Act 1: Groundskeeper: Chapter 10

I lost consciousness while I was falling, and this time you guys are in luck because I did have a weird dream thingy! Yay! I couldn’t make out anything; all I saw was a white light, but somehow I knew that there were two people in front of me - they were familiar yet foreign.

“Shit, shit, shit! What are we gonna do? This is bad!”

“Shh… Calm down, we’ll figure it out. It’s going to be okay.”

“But our options are to take her to the Groundskeepers or-”

“I know what the alternative is, but we have to ask ourselves what is the best thing for her.”

There was silence for a long moment before the first voice let out a long, exasperated sigh.

“We’re horrible people, aren’t we?”

Then the vision faded away, like a strong wind blowing away a fog. I woke up groggily, staring up at a green sky. I rubbed my eyes and did a double-take. It wasn’t the sky; it was the roof of a giant cavern, and the top was covered in bioluminescent green moss. I was on a small rocky island, if you could even call it that, surrounded by water in a giant, wide-open cavern. The only two light sources were the moss and a giant hole that looked small from so far in the ceiling, where only a tiny pinprick of sunlight shone down. The hole must have been where Den and I had fallen from. Off in the distance, there was a hole in the side of the cavern where water flowed out like a river.

“Good, you're finally awake.”

Next to me sat Den, he was tending to a pile of coals wth two fish grilling on a rock that sat on the coals.

“How long was I out?”

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“About a day. I think. It’s been hard to keep track of time.”

“A day!?!?”

“Yeah. A day.”

I was surprised. I would have thought that Lucifer would have come and cut us by then. Unless there was something wrong. Lucifer had let Wren die, so something must be wrong. Lucifer was a person in a position of power. She couldn't be a bad person. (Stop staring at me! I was naive, okay!?) But Wren was dead. For the first time, the reality of it hit me. I nearly choked just breathing. I’d never had a family before, but the bond I had with Wren was the closest thing I’d ever had to what I thought family was before, even though I had just met her and barely knew her. I tried to think of any way that she could be alive, but I saw her steaming, headless corpse myself. There’s no way to survive that.

“She’s dead.”

“Huh?” Den looked up from the fish he had been inspecting intensely. “What did you say?”

“Wren’s dead.”

There was silence for a good moment before Den spoke again.

“The best and only thing we can do now is to go win this for her. As much as I hate it, we aren’t supposed to let our emotions get in the way of our goals during a mission.”

I sighed, wishing that I could disagree with him, but I just couldn’t. He made too good a point. He then handed me one of the fish.

“Here, eat this. You must be starving.”

I took the fish from him and practically inhaled it in less than a minute. He took the other fish and also ate it, just not as fast.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“Well,” He started. “We definitely aren’t leaving the way we came, my Parability doesn't reach up to the surface. I did, however, use it to get the moss everywhere so we would have a light source. I’ve also been using the moss to track my progress in the tunnel system.” He said while pointing at the hole in the side of the cavern that water was pouring out of. “It’s basically a maze in there, but some parts are completely submerged. I’ve managed to explore it a little bit, but I’ve mostly been here, catching fish and keeping an eye on you.

“So we’re practically sitting ducks down here with no way out, and knife guy and club could pop up at any moment?”

“Sadly, yes.” He said with a sigh.

“Well, we’re fucking screwed.”

He just sat there still and silent, lost deep in thought for a couple of minutes, the silence quickly becoming awkward. Finally, he spoke,

“Well, I’ve got nothing to say except that we aren’t completely fucking screwed. Not yet, at least.