Life in Fae Valley

Chapter 5: Part 2

The cave seemed relatively uninhabited other than for some scratch marks on the walls... Slowly getting up, she went and felt the wall a bit, JD walking over to her and gazing curiously at the scratches as well. "Bear maybe? Could be... It's deep enough."

"Maybe but its nowhere near close enough to be a bear paw... Compare it to our hands... It looks almost human. The slashes are close enough" Natalie murmured, leaning closer but yelped as the floor under her suddenly cracked as she fell through into a long winding tunnel... She slid through this horrifyingly cold and dark slide of sorts, JD soon following after since he didn't want to be left alone.

They managed to cling onto one another as they slid through this tunnel for what felt like ages till the landed in a wide, open cave... One source of light coming from a hole in the roof. "What the fuuuuuuck" JD whispered as he gently let go of Natalie and stood up, helping her up as well as they looked around.

The cave walls were covered in writing and drawings, more of the scratches they saw earlier here as well...  There was one long tunnel on the left side of the cave, both detective and ex-soldier freezing for a moment.

"Shut up for a second!... Is that... Someone singing?"

"Sounds like it... What are we gonna do?"

"Investigate?"

"I feared you'd say that..."

Slowly, they made their way over to the tunnel and gazed inside, pausing some. JD gulped while Natalie frowned at the sight they were greeted with... Three skeletons side by side, made to look as if they were holding hands and a disheveled looking man dancing around them, laughing away. "We've made it boys! We've made! Free free free free free!" The man laughed.

He had long hair that went down to his knees, his body was scrawny as if he'd been starved and his pale green eyes were wild with emotion. His tattered rags of clothes look as if he'd been a hippy on the road before he had ended up here, a few fingers missing from his hands. "Free free freee!~ The man's gone, after so long,  it seems to me that we're finally finally free!" He laughed as he danced around the skeletons.

In the cave he was in was a massive cage that seemed as if it had been broken open, manic drawings of disfigured faces all over the walls,  three other cages laying broken in shambles in a pile... The mans dancing slowly stopped however as he stared down at the skeletons, silence consuming the once loud echo of his singing... Gradually, he started to shudder with laughter, which grew and grew till he was laughing at the top of his lungs, fingers clawing at his face as tears ran down his face, cracked lips starting to bleed from his wide smile.

"Shit, JD he's going to hurt himself! We have to do something!" Natalie said and moved forward just for JD to grab her and pull her back, staring at her in disbelief. "Are you mad?! He's clearly insane, he'll hurt you!" JD hissed at her and she scoffed, pulling away from his again.

"JD look around you. He's clearly been suffering... He needs someone to take care of him! Amd who knows? Maybe he'll have answers for us!" She said to him before slowly making her way over to the man who paused as he saw her, blinking in disbelief.

Gently, she took his hands away from his face and gave him a comforting smile, the man staring for a moment longer before he started to break down and cry, sagging to his knees. Natalie managed to catch him and held him close, gently rubbing his back. She was quiet as she let him cry, gazing around once more before she looked up at the drawings on the walls, eyes narrowing.

The faces looked vaguely similar... Not human, but something she could have sworn she'd seen before. "Hey... It's okay... We'll get you out of here... What's your name?... Did you do those drawings?" She asked softly as she shifted some of his hair out of his face and cupped his cheek in her hand, having him look up at her with his pale eyes... They were wet with tears, yet there was still beauty to them... Clearly eyes that had seen much.

"I'm... I'm Ziggy... I think?... I didn't draw them... My friends did before they..." He looked over at the skeletons before he shivered and hugged tighter onto her, burying his face in her neck. Natalie's gaze darkened as she then looked over at JD and motioned that he come over,  the detective hesitantly walking over.

He bent down to Natalie and Ziggy, Natalie then softly saying to JD, "J, we need to get him out of here... Who knows how long he's been in here... He might have some answers for us..." JD nodded some and stared at Ziggy for a moment before getting up and starting to walk around to try find a way out.

After a few minutes, Ziggy seemed to calm down and wiped his eyes as he looked at JD and said to him, "Windslock used to leave through a door behind the cages on the rare occasion that he did leave... He kept us down here... Experimented on us... Is he gone for good? Will he never come back?" JD was quiet with shock, before nodding and went and found the door he was looking for, opening it with a happy sigh. Walking back over, he helped Ziggy and Natalie stand up, Ziggy gently clinging onto Natalie like a scared child.

As they walked together out of the cave, Natalie softly whispered to JD, "Well now we know where Eustass had been... Faked his death it seems to do who knows what to this poor soul and his friends... How long do you think he's been down here?" JD shrugged a bit and glanced over at Ziggy and his clothes before looking back at Natalie.

"10 years."

"How do you know so specifically?"

"... I read a case file about a missing persons list... Ziggy, Jason, Miles, Carter. A group of traveling musicians that disappeared... Dante told me about Ziggy too. They used to be friends."

Natalie fell quiet with this news before sighing and giving JD a harsh poke in the side that caused him to yelp and earned a soft giggle from Ziggy. "Don't think you could have told me this news any sooner?! That's important information! "

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, geez relax! It didn't come to mind okay? We spoke about a lot of things that night, Ziggy isn't the only thing. Dante has a lot of problems and I'm not about to tell you every one of them!" The detective huffed and Natalie rolled her eyes before gently amd playfully smacking JD over the back of the head.

She wasn't genuinely upset at him, simply messing with him a bit. "So while I've been suffering with nightmares, you've been out snogging the local weird guy? Woooow JD, I'm so surprised."

"DANTE AND I HAVEN'T BEEN-"

"Ow, my ears."

"Sorry Ziggy."

"It's okay."

Eventually, the group made their way out of the forest and Ziggy shielded his eyes a bit as the clouds cleared to a bright day, sun hitting his skin again after so many years underground. He paused for a moment and let out a happy sigh as he let the breeze blow through his hair, closing his eyes. "Wow... It's been so long... I missed the sun" he whispered before looking over at Natalie and JD with a teary eyed smile. "Thank you for saving me... Windslock. He's gone right?"

"He's gone, Ziggy. We promise... He won't ever hurt you again."

"Perfect... Now I never have to hear those terrible voices again..."

"Voices? What voices?"

Ziggy paused for a moment as he thought over this before scratching the back of his neck a bit. "He had this weird machine that he'd put on when we slept... We saw things. Crazy things. It drove the other guys insane, so much so they started to kill each other... I nearly did the same... But he seemed to like me. Don't know why. Said I didn't have to be awakened like the others... That I didn't have to see the beings."

Natalie and JD looked at Ziggy, then one another before looking at Ziggy once more, Natalie's heart racing as she stared at the man. "What beings Ziggy? What were they?"

"He called them gods... The ones who watched and controlled everything. He seemed to think he could communicate with them... And freaked when he didn't."

"These 'gods'... Did they have names?"

"Well, he spoke of one a lot... One he worshipped."

"And who was that?"

"L'Ael."