"Holy crap," Jacqui breathed, eyeing the webs warily. They were flecked with grime and dirt. And animals, Takeda noted. Bulges in the webbing varied from the size of small raccoons to entire pumas. And the stench and sight of rotting flesh clinging to the webs led him to believe some weren't whole animals. "Eww, that's so gross!" she said. "Cassie, come look! This is soooo gross!"
Cassie's boots crunched in the snow up to them, but Takeda couldn't pull his eyes away from the gorey webs. "Oh my god," Cassie muttered. "Uuuuh, those are spider webs! Like, giant-ass spider webs! What is this, a cave?"
"It looks like it," Jacqui said. "The webs are covering the entrance."
"Should we . . . burn them away?" Jin asked. His voice was unusually quiet and subdued. Takeda tried not to notice but as soon as he mentioned it his mind latched on.
They were just as afraid as he was now.
"You really wanna go down there?" Takeda asked. "I don't know if that's a good idea."
"But Kenshi and Jax . . . " Jacqui said.
"If there are spiders in there, and we let them out-" He shuddered before he could finish his sentence. A mental image assaulted him, of tiny, pea-sized spiders crawling all over him. In his hair, on his face, in his eyes, their fuzzy bodies tickling and biting and pinching and-
"Ugh! Tak, stop it!" Cassie yelled, rubbing her eyes furiously as though to wipe the image away. "That's fucking gross!" Takeda didn't even realize he accidentally projected it.
"Sorry," he quickly checked all their faces. All of them looked terrified and mildly gross out, and guilt nibbled at him. He hoped he didn't make it worse.
"I'm gonna clear them," Jin said.
"Jin-" Takeda protested.
"We have to go down there and explore a little. A, for Kenshi and Jax, and B, for intel collection." Jin gently tapped his staff on the ground and the little pearl inside turned from blue to red. It glowed with the fire energy inside. He took a hesitant step towards the webs, staring them down with wide eyes.
"Jin, don't!" he tried again. "You'll let the spiders out!" The spiders capable of making webs as large as the ones they saw. Webs so strong they can trap giant animals. And they'd be scuttling across the snow and the four of them would be overrun.
Jin paused, and for a moment, Takeda thought his protests worked. He checked the faces of the other three, then turned back towards the cave entrance.
"Jin-" Takeda's protests died on his lips. Jin touched his staff to the webs in front of the cave entrance, they lit up, burning like a small candle.
They burned away quickly, opening up to the recesses of a dark cavern like the gaping maw of a beast. Going to swallow them up. Strands of delicate, sticky webs hung loosely from the ceiling like stalagmites. "The size of those . . . the spiders are probably as big as us."
"Really?" Cassie said, raising her eyebrows.
"Maybe bigger. They can snag prey as big as us anyway. Those are probably really sticky. Just remember: don't touch them," Jin said.
"Ladies first," Takeda said, taking a step back for Cassie. Their eyes met briefly. "We shouldn't go down there," he tried to say with his eyes. He turned to face her and stared at her deeply, but either she didn't pick up on his hints, or she ignored them. He even tried to send the thought to her, but she had a wall around her consciousness, blocking him out.
"Ha-ha. Ladies first. Funny," she sneered. Takeda let a stiff smile crawl up his cheeks that didn't reach his eyes, and Cassie knew he wasn't kidding. She sighed, drawing her gun from the holster on her back. "You guys are such losers." She took a cautionary step down into the cavern, crouched low in fear of the hanging death traps. "Can I get some light here?" she asked.
Takeda took the orange glow stick off his belt and she cracked it on the floor, shaking it to get some light to it faster. The sharp clack! echoed over and over and over again into the cave. A brief example (or a warning) of how deep they really were. Cassie held the stick in front of her, swallowing thickly, glancing precariously at the round cave closing in around them. Closing them in its depths. Normally one of them would have made a crack at her being scared, but each of them was just as wary as she was. She took another step into the depths, then another, then another. And Takeda watched. Hesitation, gut-wrenching fear glued his feet to the floor and he couldn't follow her. He couldn't. He grabbed her shoulder.
"Cassie, please," he actually thought, projecting it for her whether she heard it or not. She shook him off.
