(GE Copy)

Chapter 12: The Back of the Fridge (Part 2)

“...Where then, again, to start than to dream of seeing the man I love soar above me once more.”

Upon arrival, it seemed less like a bottomless hole, as it fed into the crawls of another cave. These bricks were sturdy, like the office stairs. Definitely not gremlin craft. Without much degradation, the two person traffic width felt safe until someone remembered how deep it was to the pit’s bottom. A bottom, that dark peers could suppose were massive. Zack returned his shaky hands from it’s edge. “Nothing different than holding this lantern over a coffee table...” He uttered. “But shit. A look down there and a person second guesses how well they can hold something.”

“Flash backs to Giant’s Head?” Aaron remarked, taking a stone and flicking it over it’s edge. It landed instantly, rolling off the blackened rock down to the basin “Huh...”

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, they could easier see the slope that made the fifty or so feet of stairs much more shallow. Seemed more a blackened tailings deposit with it’s bell curve slope, but the dark rock within was not of any immediate value. Their worry for nothing but no one was gonna test to see if it really was just jet rock.

As mentioned, the stairs fed into a cave, that right hand took a gradual descent in it’s twisting curves. Obviously chalking the entrance behind them, they took to see below as they already came from upwards. “It’s odd how well we can breath down here...” Zack mentioned.

“Zack,” Aaron dismayed. “What in the shit did I tell you about saying things that make a little too much sense?”

“Exactly, it doesn’t...”

“Huh... Again, huh...” Staggering over the chipped rocky floor of their tunnel. “Rock trees? Stone bushes? Dwarven life support?”

Eventually the path levelled out into a sculpted corridor. This one baring many dug out shelves where a candle once sat. The wax soaked stone being the only remainder. Zack rubbed it’s strange texture. “Mom really does live in the dark ages...” He remarked.

To their right was a lone room, empty apart from some scrap wood, and broken clay shards. Skipping their tour of it, they noticed immediately a change in architecture down the hall. It was built in a residential outline, and from the outskirts they walked into it’s centre; the branch of a ‘T’ intersection with a wide road to their left and square built round it. Some of the walls were collapsed, and the outpost was looted for whatever was usable. Some engraved markings guided Aaron and Zack straight, while also not wanting to veer off course, hoping to find a landmark of value. Once again, marking down yet another chalk sign for home, they continued from the eerie ghost town.

Whatever chambers ahead looked promising as a widened strip mine laid before them. A hall of halls all dug along an upward slant of the mineral layer, with a workers camp behind the corner of their entrance. It’s forge, cracked and pilfered. Along the walls something caught Aaron’s attention. Brilliantly red even in the dim light, with a white face that moved from facet to facet as he moved his lantern around it. The oddly opaque gemstone lit up to a bright light while his lantern shone on it. Almost carved and cut, it was probably worked by those who abandoned this place as a light battery and embedded with mortar. Thankfully the holdings cracked and they could withdraw the stone whole to Aaron’s satisfaction. It was discus, the size of one’s fist. “Definitely cut...” Zack confirmed. “The edge lines don’t match up, it was an industrial job, no jeweller would be happy with that mess. Still.. this could sell for a nice coin... Even if it is a pancake.” Inspecting it’s bottom.

“If they can afford be this shoddy with their work, it means there is an abundance of them and a better paycheck up ahead.” Feeling the radiance from it’s core, Aaron could distinguish a strong sensation. “Feels building, like it collects in the centre, and slowly emits out.”

“What?”

“You can feel them...” Pulling out the white gems from his pouch. “It definitely feels different.”

“Oh, no, you’ve become an old rock lady like Sophie warned us about.”

“Feel it...” Aaron outstretched his hands. “That’s the reason I came here. I have two sitting at her place that actually react with one another. Like magnets, they’re moving around all on their own. Their magnetic reactions seems erratic, but if you follow their movements it begins to make sense. It feels like a pulsation, but it acts like a billowing and exodus of energy past a threshold, collecting the energies that are all around us until it can no longer hold the tension... Sophie thought to give me something I can work in my own hands, so I could understand her old man’s pseudoscience a little easier. They’re incredible. Each one has it’s own signature, it’s own compression and contractions.

“Hooold it, hold it, hold it.” Zack slowed Aaron down. “I’ll take your word for it, but really?”

