What had they possibly done to deserve this. The four Coursers couldn’t help but to think that thought over and over as the skull rose from the ground in front of them. The wind blew around the room, catching their manes and tails as they stood and watched the skull. What hellish creature was this. What hellish position were they in? There was no way they could defeat that.

Right before.; the team of Coursers built up by the Blue roan Halix, the pangare bay roan Soralix, the bay splash Torali and lastly the red dun Sandarli had managed to get past the ever tighter tunnel. It had taken a long time to get through it and they had made sure to be careful as they walked between the two jagged walls of the cave. But it had all been worth it. They had managed to get through it and everything behind this point would surely be easier than that.
From what they understood of the map they had studied before entering there would be a corridor leading to a bigger room up ahead. It was rarely actually used but they could most likely set up a sort of camp there before heading off on their adventure. The four breathed in the air of the cave as they all got settled out of the tight tunnel. All their gear had somehow managed to be dragged through the tunnel as well. This felt to them, as a good sign.
After having collected themselves a bit they grabbed their gear and headed into the corridor. There wasn’t anything special about it and they were quite happy about that. If it didn’t get tighter it wouldn’t really be a problem for them.
The worst was over.

The corridor slowly became more well lit. Another great sign.
“Man it feels like we’ve been down here for days already.” Soralix said in his quite annoyed voice.
“No one’s keeping you here.” Torali answered equally annoyed. “Had we known you’d complain the entire time we wouldn’t have invited you.” She flicked her tail angrily behind her.
“Calm down.” Halix responded as he walked ahead of them. He and Torali carried most of the teams supplies and yet Soralix felt as if he had the most to complain about. Sandarli was mostly just walking at the back of the team. He was a young map maker. And his goal in this quest was to simply try and practise his map making skills on caves that had already been mapped at least once. That way he could compare them when they got to the surface again.

They arrived at the big open room and they all set down their gear. They stretched their bodies as they looked around the opening. Sandarli quickly began looking at all the walls, while the other three began to get their camp gear out from the rest of their gear. They were a bit green in the area of setting up a camp. Rarely had anyone of them gone on a quest that lasted longer than a few hours. And they planned on being down in these caves for at least a few days.
“Hey. Could you come and look at something?” Sandrali’s voice echoed through the room and everyone looked at him almost confused. It was probably the first time since the surface that they had heard him speak.
“What’s up?” Halix quickly trotted up to his side.
“These markings. They’re fresh. They’re not supposed to be here.” Sandrali said as he carefully touched the markings.
“How do you know?”
“There was nothing about it on the maps I looked at before we entered here.”
“Probably some other cavers?” Halix asked. But suddenly it felt wrong.
“Maybe we should find another camp site-” Before he could finish the markings on the walls started to glow, it was faint at first but very quickly they began to glow in a deep red colour. Halix threw himself around and watched the others as the ground began shaking underneath him. “Get together!” He screamed and everyone scrablemed to join up in the group.
“Is it an earthquake?” Torali asked as they hunkered down in hopes that nothing would fall on them. Halix doubted that it was an earthquake.

In the middle of the room another light started to glow. And as they all watched it something began emerging from the glowing spot on the ground. They watched as the enormous skull emerged from the ground ahead of them. They were frozen. They couldn’t move. It was as if they waited for someone to tell them what to do. What could they do?
They could run.
Halix watched as the skull focused on them.
“RUN.” He pushed everyone else until they began running. But where could they run? Down the corridor was their first choice. But as they arrived at the tight tunnel it had slightly collapsed. They couldn’t get past it without clearing it. Torali and Soralix tried to get the boulder moving as Sandarli and Halix turned to watch as the skull made its way down the corridor. Halix had managed to grab his spear. He would have preferred the sword but it was what it was. They had to fight. There was no way they could get into the tunnel before the skull arrived at them.
Halix grabbed the spear steadily and started running towards the skull. He could hear someone behind him scream no but he had already started. He was the leader. He was the one that got this team together. He had to make sure they would all get out of this. When he got close enough to the skull he threw the spear. It got stuck in the skull's eye socket but the skull didn’t seem to mind or care that it suddenly had a stick stuck inside of it.

“Everyone. We have to fight it.” Halix could feel his own insecurities. Why? What happened here before they arrived? Why would such a monster wake up just to torment them? They had never been in this cave before. They had never angered any gods that they knew of. They were young and stupid and here the four of them were. Fighting a ghastly monster that seemed hellbent on taking them down.
“How!? How are we going to fight that!?” He could hear Soralix yell behind him.
“Get back to our gear! I will get his attention. You all run back, grab our weapons.” Halix said as he ran towards the skull. It was clearly fixated on him at that moment and the other three quickly ran past it. But as Sandarli, the red dun, ran past the skull it seemed as if the skull changed its mind and left Halix, who was trying to keep its interest sparked, and decided to go after the group. Halix swore under his breath as he now tried to outrun the skull. And make it back to the room before it did or risk the others getting hurt.
They seemed to have realised that the skull changed target as the three of them grabbed whatever they could and quickly ran to one wall each. They had to outtrick the skull. They had to be smarter and faster than the skull. Confuse it. It was their only chance of survival.

They had to fight.
1230 words