"Stop it! We need to go down there, Tak. We need to explore. We have people to find, maps to make, etcetera, etcetera. And what if Jax or Kenshi's down there?" she asked. "Or Hanzo? What about Hanzo?"
He froze. Hanzo . . . he couldn't leave Hanzo . . . What if he was down there - Cassie pressed forward, step by step, and panic froze Takeda where he was. Follow her, or don't follow her? Take the chance Hanzo is down there and risk the spiders, or explore topside and take the chance he saved himself from them? And as he watched her descend further and further, the tingling to chase after her built in his legs. But he couldn't bring himself to follow her. Going down there felt so wrong to him, he couldn't.
She turned back to the others. Saw them still on the surface.
"Guys, come on! I am not going down here alone, fuck that!"
"You next, Takeda," Jacqui said quickly, "Jin'll bring up the rear."
"Why me?" Jin asked, staring incredulously at her.
Cassie chuckled darkly, "Because in all the horror movies the people in the front of the group and the back of the group die first!"
"Cass!" Jacqui sputtered. "That is not why I want him to go last! It's just a diamond formation! You're just bringing up the rear! Don't forget to watch our backs."
Jin mumbled something unintelligible, so Takeda took it as the end of the conversation. He guessed the group decided for him. He sighed and ducked down into the cave with Cassie despite the growing fear gnawing at the lining of his stomach. He trained his eyes into the darkness in front of them as though it would change the lighting for him. He was relieved when Cassie waited for him to nudge her shoulder before she continued.
The orange glow of the stick bathed the walls in a sickly, pale light, glaring threateningly off the salts on the walls and the wet spider webs. She went slow, step by step by step, taking a few moments each time to bathe another inch of the tunnel in the scrutiny of the light. It was slow going, and every so often Takeda sensed her fear spike and her pulse quicken. To reassure her that he was behind her (and to reassure himself that she was still there), he occasionally reached out and lightly grazed her back. He hoped that Jacqui and Jin were doing the same, for sake of his pride.
Suddenly, a scuffling sound permeated the cave around them. Cassie's boot slipped on the dirt, and she flailed wildly, flicking the light all around them in a dizzying strobe. She caught her balance, but splashed ankle deep into whatever condensation was pooling in the cave and let out a noise of disgust. "Ugh! Nooooo," she moaned. "These were new boots!"
"What do you mean, 'new'? They're standard issue!" Jin argued incredulously.
"And I just got them yesterday!" She picked a foot out and shook the droplets of water off of it. "Now my socks are wet from cave water!"
"Wet socks are the worst," Jacqui mumbled.
They were getting off-topic. And making noise. "Are we gonna keep going?" Takeda asked quietly.
"Just watch your feet," Cassie grumbled. She waited and listened as each person splashed in behind her.
The puddles were freezing cold. Before he could stop himself, Takeda gasped when it soaked into his shoes and pooled between his toes. His socks immediately clung to his feet, making it worse. "Shit, there go my socks," he thought to himself, lamenting the loss of his comfort, when Cassie threw her hand out and barred their path.
"Shh! Listen!" she suddenly hissed.
"Spider!" he thought. "Oh god, oh god, oh god-" The images were back. Takeda froze dead where he was, imagining the scuttling of a giant, hairy spider. The breath froze in his lungs and his blood ran cold, his heart pumped furiously, and he put his fists up, ready to defend against a tangle of glossy eyes and boney fangs.
"Hear that? Our voices are echoing better. I think the cavern's opened up," Cassie muttered. Takeda's shoulders slumped with his sigh, and he finally released the breath he was holding. He eased the strain on his heart while she took larger, more confident steps into the water, eyeing what she could around her. She fixed the light on something in front of her and inched forward. "Is that . . . ?" she asked, squinting into the darkness just beyond the light's beam. Stepping forward into dry patches of dirt, she held it just a little higher to reveal a deep red stain on the cavern. "Okay, so that's blood on the wall. And it's fresh-"
A squeal like nails on a chalkboard ROCKETED out of the blackness. Brown, fuzzy movement shot across the light, crawling over the blood. "OH MY GOD!" Cassie screamed. She backpedaled straight into the four of them and they all retreated a few steps, back to the stairs. She held her arm up and tried to cast the light across the creature again, but it was already long gone. "Did you all see that? You all saw that, right? That's a huge fucking spider!"
