"Oh," Kai's were comically wide as he looked, bewildered, at the familiar shattered lantern in front of them. Tulip didn't speak, her mouth wide as she stared. A million concerns and theories raced through her head, and none of them good. She shook her head, trying to clear it. She couldn't help but think of the destroyed lantern as spider-like, with the thin metal twisting out in every direction like legs, and the destroyed base underneath it, with a small fire in the middle, illuminating everything yet burning from nothing.

"Who's lantern is that?" Kai asked out loud, echoing Tulip's own thoughts. "Is it Jolene's? Or Mira's?"

A bead of sweat broke out along Kai's eyebrow. "Was it one of them screaming before...?"

Tulip frowned. The suggestion sent a shiver down her spine, but she forced her creeps away. "That noise didn't sound like either of them," she pointed out. "Besides, maybe this lantern is somebody else's, and it was just left down here."

Kai gulped. It didn't look like he believed that. Tulip shakily stepped forward, kneeling on the ground in front of the light.

"It doesn't really matter," she said. Being as careful as possible, Tulip gathered up select pieces of the lantern, trying to arrange it so that it could be carried without touching the fire. She remembered Kipo before saying something about being able to touch this fire, but she wasn't about to experiment, not with her leg like this, at least. "Now, we have fire, see? And we can use it to navigate around, so you don't need to keep holding onto that wall."

Kai made a noise that suggested he wasn't even aware he was still doing that. "Oh, right, I gue-Oh!"

Tulip startled, turning around quickly at Kai's gasp. She stared at him wide-eyed, while Kai looked from her, to his arm, and back. Tulip followed his gaze, and her eyes widened impossibly bigger. Somehow, it looked like his hand was clipping through the wall.

"Um... uh..." After a second of panic, Kai had the sense to pull his hand back to himself, away from the wall. Tulip stood up, hurrying to his side, where she studied the wall closely. It looked like a normal wall, but... Tulip stuck out her hand. It didn't register the wall at all, passing right through like Kai's hand did.

"A fake wall...?" Tulip wondered out loud.

"I-Is this a trick of our mind, t-too?" Kai asked her, and Tulip rolled her eyes.

"No, I think this is something else," she replied, though she suspected Kai was probably just joking. Tulip's eyes narrowed, as she stepped closer. Kai made a strange wheezing noise.

"You're not going to go IN there-?" he started asking, but Tulip motioned for him to stay quiet. Together, they fell silent, and, as Tulip suspected, they heard the whispers. But these weren't the whispers like before, meant to scare, this was an actual conversation. Kai and Tulip strained to listen.

They couldn't. This conversation was obviously not meant to be overheard, but it wasn't a complete bust. Tulip and Kai exchanged glances when they heard Jolene's distinct voice in there, talking with someone else. Jolene sounded angry, but Tulip couldn't hear why.

Frowning, Tulip spun around to the lantern, picking up the pieces she'd been arranging before and lifting it as a shodden makeshift lantern, terrible but functional. She turned around to see Kai staring at her in horror.

"You can't be planning to go in there!" he groaned. Tulip gave him a strange look.

"Jolene's in there," she pointed out. "We were looking for Jolene."

Kai made a face. "Yeah... but-."

They both suddenly froze, hearing at the same time. It wasn't hard, in fact, it seemed like it was trying to be noticeable: footsteps. Coming from the place they just came, and heading straight for them.

"What is-?" Kai whimpered.

"It's either Mira or a trick," Tulip interrupted, proud of how steady her voice ended up coming out. "There's no one else here."

Kai groaned. "Why am I listening to you?!"

"I'm right," Tulip said, and dearly hoped she was. "I know I am."

So they stood like that, and waited as the footsteps got louder and louder, as well as faster and faster. There's nothing there, Tulip told herself, but it didn't stop her from starting to see faces in the dark. Horrifying faces that made her flinch, and nearly made poor Kai bolt like a scared rabbit, but they stayed rooted to the spot, and eventually, the footsteps, now sounding like they were running full sprint towards them, finally stopped.

Tulip let out a breath she had realised she was holding. "I was right," she said, and turned towards the fake wall again.

"Wait!" Kai called out in a panic. "What if that's a trick, too?"

Tulip stopped. She hadn't considered that.

"I... I don't think it is," Tulip told him. "I don't think they wanted us to find this place."

"But what if they WANTED you to think that, and THAT'S the trick!" Kai argued, but as Tulip stared at him, they both knew he was beat.Tulip turned back to the wall.

