With Kai supporting her (well, barely, he was just as strong as she was, which was to say: not very), and Jolene carrying their light, Tulip was finally able to get a better look at her surroundings. It wasn't like anything Tulip had ever seen before, but it was a lot more familiar, and friendlier, than the complete darkness, even if Tulip could barely take any comfort in that.
At least her leg wasn't hurting quite as much as it used to. Jolene had given her some medication that Tulip barely looked at before she swallowed them down, and they had just started kicking in, making Tulip feel a little better, if a little tired.
The cave tunnel they were in was small and cramped, barely enough for Tulip and Kai to walk side by side without also hitting the stalagmites rising from the ground. The rock walls on either side of them pressed in like a snake, and Tulip barely had to move the hand at her side in order to brush against it. The walls felt jagged, and cold, though when the lantern's light bounced off of them, they didn't look like ice. They were regular rocks, there was just no heat down here to warm them up.
Tulip couldn't see a ceiling above them, the lantern's light was rather dull, and couldn't reach that far, so instead, stalactites jutted out from the darkness at them like teeth. It was a little unnerving, if Tulip was honest, like they were just floating there, coming out of nothing.
The floor underneath them was loose, and at times, difficult to walk on. Sometimes it shifted unexpectedly underneath their feet, and Kai and Tulip stumbled. If they didn't have the light, Tulip suspected that'd be terrifying, like the ground was alive below them, so Tulip once again found herself overwhelmingly grateful that Jolene had come along. No wonder people turned insane in this place, it seemed almost designed to make people go insane with fear.
Ahead of them, Tulip saw Jolene check the lantern again. She'd been doing that a lot recently, like she was worried the lantern would go out, but that didn't make any sense. That fire didn't go out, supposedly.
"Is something wrong with the lantern?" Tulip spoke up. Jolene stiffed, perhaps not expecting getting caught, but she quickly relaxed.
"No," she said, gruffly. "Not this one. I am, however, wondering about the fire I left you. Where'd that one go?"
Kai gulped, and Tulip realised that he came to the same conclusion she did.
"Could someone have taken it?" she asked Jolene.
"Mira?" Kai guessed, but he didn't sound particularly hopeful. Tulip frowned at him. Mira already HAD a lantern.
"Is someone else down here?" Tulip asked instead. Jolene shrugged.
"Everyone who's gone down has come back up," Jolene told them. "I've been keeping track, ever since this hole was put here. A few times a year, some idiot, or a group of some idiots, go down, and then sometime later, they come back up, deformed."
Tulip felt Kai shudder.
"No one's ever stayed down here," Jolene continued. "So either it's something that's always been here, or there's something else going on."
Tulip hummed. "And you still don't know a lot about this hole?"
"Hm?"
"If you've been living here so long, you must know something, right?" Tulip explained patiently. When Jolene seemed ready to argue, Tulip quickly continued. "I mean, I know you've never been in it. But like... how was it made, how long has it been... shouldn't you at least know where the people you've climbed out of it go? You said they all go to the same place..."
"Oh that," Jolene said. "Yeah, yeah, I've been here since the beginning, but I can't tell you much about it."
Tulip perked up. "Why not?"
"Because there isn't much to it," Jolene told her. "You know how small that village over there is, right? Well, it used to be a whole lot bigger, honestly. A big bustling town, right on the edge of Death-Tasting Desert."
Kai made a face at that name.
"Life's hard out here, in the desert, but we made do," Jolene continued. "Merchants came and went, tourists (the crazy ones) came and went and that was that. Until the hole opened up. I was a teenager when it happened, just barely starting to live in this strange, kind of boring place, so this strange new sinkhole was pretty interesting. Lots of people from the town, and lot's a tourists, came to explore it, and, well..."
Jolene sighed. "This place is dangerous as hell. You can guess what happened to them. After that, we outlawed advertising this place to tourists, we had to keep those tourists safe, I guess, and basically stopped people from coming here. And when nobody came, business fell. And when business fell, well, this town lost everything. People went to two places, either the sink hole for answers, or to other towns, to find a better place to live. Nobody wanted to stay here, but we all kind of knew someone had to, to keep people from wandering into this evil thing, people like you three weirdos. Long story short, I offered, and I've been here ever since."
