Chapter 2The Mudslide's Echo

I hugged her freezing body as tightly as I could.

"No, baby. No. They just didn't hear us calling for help."

Desperate to save my daughter, I grabbed a jagged piece of shale and began violently striking it against the rock wall of our narrow prison.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The next second, the entire rescue squad halted their descent.

"Captain Sterling! Wait! I think I just heard someone tapping for help!"

"What tapping? You must be hearing things," Chloe interjected immediately.

Realizing how suspicious she sounded, she quickly backpedaled.

"I just mean, you guys have to be absolutely sure. Rescue resources are so limited, we can't afford wild goose chases."

But the squad member who spoke up pointed directly toward the exact coordinate where Lily and I were buried.

"The sound came from right over there."

The rescue workers instinctively moved toward our position. Seeing this, Chloe let out a sudden, sharp cry and dramatically crumpled to the ground, grabbing her ankle.

My parents swarmed her instantly. "Chloe, sweetie, are you okay?!"

Chloe winced, claiming she was fine, but 'failed' to stand up after three theatrical attempts.

Ethan immediately crouched down in front of her. "Get on my back. I'll carry you down."

Chloe refused, shaking her head.

"The trail is washed out, and you have that old knee injury. If you carry me all the way down, you'll ruin your knee!"

My parents chimed in, "She's right, Ethan. It's much safer to have the rescue team carry her down on a stretcher."

But Ethan's specialized rescue unit only had four guys.

If two guys were carrying a stretcher, the remaining two wouldn't be enough to safely navigate complex rescue terrain. The entire squad would have to retreat.

One of the guys hesitated.

"Captain, maybe we should just go verify the noise first? If there's no one there, then we retreat."

"If it actually is your wife and daughter in there, and we leave them... we're going to regret it forever."

Chloe clutched her ankle—which wasn't red or swollen in the slightest—and let out a pathetic whimper of pain.

Looking down at her furrowed, distressed brow, Ethan shut the suggestion down without a second of hesitation.

"You heard wrong. There's no one calling for help."

The squad member argued back. "But Captain, I literally heard rhythmic tapping against the rock face!"

Ethan dismissed him completely. "It was just loose rocks settling."

"The mudslide happened ten days ago. The geological structure is highly unstable. Falling rocks hitting the canyon walls is completely normal."

I had been trapped in the dark for ten days. My limbs were completely numb from severe hypothermia.

But hearing him say those words... I felt a sharp, agonizing stab directly in my chest.

Chloe's parents had died years ago in a house fire, saving my parents.

Because of that blood debt, my parents had always shown extreme, blatant favoritism toward Chloe. I understood that. I accepted it.

But Ethan was different. He was the one who saw my parents treating me like a second-class citizen, stepped in, and told them they were wrong. He fought for me.

He was the one who promised me that he would protect me, that he would never let anyone make me feel unloved or marginalized ever again.

But now... just for Chloe's sake... he was actively looking his own squad in the eye and lying, swearing he didn't hear me begging for my life.

I didn't have the luxury of dissecting exactly when he had changed. The tiny arms wrapped around my neck were slowly losing their grip.

"Mommy... I'm so sleepy..."

Feeling her impossibly cold little hands, I gently slapped her cheeks, begging her not to fall asleep.

At the same time, risking a secondary collapse that would bury us alive, I grabbed the rock and slammed it against the wall again.

Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.

"Captain! Listen! That's not our imagination, that is a deliberate sound!"

"It's a rhythmic pattern! It sounds exactly like the international standard SOS knock code!"

"I remember Maya took an elective course on wilderness survival in college! That has to be her and Lily!"

The squad member yelled excitedly.

But Chloe muttered dismissively from the stretcher.

"Maya graduated years ago. You really think she remembers some random class she took?"

"And is it really that much of a coincidence? We searched for ten days and found nothing, and the exact second we're leaving, we hear a noise?"

"Honestly... that sounds more like the mountain groaning right before a secondary landslide hits..."