Disclaimer: The author is sorry. She has been writing CYOAs on another site and still is doing so.
"Well, that was... different." Maribel couldn't help but sigh, looking about her surrounding. Her eyes, of course, locked onto her very best friend of all: Renko. "Ohh, good! You made it through." The blonde gave her friend a big smile, and offered a hand. She could only vaguely make out the familiar borders of her friend. Thankfully Renko could likely just plain see, making things simpler. It was as dark as a moonless night and twice as rocky.
"Feel kinda woozy after that..." Renko, of course, took the hand; she honestly felt she needed the help. She stumbled as she stood, even nearly falling back down, but Mari helped steady her.
Mari looked around a bit, looking for the hole they fell out of. The gap they fell out of. "Seems we're stranded, Renko..." There was a touch of worry to her voice. The border they entered this dark place through had appeared to close on the way in, but she felt the need to brighten her brunette comrade's spirits if not the way. "But, at least we have our health, right?" Not that she believed her own words. This place felt oddly... oppressive — as if just being here could snuff their lives at a moment's notice.
"I'll get back to you on that after I cover the floor in dinner..." Renko didn't seem to be in the best shape after the trip through the gap, which Mari found odd. The first trip had been simple enough, and even had led to such tasty food.
"Shh, shh. Just rest a moment to settle your stomach, okay?"
Renko could only nod, leaving Maribel to be a glorified pillow with sighing action. As she lamented the rock below her digging into her shins, she stroked her resting friend's head. She wasn't a fan of sitting on jagged rocks, but she would deal with that if her friend wasn't at 100%.
They might just need her at 100% after all, what with the concerning borders hidden within the dark. She might be blind in this dark, but she could sense a border between suffering and pleasure, and no small amount. A thousand thousand people were crying out in pain.
Or pleasure.
She wasn't quite sure which she prefered between the two, though the idea of mass suffering or mass pleasure were equally disturbing, to be honest.
Still, aside from the torture/orgy going on far off in the distance, the other borders were far less concerning. Save for the ones directly behind her, of course. Because of course they would be. There was an elephant in the room that likely thought itself quite hidden, but she knew well of its existence. Although, the oddest part was how it wasn't quite normal
After all, the borders of wellness and unwellness, arachnids and insects, and male and female came together to make for a very odd picture, as large as it was. A sick, male insect? A healthy female spider? Or was she seeing something far worse than these things made them out to be?
Of course, this question was answered when a feminine voice called out from the dark, "Little girl, have you any idea how much trouble you're i—"
"Shh." Mari was not about to disturb Renko. She seemed to had fallen asleep, and though her shins were killing her, she wasn't about to bother her.
The voice sounded again, sounding perplexed. "I... wasn't expecting that sort of reply."
"Shh."
There was a very concerning chitter, as well as a rustling of cloth, followed by what sounded like the whump of something falling to the floor. "You realize this isn't wise to be—"
"Quiet."
From below, the brunette began to stir, saying, "Not so loud, Mari..."
Off to the side, the woman seemed to be snickering. Mari, of course, gave her a flat look. The woman swiftly corrected, "To the left." She then adjusted her aim according to the instruction, earning more snickering still. "Still, what are humans even doing down here?"
Mari's mouth only froze a moment as it opened. Humans. To have to specify meant that something wasn't quite right here, which explained the way every alarm bell in her head was a blaring like a siren. "...Where are we?"
She could practically hear the grin on the increasingly frightening woman's voice. "Hell, of course." Mari just stared at the woman incredulously. "Well, okay. Not Hell Hell." Mari let out a breath she was holding. "At least, not anymore." Once more that look of pure shock returned. "Of course, they moved locations before my time. Left behind probably at least a thousand evil spirits, too!" ...Or a thousand thousand.
"Do you delight in frightening me?"
"Yeah, actually. It's what youkai do, y'know?"
This earned the chittery woman a blank stare for a bit, before Mari asked, "Are you an arachnid or an insect?"
"Err..." The probably arthropodal woman seemed taken aback by the question. "Spider. Earth spider, to be exact." After what felt like an eternity, she eventually asked, "How'd you figure it out? Kinda pitch black in here, y'know?" So she can't see either? Good. ...Wait, didn't she correct the direction she looked?
"Well..." Mari didn't feel like a lie would go over well, so a half truth would do. "...You've been chittering quite a lot since we met, you see."
"Huh. Big, uhh... leap of faith there. It'd be kind of rude to ask a crow or cat that. Guess today's your lucky day, huh?"
Mari couldn't help but mutter, "For a given meaning..."
Mari felt more than a little doomed after all, to be lost in this old Hell.