Of Caverns and Casters ✓ [TLRQ #1]

Chapter 6 - Sean

Despite the gurgling water and the low lights that would lull most people straight to dream-state, I'm still awake. At this point, I've given up maintaining the pretense of slumber since she's asleep.

Instead, back to the wall, facing the opening to this little room, I've pulled out three notebooks, one typifier, and one presswrite. My thoughts wander as I type, fingers dancing over the keys.

Left. I took the left path. Left was the right way to go. I know it. That's what the map said.

Or was it?

Of course it was. Left. It was definitely left. I wouldn't forget; I'm not a 'forgetting' person. I know what I'm doing, and randomly forgetting the directions that I made sure to memorize is not something I would do.

I don't just forget things.

I still remember word for word an entire Chemistry of Addictions lecture; I still remember line for line the first brain diagram I had to study; and I still remember shade for shade the pattern of the wood-grain on my year-two desk at my primary.

I don't just forget things.

So it must have been the left. I know it's the left. I wouldn't have gone that way if it wasn't.

I confidently return to my typing. The clacking bounces between the cavern walls, suddenly broken by a slap of water.

I jump and look at the stream. A lizard with frills and gills around its neck is sliding back under the surface, twitching frog legs protruding from its mouth. Shaking my head, I turn back to the presswrite. Clack, clack. Deep breath in. Clack, clack. Let it back out.

Way to let a weird lizard startle you, Sean.

Alternately referencing my notes and typing, I manage to fill the next few hours. For the fun of it, I take a sample of stream-water with the typifier, a cube-shaped device for identifying elements.

Using an eyedropper, I put four droplets onto its finely perforated grate. They sink through, and I wait. After three minutes and twenty-one seconds—according to my timepiece—twelve of the thirty vials begin to glow. Eleven of the colored vials are exactly what I expected—it identifies the water, the byproducts of the plants, the excretions from the animals. No surprises, and nothing interesting there.

But black also shows. Unknown.

My brow furrows. This is one of the most advanced versions of typifiers there are. What could be in this water that it wouldn't include?

A few feet away, there's a rustle as my quarantine mate rolls over, slightly humming as she comes to. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her sit up and squint against the glow of the typifier. "What're you doing, Sean?"

I glance up from the device. "Figuring out what's in this water." What does it look like I'm doing?

"In the middle of the night?" she asks.