Free Me

Old Ones

"Miss what?" Deanna asked, sounding irritated thanks to the suns harshness.

"All of this." Lost gestured to the vast nothing around them. "It's fun for a while but I'm glad society has advanced."

Deanna squinted, roaming her eyes over the dirt, searching for the old one's marker. "You've been here before?"

"I was born here."

Surprised, Deanna stopped looking for the marker and instead laid eyes on Lost. "You were born with the old ones?"

"No, they were here long before me, but I was born here, on this continent."

"Have you met the old ones before?"

"Not exactly. They pretended to be Gods long ago, and they influenced the culture here. I prayed to them once. But they aren't Gods. They're just old folk with too much free time on their hands."

Deanna leaned her head back and pressed her water bottle to her throat. "They're powerful."

"As am I, but I don't pretend to be something I'm not."

"Please don't tell them that. We just need to convince them not to play around with the earth, okay? Give them a riddle or something."

"Is that what you've been doing to keep them silent?"

"It works."

"That's only a bandaid. You need a real solution, not-" Lost's words cut off as she tripped and slammed into the ground. She groaned and spit up dirt, making a face at having gotten dust in her nose.

"You found the entrance," Deanna said, helping Lost up. There was an indentation in the ground covered in sand, but it was enough change in landscape that it caused Lost to fall. Deanna waved her hand and mumbled a few words in Latin. The ground shifted to reveal a stone staircase leading deep into the earth with no end in sight. Deanna started down it with Lost hot on her heels.

"That wasn't very well hidden," Lost commented. She touched the walls and found carvings ingrained there. They were harder to decipher the more she descended. Then the ground above closed, and nothing could be seen.

Deanna flicked her hand outward. "It's not meant to be, not really. How can the old ones lure in victims if they're hard to find?" A spark of light danced on her fingertip but it spluttered to nothing in a second. "Damn it all," she growled at the inconvenience.

Lost moved around Deanna nimbly. She couldn't see, not really, but her sixth sense was much better than her other five at the moment. "I can feel them." She took Deanna's hand and led the way.

"I can do this," Deanna mumbled. She allowed Lost to lead her, but she continued to attempt to breathe life into a flame. Eventually, Lost rolled her eyes and ripped off a piece of her shirt and waited for Deanna to try again. When sparks flew, Lost tossed her shirt piece into it and a fire burst into life. Deanna shut her hand around the flaming piece of cloth to preserve it, then a ball of light sprung forth and floated a few feet above her head.

"Better?" Lost quipped.

"That was dirty, but thank you."

Lost nodded and turned to get a better look at her surroundings. They were near the bottom of the staircase, the floor could be seen, and Lost hurried down. Deanna and her ball of light were close behind. In the flickering light, bones could be made out, scattered across the floor and half hidden under piles of dirt. Lost kicked at one and it disintegrated into ash.

"They're undesirable bones," Deanna said as she stepped over one. "Left here to scare."

Lost picked one up. "They're not very scary."