Scooby Doo: Monster Menagerie

Chapter 18: A Labyrinthine Nightmare

It was silent. Eerily silent. The five members of Mystery Incorporated were all spread out, each one of them completely unconscious. It would be quite a long time before even one of them stirred into consciousness. Velma groaned out, her eyes slowly opening, being greeted with utter darkness. It was incredibly hard to make out anything, especially with the fact that her glasses had been knocked off of her face. It took her a few minutes longer before she was able to bring herself into motion, slowly and surely lifting herself up to her knees with her arms. With one hand, she rubbed her aching head, blinking as she tried, and failed, to fix her blurred vision. The other was starting to shift around on the ground to see if she could retrieve her glasses. She just hoped that they were laying around nearby and unbroken.

Strangely enough, what Velma touched didn't even feel like any sort of tangible material. The floor felt cold, sure, but it was not the familiar touch of wood or the smooth feeling of stone. Heck, it wasn't even the rough touch of gravel or dirt. It felt very... plain. Almost like it was meant to be nothing at all. A solid material for sure, but an impossible one at that. Deciding to investigate about this later, the girl kept fumbling around the ground for her glasses. Soon, she was successful in finding them, fortunately in one piece. Velma quickly pushed them to her face and blinked a few times, now finding her eyesight become properly adjusted. This still took a little bit, however, as the area was still shrouded in a sort of darkness.

She decided to stay to her knees, crawling around to see if she could find any of her friends nearby. Thankfully, it wouldn't take but a minute or so before she bumped against the tall, thin body of Shaggy, who was laid out right next to Scooby. Gently, she rested her hands on his side and began to try and shake him awake. "Wake up, Shaggy..!" She said, her voice coming out a lot quieter than she would've thought. Despite being in what felt like a wide open space, her voice didn't echo. In fact, it sounded as if her voice had no reverberation at all. This worried her into thinking that sounded didn't travel anywhere, but this fear was quickly put to rest as the man began to stir around, grumbling some.

"Gmph... Velma..?" He began, his own voice a lot more hoarse and quiet than it should have been. The moment Shaggy began to lift himself up, Scooby also snorted awake, quickly lifting himself up onto his feet with shaky legs. After realizing how much harder it felt to stand, the large Great Dane settled on sitting down for the time being. Velma helped Shaggy up to his knees as he did his best to steady himself. After getting settled as well, he wiped his eyes to try and adjust his own vision to the strange new environment. "Like, you're alive..!" He said, laughing nervously with a slight tone of relief, putting his hands on her shoulders, as if making sure she was still there. "...we are alive, right?" He added on, becoming very uneasy.

"I think so," She answered, smiling gently and gently patting his hands. Soon, they pulled away from each other and Velma began scanning the area once again. "Before we think about that, though, help me find Freddie and Daphne," She requested. The other two agreed to help and began to search around. While Scooby walked around on all fours just fine, Shaggy and Velma were a little bit more hesitant to get up on their feet. For one, they had no idea if they had the physical strength currently to even do so. Secondly, neither one of them felt like tripping over the body of their friends.

Fortunately for them, they were successful in finding the two of them, and not too far away from each other either. Velma tasked herself with trying to shake Fred awake while Shaggy and Scooby did the same for Daphne. Soon enough, both of them were successful, with the red-head waking up first, with Fred soon joining. Velma let out a loud sigh of relief as she helped him sit up. "Oh thank god you're alive," She said to the two, with everyone being pulled into a group hug.

"Of course! Why wouldn't we be?" Fred replied with a small laugh.

Soon, everyone pulled away from each other, each one of them still resting on their knees for the time being. Daphne was looking around, her look of relief soon showing one of unease. "So uh... who wants to try and explain where we ended up?" She asked. Everyone soon joined in, realizing there was a little bit more to take in. For one thing, it didn't look as if the group was in an large, open void of space. Rather, it felt like they were in a dark room, yet one that they couldn't even tough. Upon closer inspection, they could make out the edges of walls, as well as the ceiling. A plain, dark, black room, with nothing else but the group of five mystery enthusiasts. Secondly, the sense of foreboding and evilness that seemed to loom around them began to weigh down upon them. It was far stronger than anything they have felt previously. It was almost nauseating just how much it seemed to linger around.