"I warned you!" Jin bellowed, panting.
Takeda grabbed Jacqui's shoulder, gently pulling her towards the door. "I don't like this place. Can we leave?"
"Our dads may be in here!" Jacqui said.
"Look at the SIZE of those things! Your dads could also be DEAD!" Jin snapped.
"Don't say that!" Takeda whined. One of those things could have dragged Kenshi or Hanzo down into the depth of the cave, screaming. It could've ate them already. It could've wrapped them up in its web and-
Jacqui yelled next. "It didn't attack us . . . maybe they're-"
"Don't even be that stupid!" Cassie said.
"We need to explore. This is all unmarked territory. What if Kenshi or my dad's down here?" Jacqui said again. "Please, let's go. I'll take point if you want me to."
"No way! . . . This is fucked up," Cassie muttered. "This is so fucked up! Whyyyyy do we have to dooooo thiiiiiis," she sing-songed. "That scared the shit out of me!" she screamed. Her voice echoed so deeply in the caverns that the silence immediately following was almost deafening.
"Me too."
"Same."
"Yup."
The four of them sat in silence, until Cassie finally said, "Do you want to . . . like, camp out here or something? Next to the stairs? We can prepare for what's down here."
"If we're gonna camp out, we may as well go above ground," Jin said. "Start drawing maps, recording data, and make sure we're ready."
"Well if we're going up, I say we just explore topside!" Takeda offered. "Please, let's just explore topside. I already hate this place. There's still more of the graveyard. Who knows how far back it goes?"
"What do you think, Cass?" Jacqui asked. "You're the leader. It's your decision."
All three of them turned towards her, unintentionally circling around her as if to corner her. She took an involuntary step back.
"Let's . . . " Cassie started. "Let's just . . . "
"Let's go topside!" Takeda said.
" . . . Yeah. Let's do that," she finally decided.
Takeda released the breath he was holding with a whoosh. Ran a hand through his hair. "Let's go, then. Now. I don't want to run into any more spiders."
He led the way, and the four of them slipped and slid back up the slick incline towards the graveyard. About halfway up the fresh air hit him, clean and clear and sharp, and with it a rush of relief. They didn't have to go down there for a while. The graveyard that creeped him out so badly on their way in suddenly wasn't so bad. A lot better than the spiders' home.
He grabbed the outside of the wall to haul himself up, and as soon as he had secure footing, he turned around and helped each of them out of the hole, too. Cassie collapsed down on the snow and stared up at the sky, and sparse canopy of trees that stretched above. "Geez, that was wild," she breathed. "Yeah, let's set up camp up here. Wherever we decide to stay."
"Agreed," Takeda muttered. "For now, let's keep going. What time is- nevermind."
"Our mission stopwatch says we've been here for about an hour. But I don't know what time it is," Jin said, checking the stopwatch on his belt.
"An hour . . . that's it?" Cassie moaned. "How are we supposed to know when to set up camp and when to rest and everything?"
Jin shrugged. "Beats me. Maybe we should just rest when we're tired?"
"Someone's always gotta keep watch, though," Jacqui reminded them. "If we're all beat and then someone tries to take watch we're gonna have a long, rough night."
"How about this," Jin offered. "We go until our stopwatch says three hours. Wherever we are, we'll make camp then, rest for another three hours, and keep going."
"Three hour increments sounds fair," Cassie said. "Good idea, Jin." She picked herself up off the snow and dusted some off her back. "Let's keep going, then. We've got two more hours to go." She put her gun back in the holster on her back and started walking. The authoritativeness was back in her voice and in her step. She sounded like she recovered, and was ready to take control again. "Obviously this section of the graveyard ends over there. So let's go this way."
They followed her to the front corner of the graveyard, directly to the left of where they came in. The rocks that encircled the spider cave's entrance wrapped around the entire rectangle, and as they traveled quietly down the short path to a neighboring section, the rocks and crags even arched and bridged over the entrance way to encase them on either side of their path. Blocking out the moonlight sometimes.
Still, it was amazing how bright it looked out in the open compared to the caverns. He felt like his eyes were adjusted, and he could still see much better than before.
