The underworld.

Chapter 2. Underworld

The first thing Diana noticed when she woke up, was how hot it was. She was used to the cold of the Ice Age, and not to this tropical heat.

She noticed low, soft growling sounds, and she smelled that some animal with a terrible breath was very close to her.

Annoyed, she opened her eyes.

For a moment she was petrified. She could not move, but only stare at the creature that was standing next to her.

It was a dinosaur. A huge dinosaur with red spikes on his back.

And he was looking straight at her.

Diana screamed.

Her family, who all had seen the same thing as Diana did, screamed too.

The dinosaur slowly leaned over to Diana. She covered her eyes. He was going to eat her, she was sure of that.

But the dinosaur took a huge bite out of the thick moss next to Diana.

For a moment, the weasels were silent.

"Do you think he only eats plants?" Liza whispered.

"I think so," Dorian whispered back. "But he can still crush us under his paws if he wants to. Let's not anger him."

"What's so funny?" Liza said, now loudly, to Elco.

Elco raised an eyebrow. "I'm not laughing." He said.

"Well, if it's not you, who is? I clearly hear someone laughing," Liza said.

They were all silent for a moment, and Liza was right. Someone was laughing, and that someone had to be very close to where they were lying.

"Who is there?" Elco said. "Show yourself."

The laughing stopped.

"Now, now, calm down, mate," a voice said in a very English accent. "I'm not going to attack you, if that was what you were thinking. It's just hilarious that you fellows are so afraid of Jasper here."

"Jasper?" Elco asked.

"Aye, that's what I call this dinosaur here." A weasel appeared from behind a tree. He seemed like a though guy. He wore an eye patch, he had a goatee and an underbite, and in his hand he had a big knife that seemed to be made from something ivory-like.

The weasel pointed at the dinosaur.

"I saved his life once," he said. "a T-rex bit off his tail so he couldn't defend himself, and that big beasty was about to eat both me and Jasper. So I grabbed a clamshell, and I…." the weasel stopped, and looked at the weasel family for a while. "Never mind," he said then. "I don't think you folks want to hear this story."

He turned to Jasper.

"Hey, mate, don't stand in the guest's aura like that!" he said.

Jasper made some growling sounds, took a few steps back and continued eating.

The strange weasel walked to the family, and helped them stand up.

"Don't blame Jasper for scaring you," he said. "He has brains that are the size of a walnut. He couldn't understand. He's just as stupid as any other Stegosaurus."

"Thank you for helping us, sir," Anna said.

"My pleasure, madam," the weasel said.

Elco snorted. He clearly did not trust this strange weasel, with his eye patch and his knife.

"Can you tell us where we are?" Dorian asked.

The strange weasel just chuckled. "Welcome to the paradise, oldie!" he said. "if I may give you a warning, don't go that way." He pointed at the jungle behind him.

And then he disappeared, in the exact direction he had pointed at.

"Did he just call be oldie?" Dorian said, maybe slightly offended.

"I don't trust that guy," Elco said. "He looked weird."

"What do we do now?" Liza asked.

Dorian thought for a moment.

"I think it's best if we find someone who can take us out of here." He said then.

"And where do we find such a person?" Eclo asked, raising one eyebrow again.

"We just met him," Dorian said. "I bet that strange hermit knows a way out."

"But he told us not to go that way," Diana said.

"Well, I don't think we have a choice." Dorian said. "Let's go."

They walked into the jungle.

There wasn't anything dangerous to see. Only strange plants and trees.

Still, Diana felt like there was something not right. She felt anything but safe.

The strange sounds of the jungle scared her, as did the strange flowers.

Also, it scared her that she now knew that all the time they had been living above an entire world. A warm, tropical, dangerous world with dinosaurs. In her head, Diana had already started to call this the underworld. Because, after all, it was under the ground, and she didn't like it. There was too much danger, too many unknown things. And how could it be that they had never noticed this world? How was all of this possible? But there were no answers to those questions.

Liza walked to one of the flowers.

"Look at this," she said. "I could live in this flower, so big is it!"

Suddenly someone pushed her aside. Just in time, because the flower quickly closed like the jaws of a predator. Had Liza not been pushed aside, she could have been trapped inside.

The person who saved Liza was the strange hermit they met just a few minutes ago.

"I told you not to go this way," he said, and he sounded annoyed. "Those flowers will literally eat you alive. But you tourists never listen, do you?"

"We're not tourists," Elco said. "we came here by accident, because of an earthquake that caused a huge chasm to appear in the ground, and we fell in it."

The stranger snorted. "As if I haven't heard that one before," he said.

"It's the truth!" Liza said.

"If you say so, love. But you folks can't stay here." The stranger said.

"We don't know the way out." Dorian said.

"So?" the strange weasel said, folding his arms over his chest.

There was a short silence, and then Dorian sighed.

"Will you help us?" he said.

The strange weasel shrugged. "sure, oldie," he said, and he grinned.

When he grinned his lower jaw moved a little more to one side, making his grin a little… crooked.

"Please don't call me 'oldie'." Dorian said. "My name is Dorian. This is my wife Anna, my daughters Liza and Diana, and this here is a friend of ours, Elco."

He held out his hand, but the strange weasel ignored it.

He put his knife on his shoulder, and turned around.

"Well, come on, then!" he said, and he started walking.

The other weasels looked at each other in confusion, then they followed the hermit.

Elco was not entirely wrong: this weasel was not at all like anyone they had ever met. The way he talked, the way he looked, everything about him seemed strange to the weasels, who had only seen 'normal' animals their entire life.

"I do not trust him." Elco said. "Not at all."

Diana found herself disagreeing with her friend. Even though he was strange, Diana had the feeling this weasel was someone they could trust.