The darkness enveloping the bottom of the underground cavern was no ordinary absence of light. It was a heavy, almost tangible mass pressing like a freezing blanket onto the chests of the two children. The frigid air reeked intensely of ancient dust, rotting earth, and the sharp, metallic stench of old blood.
Miki and Ren clung frantically to one another. Their fingers dug deep into each other’s clothing, their knuckles turned completely white. Miki’s breathing sounded ragged and frantic, while Ren stared into the icy blackness with wide pupils.
This is all wrong, raced through Miki’s head at a blinding speed, her heart hammering brutally against her ribs. These aren’t just rocks… we are sitting at the bottom of hell.
Without warning, the darkness ignited.
All across the shadows, hundreds of small, green blue ghost flames flickered awake. The flames licked along the rock walls, casting a chilling, shimmering glow over the entire space. Only then did the absolute madness of the cavern become visible: gigantic mountains of stacked, bleached bones and grinning skulls reached like a depressing wall all the way to the vaulted ceiling.
“R Ren…” Miki whispered with a trembling, broken voice. Her nails dug so deep into the fabric of his sleeve that the material tore. “Do you remember what they said up there? About the guys down here? That they are so bloodthirsty and… and feisty?”
Ren swallowed a heavy, bone dry lump in his throat. Pure terror paralyzed his jaw; cold sweat broke out in thick trails across his forehead. His knees knocked together so violently that the clicking of his joints echoed off the rocks.
“Y yeah…” Ren stammered, his voice barely more than a raspy squeak. “Ruthless monsters… they strip your meat from your bones within a single heartbeat…”
In the gloom, the skeleton graveyard suddenly began to tremble. With a dry, creaking sound of scraping joints, a tall, extremely thin figure began slowly scrambling upward from a pile of debris.
It was a complete human skeleton. Around its exposed ribcage hung a faded, worn vest of woven rope and fringes, and on its dry skull, it wore a crooked, wide brimmed hat. The hollow, pitch black eye sockets locked tightly onto the two twelve year olds.
This is it, Ren thought in pure panic, shutting his eyes tight and bracing for death. We are getting swallowed alive.
The skeleton lifted a weathered wooden guitar with a smooth, fluid motion. He cleared his dry throat with a sound like two pieces of sandpaper being forcefully rubbed together, threw his head back, and let a raw, booming laugh echo through the entire space.
“HA HAHAHA! Feisty?! Are those liars up there seriously saying that about us?!”
The echo of that laugh acted as a signal. From the deepest, darkest corners of the cavern, dozens of similar figures emerged. Without a shred of hesitation, they stepped out from the mountains of bone. Some carried dull, brass wind instruments and fast accordions, others held maracas and rounded instruments that rattled dryly with every step, and yet others clamped large, wooden acoustic guitars against their bare ribcages.
“Yeeeah, we are feisty!” the leader laughed with a crackling voice, his creaking fingers sweeping across the strings in a lightning fast, thrilling chord progression. “FEISTY FOR FIESTA! HAJAJAJA!”
With a visual explosion of acoustic power, the entire group burst out playing.
The brass trumpets blasted bright, golden bursts that sliced through the chilly air, the accordions pumped a rapid, melancholic waltz through the cavern, and the wooden rattles drove the rhythm forward by tapping directly against their own ribcages. The suffocating horror of the cavern transformed in a fraction of a second into a colorful, rhythmic festival filled with raw vocals and stomping beats.
Miki and Ren stared at them with wide eyes, their mouths hanging wide open in utter disbelief. The paralyzing terror in their bodies shifted into a bizarre, spellbinding shock.
The leader leaned over the two frozen children with a broad, dry grin. His crackling fingers flew over the strings, his foot stomped a tight rhythm onto the stones, and with a deep, captivating voice, he began to sing:
“For a thousand years cursed beneath the stone, They called us monsters of pure dry bone! But hear our guitars, hear our loud song, The lie of the upper world has lasted far too long!”
Through the poetic verses of the song, these bones told their true history. The music rendered it visually: through the spiritual resonance of the song, the green blue ghost flames on the walls began to warp, revealing the spirits of the past. They sang of how, in a distant era, they were the honorable guardians of these lands, but through false stories, betrayal, and the corruption of the divine realm, they had been slandered and banished into the deep forever.
