Abîme

Corpse Carrier - Act 1 | Chapter 7 - Abîme
Four Minutes After Juna Died

Cracked stone encased Theo. To the side of him—stone. In front of him—stone. Above him as he lay on his back on top of the uneven, chilly, stone ground—was stone.

A cave? No, the area around him was too big for that. Well, unless caves could become this large. A cavern, maybe? Even so the place seemed too immense. The stone ceiling rose miles out of reach, both damp and dark as if pretending to be the night sky, though more fractured and jagged. The longer Theo stared upwards at it, the more his vision swayed from the vast distance.

He lifted his head. The closest rock wall faced his feet, rising massively until it connected with the ceiling overhead. The second closest? Theo rolled his head across the coarse floor. The second closest cavern wall was miles out of reach, basically testing the limits of human sight.

“It worked!” A springy voice exclaimed. The sudden shout startled Theo and caused him to jerk up from the ground for the first time. He glanced to his side.

“It actually worked. Wow…” Juna said. She stared at her open palms and blinked just as fast as she closed and opened her hands. “You're kidding me. That actually worked.”

Juna—the drowned girl. Juna…the drowned girl?

Theo clutched his chest. He took a sharp breath, opened his lungs back up, and sucked in as much air as possible. A difficult task given the dense air within the cavern, but no worse than when he was submerged below the river. He hunched over, still clasping his chest and grasping for air. Though…he was okay? Air followed through him smoothly, as if the water had never tampered with his lungs. A startling realization—and the next came soon after. His clothes were completely dry. Not a layer was wrinkled or stained. Even his sneakers had found themselves right beside him, just as dry as he was.

Didn’t he drown?

He looked back to Juna. Her eyes were already set on him. The bruised eye gaped all the way open while her mouth hung in a quiver. No movement at first. Surprise had caught her tongue. Theo couldn't blame her, they were stuck in some city-sized cavern only moments after drowning. Sure, they were alive, probably, and their clothes had become freakishly dried. But where were they? How did they get to where they even were? And which way was home? Too many questions Theo couldn't find in a dimly lit cavern.

Nonetheless, Theo was fine. Theo could stay diligent. He would be okay. The main concern was Juna. He worried how someone as sheltered and fragile as her would take this all in. And Theo wasn’t the best comforter. Forcing Juna to speak would likely become a difficult task for her. Theo decided that sitting back and allowing Juna time to settle in would be the best course of action.

Apparently she didn’t need it.

“Woah! Where did you come from?” Juna asked.

“That's your first question!” Theo yelled.

Juna sat up on her knees and wiped under her good eye, blinked, then wiped again. “Who are you?”

“Your classmate!”

Theo fell onto his back and spread his arms over the stone ground. There was no sun above him, let alone a sky. Despite that he was still able to see. Theo squinted at the cavern's ceiling. Light. Small glimmers of orange shone from hanging crystals. He couldn't make out their shape from the distance, but if he had to guess those rocks were what kept this place from becoming pitch black. That's something positive at least.

“Woah…” Juna whispered. “We're really in another world…”

Theo shot up.

“What?” he asked.

Juna didn't bother to look his way. She was already up on her feet, rubbing her hands against the nearest stone wall. Her amber eyes giving off a faint glow similar to the rocks above, and even with one of them being bruised, a smile still formed.

“What did you say? What do you mean, ‘another world’?” Theo asked.

Juna brushed back a strand of hair and pressed her cheek to the stone surface, sliding her hands alongside it. “Another world means another world.” She smiled and giggled. “The walls are cold.”

“I know what it means. I’m asking why you’re suggesting that we’re in another world. This is clearly a cavern.”

Theo finally stood up himself and slid on his sneakers. They were dry. They shouldn’t have been dry. A disturbing feeling.

“We probably, somehow, ended up down here from the river,” Theo continued. “Caves are typically formed under bodies of water. I think.”

“I’m not wet though.” Juna said, lifting her cheek from the wall and looking his way.

Theo scratched his head. He shrugged.

“We could have been unconscious for a long time. It's not unusual for our clothes to have dried by the time we came to.”

Juna pointed up. “And how did we get all the way down here if we fell from the river.”

“There could have been a tunnel system we slipped into from a crack in the riverbed. If we look around, it could probably still be nearby.”

“And the lack of cell service?” she said, waving her phone around in the air.

“Too low for the satellites to reach.”

“The fact that we are still breathing?”

“Somehow we ended up in the cave before we completely drowned.”

“And this little guy?” Juna asked, holding a blue and orange star-speckled lizard. She held the pudgy critter with both hands underneath its armpits, and pushed it into Theo’s face. The lizard-creature had pitch black beads for eyes that faced opposite directions from one another. The critter flicked its ribboned tongue and licked Theo's nose.

“What’s that!?” Theo yelled, jumping backwards.

Juna raised the creature above her head and examined its white belly. “I'm not sure. It feels kind of like a rabbit though.” She scratched its fluffy belly, then pushed it back towards Theo. “Try petting it.”

“No,” Theo said, backing away. “What if it's poisonous?”

She pushed it closer. Its small body dangling in Juna's hands without a care in the world. Its beady eyes gently blinked.

“You think?” Juna asked.

Theo brushed her hand away. “I don't know. Just stop putting it near my face.” He walked away and crossed his arms. Nothing was right—not this place, not Juna being alive, and definitely not the notion of this cavern actually being a separate world creeping into Theo’s mind. He almost believed it. Almost.

He shook his head. Another world was a silly concept, and he wouldn’t put it past Juna to believe such nonsense. He needed to ground himself—prove to himself that this world was his own.

A cavern. Though could a cavern really be so vast and wide? There was no telling how large this place really was. Though he couldn’t see exactly how far away the furthest wall was from him, he knew this giant gap in the earth’s core could fit a city inside it. Maybe two.

Dampened air weighed on his shoulder creating a clammy sensation against his skin. Theo only noticed it now, but for Summer the air was colder than it should be. Goose bumps were slowly forming on his forearms. How deep were they?

A whimpered croak came from behind. The lizard. Lizard…something like one. It was bigger, fluffier, and looked stupider, but a lizard was all he knew to call it. Juna had it turned on its back as she rolled her knuckles along its pudgy belly. With each gentle stroke, the creature croaked in pleasure while Juna giggled and smiled.

A rare sight. Not just the lizard-creature, but Juna too. Never once had Theo seen her smile, let alone see her make any sort of expression at all. Wasn’t she too upbeat for a situation like this? Her giggling, smiling, and prancing about. Only a second ago she was bound and determined to kill—

Juna should be dead. An eerie thought that blurred and scratched the image of her gleaming face in front of Theo.
CROAK

“Oh, that was a big one wasn’t it?” Juna tilted her head. Her silver bangs shifted over her bruised eye, leaving her good Amber eye free to express all of the joy that she had. “You want me to rub you there more?”

Another world. Another world…

That couldn’t be the case, could it?