Under the Hill

Text 1: Forty Metres, by Miriam Vale

An original short story extract.

At the entrance, everyone had joked about the helmets. The guide’s lamp danced across the stone and Leila walked beside me, calmly listing everything she planned to eat for lunch. Our voices travelled ahead of us, cheerful and loud.

After the first bend, the daylight disappeared. The passage narrowed until we had to walk in single file, shoulders turned and elbows tucked against our bodies. My helmet scraped the roof. The sound was enormous. Scrape. Step. Drip. Scrape. Step. Drip. The darkness seemed to listen between each noise.

‘Only another forty metres,’ the guide called from somewhere ahead.

Forty metres became a number with no end. I counted the metal bolts in the wall instead. Eight. Nine. Ten. At eleven, the roof dipped and I crouched beneath it, one hand pressed against the cold stone. The others moved on. Their lights dwindled into a row of pale dots.

I hurried after them. My jacket caught on something behind me and held fast. For one second, I was certain the hill had closed its fist. I pulled. Nothing. I pulled again, heard cloth tear, and stumbled into the open chamber beyond. There was space above my head at last, but my hand remained on my helmet, pushing upwards.

How does Miriam Vale use language and structure to show the narrator’s growing fear underground?

You should use relevant subject terminology to support your answer.