eyes snapped open, disoriented in the profound darkness of the cave, before I could ask why, the ground shuddered beneath us. It wasn't the distant rumble of the storms but a deep, visceral groan that seemed to come from the planet's core. Dust sifted from the overhang above, raining down onto my hair and shoulders.

"The first major tremor of the season," Kavan said, already pulling me upright as another, sharper jolt slammed through the rock, cracking the stone floor near my feet. "The shelter is no longer stable."

The rock shelf we had rested on gave way with a deafening roar. Boulders peeled away from the ceiling, crashing down where we had lain moments before, sending shockwaves through the narrow space. The air filled with choking dust, visibility dropping to zero even for my newly enhanced vision.

Instinct took over. I grabbed Kavan’s arm, relying on our connection to navigate the chaos. "The way we came in?" I coughed, eyes stinging.

"Blocked," he confirmed, his voice tight with effort as he guided me away from the immediate collapse. "The main passage gave way entirely."

We stumbled back against the far wall of the small cave, the structure groaning around us. More rocks tumbled down, smaller now, but the threat of a complete cave-in felt terrifyingly real. The tremor subsided slightly, leaving a ringing silence broken only by the trickle of the healing spring, now partially obscured by fallen stone.

"Is there another way out?" I asked, scanning the darkness. My markings pulsed faintly, outlining the small space, but showing no obvious exit other than the now-impassable entrance.

Kavan moved along the back wall, his hand trailing across the stone, his lifelines glowing faintly as he assessed the structure. "The tremors… they may have revealed something." He stopped, his fingers tracing patterns I couldn't discern in the dim light. "Here. The rock feels different. Less solid."

I joined him, placing my own hand near his. He was right. Beneath the surface dust, the stone vibrated faintly, and a cooler draft touched my skin. My markings flared slightly in response, a subtle pull toward this section of the wall.

"Can we break through?"

"Perhaps we don't need to." Kavan pressed firmly against a section of the rock. With a grating sound of stone on stone, a narrow vertical fissure cracked open—not from the tremor, but as if following a hidden seam. It widened, revealing a passage leading deeper into the mountain, blacker than the cave itself. Faint, geometric patterns, almost invisible with age, were carved into the rock around the opening.

"Ancient markings," Kavan breathed, recognizing them instantly. "Similar to those in the facility archives, but cruder. Older." He traced one symbol. "Guidance glyphs. Often used to mark passages to sacred or important sites."

"Sacred?" I peered into the oppressive darkness. "Or just deeper?" The air emanating from the passage felt stale, unused for centuries.

Another tremor shook the cave, weaker this time, but loosening more debris from the ceiling. The choice was made for us. "Staying here isn't an option," I said.

"Agreed." Kavan retrieved his healer's pouch and the small pack containing our minimal supplies, including the data crystal I'd salvaged. "This passage is our only path forward. Stay close."

He reactivated a piece of bioluminescent fungus, its cool blue-green light pushing back the absolute darkness within the fissure. The passage was narrow, forcing us single file, and sloped downwards at a gentle angle. The air grew stiller, heavier, the silence profound after the roar of the cave-in.

We moved cautiously, the fungal light casting long, dancing shadows. The floor was uneven, littered with smaller stones and centuries of dust. My markings pulsed steadily now, a low-level thrum that seemed to resonate with the ancient carvings that appeared intermittently on the walls.

"These glyphs," Kavan murmured, pausing to examine a complex pattern. "They speak of 'listening to the stone' and 'following the deep pulse'."

"More warnings?"

"More like... instructions for navigating by senses other than sight," he clarified. "These tunnels were likely used by healers attuned to Arenix's energies."

"Like your lifelines," I said, remembering how he'd sensed the thermal instability earlier. I focused, trying to feel what he felt through our connection – the subtle vibrations in the rock, the minute shifts in temperature and pressure. It was there, a complex tapestry of sensory data just beneath the surface of my awareness, made accessible only through the bridge the markings created between us.

We proceeded deeper, the passage twisting unexpectedly. Several times, we reached junctions where the carvings seemed deliberately ambiguous. Kavan would pause, closing his eyes, his hand pressed flat against the wall, lifelines glowing. Then, guided by the subtle feedback only he could fully interpret, he would choose a path. I learned to trust his stillness, the deep concentration that settled over him in those moments.

My own role became hazard detection. My markings would flare sharply near unstable sections of the ceiling or thin patches in the floor, giving us precious warning to find an alternate route or tread with extreme caution. We moved as a unit, his deep senses guiding our direction, mine alerting us to immediate dangers, our non-verbal communication flowing seamlessly through the bond.

The air grew warmer, the humidity increasing. The passage began to slope downwards more steeply. The fungal light reflected off damp walls, and the sound of dripping water echoed from ahead.

"We're descending again," I noted. "Toward the water table?"

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