“Remember the one we pulled from the earth? Belship used it to make his device, it can’t be that difficult to understand. Like, I have no idea why they exist like this here while all our gemstones at home are powerless but the things here are magical; like we lost something in our world. The more I look at these, the more it all makes sense, why people seem to have a mysticism about seemly nothing at all.” Sliding it into it’s own sack, Aaron counted the number of reusable cloth grocery store bags, making sure to kept his gem reactivity separate from the rest in his backpack.

“You sure you’re not getting high on radiation?”

“I think it might be possible for people to make things with these. Things like the Seven have. Like Belship makes. Tools, inventions not known possible with our broken world...”

“...Paychecks not known possible within our broke ass world.”

“If it’s nothing... There are still enough chips in this bag to probably pay a person’s way through Collage, heck... University even.”

“Screw a doctors degree, it’s like a lottery alright...” Thinking himself to leave while the cash was still hot. “We know where to get more.” Zack assured.

“I still want to find more, as many different kinds as I can.” Walking towards the network ahead.

“I know when to take my money and leave. Besides, these strips are a maze, I’ve seen diagrams of this kind of mine before. Grandpa used to tell stories about them. Unless one these branches is a rabbit hole, the only other road is behind us anyway coz those tunnels are designed to be cleaned out of anything useful. All one time use, we won’t find much left behind, not easily anyway.”

“So, this is what it was like being you, huh?...” Running his finger over the patch seam of barely started crystal forms. Picking at them as he spoke. “Yeah... You’re right... Just kinda disappointing, shoe being on the other foot and all. You of all people being the voice of reason, leaving me as the antagonist for once. You’re right about something else too...” Saddling his bag to his back. “About the thing that comes over me; it’s strong, and sometimes it’s foolish when it grips me... Not always. Sometimes it’s the clearest I’ve ever thought even when things get hard... But, it’s also hard not to trip over it all and that clear thought turns out to be just clearly distracted.”

“It’s called getting greedy...”

“Greedy indeed...” Aaron admitted. “Oh, how I’d love to spend all day here, but nothing bad’s happened yet... That’s starting to get to me.”

“Money and run?”

“Money and run.”

Waltzing out, in double file, money on their backs the boys wandered past the deserted village outpost. Zachery finally met with a site case to his old teaching and admired aloud, passing the knowledge onto Aaron. “The mineral levels when they go up like that are usually caused by volcanic activity depositing seams of molten material in the cracks like a crucible sifting out the heaviest materials. Kinda wish Mr Hardt was my school teacher, he’d bring mineral samples with him and everything: Raw iron, gold in host wrapped around quartz, obsidian medical tools, hand made ingots. I’d say, with the dark stone and glassy waxed edges in this tunnel and how it’s chipped away that this might have been lava at one point. Must’ve put something nice in those walls to warrant mining all this out...” The echo of their voice magnifying the size of their passage upwards. They heard something in between Zack’s break for breaths, that sounded like a gust of steam. Looking up they could spot a set of moving eyes. “Aaron...”

“Walk back very slowly... Like a bear...” The clarity in his voice becoming unsettling surreal.

“Yup...” Following orders, mumbling some kind of ramble of frightened nonsense. “Karma, right there; we’re too happy, walking freely, hands in our pockets Scott free, had to happen, glowing eyes, sharp teeth, no doubt about it. That’s karma, that’s karma right there. That thing up there, that’s fucking karma!” Taking a firm disliking to Zack’s rambles, the beast approached swifter, trotting heftily into sight. It’s black slit neck was an enveloping pouch that opened, like the cheeks of a rodent that went up to it’s mouth. Teeth all the way up from it’s chest like a zipper, that curled in anticipation to enclose them within. It was impossible to tell where the mouth began but it ended at two embolden bent hoops for nose holes, and a contorted upper lip. It’s opening passage down it’s throat had a thorny dilating contraction for digestion like an inverted cactus skinned flytrap rolling in on itself. Eight foot long, six feel tall, bold shoulders, and other frighteningly powerful details that they could live happily without getting to discover. With no sign of slowing down, Zack cowered, “Count of three.” As it moved closer.

