Chapter 39The Explosion and Its Results

The next day, August twenty-seventh, was a huge deal on our crazy underground trip. I barely even think about it now, but I get seriously freaked out. My heart races just remembering that awful day.

From now on, logic, good judgment, and all our smarts don’t matter. We’re about to be at the mercy of some major earth stuff!

By six o'clock, everyone was up and ready. The moment we’d been dreading was here - we were about to blast a way into the center of the earth with gunpowder. What would happen if we broke through the earth's crust?

I volunteered to light the mine. I thought it would be an honor. Once that was done, I could rejoin my friends on the raft, which hadn’t been unloaded. As soon as we were all set, we were supposed to sail far away to avoid the explosion’s effects, which definitely wouldn’t be contained inside.

We figured the slow match would burn for about ten minutes, give or take, before it hit the chamber with the big pile of powder. That would give me plenty of time to get to the raft and paddle to safety.

I got ready to do the thing I’d volunteered for - it wasn’t easy, though, I was pretty nervous.

After a big meal, my uncle and the guide got on the raft, while I was left alone on the empty shore.

I had a lantern to light the wick of the explosive device.

"Go, my boy," my uncle said, "and good luck. But come back as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting."

"Don’t worry," I replied, "I won’t be long."

With that, I headed toward the dark tunnel. My heart was pounding. I opened my lantern and grabbed the end of the wick.

The Professor, watching, held his chronometer. "Ready?" he shouted. "Totally," I replied.

"Awesome, let’s go!" I quickly lit the wick. It crackled and sparked, hissing and spitting like a snake. Then, I ran back to the shore as fast as I could.

"Hop on board, kid, and Hans, push off!"

my uncle yelled. Hans shoved us over the water with a strong push. The raft was about twenty fathoms away. It was seriously intense - a real moment of anxiety. My uncle, the Professor, didn't take his eyes off the chronometer.

"Just five minutes left," he murmured, "four, three." My heart was pounding.

I could feel it thumping in my chest.

"Two, one! Alright, granite mountains, break down under the power of humanity!" What happened next?

I barely heard the explosion - it was so loud. But the rocks totally changed before my eyes - they seemed to pull apart like a curtain. I saw a super deep, bottomless hole opening up beneath the churning waves. The sea suddenly went wild, then became one giant, mountainous wave.

The raft shot up straight to the top. We all fell down. Darkness came on fast - total blackness. Then, I felt all support disappear, not just under my feet, but under the raft itself. I thought we were plunging down a crazy deep well.

I tried to talk to my uncle, but all I could hear was the roar of the massive waves. We just held on tight, completely silent. Even with the crazy darkness, the noise, the shock, the feelings - I totally got it.

Beyond the rock that got blown up, there was this huge drop-off. The explosion shook the ground, cracking it all up. This sudden gap was about to swallow the inland sea, which had turned into a crazy torrent dragging us along.

Just one thought was going through my head: we were totally lost!

One hour, two hours - I couldn’t even say, passed like that. We were crammed together, elbows touching, knees bumping! We held onto each other's hands so we wouldn't get tossed off the raft. We were getting slammed around every time our only lifeline, this flimsy raft, hit the rocks.

Luckily, the bumps got less and less often, so I figured the passage was getting wider. There was no doubt now - we’d stumbled onto the path Saknussemm used, but instead of going down properly, we’d dragged a whole sea with us!

These thoughts were super hazy, kind of just popping into my head. I felt it more than I thought about it. I pieced things together, but it was all jumbled, like being swept down a waterfall. Judging by the wind whipping my face, we were going, like, lightning fast.

Trying to light a torch was just impossible. And everything was destroyed in the explosion - all the remains of our electric machine, our Ruhmkorff coil, gone.

So, I was seriously confused when I suddenly saw this bright light nearby. The guide’s calm face seemed to glow. The smart and patient hunter had managed to light the lantern. Even though the wind kept threatening to blow it out, the flame flickered and danced, pushing back the darkness a little.

