- Kathrin tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for Samson. Beside her, Benjamin stared up at the sky visible between the trees.
"Where is he?" Katy asked from the tree she was sitting in. "He's taking forever." She sighed, spinning around on the branch and hanging upside down.
"I don't know," Benjamin said. "But he'll come eventually. He always does. Hey, that's a cool bird." He pointed up as he spoke, smiling.
"Careful it doesn't poop in your mouth," Katy said with a snicker.
"Here he is," Kathrin said, seeing Samson weave his way through the trees. He was carrying a bundle of torches, which he dropped to the ground.
"Anyone got fire?" he asked, wiping his forehead.
"Here," Kathrin said, handing him flint and stone as Katy dropped out of the tree. He took them with a nod, and quickly light four of the torches, handing one to each of them.
They turned to face the cave, exchanging glances.
"Coming, Joel?" Benjamin called. A call of affirmative came from the nearby bushes.
"Well. Shall we go?" Samson said, taking a breath.
"We shall," Kathrin said.
Together, they stepped into the cave. Almost as soon as they stepped inside, a hoard of bats flew past the squeaking loudly. Katy let out a squeal and threw her hands over her head - still holding her torch.
"Kate!" Benjamin shouted, as the back of her shirt caught fire. He rushed to her, dropping his torch as he did, and began batting at the flames. Katy dropped to the ground, rolling wildly as Benjamin kept hitting at any part of her body he could see.
After a few seconds of chaos, Katy stood up. The back of her shirt was black, but there didn't seem to be much damage, although there was a rather unpleasant smell of burning hair.
"Are we ready to continue?" Samson asked, holding out another torch to Katy.
"Yeah. Sorry," Katy said sheepishly, taking the torch.
They moved deeper into the cave, looking at the huge cavern in awe. Eventually, the reached the end of the cave. After some scouting, Kathrin managed to find a small tunnel. She called the others over and they all began crawling through on hands and knees - in pitch black as they couldn't properly get their flaming torches in.
Samson was breathing heavily behind Kathrin, and she tried to keep his panic from infecting her.
"Relax," she said quietly. "We're okay, there's nothing to worry about." She tried to keep her voice calm, and she could sense it was working, Samson was calming down.
From farther up the tunnel she could hear Benjamin called back.
"It isn't long. And you have to see this!"
Eventually, they emerged into a small cavern - but the walls were covered in diamonds. Kathrin let out a whistle as she moved forward, laying a hand on one of the diamond stalagmites.
"This is amazing," she whispered.
"There's more," Katy called from deeper inside. Kathrin and Samson exchanged glances before moving down the tunnel towards Katy's voice.
They entered a much smaller room - but this one was man-made. It was a perfect square, and the wall wooden. In the very centre was a box. Katy reached forward to open it, but Samson leapt forward.
"Don't touch it, it could be trapped," he cried. Katy leapt back as if burnt.
"Sorry," she muttered.
"Here, let's try this." As he spoke, Samson used one of the unused torches to touch the chest. A large spike fell from the ceiling, dropping right on top of the chest. Katy let out a whimper.
"That was close," Benjamin breathed.
"Look!" Kathrin pointed up, seeing a small hole in the roof. As she watched, it began to fill with water.
"Run!" Samson cried. Benjamin and Katy exchanged worried looks and began running back through the crystal room. But they weren't fast enough. The rushing water caught them up and swirled them around. They were brought back to the boxed room.
"Through the hole!" Kathrin cried. As the water level grew, she took a deep breath and swam through the hole.
She burst to the air, gasping. They were now in a lake, the shore nearby. Making sure the others surfaced safely, Kathrin helped Katy back to shore while Samson gave Benjamin a hand.
They made it to the shore laughing.
"Thank was great!" Benjamin cried. "We nearly died!"
Katy was laughing too hard to speak, curled over double, her hands clasping her knees. Samson and Kathrin exchanged glances then burst out laughing as well.
"It was almost too real," Kathrin said, wiping a tear from her eye. "Grandad's getting better."
"Hey," Benjamin said, sitting up with a huge grin plastering his face. "Whatever happened to Joel?"
The four exchanged glances, then burst out laughing again as they realised their guardian wasn't even with them - and hadn't been for the whole trip.
"Bats," Katy managed to gasp out. "He hates bats."
And that set them all off again.
