The Trap

Lubic found himself at the mouth of a cave. He hesitated before entering the darkened maw, as he could not see more than a few feet in front of him. "If only I had a flashlight," he muttered to himself. But he knew that Elara was here, and so he entered. He took a few steps into the cave and was immediately swallowed by the darkness.

It became immediately apparent that he was in a tunnel; Lubic could feel the cave walls closing in around him. A few feet from the cave entrance, the tunnel started turning gradually to the left. He stopped for a few moments, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. It was then that he realized that there were voices coming from up ahead.

As he slowly inched his way forward, he found that the tunnel was widening into a larger cavern. At about that time, he realized that one of the voices was Elara’s. The second one he didn’t think he had heard before.

“I honestly have no idea,” the second voice was saying. “Well, I think he took me accidentally. It seems to be you he was after.”

“Yes, he was so very happy he couldn’t contain his excitement, so he left.” That was Elara. “That makes a lot of sense, Jay.”

“Elara,” Lubic said into the darkness. “Where are you?”

“Uncle? Uncle, is that you?”

Oh yeah, she thinks I’m her uncle. “Um, yeah, it’s Lubic. Are you okay? Where are you?”

“We’re okay. Jay and I are just chained to the cave wall.”

“The bird man brought us here and then left,” Jay added.

“Okay, well, let’s see if I can free you two. Then we can get out of here.” Lubic walked cautiously forward. About two steps in, he felt his foot trip some sort of mechanism on the floor. He stopped moving forward just as the ceiling in front of him collapsed, missing him by several feet.

“UNCLE LUBIC?” Elara screamed.

“Gee, not so loud! I can hear you just fine!” he said, coughing a little. “The cave-in missed me by several feet. I knew this place was supposedly trapped, but I thought the traps might be a bit less obvious than that! Are you two alright?” He moved cautiously around the collapsed ceiling until they were in view.

“Yes, we’re fine. The ceiling collapsed a good ten feet in front of us,” Jay said.

“Alright, I’m coming, but I’m going to be careful. I don’t want to set any other traps off.” It took several tense minutes, but Lubic made it to the two of them without incident. He examined the chains as best he could in the darkness. “I’m not entirely sure how I can free you two without any . . .” he trailed off. What the heck? “Chains . . . release them!” he commanded. The chains instantly released the two captives.

“How did you do that?” Jay whispered in awe.

“Apparently in my dreams, I can do whatever I want,” Lubic said, pulling Jay to his feet. “Let’s go.”

All three of them cautiously made their way out of the cave. “What a stupid trap,” Lubic laughed as they got to the mouth of the cave. “With all that effort, you’d think he would have had something better than an obvious cave-in!”

*

The Raven stood, stunned, watching the three of them leave. He was standing in the secret passage he had meticulously carved out beside where his prisoners had been chained to the wall. He was holding an extremely powerful sniper rifle that was still aimed at Lubic’s back. Yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not will his finger to press the trigger. It was only after the three of them were gone that he blew a hole into the opposite wall, right at the point where he had last seen Lubic.