Ikarus - Part IX (fiction)

'What are those?' Eric hissed. This adventure was rapidly becoming one of the worst decisions of his life. Well, to be honest, it had already become the worst some three miles back, when old Keith had farted right over his left eye. Not his idea of a good time, but what can you do?
He'd thought that now, at least, things couldn't get any worse. Except they could. They found themselves standing underground, staring at what could only be described as stalagmites, though instead of the beige color one would expect, these were a bright, glowing purple. He wouldn't have worried so much about the purple, but the glowing, now that he really couldn't overlook.
'And how the Hell did we get here?'
'What?'
'I say, how on Earth did we get down here?'
'Well technically, we're not on Earth, we're in Earth, so... and anyway, you said "how the Hell" not "how on Earth"?'
Eric was momentarily stumped. They'd fallen - somehow - thirty feet down underneath the surface of the Earth and Aimee seemed worried about phrasing.
'Well, if you'd heard what I said, why did you ask "what"? And more importantly, how the Hell did we get down here? Did you see anything or...?'
Aimee shook her head, unphased. 'It's a cave.'
'Yes, I can see that, but how did we get inside said cave?'
A shrug. 'We must've fallen. No yeah, I've heard about these places, can't remember what they're called though. It's, it's a thing, you know? It's what's making those things purple,' she waved a hand at the glowing icicles. 'This is a special cave. Man, I've always wanted to get to one of these places.'
Eric seemed shocked, which was to put it mildly really, as he was downright catatonic on the inside.
'Are you insane? We're miles underground, there's no apparent way to get out of here and even if we do, there's no telling where that will take us. We could be in here for days. Aimee, we could even die here.'

_{Photo by 炫铭 on Unsplash}

The girl looked at him as if the concept was entirely foreign to her. 'Don't be silly,' she said, but her voice seemed to have lost something. A certain lilt, a lightness it'd had before. She seemed serious now. Moreover, she looked hurt. 'There's always a way out of these places, but it's a puzzle. See, that's the beauty of it, you have to figure the way out. Or not.'
She shrugged and ran a hand over Keith's back.
'I'm sorry,' Eric said, more quietly this time, but the girl didn't look at him again. She just nodded slowly.
'We didn't fall, we winded. You know, as in wind up here? That's what happens with these caves, you just sort of wind up in here. That's why there isn't a scratch on us. Now the thing is, finding a way to wind back out.'
'And if we don't?'

He tried to make light of it, but she knew it as well as he did, he was terrified. 'Then, I guess we're stuck here.'
If there was one thing Aimee Wilty couldn't stand, it was fear. It wasn't that she was never afraid, as such, just that there was a fine line between feeling it and being overwhelmed by it. And she'd sworn to herself early in her own life that she would never do the latter.
Yet, fear is much like the common cold in that respect and once your neighbor has it, or in this case, the stranger you're trapped underground with, then it's night impossible for you not to get it also.
And then, it dawned on her, like an ice cube slithering down her spine. She looked up and grinned.
'What is it?' Eric asked, a reassuring hand behind the donkey's ear. Reassuring for him, of course. It seemed Keith was the only friend he might have down here.
'This is our first puzzle,' she pointed a finger upward, to where glowing, purple stalactites should've been. Except they weren't.

And on the other side of the world, and many many feet above, Ikarus was sat behind a desk, staring at the bright, purple letters on his computer screen. Except they weren't, really. They were black and rather dull, same as all the letters he'd seen for the past two days. Something told him, deep down, he should've been deep underground with his sister right now. But he wasn't and perhaps Aimee would've never been down there at all, were it not for their little mix-up. Their... experiment.
And for the first time since they'd done the switch, he felt kinda jealous. It wasn't that he wasn't liking it, just that things had become considerably more dull since yesterday.
His nightly escapade with Amber, which had ended rather well, in fact, and with not a drop of venom in sight, had reminded him how much fun he used to have in the old days, in his old life. In his real life. Not recently, of course. He'd been going through something a bit strange in the past few months, which had prompted him to stalk Eric in the first place, but sitting on that rooftop, with a beautiful girl and a snake in each of their laps reminded him what life really was about.
What it could be about. About being underground, surrounded by strange, purple icicles and petting dangerous snakes and hoping they don't pet you back. The finer things. And as he sat now, staring at his screen, he realized there were four more days of their experiment and he didn't really want to be present for one more hour. He'd been wrong, utterly, utterly wrong. And he saw it now.
And in the cozy, bland office, Ikarus had a revelation of his own. And his revelation involved finding Eric and Aimee. And soon.