The light flickered. Kai stumbled, nearly knocking Tulip into a stalagmite. They saw Jolene shake the lantern, but the light just flickered even more.

A flare of panic shot up in Tulip's gut, but she forced it down as fast as possible. "Is something wrong with the light?" Tulip asked her, calmly.

"It's not going to go our, right?" Kai asked, definitely not calmly.

"Calm down," Jolene ordered sternly. "I'm not sure what's going on. This type of fire never goes out."

"As far as you know," Tulip noted. Jolene didn't say anything to that, instead, she stopped suddenly. Tulip and Kai did, too. Jolene turned to them with a look that terrified Tulip to her core, no matter how much she tried to fight against it. Kai physically took a step back.

"Listen to me," Jolene told them quickly. "There's something I should say: In the darkness, this place will try to trick you and run you into the ground while making you spin in circles. You have to be smart and-."

The light flickered, and completely went out. Kai and Tulip jumped at that, and then even more at a slight tapping sound that echoed in the invisible walls.

"And run."

"Wha-what?!" Kai cried. Tulip's eyes widened, but there was no light anywhere for her eyes to adjust to.

"Jolene?" she whispered. Kai called out much louder.

"JOLENE!" Kai's voice bounced off the walls. Tulip's brow furrowed. What happened? And so suddenly, too... What had gone wrong without any of them noticing?

"What do we do?" Kai said, and he sounded stricken. "Run? Like she said?"

"..." Tulip didn't answer right away, or even when Kai started tugging her away, back the way they came. The sudden plunge into darkness had shaken her, no doubt, but it hadn't pulled the rug from under Tulip completely. With her good leg, she forced Kai to stop his frantic lurch down the way they came.

"No..." Tulip said, frowning. Her eyes were still trying to adjust to things she'd never be able to see that way, so she shut them, instead. In this strange, new world, she clung onto Jolene's last words like a life-line. "We can't. Kai, we can't run away! We have to keep our heads in all this. So think! What are we running from?"

"Wha- the same thing that got Jolene!" Kai snapped.

"We're not walking that fast," Tulip pointed out. "So if there was something malicious watching us, it would have already gotten us."

Tulip heard Kai gulp. His face bumped into hers as he tried to lean down.

"But Tulip!" he hissed in a whisper. "There IS something here! Something's watching us, can't you feel it?"

"I know, I know," Tulip replied in her normal voice. "But I don't think that's how this place works. They're not trying to get to us through violence or force, but through psychological means... they're trying to scare us!"

Kai didn't seem to know how to respond to that for a good long while. "...So people go crazy down here... like Jolene said... through fear?"

"Think about it," Tulip explained. "The darkness, the weird imagery we've been seeing, the odd way sound works in these caves... they are all meant to make us more afraid. To divide us to make us go insane. Whatever... is attacking us can't do it outright, but it uses those methods to get to us. So, please, Kai, keep your head down here."

Kai made a sound in the back of his throat. "Then when Jolene told us to run..."

"I... don't think that was Jolene," Tulip finished. "Before you ask, I have no clue what happened to her, I just hope she's alright."

The two stood in silence for a long time, not moving. Tulip knew it probably wasn't smart, but she knew that Kai needed to come to terms with what they had just figured out. She did, too, if she was being honest.

"So... when we saw Mira's face... was that real?" Kai asked, slowly, and Tulip winced. She hadn't wanted to think about that.

"Um... you know Bloody Mary?"

Kai whimpered. "Why are you bringing that up here?" he whined.

"No, listen," Tulip told him. "When you look into a mirror in low lighting and expect to see a terrible face, then you WILL see one, because you mind will trick yourself into seeing what your afraid of! Even your eyes work against you when you're scared."

"...So... When we saw that face on Mira's face, it wasn't actually there?" Kai seemed like he was forcing the words out. Tulip ducked her head, but she couldn't deny it.

"I don't think so," she answered honestly. "I don't know what Mira was doing there, or why she was acting so strangely, but I think her face was fine, we only saw a terrible face because that's what we were subconsciously looking for."