“THREE!” Aaron called out, in sync with Zachery who also abandoned his own countdown with the beast’s no longer analytical saunter. They dashed for safety but could not hide from it’s sights and they turned left at the ‘T’ intersection for unknown territory. The beast scrambled to turn on such a dime but couldn’t. “Just to confirm, those strip mines would be a murder pit, right?” But unanswered, Aaron assumed it’s worst.

Zack was pushing up ahead along the stretch past Aaron. His explosive acceleration would soon be his downfall. Slipping past two ogreish, muscle built men. The bystanders popped their head up to the ruckus. As the creature flew past them and they too jumped back for the safety of anywhere that wasn’t right freaking there. A turn here, a darting there. They could feel it’s moist air from it’s breathing, like a fermented babies breath. The weed, not the child. Not that it’s much better smelling. The straightaways were the worst with it’s closing in. Tired of these games, the beast made a careless effort and charged Aaron with a ramming speed towards the next intersection. Unable to stop, it smashed into the wall shoulder first, only a few feet off the boy as he made the turn. It only gained them five seconds, as the shoulder injury didn’t stop it much.

Aaron soon caught up to Zack, who’s energy was tapering out. Ahead was a long engraved shoot along the side of a great chasm just like one above somewhere, and a bridge that went off into the void. “Zack, we can’t keep this up.” Aaron huffed, his lungs killing him. Routing Zack to the bridge, where the beast could not go. Hopefully. In the darkness they saw a beam of light that touched the long wall, and illuminated the bridge sixty feet out.

“Oh, what?” Zack muttered, staggering onto the rickety old crossing. “It’s, OH, that stinks. Whatever they used is putrid.”

“What?” Looking behind where the beast’s eyes met back up at the edge, testing the stability of their footing.

“This rope... It’s cured. Not recently, but they actually maintained it. Probably still in use.” Putting more of his weight on the ropes while crossing than the stale dry wood.

The bridge wobbled, as the monstrous creature failed to maintain it’s balance. The sway of it’s poor aptitude caught the boy’s attention, watching it scoot back onto the rock for safety. The boys rejoiced. That smile quickly turned sour as it began patting away at the supports with it’s massive paws. They shook their heads furiously. It smirked. It fucking smirked at them the sly schmuck, can you believe that shit?

“No, no no... We can settle this maturely...” Aaron begged, watching it take great pleasure out of scaring them. “I think we started on the wrong foot here...” From it’s massive fluffy looking black paws came a large claw, very slowly. “Come on, we can talk about this!” It slowly inserted it’s claw into the rope binding of the poll. “You don’t want to do that, we fall down there, down... Down...” Looking bleakly into the endless void below where a glowing pond shone a good hundred feet below. Aaron’s face flushed pale. “We fall down there, what are you gonna eat? Huh?” It almost considered the proposition, but in reality it seemed that it got it’s claw stuck. Trying to wiggle it, the dull stone worn claw got hooked in the tight wraps. Honestly how it got that rounded thing in there is just as much a mystery as how it’s smooth surface got caught. Frantically the beast pulled, relinquishing the bluff as it sat back down to inspect the damages to itself. “That’s good...” Aaron relaxed, returning to cross.

When it came into focus, the beam they saw earlier, seemed to have a grain to it. Soon, when close enough it seemed to sputter. By golly, it was water, or a kind of water. They wanted to admire it, but had to move. From under them, the bridge shook once more. Behind them, the beast took to smacking the polls, snickering a hyena's hissing cackle. The bitch was freaking laughing at them, can you believe this shit? It’s joy risen as they clung to the rope. The rhythmatic assault was calculated out, swinging the rope as harshly as it could whip the support; it’s smile widening, as it watched Aaron and Zack cling heavily to the bridge to balance. Soon the post could no longer withhold the battering and snapped. The slack of their line falling down beneath them forced the victims to latch onto the other side, that literal ‘lifeline’ became subject to the same beating torment.

Before it could be broken, Aaron clung to the ropes that lead down from the main line. Crawling lower to the board panels where he held onto his footholds for safety. Zachery took a hard fall when the post was knocked out, half attached, with the other half overhanging. Zack cried out, somehow able to grip himself back up. “If he starts shooting brass bass at us, we’re done for...”

