Cave-In

[knux400]

You quicken your pace down the tunnel, focusing on reaching the voices as soon as you can. Unfortunately, the assortment of parts you're dragging behind you is making quite a ruckus. You just barely manage to duck as a horror detection wand sails over your head, bouncing a short distance down the tunnel behind you.

"What the FUCK, dude?" A Volarie throws up their hands in confusion. A Botley stands awkwardly behind them- a J4WS, if you remember correctly. They look like they're about to jump out of their casing.

"I thought you were a horror or some shit! What the fuck are you doing charging around dragging all that scrap behind you?!"
"It's not scrap!" You quickly retort, before calming down and coming to your senses. "This is... what's left of my friend."

It takes the Volarie a moment to realize what you mean, but they seem to calm down once you do.

"Right. Right. Fine. But you still didn't answer my question."
"I heard you two talking and I got excited. It's been hours since I fell down here. I wanted to make sure I caught up to you, in case you were walking the other way."
"Why didn't you just shout something?"
"...I didn't want to startle you."
"So you decided that sprinting down the tunnel making slasher flick noises was better than just shouting 'hello'?"
"I, uh... I got excited, like I said."




...





"Whatever. You've clearly demonstrated you're not going to slow us down, so you can go ahead and stick with us if you want. What's your name?"
"It's Pillbug, but Roll-E or Pole-E is fine."
"I'm Exclusit, the quiet one is Matri." The J4WS botley gives a shy wave.

"...We should probably go back and get that horror detector." Matri says. "It might come in handy."
"Right." Exclusit turns and starts walking before you have a chance to respond. The two of you quickly follow them.

You walk.


And you walk.



There's no way either of them could've thrown a wand this far.

"Did... Did we miss it?" You ask.
"I've been looking everywhere, there's no way we missed it." Exclusit grunts.
"Well, we're walking uphill. It can't have gone far." Matri chimes in.
"Wait, we're-" You look at the ground. You are walking uphill. "That's... not right."

You stop walking. Matri and Exclusit look at you with confusion and exasperation respectively.

"I was walking uphill to get to you two, and if we're heading back the way I came, then this path should be going downhill."
"Maybe there was a fork at some point?" Matri offers.
"No, it was just one long tunnel. And we haven't passed any forks or branches just now, either."
"You sure you didn't hit your head or something, bud?" Exclusit says condescendingly.
"No, my head is fine. I was just here, and I'm telling you, the tunnel sloped the other way."
"So what, the tunnel just moved when we weren't looking?"
"I don't know! I'm just telling you what I'm-"

"The cracks!!!" Matri cuts the two of you off suddenly. Both of you turn and look at the excited shark for an explanation.
"The cracks in the walls! They're like... You know how when you get dirt caked on your hands, right, and then it dries up, but you bend your fingers, and it does these little cracks?"

Matri stands there with their hands outstretched, as if they were offering you something very large and very invisible.

"The walls are bending! Those cracks form whenever the walls bend too much, because it's rock, right, and rock can't bend-"
"Okay, and?!? Even if the tunnel we were just in bent, the wand should still be in here somewhere!" Exclusit yells.
"Well, uh... I don't... I don't really know how that happened. I've just been staring at those cracks ever since I fell down here, and I just-"
"So the tunnels bend, got it. Duly noted, let's keep moving."