Tulip blinked at the woman in what was at first awe, then confusion.
"Wait... you're here alone?" she asked.
"Other than the visitors, yeah," Jolene replied. Tulip couldn't believe it.
"For how long?"
Jolene laughed. Now that Tulip was specifically looking, she could see age in the woman's shoulders and back, and in the heavy way she carried herself. If she was a teenager when this happened, then...
"Girl, I can barely find it in me to keep count anymore," Jolene told her, caulking, while all Tulip could do was stare at her, mouth agape.
"So why are we special?" Kai spoke up while Tulip floundered beside him. "There are going to be people after us, right? So why stop your guard duty to help us?"
"You can't imagine how long I've been here, lad," Jolene chuckled. "I've gotten tired of it. I either kill whatever's in this hole, or I die trying. Didn't I tell you this before?"
"Uh..." Kai said dumbly. He wasn't trying hard to hide the fact that he hadn't believed her. Kai decided not to answer, and instead leaned over to Tulip, lowering his voice just barely.
"We got lucky, I guess," he whispered, but Jolene overheard him easily.
"I wouldn't say that yet," Jolene cackled. "We're still in the thick of it, boy."
Kai frowned. "Does she know our names?" he whispered again to Tulip, apparently not learning his lesson this time. Jolene, however, didn't respond to this.
"I don't think we told her," Tulip whispered, much quieter than Kai was. "I don't think she cares."
In front of them, Jolene nodded.
Tulip spoke up again. "So didn't answer my last question," she pointed out. "What happens to the people when they come out of the cave? Where do they go?"
"I'm afraid no one knows," Jolene told her smoothly.
"Wait, what?" Tulip was taken aback. "You mean you've never wondered? Or even thought to look?"
"Oh plenty of times," Jolene told her. "But there's on rule in the Death-Tasting Desert: you don't go into the desert. In the town, and near the hole, but other than that, it's too dangerous. I've heard the stories... you go too far, and the desert turns into a living hell. Nothing can survive out there, because it gets so hot that it boils your insides in your skin and cooks you where you stand. I tried venturing out there once, in my youth, but I barely got a mile in. And even that nearly killed me."
Tulip winced, and Kai groaned.
"What is with this world?" he cried. "Why are there so many extremes?!"
Jolene chuckled. "It makes it more interesting, in my opinion."
"It sucks!" Kai argued.
Jolene laughed, and the small group lapsed back into silence, but one that was a lot more comforting than before, helped in no small part by the light guiding their path. Tulip had, mostly, gotten used to the oppressive darkness around them, and with her leg not hurting anymore, her mind felt clearer, and she was able to reason through her fear without panic or pain distracting her. The place was still scary, of course, but it was a little easier to focus on when boredom wasn't numbing her mind. The fear, almost ironically, kept her sharp, and able to study her surroundings with clarity.
Luckily, the place they were in now was a lot more interesting than the stairwell. The stalactites, though threatening, were fascinating to look at, and sometimes they passed by offshoots of the main tunnel they were traversing through. Neither Jolene, Kai nor Tulip really knew anything about rocks, but there were some formations here that were beautiful. They couldn't really see too well in their limited light, but sometimes they passed by white crystals growing out and looking like flowers, and others looking like bubbles or soft snow. They weren't soft, however, as Kai quickly found out when he tried to grasp one of the crystals, nearly cutting his hand.
Other times, the walls looked like they had been made of liquid once, dripping down onto the floor, but they had been solidified frozen like that. Tulip had no idea if that was really what happened for not, but that was the best way she could describe them.
There were many variations in the stalactites and stalagmites, too, with some being skinnier and others being a brownish orange, and still others being white and looking like a crystal.