“Well, get in on then!” Aaron shouted, climbing the boards like a horizontal ladder, as the beast started to pounce on the bridge. Can you imagine it, actually sturdy boards on an ancient bridge, who would have thunk it? Shaking it up and down, the beast’s arrogance got the better of it; the board broke under it’s feet, smacking the creature into the hole it made. Stuck with it’s metaphorical horns caught in the barb wire fence, Aaron pulled Zachery up, and they crawled along.

The beast howled a violent rage of pride and failure that shook the bridge, loosening Aaron’s frail unseasoned hands, and threw him off the side. “HELP!” Aaron cried out, clinging to the slack rope with the little strength he had left.

“I got you.” Reaching for his friend, but heard the crashing of rocks from below, as a loud roar erupted. Tugging Aaron up, Zack watched the two ton pot of angst slip off the bridge, trying to escape it’s binds and flipped the bridge around a hundred and eighty degrees with the beast still on it. Thankfully the twist was less affected half way out, as it brought Aaron back upright and Zachery now down. The beast, still caught in the framework, struggled to stabilize itself.

Frantically it climbed backwards up the cliff, the beast scooted it’s legs across the stone, grabbing onto the bridge instead for traction and overshot his footing; thus rotating the foothold once again under it’s desperation for dry land and flopping back the other way. Zachery up, and Aaron down again. Without the top holds that the beast destroyed as a brace, the beast only flung back underneath again, rotating the bridge once more. This time, Zack could not find Aaron, and when he shouted out for him, there was no answer.

Tangled in the side ropes from the constant rolls, Zack could only watch the horrifying sight of the third rope snapping under the massive weight put on it; and one mother trucker who was no longer attached, getting the howling express elevator into the abyss of darkness. Ow, that thud and sound of broken bone could be felt from up there...

Zack tried to regain his posture, calling out for Aaron again and again. Undoing the lock on his footing, he braced against a loose rope, and it swung out from him unexpectedly. The last ditch hope was to hold onto another rope that was adjacent but that too unknowingly pulled his shoulder back out of place, ripping all strength from his grip. As Zachery plummeted to the water pit below, he tried to reorient himself, even though he knew that at this height there was not much difference between landing in liquid or pavement. There would be no good landing and Zack was certain that this was his last fall.

He had a brief moment of melancholy before accepting his fate. Within the seeming twenty seconds that his mind raced in a five second drop, it had many arcs of thoughts between his predicament, to people he’d miss, and noticing the drops of glowing water beside him though standstill and frozen, going backwards. “Ah, yes.” He thought to himself, “I am falling faster than them. Sure is taking a long time to fall, weightless, blissful. Like I can finally have a moment of peace, without worry, without burden... I wish it was always like this. Or was it?”

Then his mind came to a memory of his time outside The Eleven. It was spring, Saturday, he had just watched his favourite cartoon on TV, and was out to go play with Aaron. They hadn’t met Sophie yet. Every light was luminescent, and each leaf was present, like he could hear each one tacking off of another individually in the lively breeze. He thought to himself “Gee, I wonder if I’ll ever remember this?... Sure is amazing.” And sure enough, there was Aaron, and his Mom and Dad at the burger place beside the convenience store. They figured it would be great to have lunch early there with Zack’s parents. Aaron’s folks were up very early in the morning, what great guys Zack admired. No one expected to dine out, but for Zack it meant the world to go there. It was magic, how perfect a day like this could be. “Man, this burger is incredible. I don’t think there is anything better than it in the whole world.” He said to Aaron. But the memory of the bright world dimmed, and he wondered. “What just happened there...” As the thought of every waking sense numbed away to a dim, overcast fantasy. He walked out more concerned with his entertainment, than the mysterious awakening that occurred only an hour before. The leafs, now a silent hum and the light no longer brilliant.

Zack smiled. “It used to be like this... Yes.” Falling out of his dream, where the darkness of his voided drop met to the glowing pond. “It was fun... No responsibilities, no pressures, no obligations... Never knowing the evil of this world...” As the water enveloped his eyes. The senseless sensation of hitting, only to find his descent oddly paralyzed and silent. Slow, but stunningly silent. Just the slow thoughts of how deep the pit was dragging on forever, waiting for the inevitable release. His back smashed against the bottom, winding him as all air left his lungs and water entered involuntarily. He was there, in the bottom of that pit, to die alone. “Heck...” Though the words were silent from his lips. “If I’m going to drown, I want to be happy.” Picking himself up in the daze of his innocent thought. He skipped along the bottom of the pond, it was free-flowy, like moon jumping. He looked back, to search in case of he left his body on the impact but he was no ghost. Just a young man, in the flesh with only a few moments to spare before his brain shut down. “Holy shit. I’ve held my breath lots of times. This can’t just be adrenaline, can it?” Making for the walls. Zack climbed up to the top, having forgotten his bliss for a chance at life.

