Beach Day

5: Tiff Falls From The Sky

This is a horrible idea— she left all of her weapons at home, including her heavy flashlight. If this is something dangerous, she isn't going to be able to do much to defend herself. She's going to be fine; even if she isn't, it will have been worth it.

A twig cracks off to her left, signaling where to go next— through the thick trees, through pawed-aside moss. It's a pale figure, with stringy hair, and black, weeping holes oozing some sort of liquid from its skin, if you can call it skin. Vaguely humanoid, it darts through the trees and she follows it until she loses it entirely.

She comes to a hole in the ground and a dead end with regards to the trail. It's deep, like an old well that someone never covered or filled in. Unless the thing was a specter or a teleporter of some sort— channeling divinity, perhaps— it has gone down this hole.

Hmm. Maybe it's better to toss an object down the hole so that she doesn't die or hurt herself needlessly. Tiff grabs something from her back pocket at random. Not her phone— she needs that. It's just a paintbrush. A rock would make more sense, but it's way too late for that. She has already tossed it; she is already listening for the sound of wood against the ground in the five seconds it takes. Fantastic. Tiff can't keep a grin off her face. Whatever it was, it's probably down there and it either needs help or to be left alone. She could ensure either, if she could just get down there. The only question is, how?

Tiff puts her hands on her hips as she thinks, and feels the plastic on her belt loop. Oh. Right. Shit. She still has Kepler's leash on her hip, even if she took him off of it back at the bridge.

Where she left him. Fuck.

If it's strong enough to keep Kepler from running off into traffic and getting hit by a car, or to keep him from stealing a sandwich from some poor guy on his way to work, it's definitely strong enough to keep her from falling and to help her get back out later. This is fine.

All she can do is think about how bad an idea this is and how she has to go through with it anyway. She ties one end of the leash to a nearby tree and leaves the other part attached to her belt. She can always unhook it if she needs to. If she dies, she'll do it while doing what she loves: doing something absolutely fucking stupid in the pursuit of knowledge. It isn't like she's trying to lean out of a moving car to mess with its gas tank. This is much safer.

It isn't like she hasn't climbed like this before. She spent a while practicing between Girl Scouts stuff and the aftereffects of climbing the shaft to the Cave of Discovery; that ensured the skill she gained by taking herself up to the mountains and practicing.

By herself.

Because she's an idiot.

She lands at the bottom of the hole. The puddle of water at the bottom splashes up her bare legs. She looks up to the opening high above her.

Well, that's not going anywhere. She unclips the leash from her belt loop and shakes her phone to turn on the flashlight and take a look around. There isn't much of anything down here by way of immediate evidence of what she chased so quickly into the dark. She'll just have to look harder.

There— a crack in the wall. It's the only place an actual, tangible creature or person could have gone, and it's through that crack. Tiff shines her flashlight into the darkness, sticks her hand into what lies beyond. She feels a distinct cold and the unshakable feeling that she won't be able to get through. Maybe Andy could, but she would never let him try. Kepler would be a better candidate, anyway. Whatever the case, the trail ends here, for now.

High above her, Matt calls her name to the trees.

She stays quiet, though she's sure Matt can see the leash she used to rappel down to an indefinite doom. She has two things she has to do, then; two ideas she has to get through.