With a painful landing, I splashed down into a shallow pool. Remembering the sight of the cloudy water in the fountain, I climbed out of the pool in disgust. We were in a dim cave; the only light was from a match resting on a table. It was almost finished burning.
Azarias picked up the matchbox. He lit one and passed the rest out to the group. There were two mirrors opposite each other on the walls, near a dresser with a candle on top. There was a simple bed made of straw, and a pickaxe leaning against a wall.
Azarias stared at the pool, then toward the top of the waterslide. He sighed. "It was stupid to go down; the source of the water should be visible at the top."
The others were getting out, and Azarias was pondering. "How do you suppose we're alright after that fall?"
I shrugged. "Is that not normal? How far are humans supposed to be able to fall?"
"We should have at least broken our legs. I need to test this out…"
He kicked his foot as hard as he could against the wall. His expression didn't change.
"I'm barefoot; that should have hurt," he mumbled.
His eyes lit up. "Who among you has the strongest physical body?"
We looked at each other. Most of us weren't that muscular; we had fairly average builds. There was only one who obviously stood out as buff. He had rough hair that covered his ears.
"Your name is Flox, right?"
Flox nodded.
Azarias closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. "Hit me as hard as you can, right in the chest, or the face is fine too. Whatever you prefer."
Flox was uneasy. "You want me to hit you? Why? Won't you get hurt?"
"Do you know what a trust-building exercise is? On Earth, when groups of people are getting to know each other, they ask each other to step out of their comfort zones. I promise it will be fine."
Flox sighed. "If you really want me to do it, you must have a plan."
He threw a hard punch at Azarias's chest, but missed and hit his face. Everyone winced.
Azarias wailed in pain. He instantly had a black eye and blood pouring from his nose. Flox stepped back, looking queasy as some laughed, some stared. "I thought he had a plan… Are you okay, Azarias?"
"It's okay, it's okay, I'm just fine. That's part one of the test, hahaha… Can someone find a large rock? We need to drop it on top of my head."
"…"
Somebody grabbed a big rock and handed it to him, against the wishes of some others. Azarias held it in the air, then dropped it onto his head. He didn't make a noise of pain.
"Yes, it is as I expected."
We wondered if the last hit to the head had made him lose it entirely. "What are you talking about?"
"During the period of chaos, you all were in pain, were you not?"
Everyone went silent. The dim environment looked darker and darker.
"Why do you think you were in pain?"
"In our confusion, we were accidentally attacking each other," someone stated matter-of-factly.
Azarias replied, "In other words, the impacts that caused the damage were done by humans to other humans."
"What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that our bodies are weird. We are stronger than the humans I remember. We're able to injure each other, but other actions that would normally injure humans do not matter to us. Dropping a large boulder on me from over my head should have definitely knocked me out. I guess we have superpowers."
"What are superpowers?"
Azarias laughed. "Come on, let's keep looking around. Enza, can you check to see if you can hear the water source on the ground? Everyone else, circle the perimeter and tap on the walls. Say something if you feel a hollow spot."
As we worked, people were talking to each other and making friends. I wondered how everyone was moving on so quickly after stomping over fellow humans a short while earlier. Maybe this was only natural. I didn't feel like making any friends; I wanted to get more information about this place and about Azarias.
The sound of rushing water. I had my ear pressed to the ground, and I could hear it clearly. I informed Azarias.
"I doubt we should dig straight down. Let's try to find the riverbank," he said.
"Hey, I got something." This was from Flox. The group crowded around his discovery.
The wall had an X, with a pickaxe leaning nearby.
Thunk! Flox grabbed it and hit the target. A hundred thunks later, he pulled out a chunk of gold. Azarias said, "Stuff's worth tons on Earth. Can't imagine we'll need it here, though."
A fuzzy appendage pierced through the floor and went straight for Flox. He was smashed against the wall and killed instantly. The appendage wrapped around the gold and pulled it under the floor.
None of us spoke a word.
A giant black eye stared at us from the hole. Then it spoke with a scratchy voice, "I'll revive him in exchange for more beautiful things."
The eye disappeared, leaving only a crushed corpse.
Blood pooled on the ground. In the hole the dead man dug, there was no more gold.
Half the group sprinted towards the exit: a staircase by the waterslide. Azarias sighed. "Can't blame them. We need to deal with this problem now, though. Maybe taking down a giant monster will boost my approval ratings."
He saw that I was staring at the crushed corpse. "Focus, Enza. Use your hearing to find an entrance to the river; one that we can access on foot. The rest of you, search for gold in the walls."
