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“Help!” he yelled The sound echoed faintly

Duck realized that he was not in a confined space There was air And the surface beneath hiot to his knees Then, slowly, stood up There was a ceiling just inches above his head He stretched his ar to his right

“It’s a pipe,” Duck said to the darkness “Or a tunnel”

It was also pitch black in both directions

“Or a cave”

“How did this happen?” Duck demanded of the cave His teeth chattered from cold From fear as well There was a faint echo, but no answer

He looked up toward the light and yelled, “Help! Help!” a coupleUnless of course Zil and the boys who’d been harassing hiht be jerks, but surely they would go for help They wouldn’t just leave him down here

And yet, there were no anxious faces peering down at him from above

“Come on, Duck: Think”

He was in a tunnel, or whatever, far underground The tunnel floor was muddy and wet Despite this, the tunnel did not feel particularly damp, not like it was a sewer And he himself was far less muddy than he should have been

“I fell down through the ground Then I practically drowned and passed out and stopped The water kept flowing past me and mostly cleaned me off”

He was pleased to have even figured that out

Gingerly he took steps down the tunnel, holding his hands out ahead of him He was scared More scared than he had been in his life More scared even than the day the FAYZ had happened, or the day of the big battle, when he had hidden in a closet with a flashlight and some comic books

He was down here now, alone No Iron Man No Sandht

And it was cold