Navin’s Bazaar of Dreams – The Underground Part II

The Underground

Part II

Toby blinked and sat up. He was alone in a tunnel with packed dirt walls and a grassy floor. Behind him was a solid wall, and in front of him, the tunnel stretched endlessly into darkness.

“Tabitha?!” he called. There was no response. Toby got up and dusted off his pants. The second he took a step forward, the whole tunnel shuddered. It then began to move, quite like a treadmill. As Toby began to walk faster, the tunnel began to move faster. The pace picked up until it was all Toby could do to keep up. He found that by jumping forward in leaps and bounds, he didn’t have to constantly run. After a few minutes of this, Toby saw light in the distance.

“At last!” he thought, “I’m coming to the end of the tunnel!” To his horror, the light was not the end of the tunnel, but lava! The floor of the tunnel ahead was flooded with molten lava, with small clods of grass sticking through it irregularly. Toby leapt from clump to clump as the tunnel sped past him in a blur.

A few times, he managed to avoid the lava by just a hair. As he was about to expend the last of his energy, Toby gave a gargantuan effort, and leapt high in the air. As he fell back to earth, he was surprised to see the ground below turn from lava to water. With a shout, he plunged into the freezing water. The world seemed to rocket to a halt, and looking behind him, he saw the strange treadmill-tunnel flying through the darkness. He seemed to have landed in the middle of a large, placid ocean.

The only waves came from the ripples he had created when he landed. Toby looked up and saw the sky covered in stars. He scanned the horizon and saw some sort of island not too far away. It was illuminated by floodlights. Toby swam to it and crawled up onto the beach. It was covered with children milling about. As he was about to ask one of them what was going on, a loud trumpet sounded, and an old woman walked onto a stage at one end of the beach.

“Welcome to the Game Show!” she shouted. “Most of you have been around for a while, but for the new arrivals, I’ll explain how things go. We have a game of survival, not unlike the challenge you just completed to arrive here. The winner of the challenge will return to their family, and the rest will be trapped here for an entire year, until next year’s Game Show!” As the woman left the stage, all the children began forming a line, and Toby followed suit. The line moved slowly forward, until Toby reached a desk where the old woman sat.

“Just read this contract and sign at the bottom to indicate that you understand all terms and conditions,” she said. Toby began reading through the multiple page document, muttering to himself, when suddenly, he paused. “Wait a minute! Something’s off here” he cried, “I’m only 6! I don’t know how to read legalese!” “Noooooo,” bemoaned the old lady, “You found the loophole in the fine print!!!”

With a bang, everything vanished, and Toby sat bolt upright in bed. He was still in the hotel room and could hear his mother showering. Tabitha sat on the bed opposite his, drinking milk and watching cartoons. Toby breathed a sigh of relief. It had all been a dream! 🌙