Wonderer's Wish World: An Empty Land

The Voice

The light flickered. Kai stumbled, nearly knocking Tulip into a stalagmite. They saw Jolene shake the lantern, but the light just flickered even more.

A flare of panic shot up in Tulip's gut, but she forced it down as fast as possible. "Is something wrong with the light?" Tulip asked her, calmly.

"It's not going to go our, right?" Kai asked, definitely not calmly.

"Calm down," Jolene ordered sternly. "I'm not sure what's going on. This type of fire never goes out."

"As far as you know," Tulip noted. Jolene didn't say anything to that, instead, she stopped suddenly. Tulip and Kai did, too. Jolene turned to them with a look that terrified Tulip to her core, no matter how much she tried to fight against it. Kai physically took a step back.

"Listen to me," Jolene told them quickly. "There's something I should say: In the darkness, this place will try to trick you and run you into the ground while making you spin in circles. You have to be smart and-."

The light flickered, and completely went out. Kai and Tulip jumped at that, and then even more at a slight tapping sound that echoed in the invisible walls.

"And run."

"Wha-what?!" Kai cried. Tulip's eyes widened, but there was no light anywhere for her eyes to adjust to.

"Jolene?" she whispered. Kai called out much louder.

"JOLENE!" Kai's voice bounced off the walls. Tulip's brow furrowed. What happened? And so suddenly, too... What had gone wrong without any of them noticing?

"What do we do?" Kai said, and he sounded stricken. "Run? Like she said?"

"..." Tulip didn't answer right away, or even when Kai started tugging her away, back the way they came. The sudden plunge into darkness had shaken her, no doubt, but it hadn't pulled the rug from under Tulip completely. With her good leg, she forced Kai to stop his frantic lurch down the way they came.

"No..." Tulip said, frowning. Her eyes were still trying to adjust to things she'd never be able to see that way, so she shut them, instead. In this strange, new world, she clung onto Jolene's last words like a life-line. "We can't. Kai, we can't run away! We have to keep our heads in all this. So think! What are we running from?"

"Wha- the same thing that got Jolene!" Kai snapped.

"We're not walking that fast," Tulip pointed out. "So if there was something malicious watching us, it would have already gotten us."

Tulip heard Kai gulp. His face bumped into hers as he tried to lean down.

"But Tulip!" he hissed in a whisper. "There IS something here! Something's watching us, can't you feel it?"

"I know, I know," Tulip replied in her normal voice. "But I don't think that's how this place works. They're not trying to get to us through violence or force, but through psychological means... they're trying to scare us!"

Kai didn't seem to know how to respond to that for a good long while. "...So people go crazy down here... like Jolene said... through fear?"

"Think about it," Tulip explained. "The darkness, the weird imagery we've been seeing, the odd way sound works in these caves... they are all meant to make us more afraid. To divide us to make us go insane. Whatever... is attacking us can't do it outright, but it uses those methods to get to us. So, please, Kai, keep your head down here."

Kai made a sound in the back of his throat. "Then when Jolene told us to run..."

"I... don't think that was Jolene," Tulip finished. "Before you ask, I have no clue what happened to her, I just hope she's alright."