A piece of paper, hanging from the wall by a thin string with words scrawled across it in jagged, angry script:

  “There is nothing good beyond here. Turn back.”

  Lyra looked at me, her eyes wide with fear. “What does this mean? If someone went out of their way to leave this note for us… Shouldn’t we consider it?”

  I gently took the paper from her hand, crumpling it in my hand. “Nothing,” I said, my voice firm. “The only good things in this world are the villages. Everything else is just varying degrees of misery.” I cracked a hollow grin. “What I’m saying is, this is just more of the same.”

  I gestured for Lyra to continue, and she did, still stunned by the note. “Are you used to this kind of thing? Have you been finding notes throughout your nightmare here?”

  I thought of the Checklist. I guess it could be considered a note, but in that case, it was the greatest note. It hadn’t led me astray so far.

  “Look, we don’t know the circumstances behind that letter. I appreciate that someone left it there, but honestly? This tunnel has been one of the most peaceful locales I’ve encountered so far. Were the village and the tunnel all the writer ever knew? In that case, yeah, anything’s worse than that, but I’ve already survived it. You too, technically.”

  “Didn’t you say arrogance is bad for our lives?”

  “This isn’t arrogance. This is an educated bet. Just like with this tunnel. I bet it was safe, and we’ve been yapping with no penalty. Can’t do that anywhere else.”

  “I guess… You’re the expert right now.”

  “Hey… Was there any lead-up to the Shadow Flame going out?” I asked, hoping to distract her as we walked.

  She shook her head. “No, not that I can think of…”

  “That’s too bad. Any clues would be good now.”

  Lyra suddenly stopped as we rounded a corner. I did, too, as soon as I saw it.

  The tunnel’s monotony broke when the blue glow blanketing the tunnel suddenly–and abruptly– became a deep purple. That was the only thing that was different. The purple light gems had won.

  Lyra refused to budge. “W-What is this?” Her voice was a whisper, as if afraid the light itself might hear her.

  “Calm down,” I said, nudging her forward. “It’s just light of a different color.”

  “Just light? Just light?!” She whirled on me, her fingers digging into her dagger’s grip. “Set, nothing about this is normal! First the note, now this—what if it’s poison? Or a trap?”

  I looked at the ceiling. “Poison light? That would be a new one…”

  “Come on, man. Take this seriously.”

  “I am taking it seriously. The passage has been pulsing with purple light for a long stretch now. That over there is more purple. Kind of strange that we can see it, but hey. It’s a weird place.”

  Her jaw clenched. “I really think we should take that note seriously.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked past her and into the light. I spun on my heels, demonstrated that I was fine, and kept walking. Her hurried footsteps followed.

  I could hear her let loose the breath she held. “I guess it’s alright.”

  “See? Now walk in front of me. I don’t want to risk you getting disappeared.”

  She passed by me, showing me a timid smile. “Thanks… I appreciate it.”

  “Thanks for holding onto your courage.”

  We kept the trek up for a little longer, Lyra telling me more about her village’s resources and comparing notes with mine. Aside from seeming more mineral-rich, nothing was really standing out. Her village had roughly a similar amount of people with the regeneration blessing as mine too.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Hey… Can we take a rest? Just for a minute.” Her eyes met mine, her hesitance evident. “The crystal doesn’t help someone running on fumes.”

  I nodded. “That’s reasonable, we can take more than a minute,” I said, already removing my pack. “Are you okay with sitting down here? I’m not going back.”

  “Like I have a choice,” she replied, cracking a grin.

  “Word of caution: I don’t have enough food to be generous with the breaks. We can’t meander for too long, or you’ll die in these tunnels if they happen to go on like this for days.”

  Lyra didn’t argue. She slumped against the wall opposite me. Her hands trembled as she rummaged for a small water pouch in her side pack.

  “You’re lucky that pouch is so resilient,” I said.

  “Heh, yeah,” she replied, taking a sip. “There’s this sheep that propagates in our forest. It’s got a really elastic stomach. The things get so bloated.”

  “Sheep? Don’t got those ones,” I replied, careful not to mix up my memories of earth and this underground world.

