A Horrible Dark Place

Ryker wakes in a dark chasm far beneath the Arizona canyons and tries to figure out what happened.

Ryker woke in a shiver. It was pitch-black and water flowed next to him. The ground felt damp and rough. His heart quickened as he touched his sodden clothes. Fumbling for the flashlight, he felt the metal of the canteen and the rubber handle of his knife. His spine throbbing and head pounding, he staggered to his feet twitching his eyes. The air reeked of decaying flesh, bad enough to scare even buzzards away. Taking a few steps right, he stumbled on something hard. It was the flashlight. He picked it up and clicked the switch. A river dark as molasses flowed past him into an abyss. On the other side a red-orange and jagged wall soared beyond his view. He spun right. Feet slapped along the craggy surface followed by a splash some distance into the stark chasm. Where was Ryker? How did he manage to get so far beneath the surface? He rubbed his hand through his slicked, matted hair. Mireille! His senses returned as he recalled Mireille and him fleeing through the canyons from the Rally gang. He'd turned to stall them, but they threw him down the ravine. Oh what if they got her? They wouldn't negotiate. As he shambled toward where he saw a shaft of sunlight, the rotten smell grew stronger. His heart exploded and breaths hung in his throat as Mireille lay gutted before his feet. Rats scuttled away. A yellowish fluid poured from his mouth as he collapsed to his knees, crying and cursing until his lungs burned. He would escape this hellish darkness, find a way to the surface and kill em all. 

Reviews

[ChasingTheDark]

Nice, good short story.
The only thing I would suggest (I mainly saw it in the beginning), but maybe try to have longer sentences instead of short small statements.
For example, "The ground felt damp and rough. His heart quickened as he touched his sodden clothes." seems a little, not choppy but rough, and if you combined some of the sentences into one I think it could help it flow better.
Keep writing. :)

[Derek Cummings]

Thank you for the advice. Syntax has been a bit of a struggle for me. Either my sentences are too simple or too complex. A balance would make for a better flow.

[Olivia Bryan]

Love the intensity.

[Derek Cummings]

Thank you. I wrote this for my creative writing class, and the topic was tension.