"Are you coming, or not?" she asked him, and with a big sigh, Kai nodded, stepping forward with her. They didn't need any words after that, but they stepped forward together.

Tulip wondered if Kai also wondered if this is what it looked like when video game characters clipped through the wall. She certainly thought so. It wasn't very big, more like a curtain, than an actual wall. They were through in an instant.

The room behind was small, or at least, it looked that way, because in front of them what looked like a wall was only a solid sheet of darkness that was impenetrable for the tiny lantern. Was it just a black wall or darkness? Tulip couldn't see from where she was, so she tried to step closer.

"Wait, Tulip!" Kai cried, grabbing her arm. Tulip was jolted to a stop, and just in time. Before her, just under her good leg, there was a crevice in the floor that Tulip just barely managed to avoid falling down. Tulip stared at it, terrified, before she spotted something down in the hole, looking up at them.

"Jolene?" she called down, and saw a familiar scowl appear across the woman's face. Jolene didn't have a lantern... so the one they found must have been hers.

"Of course you two are here..." Jolene said, and she sounded strained. Kai and Tulip fell to their knees, looking down at her. In the light of the lantern, they could see she was lying down at the bottom of the crevice, and not getting up.

"Are you okay?!" Kai called to her. "Do you have a rope?"

"That's not important!" Jolene waved a hand at the two, as if trying to shoo them out. "Listen! You have to get out of here! This isn't... it isn't worth it for you to get involved!"

"Involved in what?" Tulip called back down. Jolene groaned, but whether it was from pain or annoyance, it was hard to tell.

"Just leave!" she cried. "We're not alone in here, you know!"

"I... know..." Tulip replied, but in the wake of everything in the room, she'd kind of forgotten, and remembered too late. A rumbling laugh shook the room, and Kai and Tulip looked up at the wall in front of them... and then even more up... and even more... until they found a pair of eyes staring down at them from somewhere up near the ceiling. Tulip's blood ran cold. This... This was the thing that had been watching them all this time. The source of the oppressive surveillance came from these two red eyes, glaring down at them and probably attached to something much bigger.

"Well, well, well..." the thing laughed. "You found me. AND my guardian. I would say I'm impressed but that would be a lie. If I hadn't been distracted by the shock of this betrayal of my dear friend, well... things would have gone differently, I'm afraid."

Kai and Tulip froze up. From the inky blackness in front of them, they could hear skittering and scuttling, like a million insect legs crawling all over the walls. Tulip felt a chill go down her spine at the thought.

"W-W-Who a-are y-y-you?" Tulip asked, almost physically having to force the words out to make a sentence. Every instinct in her body was telling her to hide or run, to do anything but just sit there in the presence of this thing for a second longer. But Tulip was having a difficult time demanding her body to move.

"Ah, is that all you want to know?" the thing laughed, as if that were a funny question. "It's simple, really. I'm the King of all that exist down here, The Forgotten and the Decayed. There is no God here except me. So if you really want to start praying..."

Kai and Tulip didn't know what to say to that, if they could speak at all. The thing in front of this seemed to find this amusing.

"Ha, ha... since you seem to have trouble finding your tongue, I'll answer your next question, too," it told them, almost kindly. They tilted a... head? The barest outline of a face pointed downward to Jolene's hole, though Kai and Tulip were far too terrified to follow its gaze. It didn't seem to mind. "Your friend down there, I'm afraid she was my friend first. My guardian. She was only told her lies since you got down here, save for some: she really has been here since the beginning. She'd ventured in, so long ago, when the both of us were green and new. But we both understood. Your deaths are necessary."

Tulip's eyes widened, and Kai gasped. Tulip fought to argue, to understand, anything to make sense of this new information. Was this really what Jolene had been hiding from them all this time?

"So you see, all this time, over years and years... Jolene was an actor, playing the part necessary to get any traveler into this pit. Would you like to know how many died, tortured to death in this place? Why, Jolene, you are nothing more than an executioner," the thing explained, nearly sounded sympathetic, but in away, the pity seemed cruel. The shadow leaned forward, and beside her, Kai flinched, but the shadow paid him no mind. Those horrible eyes looked down into the hole in front of them. "Is that wrong, Jolene? What have you, to say for yourself?"

Jolene, still laying down at the bottom of the hole weaking looked up. Tulip inwardly cringed at the agony on her face. But as Jolene stared up at them, she completely ignored Kai and Tulip, instead fixing her glare onto the shadow above them. She didn't speak for a long time, but Tulip was surprised that when she did, her eyes softened, and she looked away.