When the new area opened up, Takeda immediately noticed more tombstones.
Dozens more. All with wet dirt. Shoot. He forgot about how odd that was while they were down in the caverns.
Jin stopped in front of him. "Hold on. Let me do some stuff." He set his pack down and dug through it, pulling out the map paper, a pencil, and another thick, leather-bound book. He used the book as a hard surface to draw on, and began making a small square in the bottom right corner, using the torches straddling the entranceway for light. "So this is the courtyard where we entered," he told them as they watched. "Then that opened into the first area of gravestones." He drew a bigger square directly on top. "And the spider caverns are over here, in the far right corner." He marked them with a little 'x' on the page. "If we go down there, I'll make a separate map for them. And then there was another path that led . . . here, to where we are now." He drew the edge of the square, but left the other sides open until they explored them. "Good?"
They all nodded, and he packed all the stuff away, throwing it in his pack. "I'll mess with details later."
"What's the book for?" Takeda asked.
"Intel. I'm going to record surroundings, conditions, enemy data, yadda yadda."
"Oh."
Jin stood from where he sat down, and the four of them continued to crunch through the snow. The new area wasn't a perfect rectangle. Instead, it was a backwards 'L' shape from what he could see. The entranceway behind them was smack in the middle of the base, and the left side turned in sharply after several rows of stones while the right side was more elongated. The crags fit snug against its shape as well, so whatever was on the other side of that turn-in was blocked by the rocks. This section was darker, he noted. Bigger. The trees blocked out much more of the moonlight than in the previous section; there weren't any torches, save for a couple he couldn't see directly, but whose glare he could see on the snow behind the turn-in. Another set sat further in, directly in front of the four of them and their entranceway. They weren't very bright, and he still couldn't see behind them. They looked like two yellow animal eyes.
This section looked even more overgrown than the last one. In addition to snow, Takeda's feet crunched over dead branches from trees, and dead shrubs. Crushed and dead berries from the healthy bushes looked like blood spatters, and he had to remind himself every time he looked at them to not freak out. Against the white snow they looked especially garish and fresh. The stone wall sank and crumbled away more often, from the weight of the rocks pressing on them. More chunks of grey stone littered the area as well.
And, the dirt was still fresh in this section. The skeletons still stared at him from beneath their furrowed brows. He ignored them. Compared to the scare they just had, a stone skeleton was nothing to him.
Jin wanted to keep picking through the tombstones to find more Shaolin, and he instantly wandered off to inspect them. Takeda didn't share his excitement for it. The dirt was so soft it looked like if someone stood on it they would sink right to the bottom. Or sink until they hit a coffin. Or just a body. What if the people here were free-buried? Ew, then if you fell in you'd step on somebody's bones. That had to be years and years of bad luck. Curses down to the sixth generation of your family or something.
"Definitely don't wanna curse my family that far down . . . Or ever?" he added, almost chuckling that he had to add that. It added a bit of humor and alleviated his creeped-out feeling. He walked straight ahead towards the warm glare of yellow torch light reflecting on the snow. On the other side of the rocks rose a set of stairs that climbed up, then turned sharply in.
He started scaling the stairs before remembering that there could be enemies, but then he quickly dismissed the thought. He didn't sense a single creature there. Nothing. Just the whisper of the occasional wind through the knobby tree branches, and their groaning reply. Still, though, as a precaution, he crouched a little lower behind the bricks as he climbed. When he reached the top, he peeked around the bend.
Nothing. Just a gate. He stood up and peered through the bars. Nothing inside except for a tiny square courtyard. Overgrown on all sides, too, the path in the middle led straight to a metal fountain. The torches on the base illuminated a large basin and above it hung a person's limp metal body. A demon with its tail snaked around the man clung protectively around his shoulders with its arms wrapped around his chest - like if someone got too close it would wrench the man away and snap at them. From where he was standing he couldn't see the demon's face. It had it's head reclined low over the person's neck, taking a bite out of it. But it had curled horns and batwings extended straight up.
