Paleozoic

Corpse Carrier - Act 1 | Chapter 10 - Paleozoic
One Hour and Thirty-Two Minutes After Juna Died

An odd sight. The village slap in the middle of the cavern’s depression, a circular incline of stone surrounding the bleached timber huts like walls. Theo counted over a hundred pale shacks with thin obsidian-like stone slabs placed as the roof. Lining the outside of each hut were torches, or what Theo guessed were torches from this distance. The huts substituted glass windows for neat-cut moss curtains. While smaller huts worked their way towards the outskirts of the depression, the more extravagant huts nestled in the center.

How did a sweeping village such as this find itself dead center in a barren cavern?

Before Theo had time to question the absurdity any further, Juna snatched his shoulder and shook him silly.

“Look! Look! It’s a small town! A small otherworldly town!” she said, eyes gleaming at the village with each shake.

A small town. Sure, it might be considered small to anything they had ever seen before. But to construct and maintain a community with dozens of buildings, and most likely as many residents to match, inside a sullen, air-dense cavern like this—it only made Theo wary of whoever inhabited the village, and even more afraid of what they were capable of.

“You…you two. What are you both doing past The Mound?” an unsteady voice called out.

Theo’s foot slipped against a loose rock, startled by the sudden voice and slamming his rear end against the hilltop. He hesitated looking up, unaware of what he would find. Was someone there to rescue them? Could it be a traveler, lost just as they are? Or worse—would Theo find a face that couldn’t be from this world?

He braced himself and looked.

Twenty feet below them knelt a pale man at the midsection of the stone hill. His beard scruffy and hands steady as they finished the motion of piercing a rock with a hammer and iron chisel. The man’s deep brown hair only exposed the pallor of his face.

Too pale.

“You two shouldn’t be venturing past The Mound. Hurry up and get down from there before an incident occurs,” the man demanded

Contradictions. Too many contradictions since Theo had entered this place. He and Juna had died, yet they were still alive and breathing. Caves were commonplace in their regular lives but furry lizards with a flexible combing tail were definitely not. Books were normal but an etched out occult-esque manual for transporting worlds wasn’t. They could understand the man in front of them clearly—the same language he and Juna always spoke was being spoken back to them by a man paler than Juna. By a ghost-pale face.

The happy-go-lucky girl didn’t seem to mind.

“The Mound!” Juna exclaimed, squeezing Specks and trotting down the stone slope. “What’s The Mound?”

The man ushered out a hand, signaling her to stop. “The pile of stone we’re standing on. That's The Mound. I advise you please do not rush down it.”

Juna slowed her excited descent, and Theo shook a head before following. Beside the pale man was a portable wooden workstation confined to a semi-flat surface of the so-called Mound. Three pages of notes rested under a circular shard of glass Theo presumed to be a magnifying glass. Every other piece of equipment, besides the half-dozen split rocks next to the workstation, was fastened to the man's leather tool strap around his waist. Metal spikes and mallets clattered around as he spoke.

“What were you two doing past the Mound?” the pale man asked, standing up and brushing gravel from his faded utility pants.

“Not sure,” Juna responded.

“...not sure?”

Theo stepped in between the two, slightly ushering Juna back, and smiled. “We’re actually not from here. We’re from Bakersville.” He laughed. “I actually think this is a cavern just below it. Would you happen to know the way out?”

Theo waited patiently for a kind answer in return. Prayed for a proper response.

Nothing of the sort came.

“What’s a Bakersville? Never heard of anything like that.”

Theo took a breath. “That’s fine. About getting to the surface, is there a tunnel or ladder somewhere around here?”

The man squinted his eyes and nicked an eyebrow, looking at Theo as if he was the one pale as a ghost.

“No. This is the surface.”

Theo waited for a moment, held his breath, and stopped himself from being surprised by the strange man's words, then pointed up. “There. How do we get up there?”

The man took a glance, then palmed his face and shook his head. “Okay enough with the absurd questions. Act like you have some sense.”

“We’re not from here,” Juna said before the pale man could continue.

The man sighed and loosened his face. “That explains it then,” he said, grinning. “Why not just start with that next time. So which layer are you two from?”

Theo and Juna shared a look at one another.

“What’s a layer?” Juna asked.

The man turned, pointing a white soot-covered finger in the distance and nodding his head. Beyond the village, beyond the wall-like Mound that surrounded it, on the other side was a large gigantic split in the ground. An enormous fissure claimed the cavern almost stretching from stone wall to stone wall. An eerie place where the earth….

The Earth…

No. That wasn’t right. Theo couldn’t deny it any longer. He was able to tolerate Juna still being alive, the giant cavern, Specks, and even the pale man who didn’t have a clue as to what they were talking about, but the massive tear in the ground would be too much to look over. Theo conceded to the notion.

An eerie place where this unknown world split, engulfed what remained of the other side of the cavern.