The gallery we’d walked into was seriously wide. I was totally right about that part, at least. The dim lighting made it impossible to see both walls at once. The current pulling us along was way faster than any river back in America, no joke.

The whole stream looked like a bunch of liquid arrows, shooting forward with crazy speed and power. It’s impossible to describe how it felt.

Sometimes, the raft would get caught in these crazy whirlpools and zoom forward, but also spin around and around. I have no idea how we didn't flip over.

When we got close to the walls of the gallery, I’d shine the lantern on them, and I could tell how fast we were going by watching the rock formations - you’d see them for a second, then they’d be gone.

We were moving so fast that the rocks, even the ones pretty far apart, looked like lines, trapping us like telegraph wires.

I’d say we were going at least a hundred miles an hour.

My uncle and I looked at each other with these wild, freaked-out eyes. We were gripping the broken stump of the mast - the part that snapped off when everything went down. We kept our backs to the wind as much as possible, just to not get choked by the speed.

Seriously, no human could handle that and survive.

But the long, boring hours just kept on going. The situation hadn't changed, but then I made a discovery that made things way more complicated.

Once we’d mostly gotten our balance back, I started checking out our cargo. And that’s when I found out most of it was just...gone.

I freaked out and decided to figure out what we had going for us. My heart was racing at the thought, but it was totally necessary to know what we could rely on. So, I grabbed the lantern and looked around.

All that was left of our old nautical and philosophical gear were the chronometer and the compass. The ladders and ropes were just a tiny bit of rope tied to the broken mast. Not a single pickax, crowbar, or hammer - and way worse, no food - not even enough for a single day!

That was a sign we were basically screwed.

Sitting there on the raft, just holding the broken mast, I thought about everything I’d read about starving.

I remembered everything history had taught me, and I got seriously creeped out thinking about what we’d have to go through.

Totally stressed about the idea of starving, I told myself I must be wrong. I checked all the cracks in the raft; I poked around every joint and beam; I looked in every nook and cranny. Nothing!

All we had was a piece of dried meat and some soggy, moldy biscuits.

I looked around, totally freaked out. I couldn’t wrap my head around how bad things were. But even if we did have food for months, or even years, how were we ever gonna get out of the crazy abyss we were being dragged into by this crazy current?

Why worry about starving when we were already facing death in so many other ways?

It was seriously doubtful we’d even have time to starve.

But the human body is a weird thing.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow, my mind totally spaced on the real, serious danger we were in. I was thinking about future threats, which were super scary. Plus, Hope chimed in, maybe we could finally escape the crazy torrent and see the moonlight again, on our beautiful Earth.

How were we gonna do it? I had no clue. Where would we end up? Didn't matter, as long as we made it.

One in a thousand odds is still a chance, unlike dying of hunger, which offered zero hope. It just left me with this blank, horrifying feeling, like there was no way out!

I almost told my uncle everything, to explain how messed up our situation was, so we could figure out how much time we had left.

It seemed like the only thing to do. But I bit my tongue, gnawed at my insides like a Spartan kid. I wanted him to stay calm.

Just then, the lantern light slowly faded and went out!

The wick was totally burnt. It was pitch black. You couldn't see anything in the darkness! There was one torch left, but we couldn’t keep it lit. Then, like a kid, I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see the dark.

After what felt like forever, we started moving way faster. I could feel it with the wind on my face. The water was super steep. I realized we weren't just going down a slope; we were falling. It felt like a dream - falling; falling; falling!

I felt my uncle and Hans squeezing my arms tight.

Whoa, out of nowhere, I felt this jolt. The raft hadn’t bumped into anything solid, but it just stopped dead. A waterspout - like, a huge column of water - came down on us. I felt like I was drowning, seriously suffocating.

But the crazy flood didn’t last long. In a few seconds, I could breathe again. My uncle and Hans squeezed my arms, and the raft carried all three of us along.