Mai Mingle felt as if she were walking through the deep sea.
The flashlight beam pushed through the heavy darkness, resisting the pressure of a million tons of seawater to carve out a small pocket of light and air she depended on to survive.
This was the powerful flashlight Hai Luwei had equipped for entering the Nest. A full six bulbs were lined up under a plastic plate, and turning it on was bright enough to white out your vision. But when she aimed it into the Nest, into the darkness ahead, Mai Mingle could almost hear the Nest scoffing at them.
But they could only follow it closely. One wrong step, and they might fall into the endless black, never to climb out again.
"How much farther?" Hai Luwei asked, his voice strained.
He had been dragging his injured foot for nearly ten minutes and was half dead from the effort. Although Mai Mingle had found him a thick branch to use as a crutch, it was barely better than nothing.
"I remember it was right around here,"