  Lyra smiled. “They’re cute. You know the cotton plants, though, right?”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  “Well, imagine like an itchier cotton. And a little bit piss yellow. The sheep are covered in them.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said, pretending that I didn’t believe her.

  “Don’t give me that! I’m telling you the truth! What’s wrong with your village? How could you be that bad off?”

  “I’d love to have an answer to that. I’m more jealous than the hungry bird watching the wormeater take the worms.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What’s a wormeater?”

  “It’s like a giant rodent with this really long snout.”

  Lyra winced, her nose scrunched. “Freaky. Your village is weird.”

  “Says the girl who lives with walking cotton balls,” I shot back.

  “It’s not as weird as you make it sound,” she said with a chuckle. Her chuckle faded but an uneasy smile remained. “Hey, do you have any good friends in your village?”

  I quieted down. I had been trying not to think about her more than I needed to.

  “Yeah,” I said, her face crystal clear in my mind. “I’ve got one really good friend.”

  Lyra’s smile broadened. “You worried about them? What do you think they’re doing right now?”

  I chuckled. “If it’s her, then she might be trying to figure out what to do.” My smile faded right after I said that. “I… need to get back before she does something rash.”

  “You think she still thinks you’re alive? Hunting accidents are common. Getting dragged off by a Shadow Beast, though? That’s not something that normal people can hope to come back from.”

  “She has no reason to give up hope so quickly.”

  “Hmm, alright then,” Lyra said with a bob of her head. She pointed at my left side. “What do you think she’s gonna say when you show her all of the goodies?”

  My eyes narrowed on her. “I’m not planning to.”

  “Oh?”

  “You took it well–these incredible things I claimed.”

  Lyra twisted her lips. “I guess so.”

  “But you’re probably an outlier, relative to us. You’ve seen more of our world than my village has. I can’t underestimate that. Even just meeting your blue-skinned friends… That’s way too much… We can’t hope to be that open-minded just like that… I’m going to be more careful with my village.”

  “Wow,” she whispered. “Didn’t think you were thinking so hard about this.”

  “Do you have ‘good’ friends?”

  She cracked a grin. “Yeah. Some girls I grew up with… Two of the foreigners. They were my good friends.”

  “Hey… You and I are ‘humans.’ What did the visitors call themselves?”

  “Oh, sorry. They were ‘Liazuls.’” Lyra rested her head against the wall. “The Liazul people… They were like us, Set. Just people hiding from Shadow Beasts.” Her eyes steadily focused on mine. “What do you think about the Shadow Beasts, Set?”

  “Probably what you do.”

  “I don’t know that. Your village might have different thoughts about them. The Shadow Beasts are our natural predators. Just like we are the predators of everything in our hunting territory. The Liazul said our ancestors hid underground to escape terrors worse than the Shadow Beasts. They said that despite how bad the Shadow Beasts were, we had villages that we could rely on being safe… Believe it or not, whatever the legendary “Outside World” is, it was worse than here.”

  “Outside World…” I repeated.

  It was a little bit hard to sift through the memories but yeah, some of the old folk would laugh about the world outside of our shadow-ruled jail. They would just describe what were essentially bright skies, and infinitely high walls. Truth was, no one in my village had any real notion of something on the other side of the earthen jail.

  “I guess I’m more interested in getting back to the village. I don’t have the mind to think about what else there could be.”

  “Heh, that’s fair—“

  Lyra's head suddenly swiveled. She stared down the passage, fear in her eyes.

  “Lyra?”

  “Didn’t you hear that?!” she harshly whispered back.

  I scanned the tunnel ahead. “I don’t see anything, Lyra. Like I said—“

  Lyra’s sudden scream erupted and caused the gems to hum. My gaze jerked back.

  “Set—“

  A large, flat shadowy hand had gripped Lyra’s body. Memories flashed of the titanic Shadow Beast. Before I could move, it pulled Lyra, dragging her into the nearby dark passage without a single care for how it dragged and crashed Lyra against cave walls.

  It was pulling her fast—her screams were already echoes.

  I took off sprinting, chasing them into the darkness.