We ended up finding what seemed like a rugged trail leading down into the canyon. The whole time I felt like we were going to fall, but Harper literally skipped down the whole thing, surprisingly full of energy for someone who had almost been killed. Although her glowing did seem to be going away.
Once we got to the bottom, we came face to face with the first tree. I showed it to my search engine, which promptly told us what it was.
"What you are looking at right now are called coalos," the search engine said. "Coalos appear to be trees on the surface, but don't be fooled. Most of their body mass is under the surface in Titan's vast underwater ocean. The tentacles of the coalos thrive underwater by picking off the slow and weak underwater creatures as food. Coalos are an essential part of the ecosystem they support and are relatively harmless aboveground."
I didn't like the sound of relatively. Just harmless would have been a whole lot better.
I relayed all the info to my friends.
"Cool," Harper said. "So all these trees are the same creature, huh?"
I nodded my head.
"That about sums it up," I said.
"I got some more info as well," Michael said. "The good news is that most of the creatures that live in this forest are also relatively harmless, but there are a few that are dangerous."
"Of course there are," I muttered under my breath.
"Anyway, the few that are dangerous are wislis, very long creatures that eat gimlongs, a friendly creature of the forest. You also have the first metamorphosis stage of the floadons, which are big grubs the size of a human that will eat you if you go underground. The last thing worthwhile to mention is the wreech, a nearly invisible beast that eats everything that crosses its path."
"Well, that's all bright and cheerful," Harper said. "Are there any human-eating lizards too?"
"Actually, now that you mention it..." Michael started to say.
"Forget it," Harper said. "I was being sarcastic."
"Oh," Michael said, a little bit put out.
"Let's go," I said, marching into the forest before Michael could warn us about anything else. If Harper heard one more word from him she was going to burst.
We probably walked for about ten minutes before we sensed something was off.
"Do you feel it?" I said on high alert.
"I feel it all right," Harper said, grabbing my hand. "What I feel, I'm not so sure."
"It's quiet," Michael whispered, and we all stopped. I listened and realized he was right. You could usually hear things moving around or making noise, but as I listened I was scared at how deathly quiet the forest was.
"Let's keep moving," I told my friends. "The sooner we're out of this area the better. It's giving seriously creepy vibes right now."
Crack. A twig snapped and I heard something slithering through the leaves to the right of us. All I saw was a big, black wall of nothingness.
HOLD ON, I thought to myself. Big, black wall? I put my hand against this "wall." It was warm.
"How big was that wislis again?" I whispered to Michael. Michael made motions with his hands telling me not to move right as Harper tackled me to the ground. I hit the dirt hard as a mouthful of fangs slammed into the ground next to us. Dust went everywhere as the fangs retreated into the air above us.
"Scram!" I said as I saw the long neck start to recoil. I dove into a nook of a tree, running into Harper who had gotten there before me. Dust went everywhere and the ground shook as the giant snake head slammed down right where I had been standing seconds before.
"That was close," Harper said, breathing heavily. It was then that I realized that the tree that we were holed up in had a hole leading down into the depths.
"Through here," I whispered into Harper's ear, pushing her through the hole. She gave a little yelp, but let me push her down into the depths. I dove in right after her and fell quite a ways until the ground shook violently. When I looked up, the tree that we had been in was gone, eaten by the wislis.
"You think Michael is okay?" Harper whispered into my ear as she clutched my hand. Her grip was beginning to hurt my fingers.
"Yeah," I whispered back to her. "I think we made a good enough distraction. Hopefully he was able to get away."
"Hopefully," Harper mumbled to herself. We sat there for a couple of minutes and thought about what had happened, holding each other's hands.
"How are we even going to get out of here?" Harper asked me.
"We'll find a way," I said.
"You think you could start to glow?" Harper said. I reached inside my soul and felt around, but for some reason something wasn't clicking and I couldn't draw on my power. I told her no, it wasn't working right now.