I listened carefully to the walls and floor in different areas. I found a hollow spot after a while and knocked on it softly. I took a breath and punched straight through it, hoping I wouldn't hit a giant eye on the other side.
A dark passageway had opened up. Meanwhile, the others had found lots of gold. It was pretty easy for them to make holes in the wall.
A piece of gold was tossed into the hole in the ground. It was snapped out of the air before it could fall far.
"That's not enough, that's not enough. More gold, more gold."
More was tossed in, but the voice wasn't satisfied. "Give me all your gold, then I'll consider healing him."
A scream of rage cut through the air. "You greedy bastard, how is that not enough? What if you just kill someone else right after we give you all of it?"
"I could kill all of you right now if I wanted. Why are you so confident?"
"My name is Aleksi Laine, and I will tear you apart!"
The man with anger issues was held back by the others. The voice continued to exchange words with him, and its replies only made him angrier.
There was a glint in Azarias's eye. He gestured at me to come over to him.
What now…
"Go into the tunnel."
"Are you crazy?"
"I have a plan."
I hesitated, then backed away. "No, I can't do that. You want me to die for you already?"
He grabbed me by the neck and threw me into the tunnel. He tore big chunks of rock off the wall and blocked off the entrance before I could react.
I pounded on the rocks. "Let me out of here. I'm not ready to die!"
There was no response, no matter how I screamed. I collapsed against the wall in fright. Was I going to be food?
A stairway lay ahead; faint light from below reached into the passage.
The ground shook behind me. "Not enough, it's not beautiful enough!"
Human screams rang out. I scrambled to my feet and sprinted toward the stairs.
Is Azarias's "plan" to get us all killed? I knew he wasn't to be trusted, but I didn't expect him to take action so fast…
A cliff! I nearly fell right off a massive drop into a large chamber. The staircase only went for a few steps before ending abruptly.
I blinked as lights and colors flashed from below. There were thousands of television screens; the chamber was made entirely of them. Each was playing a different scene, and each was a point-of-view shot. The scenes were blurry and incoherent; each one faintly gave off an emotion.
A red waterfall rushed down from the ceiling, forming a river that flowed out of the room.
A giant spider was in the center of it all. I recognized the appendage from before as one of its many legs. The numerous dark eyes glistened in the light of the screens as it stared at the scenes intently.
My skin was crawling. I had just found out I was absolutely terrified of spiders. I slowly backed away. With that many eyes, how would I know if it was looking at me?
The television chamber shook as the spider tore its eyes away from the screens and leaped toward the ceiling in rage. I closed my eyes, thinking it was my final moment. Then I opened them, and I saw that it was attacking where the group was. "Beauty, beauty! I need more!"
If the gold isn't working, why are Azarias and the rest still stalling for me to do something? I'm powerless.
Maybe I haven't tried everything yet. If the spider isn't stopped here, it could kill everyone up above; it probably leaves here regularly. I bet that's what Azarias is afraid of.
A noble sacrifice?
I only just started making memories, and I still know that isn't who I am.
I sighed. "But I'd rather feel proud of my last moments than guilty."
I paced around. Now what? Talking doesn't seem to be working for Azarias and the rest, so I can't see how I'd be able to get a conversation in without being attacked. If I'm going to be useful, I need to sneak up on this spider.
My hands trembled in fear as I peered into the hole. If I were to get closer, I would have to crawl upside down on the screens on the ceiling. From there, I could get to the wall and climb down lower. Only then might I have a chance of sneaking up.
I steeled my nerves, grabbed the edge of a flat-screen TV, and swung out over the gap.
"AHHH!"
Any semblance of delusional confidence I had was wiped out as I felt the weight go out from under my legs. I was about to cover my mouth, which would have made me fall.
A giant head swung toward me. My stomach sank, and I regretted my existence.
In a spur of adrenaline, I whipped my feet toward the ceiling and hooked them onto the other side of the TV. My hair fell downward, and the blood in my body rushed in reverse. From my inverted position, I saw a fuzzy spider leg coming straight for me.
I scrambled from television to television as the leg slammed repeatedly into where I had just been. Every time it broke a screen, it shouted in anger about doing so. It only took a few stabs for it to catch up to me. It was headed right for my face. I was dead; I had to be.
I leaped into the air. My final hope was that my durable body would help me survive the fall. I stretched out my arms hopelessly.
And then I grabbed something tube-shaped. It wasn't a spider leg; it was rubbery.
I blinked and looked up. I was holding onto a giant cable that was plugged into the ceiling.
A flash of movement in my peripheral vision. The spider leg was half a second away.
I had a moment of inspiration and shifted my body weight down as hard as I could.
The cord unplugged. All the screens went dark, and the spider started to scream.