As the music echoed on, the rhythm subtly shifted. The brass players blew low, mournful tones, and the melody took on a darker, warning undertone.
“Deep in the shadow, black cruelty lies still, The hungry creature that seeks our souls to break and spill! We are the sentinels of the dark gate, So no one above ever hears its awful fate!”
The fear in Miki’s chest melted away entirely, making room for a deep, warm awe.
They… they aren’t monsters at all, Miki realized, a lump of emotion forming in her throat. They have been locked up down here for a thousand years… just to protect the world above.
Ren, completely captured by the irresistible pulse of the driving guitars and the stomping rhythm, let his eyes gleam. Childish joy surged through his veins once more.
“Look at this!” Ren shouted with a broad grin spreading across his face.
He activated his Straw Anting. The golden fibers of the straw shot out from his skin, rapidly weaving around his hands to form sturdy, hollow percussion shakers and tight sticks. Without hesitating for a single second, he began drumming along on the rocks and his own straw gear to the fast, galloping rhythm of the band with total dedication.
The Skullies cheered. A female bone figure, adorned with a wreath of petrified flowers on her skull, bowed gracefully toward Miki and invited her with an open gesture.
“Let yourself be heard, little one,” the gesturing guardian seemed to whisper.
Miki hesitated for a brief moment, swallowed her doubts, and then let her voice fly free. Her high, pure singing blended flawlessly with the raw, multi layered choir of the bones. Her voice echoed in beautiful, crystal clear resonances through the hollow tunnels, making the ghost flames flash brightly:
“Let the song shatter the dark of the night, No lie could ever destroy our light! Together in harmony through the deep space, We guard the sunlight that waits for our race!”
Hours drifted past. It felt as though time stood still in the heart of the mountain. However, the purity of Miki’s resonance and the physical vibrations of Ren’s straw percussion penetrated far deeper into the earth than anyone could have anticipated.
In the pitch black, sealed depths of the rearmost tunnel, a slow, ruthless growl suddenly echoed out. It was a sound that froze the very blood in their veins.
The entire cavern began to tremble to its foundations. Gigantic stalactites broke away from the ceiling with a piercing crack, slamming into the stone floor like destructive missiles. The festive atmosphere flipped in a single instant into a chaos of flying debris and swirling dust.
The musicians did not stop playing, but the melody suddenly became blindingly fast, frantic, and drenched in pure, heartbreaking melancholy. The accordions wailed sharply, and the trumpets sounded piercing alarm tones.
“It has awakened! The barrier has cracked!” the leader sang over the roaring din of the earthquake, his fingers flying at an insane speed across the strings.
“Run for your lives, the gate has been spoken! Follow our trumpets, follow our chord, Run to the daylight, run fast toward!”
What followed was a visual escalation of absolute madness. The back rock wall split open from top to bottom with a thundering crash. A gigantic, dark mass of reaching shadows and glowing red eyes squeezed through the opening.
Playing and singing in a tight, swirling formation, the Skullies charged ahead through the collapsing tunnels to guide Miki and Ren through the chaotic ruins of the cave system. All around them, the walls tore open; heavy boulders weighing thousands of pounds came crashing down.
The Skullies did not hesitate for a second. With their own bodies of bone, they threw themselves under the falling stones. Here and there, a guitar or a brass horn shattered into a thousand pieces as bones cracked and splintered under the immense pressure, purely to form a shield and keep the passage clear for the two children.
“NO! WATCH OUT!” Ren screamed with tearful eyes, yanking a Skullie aside by his rope vest just before a boulder pulverized the spot.
“KEEP RUNNING, BOY!” the leader called back, squeezing a ringing, emotional note from his throat amidst the chaos. “OUR TIME HAS COME!”
Just before the massive mouth of the cave, where the first bright rays of daylight cut through, the musicians stopped abruptly. A wide, bottomless chasm formed an absolute dividing line.
The musicians lined up in a tight row at the edge of the ravine. Their instruments delivered one final, gigantic, emotional climax that cut through the children’s core:
“Go forward, young warriors, fly to the light! Our duty is finished, our circle made bright! Our music never stops, no second, no hour, As long as we live in your own inner power!”