At the top, he crawled upon the shores, coughing out the liquid from his chest. His bronchial tubes clenched, withholding the new air from entering, gasping to tell his lungs what he knew better. It spewed onto the ground as a clear liquid, no longer glowing like before. He looked back as though he had no frame of reference for what just happened, like he awoke from a blank space. He could hear the voice of an angel, while his senses still living, it came from above in a golden beam of light. “ZACK! Check it out! I’m floating!” The voice said from the beam that slowly fell him into the pond. It was Aaron. He swam across, spitting the ichor from his mouth as a playful rebellion to having cheated death. “It’s... Kinda hard to speak...” The deep squealing of his voice trying to escape as he took some more into his lungs by accident.

“What happened?” Zack astonished, looking back up to where they came from.

“I flew into the waterfall,” Belching up the mystic water. “It’s oddly slow moving,” Splashing the water in a moon’s gravity. “It’s got it’s own field of gravity or something. You went swimming, you know what I’m talking about.”

“I had the craziest dream dude... When I was falling... It was the most peaceful thing I’ve ever seen.” Spilling tranquility from his lips, literally. “When we were kids and we went to the Burger place by the Eleven, when every light was so clean and clear...”

“Which time? We went there a lot... Pscht.” Aaron shunned. “I wish mine was so great. I had an anxiety attack, it was a living nightmare for me. Yeah, visceral, every tendon in my body shot awake like I was crawling around in my own skin. All I remember is a voice screaming out at me, asking me if I remember who I am. Worst part was I remembered who I was, I mean... It’s all a fantasy anyway, so who cares, but... It was the second scariest thing I’ve ever had happen to me. When I awoke things were freaking great, like I could finally forget about it. Like for once, those gates were closed. Felt like eternity in there. But... This stuff. This stuff is freaking cool. You can breath it... I...” Looking up. “I guess I finally understand where all the oxygen comes from down here. I spent a good minute I think, just swimming up and down that thing. You gotta try it. It’s like Wonderland but better...” A scream howled from the corner in the dark of the room, slowly coming into sight.

“Aaron...” His eyes vividly tracing the wounded revenant. “You think that thing can swim?”

“Anything could swim in this stuff...” Aaron confessed, “Breath forever, too.” Before them, back from the dead was the malignant beast of earlier, still alive. It’s wobbling, weary broken bones hobbled towards them. It didn’t seem capable of speed. It crawled along the ground, scowling, and moaning, it’s long spew of insults were a pitiful scene. Then was an odd silence. Like something that had been rumbling the entire time, had finally stopped and the beast was stunned. A glowing light appeared in the dark, followed by ten more, then twenty, then thirty. All wavering around independently in pairs of three. The beast cussed out at the boys but it’s incessant cries incurred a set of eyes to reveal itself, then three, then five, and the whole room’s attention was cast upon the groveling invalid. The faces emerged into the ambient light with the features of dragons; huge, person sized faces all tied in the centre of an earth trembling body and a third eye in it’s forehead that was most ominous. One of the necks shot out, snagging the two ton morsel into it’s jaws and snapped it’s body like a twig. The other mouths took after the prize, and fought viciously for it’s nourishment. Aaron and Zack staggered away slowly but one particular neck was more interested in a fresh victim rather than fight over the large one. It huffed a green flame, and others took notice to the two rats beside the drinking pond.

The kids fell back, dropping into the water, under the fire protective barrier of it’s rippling surface. Swimming into the pond’s depth, they hid there, listening to shocks and concussion. It passed through their whole bodies, rattling them from the rumbles overhead. The underwater shocks was too much, feeling their organs clench like a knife had been scraped over top of a rock and they knew they had to retreat. At the back, they found a flat drain for the pond but their sight began to blur even more.