Kai took a couple seconds to respond. "So it's our fault..."

Tulip winced. "No. I don't think so. Look, Kai, this world is fighting tooth and nail to fight against us! We just have to be smarter from now on, and trust each other. Mira's still out there, we just have to keep looking."

Mira could feel Kai's confusion. "How...?"

"We keep walking along the wall, feeling it to keep us from walking into it," Kipo explained. "We'll be careful. And Mira still has a light, so it'll be pretty easy to keep an eye out for that, right?"

"Oh... Okay," Kai said, sounding relieved. "Yeah, that sounds pretty good."

"Can you reach out and feel the wall?" Tulip asked. She heard some shuffling as Kai reached out.

"Ow!" he cried out. Tulip heard some more, this time unexplained, shuffling.

"Are you okay?" Tulip asked him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Kai replied through his teeth. "The wall was just closer than I thought, and crushed my fingers against the wall. Owwwww."

Tulip listened to this complaining for quite a while before she spoke up again. "Um-."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Kai assured her again, now completely fine, and Tulip suspected that some of the complaining what just for show. She heard Kai reach out to the wall again.

"Okay, I found it."

"Good. Let's get going then, back in the direction we were going before," Tulip said. "And watch- be careful of where you're stepping. This place was hard enough to walk through before when we had light."

"Why do we need to go that way?" Kai asked her, and edge of worry in his voice. Tulip frowned.

"Well... did you notice where Jolene was leading us?"

"I... she wasn't going anywhere, she was just walking randomly, right?"

Tulip shook her head. "I wonder. Maybe, but I'm not sure. I think Jolene knows more then she's letting on about this place, something she refuses to share with us."

"Are you sure?" Kai wondered, sounding skeptical.

"No, not really, it's just a hunch," Tulip replied, and through her own uncertainty, she tried to sound confident. "But Jolene really looked like she knew a lot about this place, for how much she said she didn't know anything. Maybe it's nothing, though, or something really not all that important. I have no idea."

Kai still didn't sound convinced. "She said she's never been down here before."

Tulip chewed on her bottom lip. "I wonder."

After an undetermined time of just walking, Tulip's leg was starting to hurt again. The ground underneath them had suddenly turned to an uphill incline, and the pressure on her foot was like large needles stabbing into it with every step. Tulip winced and tried to ignore it, but there was nothing else to focus on other than the perpetual darkness around them,

"Um, Tulip?" Tulip heard Kai ask. "Is something wrong?"

Tulip frowned, ready to retort, but in her hesitation heard her own labored, pain-filled breathing. She sighed.

"My leg is acting up," Tulip replied honestly. "Can we...?"

"Stop for a bit?" Kai finished. "Sure! Anything for you!"

Kai dropped her so suddenly that Tulip stumbled, and she wondered if the rest break was more for him than for her.

"I wasn't going to say that," Tulip said crossly. She was on the ground in a heap, and she could feel Kai sitting right beside her. "I was going to ask if we could slow down. We shouldn't be stopping, Kai. My leg's not going to heal with fifteen minutes of rest and we need to get out of this darkness as fast as possible."

Tulip could feel Kai disagreeing with her, even when it wasn't said out loud. But try as he might, Tulip knew he wouldn't be able to come up with any objections, and after a second, Kai scrambled to his feet, sighing dejectedly. He helped Tulip up, none too gently, but Tulip assumed that was because of the dark then any malicious intent.

They started up the incline again, with Kai diligently feeling along the wall as they went, and Tulip just focusing on the next step on her bad leg. It was literally an uphill battle.

-

Thankfully, the uphill incline didn't last long after that, and soon the two found themselves stumbling downhill. Kai laughed in relief, but all Tulip found was that this was almost worse than going uphill on her bad foot. She was having a harder and harder time hiding her expressions of pain, so instead, she talked about something else.

"Be careful, Kai," Tulip said, her voice strained. "The ground is slippery..."

