I listened to Fallon’s explanation with an increasingly deadpan explanation. Finally, I had to interrupt her to ask, “So it’s basically Narnia but for weebs?”

  The girl stopped mid-explanation, sputtered for a second, then reluctantly admitted, “Yes, basically.”

  “Only instead of a wardrobe, we got hit by a bus.”

  “I think trucks are more typical, but yes, that’s the idea.”

  “Okay so either, A, we died and this is the weirdest afterlife we’ve never heard of, or, B, an unknown force grabbed us just at the moment the bus hit us and pulled us into an anime.”

  “Or C,” she said in a cautious tone, “it’s a hallucination brought on by–”

  “We’re not going back down the coma dream route, Fallon.”

  “Simulation gone wrong?”

  “I never liked the Matrix.”

  “Elaborate prank show?”

  I gave Fallon a flat look, and she replied with a pert smile that somehow managed to make my heart flutter and my fists clench at the same time. “I’m just gonna go with the anime explanation,” I decided. “It’s definitely better than being dead. Or… any of those other options.”

  “Technically it’s not just an anime trope,” Fallon added. “It’s common in manga, and light novels, fan fiction, comic books, even classic literature.”

  “Yeah, Fal, that’s what’s wrong with all of this. The piece of media I’m comparing it to.”

  “You keep calling me that.”

  “What?”

  “Fal. That’s not my name.”

  “Seriously? It’s a nickname.” I shook my head. What was with this girl? Was pedantry a self-defense reaction for her? “You’re definitely focusing on the wrong stuff here, Fallon.”

  As we both looked around the cave Fallon had woken up in, I frowned thoughtfully, remembering a game I had played several years back, when I was still in junior high school. None of my other friends at the time had liked it–they all said it was too complicated–but I got obsessed with it for most of a year. And it was at least a little similar. “I don’t suppose you recently read a magic book about a weird world with some friends, did you?”

  “Books about weird worlds, sure. Magic and friends? Not so much. Why?”

  “No reason.” I turned my attention back to the cave. Well-lit as it was, I could make out one more feature my initial cavern had lacked that I hadn’t noticed in my shock at meeting Fallon. The tunnel I had entered from was, in fact, only one of a handful that broke up the wall on every side. “That’s weird.”

  “What?”

  “The cave I woke up in only had one tunnel,” I explained. “Yours has a bunch.”

  Fallon nodded, looking at the exits nervously. “That was why I started calling out like that,” she told me. “I didn’t know which way to go, so I started shouting down each of them, hoping to find someone.”

  “Well, congrats–you found someone.” My smile was grim. “Sorry I can’t be of any more help.”

  “It’s okay,” she told me, as if I genuinely needed the reassurance. “At least you brought a light. Did you find that in your cave too?”

  I held up the small crystal I carried with me. It seemed to still be as bright as when I pried it out of the wall above, it was just less noticeable in the more pervasive light of this cavern. “Yeah. Mine had a bunch of small crystals, all bunched together. I pried this off one of the clusters.”

  “So they were shaped differently?” I nodded. “Interesting… the light is different too. More white than this one.”

  It was a noticeable difference, like comparing LEDs to fluorescents. “You’re right… weird,” I acknowledged.

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  “How does it glow like that?”

  “You think I know? At this point, I’m just calling it magic and moving on for the sake of my sanity.”

  “So magic is more reassuring to you than figuring out a rational explanation for all of this?”

  “Explanations can wait,” I pointed out, mildly frustrated with Fallon’s continued distractions. It was like everything I said was the start of a whole rabbit hole she felt the need to pursue to the end. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t have breakfast this morning. Before too much longer, I’m gonna need some food and water, and last I checked, I can’t eat crystals, magic or not.”

  “Oh! R-right…” Fallon’s face darkened as she, too, looked to the assorted tunnel entrances. “So… we need to start moving?”

  “Looks that way,” I said. “I was hoping we’d find some more company. Some friendly creature from this world that would help us out. Mister Tumble or Monty or whatever.”

  “Mister Tumble?”

  “You know, from Narnia. The goat guy.”

  “Mister Tumnus?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wasn’t he a bad guy?”

  “Fal. Holy crap. Focus.”

  “Sorry.”

  Ignoring the blush on her face, which was both very cute and extremely unlikely to save our lives, I started walking to each of the holes in the wall, holding my light crystal down each. I was quickly disappointed. Most of them were similar to the first one I had taken, leading further downwards, with only two exceptions. One was the tunnel I had come down, which I already knew was a dead end, and the other was way, way too steep to make it up, almost vertical.

  “This one,” I finally decided, indicating the fourth tunnel I had checked. “I think we should go this way.”

  “Why?” Fallon approached, looking down the same tunnel skeptically.

  “It’s flatter than the others,” I explained. “It’s still definitely sloping downwards, but not nearly as much as the others. And I think I see a little light down it–maybe there’s another one of these caverns, maybe even with someone else like us, or at least someone who knows what’s going on.”

  Fallon fretted at her lower lip. “I don’t know…” she hedged.

  “Do you have a better idea, then?”

  “Uhm…” More nervous chewing, a few furtive looks that sent her corona of hair flicking from side to side. “I always heard that when you’re lost, you should just stay in place, to make it easier for people to find you.”

  “Only we don’t even know if people are coming to find us, Fallon!” I could’ve said it more nicely, but the situation was starting to get to me. It was all just so overwhelming, and I didn’t know what to do, but I knew that just sitting down would accomplish little more than driving myself insane. “If you want to wait here, you can! But I’m going to keep moving and just hope I find something worth finding. A way out, or at least a stream or something!”

  The girl whimpered, and the sight of moisture at the edges of her eyes deflated my frustration like a popped balloon.

  “P-please don’t leave me here…” Fallon said quietly.

  I blew out a long breath. Good job, Dani, I scolded myself. As if she wasn’t upset enough, going through the exact same things as me, I just had to go and explode at her.

  “I’m not going to leave you here,” I told her, trying my hardest to keep my voice gentle. “But we can’t just stay here. It’s all too likely we’ll end up dead, or re-dead, or whatever, and no matter why we’re here, I don't think dying again and going a layer deeper or whatever is an option.”

  “O-okay,” she said between sniffles.

  I couldn’t help myself. I took a step closer to her and, ever-so-cautiously, wrapped my arms around her. She returned the motion, her body trembling like a rabbit, and we just stood like that for a moment. I told myself I was trying to make up for my outburst, trying to comfort her, but the truth was, I needed the reassurance of her touch just as much.

  We stood like that for a long moment before we broke away at what felt like the same time. Fallon was blushing again, and I felt enough heat in my face to know I was doing the same, if quite a bit less cutely.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her.

  “Me too,” she replied, sniffling again. “Well, we both have something to be better at, right?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’ll try to stay focused, and you try to be nicer to me. Deal?”

  A shaky grin spread across my lips. “Deal. No promises that I can try very well, though.”

  Her own shy look turned into something mischievous. “Me either,” she admitted.

  We both laughed, and it felt like a small weight had rolled off my chest.

  We were still lost, still trapped, still in an unfamiliar place, and even our best answers as to why ranged from terrifying to insane. But at least we weren’t alone anymore. We had each other, and we had a direction to start moving in. That helped.

  “Are you okay to start moving?”

  Fallon wiped her face with the back of her hand, then gave me a shaky thumbs up.

  “Alright,”I told myself, turning back to the tunnel I had chosen, “nothing to it but to do it.”

  I held the glowing crystal out in front of me like a fantastical lantern and stepped into the dark corridor, Fallon close behind me.