Free Building Blocks by Cynthia Voigt Page A

of what it was like in here. He didn’t want to turn it off, just in case, but he did want to get the real feeling.
    Without light the room moved out around him again, but the dark got heavier, as if the earth above was pressing down on it. It was cool here, and dry. Brann gulped in air, suddenly worried that the air would run out, then reminded himself that he’d have to be a lot deeper, and sealed in somehow, before that could even begin to happen. But it felt like it could happen, with the light gone. It felt like it was happening.
    His eyes tried to make out any shape, any shadow, but they couldn’t see anything. He felt the dark air closing around his body. He could feel the hard, uneven rock against the soles of his feet. He couldhear—nothing, nothing but deep, muffled darkness. He knew you couldn’t actually hear nothing, but the hollow soundlessness was so different from anything he had ever used his ears to hear, it really felt like hearing something. Then he thought he could hear his heart beating fast in his ears. It really was scary. Brann resisted the impulse to the free the light for another minute, to let the scariness soak in a little more. If you were lost in a cave, he thought to himself, saying the words out slowly, this is what it would feel like, the earth pressing in all around you, only a narrow belt of air holding it off. And what if there was an earthquake, right now? It wouldn’t have to be an earthquake. Because of the way strata of rocks were connected underground, once one little thing shifted, rocks for hundreds of miles around would shift too, readjusting. Then the dark walls here would shift, grinding probably, closing of—
    He freed the light and shone it around, grinning to himself. He started on his circuit around the room, moving always to the right, knowing that it closed off in basically a circular shape, so as long as he didn’t move out of the circle he wouldn’t get lost. By looking carefully, he could see occasional entrances off the room, but you had to really use thelight to find them, looking beyond and behind the rocks, up and down the walls of the room. He counted three, then up to seven, and then another three.
    A lot of entrances for a space that wasn’t in fact that big. The caves must spread out like a honeycomb network, like—what did they call the burial places in Rome—the catacombs? You’d really have to know your way around to move out of this room. A couple of the entrances were overhead, unreachable. A couple were like the one he’d used, ledges, and they were the hardest to pick out.
    If you were a slave, escaping, you might use one of the entrances that came high up. You would fall down, into darkness. What an idea. And what would it have been like under the river, really deep down, probably with the rock slippery underfoot and the walls slimy, cold all year round, wet, and wondering if the river would make its way through and smash you against the rocks even though you were only an arm’s length away from the walls—Brann shivered.
    OK, that was enough, it was about time to get back to where Kevin waited. He moved to the right, along the wall, looking for the ledge. He came to it.He didn’t realize until he’d found it that he had, in fact, been afraid he wouldn’t find it. He put his arm into it and shone the light down it. The beam, narrowed by the low ceiling, reflected off stone and shone back on itself, down an endless tunnel.
    Brann’s chest tightened, like an iron band had been drawn around it. He put his face into the opening. It wasn’t an endless tunnel, he saw; it was a false tunnel, the roof gradually sliding down to meet the floor.
    Don’t panic, he muttered aloud. Slowly, move on, keep checking. He forced his memory to recreate the shape of the opening he was looking for and forced his muscles to keep slow.
    And he couldn’t find it.
    He tried to remember just