For what seemed like minutes, they staggered around in the bright passage from a crawl to a stand, where all things began to look the same. Both patting the walls for a second pair of eyes. The loud rumbles from behind them echoed, penetrating in Aaron’s ears, and it sounded like the deep voice that spoke to him when his anxiety threw him into a nightmare. Unable to escape it’s haunting memory, he felt woozy, and the arduous journey through the passage became blurrier and less coherent. Aaron figured this had to be a mental, or emotional crisis from the stress and passed through the seemingly endless shaft trying to relax himself until he wandered lifelessly with no thought to where he was anymore. Only listening to himself in a dry, numbed, confident voice that spoke confounding things, “If you change, you can escape again.” He shook his head awake, disregarding the riddles that had no answers, only for the panic within him to continue but the voices did not stop. “You can forget it for a while longer, close the door and you will remain.”

Finally coming out of the water from somewhere, somewhere they didn’t care where from, they found a small room in which to cough up their lungs once more. Everything was hazy, and though he wiped the piss from his eyes they still blurred sight on sight, and the fumes in his lungs held his air without breathing. Zack staggered to sit back, dizzy and unable to keep himself balanced as he panted. “I'm really starting to miss those squirrels...”

“What?” Aaron vexed, crashing beside his friend.

“Big furry Russian football with arms, you know?”

“Yeah, dude... We just got chased by twenty headed one way slip and slide with a flaming beater muffler and all you can think of are some shit ass squirrels?”

“My thoughts exactly...” Collapsing onto his back. “They didn't have teeth to put a shark out of business...” Still breathing erratic. Whatever was in the water sure wasn’t any nicer to Zack than it was to Aaron, his breath seemed uncontrollably fruitless.

From there things were a mist of exhaustion and soreness. Aaron remembered waking up in periods to see the walls, but when he moved, everything blurred together into a tunnel of repeating images that not even closing his eyes could escape. He felt the ground turn to powder, and his legs bend without him. He wondered what would happen when the soles of his heels touched his chest but when he opened his eyes they were still, limp, and motionless, near paralyzed until the visions returned. “You’re only letting yourself be hurt...” He heard play quietly in the distance but could not point to where.

Aaron tossed and turned only to find Zachery’s breath burning like fire, and coughing it up so was Aaron’s. He got up to run to somewhere for something, but woke back up laying where he started. The things he did in between had been erased. Maybe even now possessing some memories of some things that didn’t happen in there too. After a while Aaron accepted that he was probably too debilitated to even think clearly, and accepted this fate to rest until it was over. If this disorientation would subside.

For all Aaron knew, he was truly asleep this time, but the strange occurrences around him would no longer change as before. He heard Zack mumble and Aaron hollered out. “Hold on, I’m trying to wake up!” Shaking his head instinctively but it felt more real than before.

“Dude... Dude...” Zack crawled up, clinging to Aaron with a shit eating grin on his face.

Aaron slapped himself into focus, “Am I awake this time, or this another hallucination?” Until finally coming to realize his sobriety.

“Heh... Heh...” Zachery chuckled. “We found it, Sophie’s gonna be so pissed.”

“What?” Aaron arose still woozy and heavily concerned. “What did we find?” The thought of some great spiritual truth coming to his mind, like Zack just discovered the truth to the universe.

“The Narnilade...”

“THE WHAT!?” Aaron shot back furiously.

“It was right were she told us to look for it! The back of the... Cupboard!”

Aaron was not having it with this bullshit, but his throat twitched and broke into a wild, unfitting laughter that debilitated him on the ground. Aaron got back up, to gripe his frustrations about Zack’s maturity but couldn’t hold it in seeing the guy’s over joyous face and started cracking up, again. Aaron was certain this time, he’d bark at Zack for his transgression and, oh... Who are we kidding? Every attempt to reprimand Zack built up, until the billowing anger inside Aaron, became the funniest thing of all and he began to laugh merely at himself. They both sat there, laughing heartily like two old men after an argument. “Narnilade...”

“T’its all gone Sophie... We ate it!” Zack’s voice cracking harder than all puberty put together. “And it was delicious!”

