There's No I in Story

The Tunnels

Whenever Drama ventured above her catacombs, she was proud of the pungent reek of rot that met her nose. The Marked, when accumulated as they were on the ground throughout the hallways and rooms, were arranged as though they had been returned from war. Drama could see them when the sun ducked below the western edge of the world, and then she prowled the halls and passageways beneath the cover of darkness. When the sun was ablaze above, she would cower beneath the school, and she would watch those who had not yet been marked, the remembrance of decay heavy around her. The Marked would move among the others, and that was when they were free to roam the world of the pure. But when the sun set...

Drama's muscles contorted, and her head swung around to watch the passageway that she had just departed. The darkness was complete. Soundless. Dank. And yet she felt that she was not alone. Someone else prowled these tunnels.

Teeth bared, the monster turned to creep toward the sound. The only objects to burn a hole through the blackness, her eyes glowed. 

The Hero yelped, lurched forward, and spun on her heels to see what had just tapped her on the back. To her annoyance—and embarrassment—Jess stood there. The other stood abashedly, tense, and refused to meet the Hero's eyes. "Are you really after the monster?" the Dependent asked, and the Hero could detect a waver when she spoke. Jess feared for herself, and perhaps—perhaps—even Stanley as well. She wanted to help.

"No," the Hero retorted and managed to collect the courage to start forward, toward the endless black throat. "Just after fame and glory and crap." She turned cheery. "So, what are you up to down here? Come here often?"

Jess hung back toward the entrance, loath to go onwards. Her shadow cast a deep gash across the floor of the tunnel. The Hero felt a shard of dread; to wander these halls alone was a death penalty, but to do so attended by another seemed at least somewhat safer. The Hero added, "Don't you want fame and glory and crap? To help Stanley? To go on an adventure? Come on..." She clenched her jaw. The Hero knew that she was nervous; she would never converse so much had she not been. Her rambles swept through the hallway.

There was a palpable pause on Jess' part, and shuffles as of feet came to meet the Hero's back. The Hero went onwards. After a long moment, Jess trotted to catch up. She muttered, "Yeah... Yeah." The Hero felt the wave of dread flush away from her. There was a moment when the only sounds were footsteps. Then: "You have a plan...?"

A half-chuckle of regret. "Nope."

The tunnels were long, and they reeked of terror; no matter how the Hero attempted to brush the smell away, the fear always crept back. There was no sound but Jess' and her own footsteps. Not even the vague echoes of drops of water so often heard when underground passages were part of the story could be found. A pale shaft of red cut through the darkness: the flash on the Dependent's phone turned on and set to draw red. But even that brought no comfort to the two wary explorers. The blackness breathed, pulsed around them, unseen lungs full only to contract and expel deathly cold breath through the hallway. But the adumbral walls moved not; they were as soundless as graves. And yet the Hero was unsure that even that analogy was dependable anymore.

When they came to a fork that broke the passage, the Hero randomly chose to head off to the left, and she left a mark on the floor to show what way they should go when they returned. "When." Of course "when." What other than "when?"

When the second fork came, they turned the other way, and the toe of the Hero's shoe cut through the dust on the floor once more. The scenery was monotonous, and she could not help but wonder how large the tunnels were exactly. Perhaps they stretched for thousands of feet. Perhaps the Dependent and the Hero would get trapped or lost. Perhaps the monster, Drama, would pounce upon them as a cat would and lacerate them from head to toe. The Hero made every attempt to keep these thoughts from her head, but that proved to be useless; apparently, when far beneath the surface of the earth, surrounded by roars of soundlessness, you could not just brush off what surrounded you. The Hero thought to herself—even her thoughts were as soft as they could be—Drama's probably after us by now, and we're now the hunted. That's just full of comfort. Why'd we ever come down here? However, these thoughts were subdued by the memory of Stanley on the ground, the blood the decor on the concrete around the torso.