(I decided against the original Ashe POV in the original Chapter 8, so pretend like you haven't seen an Ashe POV yet!)

~

Atlas tried not to fidget when he followed the ghost of his mother out of eyesight. Vaulted ceilings and crystal-laden chandeliers turned into potted bonsai and dead flowers, tile into concrete and sand, and vases into statues of glass and rusted iron.

Soon he found himself standing in a large potting shed with light pooling at his feet. Rectangular windows lined the walls, and the whole room smelled like sand and wine... and sandalwood.

He could no longer hear August or his grandfather. It was just them.

"What's going on, hon?"

And that was intimidating.

Atlas took a stabilizing breath. Initiative. He needed to take initiative. Even if it still hurt to look down into his mother's hazel eyes.

There was a small bench beside a glass door that seemed to lead outside. He moved the rake and brusher leaning against it to make room for his mom. She gave him a quizzical look before they sat down together, side by side again.

"There's a lot going on, really," he started, clasping his hands together and looking down by his feet, "And you always liked me being straightforward with you when I had a problem."

She gave a confirming hum, one so similar to his father's. Atlas had almost forgotten where his father got it from.

"But I don't know if being straightforward will work here."

"Is it about that photobook?"

His mother's question caught him off guard. Atlas looked at her with wide eyes. "Yeah."

She twisted on the bench until their knees touched, placing a hand on his thigh. He swallowed when he looked down at her. She looked sad, with her eyebrows drawn and a small smile on her lips. "Hon, just ignore all that," she said, her voice soft. "What happens when you fill it won't be worth the hardships you'll go through."

Atlas slid his gaze to her hand. The warmth there felt wrong, and yet warm enough that he could almost be convinced that it was nice.

He drew a long, stabilizing breath and the overpowering sandalwood aura flooded in. That same fuzzy feeling was pumped through his veins as the moment he touched the oil slick back in Alaska. But this time, he wouldn't fall for it. He'd be his own pin through the balloon. He forced it out in a powerful breath and stood up, his mother's hand dropping back to her lap.

"It is worth it," he said quietly. "I need your help finding my memories before they disappear."

"But that means I'll disappear. Are you saying that's worth it?" His mother stood up with him, stepping in abnormally close. Her voice tapered off to a cracked whisper and she touched a hand against his cheek.

Atlas had no choice but to look at her and the raw, real emotion in her eyes.

"Are you saying you'd rather me be dead?" 

~

Something was wrong. That feeling grew and grew as Ashe waited for her coworkers to return.

She rubbed at her arms. Noon sunlight couldn't make up for the chill of sitting cross-legged in the snow, even on a warmer 40 degree Fahrenheit day. Yet she stayed seated before the strange crevice tunnel, the desire to wander about inside it far too strong for her to get any work done anyway.

"Ashe, aren't you freezing?"

"I'm fine," she said.

Levi walked closer, his boots crunching on snow. "What's taking them so long? Because I'm not fine." He shot her a look. "I can't wait to go back to the house where we have, you know, heat."

"Should we check on them?"

"Hell no! They're stupid for even walking down there!"

Ashe smiled, and looked back down at the long crevice. He wasn't wrong. She was dumb, too.

It was far too early for her to blame herself for something happening to them, but she could already feel the anxiety creep in. They had a drone! She could've flown it, but no, she climbed down like an earthquake hadn't even happened. It was like her mind wasn't even there anymore.

She clasped her hands tightly. Her fingertips were cold; she could feel them through her gloves.

Stop it, Ashe. She took a deep breath. Stop thinking like that. Nothing's wrong.

Still, the anxiety stuck firm. She wouldn't shake it free until she saw them.

She stood up, brushing the snow off the back of her pants and rubbing her hands down her legs. The friction warmed them up barely. "I'm going to get the drone."

"Why didn't you three do that the first time?"

"You know-" she caught herself. "I don't know."

Ashe didn't look up to see his raised eyebrow as she speed-walked to the van. Levi's long legs kept up with her easily. The others were seated around the worksite, talking in small groups.

She opened the back door, and climbed in, kicking the snow off of her boots the best she could. Climbing down two seats past piles of unorganized equipment that had been moved back and forth from the work tent who knew how many times since they arrived, she found the drone carry bag and pulled it out from under the seat. It was slightly warmer in the van, but just like all larger vehicles, it lost the heat quickly despite being left running.

She set the drone up on a piece of cardboard just outside of the van before climbing back in. The van rocked slightly as Levi decided to follow suit, sitting in the seat in front of hers, elbows pressed onto the cushion so he could see the video screen on the remote.

It certainly wasn't an HD experience as it took off, not that she was expecting one from a drone like theirs. She flew up to about fifty feet and angled the camera so she could get her bearings. Two minutes later, the drone hovered above the crevice, it's shadow plummeting down into it. She flew in without hesitation. It was only her job to fly drones and evaluate earthquake sites. She'd done it a thousand times.

With the drone, she noticed a few things immediately.

The camera became foggy with steam.

The drone moved more rugged, like it was hitting a current of wind.

She slowed down, dropping lower to the near-level floor of the crevice-turned-tunnel. The further she went, the more it leveled out and went in deep beneath the earth. It became more and more safe for her to fly low.

She didn't remember it being drafty when she had gone down with Atlas initially. She remembered the heat, though. She remembered the melting snow and the squelch of their boots, the water dripping into her hair and down her face. It was no doubt the same now, but that didn't explain the wind.