When the humour died down, Aaron noticed some kind of tribal lines painted on Zack’s face, and he wondered just how much was actually a dream. “We need to get up...” Finding himself in a shallow room as he staggered, still weak. It was much smaller than he remembered. Along the wall was a set of stones that peeked out from the wall. Dirty, muddy, gemstones. He spat, polishing them and their colour emerged. Red, but unlike the discus ones these were transparent. “Hey! Check these out! We hit another paycheck!”

Zack shook himself awake, as he stumbled up to the wall. It’s soft dirt matrix was easy to pick away at. The gems were long, very long. The more he picked away there was still more. He gave it a pull, and out came a three foot long, four inch diameter rod of majestic wonder, soon two, soon three in his crystal lust.

“Cool as this is, we can’t stay here forever...” Zack informed wiping his buggy eyes. “What the crap is on your face? It’s like a Picasso done up in war paint.” Noting Aaron’s not so dream-like features

Obliging, Aaron gauged their room. “I guess there is where we came from...” Looking towards the glowing pond that illuminated most of the cavern.

Checking his watch “It’s been four hours.” Zack informed.

“We’re grounded...” Aaron dismayed.

“No, you’re grounded, I’m dead... It’s like two hours to your place, and I’m too tired to run the Summerland strip in ten minutes.”

“We’ll... Call your folks and camp you at my place.” Stashing his new toys away. “Say we just... Got carried away in the back yard.”

“Dude, it’s seven thirty eight, plus... We gotta get out of here...”

Packing up his bag, Aaron walked down to the moon pool. “I’m gonna see how far I can get without taking another hit from the trippy water.” Still feeling the numb atrophy in his muscles from earlier. “With any luck, the hydra’s asleep again. Probably does a lot of that, drinking from this stuff. As I said, you can swim up the stream, it’s not that it’s... You know... Easy, but it’s doable.”

Through the liquid air, of which most of it was, they boy scrambled through the pipes back into the main chasm. The pit was vacant from what they could tell, fifteen snoring faces all in the back. After tuning their eyes to adjust, and the confirming sound of deep vibrating ambience it seemed prime to make their climb. There was no telling where the source of this stream came from, but the bridge was neither in order, nor was it in reach of their manual elevator. They took breaths outside of the waterfall, ever wary of the beast waking again.

They made their way through the top faucet. It took everything out of them to climb through it. The upper channels had a shallow chamber of air between to break and gasp for a less polluted air, but even this seemed to distort their visions. Somehow, somewhere along the line, it would have to lead back to the surface. Maybe.

To their sides they could hear something promising, a kind of low bodied cackle. Running their hands along it, it looked like brick mortar, and it was now double promising.

They stuck their heads out of a pond with six naked gremlin dudes, and two naked gremlin chicks all around, baked out of their minds on the glowing hippy water. Ain’t that a sight you want to forget. They took a shallow shock from the occurrence, some laughed, some looked like they just saw an alien and one guy was just in the corner, stuffing his face with food and grog. Aaron and Zack tipped their hats, that’s to say if they had hats, while the party they crashed tipped their mugs in reply and waved them out the small passage: A passage that was scarcely larger a cat door with a loose hatch covering the entrance. They appeared on the other side of a store room, with a bar front ahead and a curtain in the much taller doorway than the hidden retreat. Damn paranoid druggies. The boys emerged from the back, into the tavern, to the accompaniment of strange gazes. “Wouldn’t you know it... Spend long enough in there, you turn into a human.” One drunk spat out his mug. Piss all he could understand but it sure made him laugh himself dry.

“These guys have an odd ability for communication.” Zack commented, as he left into the glowing lights of the underground city. Hopefully the same one they saw coming in. Bowl shaped, they stood on the balcony of someone’s house top, looking down at the plaza just down the road, through the buildings. Standing stall after stall, the locals haggled and barked request after request. “Hands in your pockets, dude...” Zack issued, as a muck of children scrambled past them. “Man, children are the worst. Short, can’t guilt them, can’t kick them. Wish I knew that when I was their age, could’a gotten away with a whole lot. Steal your shit right in front of you and they just get a slap on the wrist.” Removing his hands from his pockets once clear. “Cool place if you had money I suppose, or something worth trading.”

After rounding the city outskirts for over half an hour, they came upon a familiar exit but it had no marking on it. Five minutes later, they came onto another, one with a very fluorescent green “office” written with an arrow.

