Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

The Story

With Kai supporting her (well, barely, he was just as strong as she was, which was to say: not very), and Jolene carrying their light, Tulip was finally able to get a better look at her surroundings. It wasn't like anything Tulip had ever seen before, but it was a lot more familiar, and friendlier, than the complete darkness, even if Tulip could barely take any comfort in that.

At least her leg wasn't hurting quite as much as it used to. Jolene had given her some medication that Tulip barely looked at before she swallowed them down, and they had just started kicking in, making Tulip feel a little better, if a little tired.

The cave tunnel they were in was small and cramped, barely enough for Tulip and Kai to walk side by side without also hitting the stalagmites rising from the ground. The rock walls on either side of them pressed in like a snake, and Tulip barely had to move the hand at her side in order to brush against it. The walls felt jagged, and cold, though when the lantern's light bounced off of them, they didn't look like ice. They were regular rocks, there was just no heat down here to warm them up.

Tulip couldn't see a ceiling above them, the lantern's light was rather dull, and couldn't reach that far, so instead, stalactites jutted out from the darkness at them like teeth. It was a little unnerving, if Tulip was honest, like they were just floating there, coming out of nothing.

The floor underneath them was loose, and at times, difficult to walk on. Sometimes it shifted unexpectedly underneath their feet, and Kai and Tulip stumbled. If they didn't have the light, Tulip suspected that'd be terrifying, like the ground was alive below them, so Tulip once again found herself overwhelmingly grateful that Jolene had come along. No wonder people turned insane in this place, it seemed almost designed to make people go insane with fear.

Ahead of them, Tulip saw Jolene check the lantern again. She'd been doing that a lot recently, like she was worried the lantern would go out, but that didn't make any sense. That fire didn't go out, supposedly.

"Is something wrong with the lantern?" Tulip spoke up. Jolene stiffed, perhaps not expecting getting caught, but she quickly relaxed.

"No," she said, gruffly. "Not this one. I am, however, wondering about the fire I left you. Where'd that one go?"

Kai gulped, and Tulip realised that he came to the same conclusion she did.

"Could someone have taken it?" she asked Jolene.

"Mira?" Kai guessed, but he didn't sound particularly hopeful. Tulip frowned at him. Mira already HAD a lantern.

"Is someone else down here?" Tulip asked instead. Jolene shrugged.

"Everyone who's gone down has come back up," Jolene told them. "I've been keeping track, ever since this hole was put here. A few times a year, some idiot, or a group of some idiots, go down, and then sometime later, they come back up, deformed."

Tulip felt Kai shudder.

"No one's ever stayed down here," Jolene continued. "So either it's something that's always been here, or there's something else going on."

Tulip hummed. "And you still don't know a lot about this hole?"

"Hm?"

"If you've been living here so long, you must know something, right?" Tulip explained patiently. When Jolene seemed ready to argue, Tulip quickly continued. "I mean, I know you've never been in it. But like... how was it made, how long has it been... shouldn't you at least know where the people you've climbed out of it go? You said they all go to the same place..."

"Oh that," Jolene said. "Yeah, yeah, I've been here since the beginning, but I can't tell you much about it."

Tulip perked up. "Why not?"