"Great," Harper said. "Now we get to maneuver around in the..."
Her voice was abruptly cut off and what sounded like a short scuffling happened and passed. I stood where I was in shock.
Then I felt something cool touch my skin. I could tell by its touch that it had six fingers. Multiple hands grabbed me and I was wrenched deeper into the caves.
They pulled me along and I followed them, not putting up much of a struggle, thinking that maybe they would lead me to Harper.
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After pushing and shoving through the dank earth, I was shoved into a room with a little bit of light so I could see who had captured me.
They were little men, shorter than four feet, built like moles. The more I squinted and my eyes became adjusted to the light, I could see that the little men each had six digits and they wore a modest pair of underwear crafted out of tree bark. Gimlongs.
The name drifted back to me from the depths of my memory. That was the name that Michael had mentioned before the wislis struck.
"Grrrr. Rrrarrra," the strange creatures were grunting at me while some of them were tugging at my clothes and others were pushing strange pieces of bark at me. Their eyes were frantic.
Then I felt heat on my backside and realized that my pants were on fire. I yanked them off and threw them onto the ground, where the gimlongs encouraged the flames, hooting with joy. I watched in fascination until I realized that my shirt was on fire too. I yanked it off and the gimlongs added it on top of the pants, turning my little pile into a blaze.
The little gimlongs were grabbing my hand now and pulling me through another dank hallway. On the other end was a pit of mud, illuminated by the hazy glow of a torch set up so I could see a painting on the wall.
The gimlongs pushed me into the mud pit and I climbed in. It was warm and felt amazing on my sore, burned body. I let out a sigh of relief.
It was then that I heard drumming coming from a hallway I hadn't used yet. I looked up curiously to see four gimlongs dressed in golden robes carrying a box suspended by poles by which they held the thing.
The gimlongs walked over and laid the box over the pit of lava. They started to chant in a language I had never heard before and slowly started to lift the lid.
I saw a shimmer of gold and gasped as they opened it all the way. Inside was a cloth made of pure gold. It was incredibly bright and lit up the entire room.
I slowly reached into the box and the gimlongs looked excited. When my hand touched the fabric it felt as soft as a baby's bottom, and when I lifted it out I was astonished at what it was.
I was looking at a pair of golden underwear.
"What?" I said in astonishment. Was this some kind of joke? I looked around at the gimlongs waiting for someone to say,
"Surprise! You should have seen the look on your face!"
Their faces were dead serious, looking at me. One of the gimlongs in the robe stepped up to the first painting and picked up the torch.
Drums started to play and he moved the torch from painting to painting, illuminating each image in a way that told a story. I will not describe each image here, but instead I will try my best to tell you the story that I saw with my eyes.
The first illustration that I saw on the wall of the cave was two humans. One of them was getting devoured by a large slug of some sort and one was totally fine. The robed gimlong used his finger to trace over both men, highlighting how the one getting eaten by the slug was wearing normal human clothes but the one that was perfectly safe had on classic gimlong garb. That explained why they had burned my clothes. They must have had a human scent that attracted the monster grub thing.
I wondered if maybe I should ditch the underwear too. It wasn't like they could see me under the water, but I still wanted something on, so I grabbed the golden underwear and swapped it out for my muddy undies. The golden underwear was insanely comfortable and I had fun watching my old undies burn.
Once the gimlongs were done, the old robed one continued his story through the paintings on the wall.
I watched in fascination as man after man walked down into the ground and time after time again was only given clothes of bark. Man after man went away disgruntled and mad.
Finally, after many men came and went, a man came and the gimlongs presented him with a golden pair of underwear while all the other men who had been turned away looked on jealously.
THIS IS SO WEIRD, I was thinking to myself. WHY WOULD A BUNCH OF GROWN MEN WANT A PAIR OF GOLDEN UNDERWEAR SO MUCH?