"I know, I know," Kai told her, not seeming to notice anything odd in her voice. "I'm holding onto the wall like spiderman, see? Uh, okay, nevermind. But-."

Whatever joke Kai was about to tell Tulip next died in his throat, because a sudden scream tore through the air in front of them, effectively stopping Kai and Tulip in their tracks, staring down into the darkness with wide eyes, but not seeing anything. They froze like deer in headlights for a good, long moment, too stunned to move.

Finally, Kai whispered to Tulip. "Um... What was that?"

"I don't know," Tulip whispered back. Her mouth felt dry as she spoke. "Come on, let's keep-."

Kai made a horrified sound in the back of his throat. "What?! No, we are NOT going down that way! We need to get away from here!"

"Kai, we need to go this way!" Tulip told him. "To look for Jolene-!"

"To the screaming people?!" Kai hissed. "I'm not doing that! Count me out!"

"We need to go together, Kai!" Tulip argued back, now getting a little sick of this. "We can't get split up down here! Besides, whatever made that scream is probably trying to trick us. We need to go this way!"

"You THINK!" Kai all but shouted. "You're always bossing me around into these dangerous situations because you THINK you're right! Why should I believe you?"

Tulip stared at Kai in shock. For a long time, Tulip didn't know what to say, and even after all that time, Tulip could only say. "Kai..."

Tulip heard him shaking his head. "No. NO! I"m not doing this. You have fun down there, but I'M not!"

"Kai-!" Tulip pleaded, this time louder, but at this point, it was too late. Kai was panicking and angry, and as he started shouting again, he moved, and before Tulip knew what was happening, she was suddenly falling, and both her and Kai went tumbling down the decline in a heap. They screamed, and Tulip desperately threw out her hands, digging them into the rocky floor falling with them. For a terrifying second, Tulip thought nothing was going to happen, before her fingers hooked around something that didn't move, and both she and Kai were yanked to a stop.

Tulip cried out as pain flared up in her arms, and in her midsection, where Kai was wrapped around her waist like an octopus. Tulip could feel his terrified face pressed into her back.

Tulip groaned. "Kai..."

"Oh. Heh. Sorry." He had the sense to sound sheepish as he unwrapped his arms around her, and Tulip heard him shakily stand up, beside her. Tulip flinched at the sound of falling rock, but Kai didn't fall down, to her immense relief.

"Uh... here," Kai offered, and Tulip felt his hand hit her shoulder. He helped her up, and Tulip groaned at the pain, now unevenly spread all over her body. Her hands, her shoulders, her back. Tulip rolled her head to work out the pains... and then froze.

She and Kai called out to each other at the same time.

"Tulip...!"

"Kai!"

Tulip and Kai glanced at each other, and Tulip was amazed that she could just make out Kai's face in the darkness, something that had been impossible before. Or at least she thought she saw it. It was only when she was really looking, and she somewhat suspected that she might have been only imagining it

Kai went first, but only because Tulip was distracted by the new sight.

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Do you... hear that?"

Tulip frowned, opening her mouth to reply before she thought better of it. She tilted her head, listening closely, just as Kai was doing.

Tulip's eyes widened dramatically.

It was like tuning her own ears into a radio station, hard to find, but when you did... Still, Tulip couldn't make out the words, but there was definitely something out there. Whispers. Just the faintest hint of them, and they were like the beat of a murder of crow's wings all over them, crowding them in. Tulip looked around, looking, but the whispers came from the dark.

Tulip shook her head, tightening her grip on Kai to get his attention. "This way," she whispered as loud as she dared. There was nothing there, Tulip knew, but she couldn't bear to be louder. Even her own mind couldn't convince her there was nothing there, no danger to be found. Her mind simply didn't believe it.

With Tulip leading, she and Kai moved to the left, down a tunnel they would not have been able to find if not for the faint glow of light emitting from around it's bend, highlighting the wall in front of them.

The whispers grew louder, but when Tulip looked to the side, she could actually see the realization rise on his face as the glow washed over it.

"Oh," he said, just as they turned the corner, and into the light.