Hiya, everyone! It's been a little while since I've updated, and I wanted to get a new chapter up. I'm going to be dragged off to some ridiculous cabin from June 29th to July 5th, and I promise I'll have a new chapter up the day I come back! A BIG thank you to everyone who reviewed (Motet and Yunie19, you know who you are!) It makes me feel suuuper happy to know anyone is even reading this at all! Enjoy, everyone!

"RIKKU!" Yuna screamed, almost ready to flat out jump in the hole to save her cousin.

Paine restrained her. "Don't jump," she advised. "We have to climb down."

Yuna didn't seem to be listening to Paine at all. A tear ran down her cheek as she stood staring at Rikku's motionless form. "Anything it takes," she said quietly after a long moment.

"Do you even see what's at the bottom of that hole?" Paine asked. "Besides Rikku, I mean."

"No," Yuna said, wiping her eyes.

"A tunnel," Paine told her, pulling out a garment grid. "With a Berserker dressphere, I think we can use the claws to climb down."

"We have all sorts of other obscure dresspheres… you'd think there'd be a mountain climber one somewhere," Yuna grumbled, reluctantly donning the dressphere.

As the two girls began to climb down, Rikku stirred. She sat up after a moment, holding her head. "Owie…" she mumbled to herself. Noticing Paine and Yuna scaling down the wall, she said, "What are you guys even doing?"

Yuna almost jumped at the sound of Rikku's voice, but that would have caused her to fall, so she restrained herself. "Rikku!" she yelled, not able to turn around to face her cousin. "Are you hurt?"

"Now that you mention it… what happened? And where are we?" she asked, rubbing her head and wincing when she found the bump from her fall.

"You fell into a hole," Paine said. "Gave Yuna a heart attack. And here we are, scaling down into the hole to save you."

Rikku giggled. "Thank you."

"Don't try to get up," Yuna said, just as Rikku was about to stand up. "Wait till we get there."

Rikku didn't feel like she could get up at that point—her head was pounding, and her back was stabbing with pain. She had a perpetual dizzy feeling, and couldn't hardly keep her eyes open for more than a minute or two. She took a moment to glance around at her surroundings. Paine was right—Rikku had fallen into a hole. It was one of the deepest holes she had ever seen, though it wasn't very big. It was just large enough in diameter for her to lay down at the flat bottom. She noticed a tunnel dug into one of the walls of the hole, as well. She supposed that was probably their next destination. With a sigh, she shut her eyes, and began to breathe deeply. If only Yuna and Paine would hurry up!

It seemed like an eternity before her friends finally reached the bottom of the hole. Both quickly changed out of their dressphere, and hurried over to where Rikku lay.

"Are you okay?" Yuna asked worriedly, getting on her knees next to Rikku.

Paine's face was completely without concern. "She'll be fine, Yuna!"

Rikku groaned. "Sure I will, but at the moment, I don't think I can walk."

Yuna wasted no time donning the White Mage dressphere. "Let's see if this will help you at all." She healed Rikku with her most powerful spell, and before long, she was helping Rikku up off the ground, with a bit of help from Paine.

Rikku dusted herself off—it was amazing how dusty someone could become from falling however many odd feet she fell. She still felt soreness in her back and legs, and her headache was still there, but she figured those things would be around no matter what type of curing spell she used. She wouldn't pretend that she wasn't upset that there wasn't a spell to cure headaches, of course.

"Where are we headin'?" Rikku asked, rubbing her neck with her hand as she spun around, getting a better look at the hole.

"That way," Paine said, pointing at the tunnel.

Rikku grimaced. "I had a feeling you'd say that."

With Paine in the lead, the three girls started walking down the tunnel.

"This is scary," Rikku said, voice quivering.

"I know," Yuna said, clinging to Rikku's arm.

Paine whirled around to face Yuna and Rikku. "We've been scarier places before. Let's just try to get through this without any whines or tears or anything like that, okay?"

Yuna and Rikku nodded, and the three continued walking.

"I wonder where we even are," Paine mumbled to nobody in particular. "I mean… Rikku falls into a random hole in the middle of a forest, and now we're walking down a random tunnel…"

"I wonder too, Paine," Yuna said. "I mean, wouldn't you think that someone would have fallen down this already?"

"Not if it's new," Paine said. "Judging by the hardness of the dirt when we climbed down, I'd have to say it's definitely not new."

"You're right," Yuna agreed. "I mean, it was like rock!"

"Some soil is just like that, but I'm doubting that it's like that here in Besaid," Paine replied.

"If this hole is that old, why hasn't anybody else fallen in?" Rikku asked.

"Maybe someone else did," Paine said. "But maybe they didn't come back."

Rikku whimpered.

"Or maybe they just came out somewhere totally different, and didn't go back to Besaid," Yuna offered for Rikku's sake.

"You'd think they would have sent us out looking for them," Paine grumbled.

"What if it was thousands of years ago?" Yuna said.

"I suppose it could be…" Paine said. She couldn't really deny that it would have had to have been a while ago. After all, the ground was so hard where they were walking that their shoes were clicking like they would on stone.

"But the question is… where does it go?" Rikku said.

"If we don't go back… Lulu, Tidus, and Wakka will come looking for us, right?" Yuna asked.

Paine raised an eyebrow. "What in the world are both of you so scared for? We're going to go back, there's just no getting around it."

Yuna looked over at Rikku, who covered her mouth to prevent herself from whimpering. It was a good question, though… why were they so scared?

After a couple more minutes of walking, Paine, who had pulled slightly ahead of Yuna and Rikku, came to a screeching halt. Yuna and Rikku, who had been whispering to each other about where this mysterious tunnel may lead crashed into her, she had stopped so abruptly.

"Why'd you stop, Paine?" Rikku whined. "I mean, I'll bet we're getting—"

"We're here," Paine replied, pointing straight ahead of her.

In front of them was an enormous cavern. All around, much like you might see in a horror movie, were skeletons. They covered the ground, causing Yuna to cover her eyes and groan, while Paine wrinkled up her nose and began picking through them towards the center of the room. In the center of the room stood a small pedestal. On the pedestal sat a sphere.

So, very good, very bad? You gotta let me know! Please review, folks!

Much love,

Lulala