"...I can't do it anymore, Nacht," Jolene said, and Tulip's mouth fell open. Kai mumbled something beside her, but to low for her to here. However, Jolene didn't even spare them a glance. As she continued on, Jolene didn't even see to remember they were there. "I'm... sorry. I really have been a coward all these years, ignoring everything I'm been doing and helping you in your... your secret plan, was it? If I could, I would look you in the eyes and call you by your true name, but I've forgotten it, just as I've forgotten why we're doing this.

"It's been... so... long, if I am doing this for a good reason, I don't know it anymore, and I'm afraid I no longer believe in you, nor myself, to continue on. I'm tired, Nacht, so please, accept this: whatever you're doing... so you remember if it's right?"

The thing, Nacht, did not answer for a long time. Tulip peeked up at it, but it didn't have a face, so whatever it was thinking, it was unknown. However, Tulip could not look for long. She was confused, so she was afraid.

"You'd die here?" Nacht finally asked. "In this place?"

"A good place to rest for all of eternity," Jolene replied. "Please, Nacht. Will you take me instead of them?"

"You know you have nothing to offer me," Nacht replied, and then it waited. They all did, but a reply from Jolene never came. When Tulip peered closer, she saw that the old woman wasn't moving. She had... she had...

"Or perhaps you didn't," Nacht said. Tulip and Kai jumped back when the cave shook, and the hole in front of them buried itself, covering Jolene. Tulip couldn't tear her eyes from the spot. Her mind couldn't keep up with what she'd seen. Jolene was dead... and so suddenly... Tulip figured she was dying, but she could help but be horrified at the way it happened. Why had Jolene chosen to die here of all places?! It didn't seem fair!

"Or perhaps you didn't," Nacht said. Tulip and Kai jumped back when the cave shook, and the hole in front of them buried itself, covering Jolene. Tulip couldn't tear her eyes from the spot. Her mind couldn't keep up with what she'd seen. Jolene was dead... and so suddenly... Tulip figured she was dying, but she could help but be horrified at the way it happened. Why had Jolene chosen to die here of all places?! It didn't seem fair!

And there was nothing, not even a grave, to mark where she laid.

The shadow shifted above them, and Kai jumped back, but Tulip didn't move. Her eyes were fixed on the spot in front of her. Natch let out a long sigh.

"I suppose you must be confused," Nacht rumbled wearily. "You can't understand what you just heard."

Kai's mouth opened and closed like a fish, seemingly on the verge of saying something but never finding the words. Nacht didn't seem to notice, Tulip didn't think it was looking for their input anyway as it stayed silent, considering.

"Unfortunately, I can't let you leave alive with what you just heard," Nacht seemed to decide.

"W-Wh-What?!" Kai finally spluttered out. "Why not?!"

Nacht didn't bother answering him. "Unfortunately for you, that is. It was always going to be the plan for me."

Tulip's head snapped up. "Wait!" she blurted out. To her immense surprise, the creature did, waiting for her to continue. However, Tulip had wasted all her courage on that one word, so it took a while for her to gather the strength to put what she was thinking into words.

"Y-You can't," Tulip said. "We need to-."

Nacht rolled its eyes. "No, I know," it said. Suddenly, the shadow lessened, and Tulip was able to see through the creature in front of her. She lifted her lantern, noticing, for the first time, the blackened tips on the edge of her fingers where she had been burned. But she could hardly feel it, and her hand was shaking more from fear than pain.

The light, now allowed to pass through, showed another tunnel, but a smaller one that they came from and filled to the brim with bright red flowers that practically shone under her light, even though they were picked, and the fact they were in a cave.

Tulip's eyes widened.

"You need these, don't you?" Nacht asked rhetorically, giving Tulip a good look before the darkness thickened again, hiding the cave. "I'm afraid I can't let you have them, not that you'll be alive to need them anymore."

Tulip felt a great weariness settle on her shoulders, and for the first time, she spoke without fear, though it was scarcely more than a whisper. "We just want to go home."

Nacht seemed to pause, but only for a second. Then, something terrible happened. The dark shifted and took shape as something stepped out, and Tulip jumped back as a leg with long, razor sharp claws stepped out in front of her.

Tulip stared at it, her eyes wide, before they slowly travelled up the shadowy leg, up towards Nacht's eyes, where a gleaming set of teeth had suddenly joined the terrible eyes that glared down at her.

"Since you've figured out my tricks and illusions, I'm afraid I'm going to have to get more... physical," those teeth said. "I'd almost consider this death a mercy."