Levi was quiet up until the drone died.

The battery light flashed and the camera video turned black.

"Did... you not charge it?"

Ashe stared at the video, that bad feeling rising up once more. That feeling she had when she walked down the day before... that wasn't imaginary, was it? Atlas had felt it, too.

"Are you alright?"

She noticed then she was clenching the remote with white knuckles. Once more she took a breath and placed it in her lap. "I think... I think we need to call 911."

~

Ashe didn't bother counting minutes before the technical rescue crew arrived. They were out in the middle of nowhere - she was surprised anyone would come, especially since Alaska had so few fire departments.

She stood outside of the crevice tunnel as Levi led two firefighters down to her. She could see his hands move, trying to explain what he didn't know.

How was she supposed to explain what she thought happened?

She had stood, shuffling her feet until the snow was one thin, compact layer beneath her, thinking that over and over without a surefire explanation. The only thing she could think of was to tell them to walk down there and see it for themselves, which they would have to do to search for Arrone and Atlas.

But she knew that was wrong, and that's what kept her frozen in place as they approached. The siren call of the oil slick. Whatever it was, the same thing would happen to them, too, right?

A much-taller-than-anyone-else-around man came to a stop a good distance from Ashe, dressed in uniform with a hard helmet held against his waist. "So, let me get this straight. You guys caused an earthquake with your little experiment thing, and your boss and some other guy walked down there like two dumbasses and, what, got buried? Are you telling me I need an excavator to dig 'em out?"

"Oh, no," Ashe started. She felt her face heat up. Was he... being mean? Funny? "It didn't collapse. I think something else happened."

"Okay, that's good, because I have no idea how I'd get one of those things out here." He gestured to the wide crevice. "Is this the spot?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"How long they been missing?"

"A couple hours." Thankfully, Levi let her answer all of their questions until they were satisfied. He stood off to the side with his hands in jacket pockets, watching them with a questioning frown.

"Alright, well we'll take a look." He turned to one of his partners and they walked back to the rescue vehicle.

Unsure of what to do, Ashe found herself following them. She had expected them to walk right in, hard helmets on and flashlights in hand, but to her surprise they, too, had a drone. She didn't expect the rescue team to have one out in Alaska, where resources tended to be more scarce and expensive.

And alas, their drone died, too. Just when hers was in view, crumpled on the flooding floor of the tunnel, their screen went black and it joined the scrap pile.

The main firefighter leaned closer to her. "Was that there your done?"

She nodded. Yeah, it was. Them both crashing to the floor just made the situation harder to explain than before. "I don't think this... is normal," she started. "I'm a seismologist, and I've gone to so many experiments like these, and this has never happened."

"Guess that means we go in."

~

Ashe was kind of irked that they didn't listen to her before putting their caps on and hiking back to the crevice. Once more, she found herself following them, Levi trailing beside her with his arms crossed.

"What do you think happened to them?" Levi asked.

She shook her head. "I think they walked too far. There's something at—"

The firefighter handed her a walkie talkie. "That way we can let you know what's up if it takes us too long."

"Oh, yeah, thank you." She clutched it in two hands against her chest, her lips pressed together.

"Don't worry about them or us. We got you!" he said, flicking a heavy-duty flashlight on as he and his partner climbed down.

She watched their helmets bob up and down as they got to the bottom, and watched them disappear as they made their way through the tunnels, rope and tool box at their sides. Watch the walkie talkie die, too.

"Wow, they didn't listen to you at all," Levi commented.

"It's okay." She sighed, placing the walkie talkie on the ground. Not like it would do her any good for long.

"What were you saying?"

"Um." Was it even worth telling him? "There's something at the end. You want to walk to it, and when you touch it, you can... go through. It talks to you, too. I think Atlas and Arrone went into it."

She didn't need to look up at Levi to know he was staring at her like she had two heads.

"Yeah, nevermind."

"No, wait." He shook his head. "Like are you saying this is some weird paranormal portal fantasy?"

"I guess?"

"Oh God." Levi rubbed his forehead. "You know, I have no idea why I came here. I knew this was a stupid project. I'm not dealing with this!"

He started walking away, then.

Ashe squeezed her hands together. "Are you leaving?"

"Yeah!"

She watched him stalk away, her stomach tight. She'd worked with him enough to know he wasn't really leaving, but that didn't help her feel better. Ashe looked down at the walkie talkie, suddenly aware of how stupid it was for her to not press herself further.

What would happen if they got sucked in, too? Or if their only communication device did die at the same place as their drones?

Levi seemed like the reasonable one for omitting himself of responsibility right from the start.

She shuffled on her feet for barely five minutes longer before the aloneness and paranoia had her flicking the walkie talkie on. "Um, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear!" She recognized the main firefighter's voice immediately.

"I just thought we should stay talking for when you get close to the drone," she said quickly, "just in case these fail too, so we both know."

"Well, perfect timing then! We can already see the drones there."

She heard boots splashing over the line, a steady pattern of static that sounded kind of soothing if it weren't so unnatural.

"Oof, we're not salvaging these!" The next time he spoke, it felt further away, and she had to turn the volume up more to hear him. "Wings broken; may as well have been dropped into a pond. I didn't realize the water was half a foot right here! Can you still hear me?"

She nodded, as if anyone could see her. "Yeah."

"Hello?"

Her stomach dropped. "Yeah, I can hear you," she said, louder this time.

"Well damn, guess this isn't—"

And his voice cut off, too.