"When will all this end?" Sheryl whispered into the void as her long rabbit ears drooped wearily over her face.
The question was meant more for herself than anyone else, yet the faint echo of her words lingered within the cold walls of the cell.
How many times had she asked it? Neither she, nor Lily, nor Grey could remember.
Sheryl's hands were covered in calluses and scrapes, her hair disheveled and coated with a layer of dust, her eyes sunken deep into their sockets. Over the past few weeks of preparing for escape, the young rabbit girl had lost all her liveliness. She looked like a worn-out ghost, neither alive nor dead.
She was not the only one.
Grey sat hunched in the corner of the cell.
Despite the constant trembling, his fingers restored the magic circuit with precise accuracy. His movements were mechanical, as if he had turned into a living machine programmed for a single task.
Lily leaned against the wall, eyes closed as she tried to maintain her focus.
Her succubus abilities allowed her to feel the emotions of those around her, and right now she was flooded with the exhaustion and fear of her companions. Those feelings pressed down on her like a heavy blanket, making it harder to use magic.
If the first three months of slavery had felt like a draining hell to Grey, then these past weeks had turned into a true trial in the service of the devil.
Not long ago, he would have spat in the face of anyone who told him he would miss the "steady" life of a newly made slave. And yet here he was, sitting in the corner of the cell, desperately chewing on the collar of his shirt just to moisten his parched throat. After exhausting labor, thoughts kept creeping in, tempting him to abandon these seemingly futile attempts.
Every day for an entire month, the children, worn out after a twelve-hour shift, returned to the cell with a single purpose: to dig, dig, and DIG again.
But their bold escape plan was still far from success.
The ground beneath the cell turned out not to be loose soil, but rocky earth mixed with thick clay. Even Sheryl, despite her natural talent for burrowing, could not handle it alone.
Grey had to use all his physical strength to break apart and pull out the stubborn stones. The boy had long since lost count of how many makeshift "shovels" he had broken trying to overcome countless obstacles.
They had to work in extremely cramped conditions. The limited visibility made the already difficult labor even harder, while the dust and lack of ventilation made it hard to breathe.
The memory of the tunnel collapse still haunted him.
It had happened about a week ago, when their path to freedom had been blocked by an especially large boulder.
"Grey needs to go down and lift the stone. Sheryl doesn't have enough physical strength..." Sheryl had said when her small head poked out of the burrow.
Grey silently nodded and followed the instructions.
He had to squeeze headfirst into the narrow tunnel to try and get a grip on the already loosened stone. Before long, he found himself about two meters below the surface.
The moment he managed to latch onto the smooth rock and shake it, though it was firmly pressed into the earth, he felt his legs get buried and his chest crushed in a vice.
He tried to draw in air, but there was none.
There was only suffocating darkness around him. This darkness was not comforting...
"Don't panic," the boy desperately ordered himself, but the panic was already there.
No air. The space was shrinking. His body began to convulse against his will. All Grey could hear in that moment was the pounding of his own heart, loud and rapid, like thunder.
Suddenly, he felt someone pulling him by the legs. Gathering every ounce of resolve, Grey forced himself to suppress the instinctive urge to resist. He relaxed every muscle and placed his life in the hands of his companions.
A minute later, he was already taking deep breaths beside Sheryl and Lily, who had hurriedly pulled him back from the jaws of death.
"Turns out you're tougher than a cockroach. I thought Sheryl and I would finally get to sleep in peace," Lily joked, either teasing Grey or trying to ease the tension with an ill-timed remark.
Grey smirked, a dark glint of amusement flashing in his unfocused eyes.
Unwilling to let the bold girl get the last word, he shot back, "Since when did I become a nightmare for a master of dreams?"
"Who would be afraid of underground moles?" Lily snorted.
"Speak for yourself. I'm not blind! At the very least, I'm a rat. A gray rat," Grey fired off a stupid pun, trying at least a little to lighten the mood.
Meanwhile, Sheryl, still shaken by what had happened, completely ignored their exchange. She threw herself into the boy's arms, burying her face against his dirty chest. Quiet sobs shook her fragile body.
"I'm sorry, Grey, I'm sorry. Sheryl almost killed you," she whispered through tears. "If... if Sheryl had checked the tunnel one more time, Grey wouldn't have ended up like that. Sniff. Stupid... stupid Sheryl."
Grey froze in surprise.
Since they only worked in their underwear to avoid getting their clothes dirty, he could feel the rabbit girl's warm, smooth skin very clearly. At that moment, she clung to him with her whole body, as if she was afraid that he would leave her as soon as her grip loosened.
The warmth of her body, passing through skin to skin, stirred a storm of unfamiliar emotions in him. He felt his heart beat faster, and his breathing, which had only just steadied, turned uneven again.
Sheryl's body felt strangely pleasant to him. Awkwardly hugging the rabbit girl, he began to stroke her back, trying to calm her down.
"Easy. Inhale, exhale. We all make mistakes. You're doing great for your first time. I'm sure I would've died on the first day if Lily had been in charge of the digging," Grey whispered softly into her fluffy ear, surprised at how steady his voice sounded.
His words were sincere, but there was a trace of self-irony in them. Having just escaped death, Grey felt a strange lightness and an urge to joke, as if it could drive away the fear still hiding somewhere inside him.
Surprisingly, this time the succubus didn't argue with him.
Despite her lack of experience, Sheryl handled underground navigation masterfully. She had an innate talent that neither Grey nor Lily possessed, and she carried out her task exceptionally well.
Every time he climbed into the tunnel, the boy felt panic tighten around his throat. Only through sheer force of will did he make himself keep working, knowing that the lives of his companions depended on his actions.
Meanwhile, Lily pushed herself beyond her limits, trying to muffle the noise of their work while standing guard. More than once, the children had to scramble out of the pit in a hurry when the guards came to check on them or when the old man showed signs of waking up.
It was there, while peeling vegetables, that Lily winced as the rusty knife slipped and left a small cut on her finger. She glanced at the wound with indifference and brushed it off as something insignificant.
That small mistake would soon turn into a serious problem.
A week later, while Grey was busy with the magic circuit and Sheryl was finishing work in the tunnel, Lily's body trembled with convulsions as she leaned against the wall.
Two days ago, she had felt a slight dizziness, but she hadn't wanted to worry Sheryl and Grey, choosing instead to keep working.
In secret, the young succubus greatly underestimated her role in the plan. While her friends were worn down by unbearable strain, all she had to do was control the old man's sleep and keep watch.
Was she really that necessary for the plan to succeed?
That question had troubled her more than once, so when she felt an unusual tension and fatigue, she felt relief rather than concern.
But two days later, Lily could no longer hold on to that optimism. Her breathing grew heavier, her face damp with sweat despite the night's chill. If Grey or Sheryl had been able to see in the dark, they would have been shocked by her appearance.
She was red, as if she had just been boiled in a pot.
The girl clenched her teeth, trying to maintain her focus. She didn't want to let her companions down over something as trivial as discomfort.
Suddenly, an excited cry came from the tunnel:
"Sheryl did it! Sheryl can see the stars! Now we can reach the kitchen!"
Lily's heart began to race.
Despite the fever clouding her mind, she could hardly believe that her reckless neighbor's plan might actually lead them to freedom. But when Sheryl and Grey turned toward her, ready to celebrate the milestone, they saw Lily's body slowly collapsing to the floor.
Her eyes rolled back, and her body shook with violent chills. In her half-delirious state, her mental power slipped out of control. Then came a hoarse mutter:
"Son, don't! Don't go! You'll die!" the old man shouted as he woke up.