To Name The Dark

i belong

We scramble down into the depths of the cave. It is wet, and mud pools in places. Red mud. Milky white stalactites hang from the ceiling, beads of water pooling then falling from their tips.

Soon, we are deep in the cave, a place never touched by sunlight. The floor is bumpy, slippery. The blackness is absolute.

Total blackness, and we move painfully slowly now, crawling tentatively.

"It's done," Riana whispers.

"Okay," acknowledges a second, lower voice.

What is done? We cease crawling, and wait in the ageless dark. It occurs to me how ridiculous my situation is. I am pressed up against a wall, trapped in a cave, in total blackness, with four strangers, in a red desert, after fleeing from hospital, after being in a (self-induced?) coma, after ki-

The cave is freezing, colder than I would have thought possible, after the searing heat of the desert. Soon, I am shivering, from delayed shock as well as cold. I start to wonder if I am alone.
'Are you guys still there?' I whisper.

'Where else would we go?' someone half-laughs.

Suddenly, a realisation hits me like a freight train.

My heart is beating! My heart is beating, my lungs are pulling musty cave air in and out of them, the blood, red, warm and alive, is pumping through my veins. Maybe it was the run, jump-starting my heart. Maybe it is just this strange world. A smile spreads itself, unbidden, across my face until I am grinning like mad.

Unless all of this is some kind of dream. I would ask them, the people I am crammed in the cave with, but that is what people always say in the books. Am I dreaming? they ask, hopeful. I have given up trying to act the way they do in books. It never gets you anywhere. I shift into a more comfortable position, and fall asleep with my finger held to my steady pulse. Not dead yet.

For the first time I can remember, I dream. I dream of swirling black ink, blank white walls, blood red horizons. I dream of running, sand spraying under my feet. I dream of heat and cold and light and dark. I dream of an endless rot creeping over the world, from the place of blood. I dream of standing, alone, on a flat white nothing that stretches out into forever. No horizon. Nothing. Just pure blankness. Total solitude.

I wake to screams, and light, and heat.

I open my eyes, abruptly awake. Disoriented, I realise I am not in the cave anymore, but back in the desert. I guess they must have carried me out? Well, that is slightly awkward. The red sun looms overhead. I am lying in a pool of tar. My power. No. I can't hurt anyone else. I spring up frantically, and sway a little as the blood rushes to my head. The four of them are backed away from me, but none of them seem to be hurt.

'Sorry for screaming,' one of them says, a brown-skinned boy with eyes that dart around, brimming with energy. 'We're all a little on edge, after-' He stops, abruptly, and now his eyes are downcast. 'We're all a little on edge. You probably have a ton of questions, right? Well, luckily, we have the answers. Maybe not all the answers. Most of them, probably. I guess it depends what-'

'Rohan.' Riana glares at him, but it's a playful kind of glare. 'Shut up. She doesn't want you to confuse her even more.' She turns to me. 'So, where to begin? Introductions, I guess.'

'I'm Mika,' the girl with red halfway up her arms begins. Though she's smaller than me, she looks like someone not to cross. 'I'm an Anger- wait, you don't know that yet. Basically I have that explosion power, which I guess you've seen. I like to sleep, but I don't sleep enough. Oh yeah, and the arms are my marking. It's not blood, or anything.' She laughs wryly. 'It's not the best marking to have. Yours is the hair, I'm guessing. Unless you dyed it.' She cocks her head, questioning.

'Yeah, I woke up, and it was like this. And short. It used to be longer,' I say, aware that I sound a little like a five-year-old. What was her name again? I can't ask, I'll sound even more dumb- Mika! Yes, that was it.

'Wait, where did the glowing people go?' I ask.

'Glowing? Oh, you mean the Hope Soldiers. They ran off somewhere. They'll be back. We'll tell you about them later. Introductions first, okay?' Riana says.

'My turn, right,' the energetic boy (Rohan, I think?) begins. 'So, this is my marking-'
He opens his mouth to show silvery teeth. 'I'm a Lethargy, which you don't understand, oh well- basically I'm like magical coffee, and I have a tendency to talk too much, you probably noticed, I'm going to stop now.' He smiles, and it's infectious. I find myself grinning.

Then I am distracted by the best hair- literally the BEST HAIR I have ever seen. It's rainbow coloured and short. I find myself staring at it, when the owner of the hair speaks.

'I'm Arc. And I'm non-binary, so you can stop trying to figure out what gender I am.'

'No, I just... the hair. That hair is amazing,' I get out.

'Thanks. It's not my marking though. My blood is black. Which we discovered in the middle of a fight.
Weird marking, right? So anyway, I'm a Hatred. Which sounds pretty emo, but if anything, Mika's the emo one here.'

Mika growls at them. 'Just because I like wearing dark colours. You know what, this top isn't even black!' she says, turning to me. 'It's navy blue.'

'Sure...' Arc murmurs, raising their eyebrows. 'Anyway, these idiots,' they gesture to Riana, Rohan and Mika, 'call me the Storyteller. Because I tell the stories. Imaginative name, right?'

Riana steps forward. 'I think it's a great name, actually. You already know me. But you can call me Ree. Or RiRi. Or Ree-ly amazing. Kidding. Or just Riana if you want to be boring.'

(I think I want to be boring.)

'Anyway, I'm the most interesting person here, and I'm a Lies, and-'

'Hold on,' I interrupt. 'How come you all speak English? With a British accent?'

'Oh, yeah. Well, if Arc is right-'

'I'm always right.'

'If Arc is right, then none of us are speaking English. We're all speaking what I like to call... drumroll please... the demon tongue. Which is kind of the essence of the words. And then whoever hears it hears it as the language they speak.'

My head hurts.

'Basically, none of us are saying what we think we're saying, or hearing what we think we're hearing, but we can all understand each other,' she continues. 'Okay, just say something, and listen to what you're saying. Really listen.'

'Well, my name is Thea, and I'm from England. I... uh, love chocolate, I guess, and-'
I keep talking, but I can't hear the words anymore. Just menacing growls and clicks emanating from my throat. Too. Weird.

Rohan is bent over laughing. 'Sorry,' he splutters between laughs. 'The look on your face! Priceless.'

I can hear an undertone of growling as he speaks, but eventually even that fades and I'm hearing normally again. You're hearing the delusion again, is what you mean. You're believing a lie.

This is all great, but... I have exactly the same amount of questions. More, actually. It must show, because they all look at me with varying degrees of pity and amusement.

'So, uh... where am I?' I ask. It seems like a sensible question.

They all glance at each other. Maybe the answer isn't as simple as I thought.

'Story time?' Rohan asks, as if he knows the answer.

'Story time,' confirms Arc.

These people are very strange. But then again, so am I. The craziest thing? I feel at home here, in this crazy red desert with these crazy people. I feel like I belong. All I need now is answers, and I'll be happy.

So, a lot of new characters. What do you think of them all? Who is your favourite so far?