It was fascinating, and Tulip and Kai couldn't take their eyes off of their surroundings, no matter how much Jolene tried to force them to keep walking as fast as possible. She didn't seem as interested in their surroundings as the two younger ones were, and that blew Tulip's mind. How could see not care? Tulip hasn't seen anything like this before, even on the train, and she'd seen a lot of crazy still on that thing.
... However... Tulip had to admit there was a problem with all this, and to her surprise, Jolene was the one who brought it up.
"Not a lot of places for life in here," Jolene noted, almost conversationally. Kai squeaked.
"Isn't that good?!" he asked. "Nothing can attack us then, right?!"
"She's talking about the flower," Tulip told him tiredly. "And... I'm sure it's here. Somewhere."
Jolene was quiet for a long time. "Say... your flower. What does it look like?"
Tulip groaned. "We have no idea."
"Maybe it's those white crystals back there," Kai suggested hopefully. "Maybe the flower is metaphorical."
"Hm," Jolene replied in a voice that suggested she wasn't really listening at all. "How are you planning to use this flower anyway?"
"Huh? We don't know," Kai answered.
"You just follow 'advice' blindly, do you?" Jolene seemed amused.
"We were desperate," Tulip told her quickly.
"Uh huh," Jolene said, and she looked suspiciously like she was trying not to laugh. "Right. So, do you know what is attacking your town or no?"
Tulip blinked. "It's..." she hesitated. "It's very powerful but... not really."
Jolene twisted around to look at her. "Are you being vague on purpose or do you really not know?"
"We... really don't know," Tulip decided.
"You can trust me."
"We know," Tulip said, trying to keep her voice level. "That's what we're doing."
"No, you need to trust me," Jolene told her with authority. "It's important."
"We KNOW that," Kai said impatiently. "But it's a little weird that you're trying to pry so hard into our mission."
"Is that what you're calling it," Jolene said dryly, and without humour. "Hmm...."
Once again, the group lapsed into silence, but this time, instead of gazing on the scenery around them, Kai and Tulip's attention was focused on the woman in front of them. The very mysterious, very strange woman in front of thedom, that Tulip suspected had different goals then what she had told them.
Tulip didn't want to distrust her, especially not here. It wasn't safe, when they all needed to be sure of each other and their selves in order to stay sane. This split between them, especially with the person with all the medical supplies in their bag. But Tulip just couldn't bring herself to completely ignore all the odd stuff surrounding Jolene, even with the easy explanation of 'this was just how lonely old ladies next to a mysterious hole acted'.
The faster they got what they needed, the faster they could leave. Tulip assured herself with that.
"I apologize for being strange," Jolene finally told them. "Can't an old lonely gal ask for some conversation? But it's fine. I won't pry."
"No, it's fine," Tulip said quickly. No matter what Jolene was hiding, Tulip definitely didn't want to get on her bad side. "I... suppose we are keeping this unnecessarily under wraps."
"We are?" Kai cried. Tulip gave him a look.
"We can tell you it," Tulip told Jolene. "We trust you."
"We do?" Kai blurted out again.
"We do, Kai!" Tulip nearly shouted back. She took a breath, and as sparingly as possible, Tulip described the odd events that got them to where they were right now, but without outright telling Jolene about how they were from another world, or that the 'god-like creature attacking them with a storm' was an actual God. Tulip hardly believed it herself, but saying it out loud made it sound especially deranged. When she was finished, Jolene only hummed in response. Tulip grew more and more worried as Jolene stayed quiet, and wondered if even diverging that much of a mistake.
Tulip chuckled nervously. "It... It sounds a little made up, doesn't it? But I'm not lying..."
"No, no, I believe you," Jolene said in a certain, faraway tone of voice that Tulip couldn't decipher.
"It sounds a little strange, though," Tulip admitted. Before them, Jolene shook her head.
"Everything in this world is a 'little strange'," Jolene told her. She laughed dryly. "That's how this world works."
"Oh..." Tulip and Kai exchanged a look. "Ok."
"You don't get it, but that's fine," Jolene said. Tulip desperately wanted to know what expression was on her face right now. "You'll understand when you're older."