It seemed lame to me. How was I even supposed to show off to my friends that I had golden undies? Whip my pants off and strut around like a fashion model? I don't think Harper would have been a big fan of that. She probably would have fainted on the spot.
The robed gimlong moved on and I began to understand. The man was given a suit of armor and a golden sword, where he then swooped a beautiful maiden away from female gimlongs. I grimaced as the man kissed the maiden and I realized who this was probably supposed to be. This was great, just great.
Finally, the story ended with the man, more of a knight now, fighting off great black swarms. I had a sneaking suspicion of what that was supposed to be.
The torch flickered out and we were plunged into darkness. A gimlong helped me out of my mud pit and led me to a room where I could hear water rushing. It was still pitch black, but the gimlong guided me through a waterfall that washed all the mud off my body.
Thud. Thud. Light washed through the whole room and I looked on in awe as I looked down on hundreds of gimlong men standing in military garb pounding large axes onto the ground.
Thud, thud. The beat went, resonating throughout the entire room. A path opened up in the midst of the warriors and an elder came up with his old staff. He slowly came to the front and prodded me with the staff. He found particular interest with my belly for some reason. I began to feel self-conscious standing there in my shiny new underwear.
Finally, the old gimlong laid off and inserted his staff into a tiny hole in the ground. I yelped as I fell down into a dark pit but was slowly raised back into the light. When I looked down at my body, I realized I was wearing a suit of armor made of pure gold, with a sword at my hilt and a shield strapped to my back.
A great cheer rose up among the crowd when they saw me, and the warriors let up a great cry that had me shivering in my new gold boots.
A gimlong child ran out from the crowd and tugged me back through the waterfall that I had come from. On the other side it was still darkness, but I felt that a great many eyes were on me.
"Wyatt..." I heard Harper's voice say somewhere in front of me.
Thud. The lights turned on and Harper was in front of me, clothed in a dress made of woven leaves that took my breath away.
The leaves perfectly complemented her skin tone and her hair was done in such a way that made the dress seem even more stunning. She was absolutely beautiful.
"You're... you're positively stunning," I stammered, not knowing what to say.
"And you look so handsome," Harper said, stepping closer to me with a dreamy look in her eyes. Our lips got closer to each other's and I closed my eyes...
Crash! I heard frantic screams as gimlongs ran every which way. I jerked away from Harper, who blushed deep crimson, and started to apologize.
"No time," I said, instinctively pulling out my sword. I looked in the direction of the chaos. What looked like a giant worm, a little bit bigger than me, was eating up gimlongs left and right. I ran up to it and brought my sword down on its head. The worm grew still and the gimlongs started to cheer.
I walked back over to Harper and started pulling her through the throng of gimlongs.
"Do you know how we get out of here?" I asked her. She shook her head.
"I guess we could go up?" she said half-heartedly. I rolled my eyes, but she couldn't see my face. We kept walking in awkward silence for a little bit. I was still thinking about our little moment before that slug had ruined it. Slugs really sucked.
We walked together like that for half an hour when we found an opening to the surface. When we climbed out into the light, we stumbled around like a couple of moles.
"Whoa," Harper said, stumbling into a tree. "This is so trippy."
"You can say that again," I said as I tried to lift myself out of a bush that I had fallen into. We sat around for a little bit letting our eyes adjust to the harsh light.
"How are you breathing?" Harper suddenly said, breaking the silence. It was only then that I realized I didn't have my special mask on. I put my hand to my face, but it didn't get all the way there. Glass was covering it.
"I guess my little suit comes with a built-in mask," I said, letting her see the glass. She muttered something to herself.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Oh," Harper said. "I was just telling myself that your filter probably works indefinitely, so even if we die because of suffocation I doubt you will."
I let that sink in for a second. Getting to the academy wasn't going to save all our skins. If we failed, it would probably be my friends who would die, and I would be watching them take their final breaths.
