Opera in Underland

8. Double Double Sister Trouble

"You can learn lots of things from the flowers, 'specially in the month of June..."

Opera had been singing quietly to herself, under her breath, while she rocked herself gently, for some time now. It was one of the things she used to calm herself down. In her old life, she had used it while locked inside her closet, when her "siblings" were fighting each other or her "parents" yet again ignored her above average artwork or grades.

Now, she sat underground, by a sign pointing in numerous directions, after escaping the house the sign labeled as "Home". It wasn't her home. It couldn't be, not after what she had seen.

The girl couldn't help but think that maybe she should have listened to Eris. She should have turned her back and walked away from that room of monitors. Then it would all still be okay.

But would it really? Was it better to live in happiness and ignorance, or in knowledge and pain? Until this morning she'd have answered in favor of the latter, but now...

Opera held her head in her hands and groaned softly. Everything was so complicated. Some part of her hoped this was all a horrible and complex dream, and she'd wake up still in the Nergals' house, or maybe even on the surface, wandering about like the Hobbits in her favorite book.

Assuming it wasn't a dream though, she wouldn't get anywhere by sitting here. Best get up and check the sign, and her possible routes out. The girl was certainly clever enough to search for a way out on her own.

Search... Wait. What if someone came searching for her? What if Nergal came searching for her?

Seven hells. She hadn't thought of that. In her haste to get out and calm down she'd left without any explanation. And the racket she caused would certainly have woken them. They'd know she was missing by now. How would they react?

Maybe it was time to start moving a little more quickly.

Spinning around and standing up to check the sign, she thought about her options. Away from the house, that was a given. Not towards the surface, the police might be there, and she had no way up anyway. Half the names or more she didn't recognize and didn't want to chance. That really left one option available to her: the Underworld.

Thinking back to Billy and his friends, she remembered them saying that's where they were going. Prior to her asking Jeff about Junior, she had gone that way as well. She could probably retrace her steps at least to that point.

Wiping the last remnants of tears from her eyes and brushing the dirt and dust from her person, Opera went back up the way she had descended the day before. She kept an even pace, trying to tell herself to keep moving and keep quiet, in case someone was catching up to her.

As she walked she pondered over the Nergal situation. She was still terrified, if she was being honest with herself. And for now at least, she needed her space from that family, to learn more about them before she considered going back. But perhaps it wasn't all as bad as she thought.

Opera was cynical and untrusting for such a young girl, due to excessive life experience in mostly negative departments. She'd seen and been the subject of more hurtful and damaging things than most children her age. Her snap judgements often were pessimistic as a result, sometimes worst case scenarios. And although she was usually right, she was sometimes wrong. She hoped she was this time. They had seemed like such nice... people? Beings?

Note to self. Learn origins of Nergal and the Nergalings.

Next time, if there was a next time, she promised herself she would give Nergal and his family a chance to explain. They deserved that. A fair trial, as it were.

Opera reached the entrance to the main tunnel from the previous day. Checking back over her shoulder and seeing nothing, she took a deep breath and set off in the direction of the Underworld.

..........

Rosalind was having what was very easily the strangest day of her life.

Firstly, the more she looked at Grim, the more she was slowly convincing herself that his skeletal appearance wasn't a trick and wasn't a costume. That, and the scythe, really meant only one thing, and that was that the slightly scary blonde girl next to her was apparently able to boss around the actual Grim Reaper. And though that was cause to marvel in and of itself, several other unusual things were also demanding her attention. It seemed like every time she turned around, some new supernatural phenomenon was staring her in the face.

One of those phenomena was actually where they were standing. They were surrounded by strange creatures and monsters of all varieties. According to Mandy, if she was to be believed, they were in the Underworld.

And Mandy was thoroughly undisturbed by any of this. Her trademark scowl had never so much as quivered out of place. At her age Rosalind would have been scared out of her wits. Clearly, this girl had seen things.

After the three of them had come stumbling out of that portal, they had landed in what appeared to be a large, very official, government style building. The difference between that and any other building Rosalind had seen lay in the fact that it was very obviously deep underground. And the entire place was populated by the types of things children cooked up in nightmares. Only they weren't bothering anybody. They were going about their business as if this was simply the way things were done.

She supposed it was that general aura of the calm and mundane that kept her from going absolutely mad. The whole thing was absurd enough that she could pretend she was dreaming.

The real icing on the cake had been the others' description of Nergal, her sister's apparent captor. According to them, he tried to be very suave and sophisticated, in black and red suits. But his inky black skin, pointed teeth, neon green eyes, and clawlike hands always betrayed the fact he wasn't human. Whoever they were looking for was undoubtedly a very distinct figure.

A few steps away, Mandy and Grim were discussing business, as they called it, with a few other beings. One was a judge, going by the robes and powdered wig, but the others, Rosalind couldn't say. She simply kept herself occupied by glancing around the large domed room.

There were different routes to other parts of the Underworld leading away from the main chamber, visible as various tunnels, each labeled with a sign, and branching off like spokes on a wheel. This must be some kind of transit hub, probably leading to anywhere and everywhere in the Underworld one would wish to go.

Maybe even to Nergal...

A curious thought popped into Rosalind's head. Mandy and Grim had implied that Nergal had a certain level of infamy. Maybe someone knew where to find him. She was getting a bit impatient with waiting for the other two to finish their legalities. Her sister was lost somewhere and she intended to find her, with or without their help.

Rosalind watched the crowd for someone she wasn't afraid of approaching. A boy in glasses and a bow tie caught her eye and she stopped him, asking in as polite a voice as she could manage, "Excuse me, I'm looking for someone called Nergal, do you know where he is?"

"What, you mean Billy's uncle? He lives in the center of the Earth, yo, everyone knows that." the boy gestured to a tunnel behind him, a comparatively small one and one of the only ones that wasn't getting any traffic. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go woo my lady." He trotted past her, making a beeline for Mandy.

Rosalind blinked. That was... an unexpected answer, in more ways than one. Oh well. No time to worry over details. She had somewhere to start now. Not bothering to wait for Mandy and Grim, Rosalind set off down the tunnel the boy had indicated.

Find Nergal, I find my sister.

Rosalind continued down the tunnel for some time, feeling it slowly spiraling downwards under her feet. She assumed she must be pretty deep underground by now. So deep, in fact, that she could feel it getting slowly hotter in the tunnel, and she was starting to sweat.

She reached up to wipe her face, and as she did so, the picture of her baby sister she had been carrying fell from her pocket, blowing around the corner like pieces of paper in the wind tend to do. She dashed after it, absolutely set on not losing it.

And when she rounded the corner, she was staring Nergal himself in the face.

..........