Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

The Darkness

"A light, huh?" she asked gruffly, rubbing at the back of her neck with a hand. Tulip saw what she thought were tattoos running up and down the woman's arms, but upon closer inspection turned out to be scars, depicting fish leaping in and out of the water. Why wouldn't she just use ink?

"Hm..." the woman grabbed their attention again, staring down at the three of them. "You three wouldn't happen to get planning to go into that hole over there, are you?"

She sounded like she already knew the answer, but Mira gulped, trying to deny it with a shake of her head. However, her sheepish look had already given everything away, and the woman sighed.

"The idiots just keep getting younger..." The woman glared down at them. "You probably already heard this, but that's a big mistake."

"B-Because n-no one comes back?" Kai asked. The woman snorted.

"Oh, they come back alright," she told them. "But they don't come back... 'all right'. We've all seen it before. A moron comes through, asks for a light and then wanders into the hole. A few days later, they wander back out, muttering about God knows what and running through the desert to... nowhere. They always run the same way, like they're possessed by the same demon who leaves them out to die in a pile. I don't know. We don't see them again."

At this point, Kai's face was downright horrified, and even Mira was glancing at Tulip nervously. But Tulip's eyes were on the woman in fascination as she continued.

"Once I made the mistake of approaching one of 'em, because I'm a nice person and I wanted to see if he was alright," she explained. "However, when I saw his face, well... it wasn't the same guy I saw just a little bit ago. His eye sockets were stretched out too wide for his eyes, and when he moved, they nearly dangled out of his skull. And the skin around his mouth had been... well, I don't know, but it hung pretty loose around his mouth. And I don't think he had most of his teeth anymore either, because when I asked him what was wrong, he started screaming gibberish at me. Rather rude. Anyway, when I looked into his eyes sockets and his mouth, they had the same darkness in them as that hole."

The woman stared the three down with a resoluteness. "It's too dangerous down there, that's why I don't put the lanterns up for display anymore. Don't want anyone getting a bad idea. So if you all want one, you better give me a damn good reason you need to go down there, as well as how you'll survive. If you can't well, there's no way I'm sending you off to your deaths. You understand, right?"

Mira, Tulip and Kai gave each other looks, and Tulip could see her own dread matched on their faces.

"Yeah... I guess we understand..." Tulip eventually mumbled. "But we HAVE to go down there. We have to get something from there, and it's really important."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You'll have to be a little more specific, girl."

Tulip sighed. "It's... a bit of a long story, but basically, our town is getting attacked, and someone else promised else that the thing we need to save it, a little flower, is underground in the south, so..."

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that person is probably lying to you," the woman told them.

Mira frowned. "How would you know? You haven't gone down there, have you?"

"I'm still alive, aren't I?" she snorted. "But anyway, so the only way to save your home is to get some flower, right? Here's my advice: find a different town. The home is in the heart, blah blah blah... that place isn't really worth dying for, is it?"

Tulip gulped. If she was honest, she had to agree. The empty group of buildings they all had found their home in, it didn't really matter, did it? They could go somewhere else. No one had that much attachment to it, right?