It would be fair to say their return was uneventful, thankfully but still very taxing. When they saw the decrepit house of the ol’ bumpkin, they knew they missed their turn off. The climb out of the rock had exhausted them before even leaving the mine, and the trip so far was no easier. Burning hours, they managed to find their way in the dark, past hell’s alley, and back to the safety of Aaron’s house.

There was no doubt that Zack’s parents were close to burning him at the stake, but after the denied company his folks came and drove Zachery home. Either, they had calmed down since the phone call, or put on a rather convincing act. Zack got off pretty light all things considered but he did admit to needing to contact them sooner. Obedience makes you a lot of friends and they took his non-resistance for an easy end to a long tiresome day so it kinda worked out. Even if Aaron didn’t beat him as the cantankerous woman suggested.

Aaron was on his way up stairs when his Father beckoned and sat him down.

“Aaron. I’m not here to give you shit...” Paul confessed wearily. “You’re mother wants to, so I’m not sure why she needs me to be the one to say it for her... The stories I could tell you would probably make your adventures rather dull. I mean, you’re not three hundred pounds of pure muscle and rebellion. What did you learn out there?...” Not really getting much of an answer, and not that Aaron could really explain what laid in the back of the fridge too well. “We made a lot of mistakes, not all of them can be mended or reconciled but no matter where you go, there is always something to learn from it. What did you discover?”

“Why are you talking like I’m in trouble, if... You’re saying I’m not?”

“A little beside myself is all... I’d always rather you were out there, with your two hands than in some library learning about John A. MacDonald’s coffee rituals or how to write in MLA or whatever it’s called. You’re mom... She’s a city girl, I made that compromise when I fell in love. I don’t want you ever feeling like your in shit from me for doing something constructive, you have to face those demons yourself regardless of the lick’en we give you. She might not always get that... Just, for the sake of peace around here. It’d worry us a lot less if you came back a little earlier, or let us know. I’m not gonna give you heck this time, and I can’t expect you to just understand everything but... You know this now. I want you home earlier, this is all I ask.”

The house echoed with a soft silence as Aaron climbed the stairs to his room. The dark of the house was contrasted by a single lamp on the end table by the TV and it shone bars of wavering light against the wall. It was oddly homey, for the still remnants of a stern reprimand.

When Aaron’s head hit his pillow he felt a strange air around him. The room, deafly quiet, though a breeze blew by momentarily against the siding. It was peaceful, the first time in a long while. His mind surrounded the safety in what his father had said to him, and noticed the quiet in his always blustering mind. He could feel the presence of his walls, and his bed. Neither monster, nor ghost to haunt his halls. The corners that were dark and once daunting were calm. His walk to the bathroom and back, neither impeded nor crawled into him. This oddity stood out, especially as in this brief moment Aaron could recall a hundred times wandering the dark in a stark fear that something was out there to pull his spirit out through his feet.

Tucking in, he considered it. “Don’t tell me I’m growing up...” The pride of maturity bellowed strongly within him under the covers. Finally, assured that he had the new privileges of his parents trust, if only from half of them and after screwing up. He feared the reprimands that Zack got, or the spankings that Aaron got as an uncontrollably active child. This moment was uncharacteristically blissful, where every sense was alive and he could make out the distinct tackle in every leaf.

He could also feel however, the magic leave him, the emotions of such complexity and intrigue, for a more simple magic that Aaron shook himself from. He couldn’t accept it. As this world became so vivid, he felt that he lost the awe and mystery that he was accustomed to keeping an eye out for. It brought him to tears, knowing much more than he wished to let on to even himself. He wept, crying to the thought of this otherwise new stage of life, and how the endless longing for enchantment and mysticism seemed to dwindle. Aaron shut it out, fearing he might loose sight, that his passions might fade entirely. He would reject this blessing through his own power and will that he would see another shining crack in the world through the dim light that came next.

He toyed with his pouch, gazing at the gemstones in his hands. Surely things as powerful as these, shone a light more real and more immense than any characteral development. If there was light to study, it was these, so he could escape this tiresomely straight and narrow reality. After all, how could such marvellous things exist, clearly, he knew where the truth had to lay. Now was no time to get distracted in a peaceful life. It was the more mature thing, to him, to do; and he heard a frightening voice congratulate him. “Good boy...”