In their eyes and in the lyrics of the song lay the bittersweet truth: this was their end point. Their curse was bound to this cave. If they were to take even a single step past the threshold, the barrier would break, and the awakened monster behind them would devastate the entire world above.
“NO! NO!” Ren screamed with a cracking, raw voice. Tears streamed in thick trails down his face, his lips trembling violently. He wanted to leap across the chasm, wanted to grab the leader’s arms to drag him across with all his strength. “NO! There’s still time! Come on! You can come with us! We won’t leave you here to die alone!”
They can’t! screamed desperately in Ren’s head, his heart snapping in two. They protected us! They are our friends! I won’t leave them behind!
With a devastating, deafening roar, the entire ceiling above the chasm caved in. Boulders as large as houses smashed down into the ravine, severing the view of the playing bones forever. The very last thing Ren saw was the leader taking off his wide hat and tipping it in a grateful salute before the mountain of stone came crashing down.
“RUN!” Miki shrieked.
Her own throat was tight with grief, her face wet with tears, but she saw that the entire ridge was on the verge of collapsing. With a desperate cry, she grabbed Ren tightly around his waist and dragged him backward toward the light with brute force.
Ren, completely overwhelmed by panic, unbearable grief, and pure adrenaline, let his Straw Anting explode at maximum capacity.
The golden straw wove blindingly fast around his entire outfit. It formed a flawless, beautiful imitation of the decorated rope vests with fringes worn by the musicians, as a final, eternal tribute to the guardians.
At his maximum flash speed, while holding Miki tight against his chest, he shot out of the mouth of the collapsing cave like a flash of golden yellow lightning.
Behind them, the entrance slammed shut permanently with a devastating crash. A gigantic, high shockwave of gray dust, grit, and pulverized stone blasted into the green valley with hurricane force.
“SKULLIEEEEEES!!” Ren screamed with a raw, broken voice.
He turned mid air during his landing flight and stared with tearful, bloodshot eyes at the sealed wall of rock that had buried their friends forever.
Outside, at a safe distance in the grass of the green valley, stood the rest of the group. Apollo, Nicola, Nyx, and Jane rushed over in a panic as they saw the mountain collapse and the massive dust cloud roll across the valley.
They let out a deep, intense sigh of relief when they saw two small figures fly out of the dust.
“Miki! Ren! Divine above, you are alive!” Apollo shouted with a broad, relieved smile, stepping forward with open arms to catch them.
However, the joy was brutally shattered.
Ren landed hard on his feet, yanked himself wildly out of Apollo’s grip, and stared with bloodshot eyes at the massive pile of rubble. He began running back toward the caved in cavern with wild, frantic steps.
“LET ME THROUGH!” Ren roared, sobbing, his voice completely breaking from pure, irresistible despair. “LET ME THROUGH! I CAN GO BACK! I MIGHT BE ABLE TO GET TWO MORE OUT! I CAN STILL SAVE THEM!”
Miki darted in front of him with an all consuming reaction, grabbed him by his shoulders with both hands, and pulled him still with brute force. Tears streamed uncontrollably down her own cheeks, her entire body trembling from the pent up emotion. She looked directly into his tear filled eyes and screamed through her sobs:
“REN! Think! This is what they asked for! This was their wish! Think, you idiot!”
The words struck like a hammer. The false strength drained out of Ren’s legs in an instant.
His knees buckled, and he collapsed forward, completely broken emotionally. He slammed hard against Miki, clutching wildly at her clothes, and buried his face deep into her shoulder. The devastating despair washed over him in full force.
Ren began to cry heartwrenchingly, uncontrollably against her shoulder. His whole body shook violently as he sobbed into her shoulder, while his warm tears burned through Miki’s clothes.
Miki, no longer able to hold back her own tears, wrapped her arms tightly around his back, pressing him close as she let her head rest against his wet hair while they sank together into the grass.
An icy, suffocating silence fell over the valley.
Apollo froze his arms mid air, his smile completely gone. Nicola stared with wide eyes at the emotional scene before them. Nyx and Jane looked at each other, utterly astonished, confused, and deeply moved.
No one dared to take a single step forward. No one understood what had just transpired deep beneath the earth, why Ren was suddenly wearing that traditional, decorated straw outfit, or who the two children were weeping for so inconsolably in each other’s arms.