It was grotesque - the way it sat frozen, captured in dynamic motion like it would come to life at any second and its claws would rip the man open. Its muscles were tense, its lips and face were distorted into a sneer of exertion, or maybe pride in its kill. Takeda couldn't tell. That gross nagging feeling grew again in the pit of his stomach. The feeling that he shouldn't be there, that he was interrupting their space and their actions. He felt like the statue would glare at him at any second. He felt his mind drawn to it - like there was something there for him to read. There wasn't, he thought. There definitely shouldn't be. A panic washed over him, because he knew. He knew if he tried to read the statue he'd find something there. Something abhorrent and unnatural that shouldn't be there and he'd be stuck-
He turned and ran. He fled back down the stairs, only feeling safe when he was back in the snow, out of the statue's line of sight. The tingling between his shoulder blades - the eyes on his back - died down and he felt better.
"What's up there, Tak?" Cassie asked. She wasn't looking at him, but as soon as she did her face fell. "What? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's up there. Just a really creepy statue in a courtyard. But it's behind a locked gate."
"Huh," Cassie muttered. She walked past him to go up, and Takeda tried to stop her.
"It's alright. I already went up there."
"I know, but I wanna look! Geez, you're making me edgy! Stop it."
He watched her disappear around the corner. There were a few seconds of dead silence, with the exception of the wind. The next thing he heard was Cassie tugging on the gate, rattling the entire frame. "It's, like, fused shut!" she yelled. "We'd have to blast it open."
"I told you that!" Takeda yelled back to her. "Just, come back down and let's go-"
The breeze picked up. And with it, a feeling of cold that was absent from the snow. It ghosted through every stitch and every fiber of his suit, sending a chill down his spine. He shuddered, quickly crossing his arms tightly. "Did you all feel that?"
"Yeah!" Jacqui called. "It just got colder."
"This is so weird," Jin muttered. "How do you have warm snow and a warm breeze? And there's nothing here to make it cold!"
"We're in the Netherrealm. Somewhere," Cassie said, lightly hopping down the stairs to rejoin the three of them. "This place is already fuckin' weird. I wouldn't look too deeply into it. Time check!" she said, pointing to Jin.
"Uuuh, stop watch says an hour, forty."
"Alright. Let's keep going." Cassie forged ahead, towards the torches that led past the step. Takeda found out why he couldn't see what was beyond them. The rocks arched low over them, and the four of them almost had to duck beneath it. As they followed the narrow stone hallways to the next section, someone behind him said Takeda's name.
"Takahashi."
He thought it was Jacqui. When they started walking, he didn't check to see where she was. "Heh, since when do you call me Takahashi?"
"What?" Cassie asked.
"Jacqui just called me Takahashi."
"Uuuh, no? Nope, I didn't," she said, cocking her head to the side.
"Then what'd you say?"
"I didn't say anything."
"I just heard you! You-"
Wait. He heard it behind him. Jacqui was to his side.
He spun around, hoping at least Jin was there, but he was up behind Cassie, right in front of him.
"You okay?" Jacqui asked, grabbing his arm. "Maybe we should stop."
"No! No, it's fine. I just thought I heard something. That's all."
Another wind whipped the snow harder around them. Cassie spun around, looking up into he sky. "Let's just keep moving."
The wind died down, and he heard it again. But a whisper, stuck sheepishly on the tail end. "Taka- . . . " A loud whisper. That floated around him. Light, feathery, and yet completely full. He quickly scanned the area for any presences, but besides the four of them he couldn't sense anybody or anything.
"It's nothing. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it-"
There was a potency to it. An urgency. " . . . Taka . . . shi . . . " It permeated the breeze. Entered his ears and his mind. "Takahashi. Takahashi. Takahashi!" It increased, louder and louder with each step they took until he couldn't ignore it anymore. It surrounded him, and he froze where he was, unable to do anything except listen to the voice call his name over and over again.
"Takahashi! TAKAHASHI!"
It was coming from up ahead. In the next part of the graveyard. He had to go to it. HAD to.
He took off before even he knew what he was doing. "Takeda!" Jacqui yelled after him, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. Not until the voices stopped. The hallways opened up and Takeda bolted past tombs left and right, stopping in front of a set of stone steps that descended down into the ground. Gated in on either side by sharp metal pikes. There were blue stained glass windows illuminated by the moonlight, and the Mortal Kombat dragon roared between them.
He was standing in front of a stone building.
A mausoleum.