Stargazer - Segregation

Chapter Twelve - Antares and Mars

As they walk further and further, Mayumi seems to smell something. Something she has smelled before. It's not an animal that she can tell. This smell belongs to something else. Something she has smelled before.

"Guys, do you smell this?" she stops moving and looks around with clinched eyebrows. Her flashlight lights up to the way she smells.

Wylie starts to cover his mouth, and Galina follows his gesture right after. "Yeah," he says. "What is this awful smell?" his nose wrinkles.

Darryl takes a closer look around.

Flies fly everywhere around.

"Look, I think it's that small pit," he points up ahead.

Everyone looks close into the dark. Galina shakes her head and immediately turns away.

"Oh, my," Wylie turns away as he looks at the corpse of a dead rotten human body.

They cut off every limb to make him fit into the hole. His head is unrecognizable; his arms swing around the head. Bite marks everywhere. Animals must have taken the dead body as a feast for themselves.

"Damn," says Wylie while still covering his mouth with his hand. "Who did this?"

"I don't know," answers Darryl and stands back up. "But I am pretty sure he isn't the only one we will find. And it's not old from what I can tell."

The group starts to move again. Though, Wylie seems to be still looking at the body.

"What do you mean it's not an old body?"

"If it were old, it wouldn't have flesh remains on it. I think."

"Do you think there is some kind of evil spirits in here?" His mouth opens wide, and he looks at Galina.

Galina throws a slight scream out of her mouth. "Stop it, Wylie. Let's move on."

Slowly the four make their way to the heart of the cave. No light seems to be working anymore, the railing on top of the boulder, which used to be a path to walk at, wholly broken apart—the entire way filled with rocks that fell onto it. There is no way to walk across that path anymore. They are forced to walk down the wet stone path.

"Guys, stop," Whispers Mayumi to the group. She starts to look around with paranoia. "Something is coming."

Wylie shares suspicious looks with Galina. They didn't hear anything, but he knows that there must be something if Mayumi spots something. Her hearing is unbelievably good. She always spots enemies before they appear.

"Did you hear that?" asks Nalani to the group.

They walk in from the other side at the same time as the others. Rory looks around annoyingly; he doesn't understand why he's even here. But Santino dragged him to it. There was no way he could've talked himself out. He needs it the most, he said. So, of course, Rory had to go. Even Alphonse told him to go, the words he cares for the most as much as he dislikes the others.

"Hey guys, want to hear a joke?" asks Wang while walking through the cold cavern with his flashlight.

"No," Rory huffs.

"Don't listen to him, tell us, Wanni," adds Teresa.

"Well, anyway. What do you call a cave man's fart?"

"I don't know," says Nalani. "What do you call that?" she looks at him.

Wang starts to laugh slightly, laughing at his joke on his mind. "A blast from the past," he bursts out in laughter.