breakthrough —; open
“Come on, wrap it up, lads!” A soldier’s guttural voice booms at his slow companions, thrumming his fingers loudly on a crate he fancies himself sitting on. The others quicken their sluggish, stiff pace—their pale, sunken faces seeing the light of day each time they pass through what little light streams this cave allows. He chides again. “You know, before a rotting Terror runs this way and scare the shit out of us! That better not happen again, or I’ll—”
“Shut up, will you?” One of them says, their index finger pointing at their ear as a gesture ‘to listen’. Alm catches them giving an eyeing look to grab his attention, and he tips his head upwards to the ceiling, straining his hearing.
The split second after there’s a sound of mud squelching under moving weight, the noisy soldier loudly gulps and half-gasps at the elbow whacking to his side. More squishing and Alm cranes his head toward the stairwell leading from the cave’s entrance, drying muddy footsteps down the stone steps visible if one looked hard enough in the dim darkness.
Shadows morph along the rocky wall, looking grotesque enough to play tricks with a man’s imagination of their worst fears, and Alm twirls around upon the sight, fearless of what should appear. Sliding his boot inch by inch until he got a foothold on solid mud to shift weight on his left foot, his unsheathed blade at the ready.
“Come on out!” Alm attempts to keep his barking tone sound less threatening in case of a friend.