"Back, demon! Stay back!" Tei swung her knife through the air, trying to ward off Ring Suzune, who hovered over her. Lily, Maika, Gumi, and kokone attempted to hide under the blanket behind their guardian, but Ring did not seem phased by Tei's attempts at threatening her.
"I could take that knife from you without lifting my finger, you know," Ring reminded Tei of her supernatural power.
"I know, but I can at least look cool defending my friends!"
By this point, the girls had tried everything in their power to defeat Ring. They learned the hard way that she was invincible, and capable of turning anything they threw at her back at them. She could bend everything in the house to her every whim, which made her impossible to fight in her own terrain. She would not let them leave under any circumstances.
"We've been here for hours now. Where is Yuki?" asked Maika under the blanket, growing impatient with their awaited savior.
"Maybe she got lost. It's not hard for a child to lose their way in these woods," answered Lily, who sat squished between Gumi and kokone. They did not space themselves out too well under the blanket, but it mattered little, since Ring soon lifted it off of them, anyway.
"Now, if you will excuse me, I am very tired. It has been a long day of playtime. I must check in for the day. I suggest you do the same, since you haven't slept at all," Ring dropped the blanket and turned away from the girls of which she tormented.
"I didn't know spirits needed to sleep," Tei lifted an eyebrow.
"Oh, yes, we do. Using up energy takes a lot out of us, and we must rest to cover. We're a lot like fairies in that regard."
The girls watched as Ring walked off into the darkness and started to fade away. As she left, she turned over her shoulder to give one last farewell.
"Be good while I'm away. We'll play much more when night falls again. Goodbye."
Ring disappeared, leaving her captive audience alone in the living room. All of them were exhausted, but none of them had the strength to sleep. After being kept awake by both a storm and a haunting, they were very strapped for energy. Even after Ring encouraged them to rest, they knew better than to do such a thing. Since Ring left them unsupervised, they had the perfect opportunity to make their getaway.
"Do you think she sleeps in the bedroom?" asked kokone.
"Absolutely. Why do you think she attacked us in the first place? I went in her room!" Lily explained.
"Okay, so let's avoid that room. We need to find another way out of here. None of us are going to fit through that crawl space in the wall. What other options do we have?" Maika asked the group.
Gumi suggested breaking the wall down, but that idea was turned over for two reasons. One, they didn't have the tools for doing so. Two, it would make too much noise and wake up Ring. Once this idea got shot down, nobody could think of anything else. They were stumped.
After a long conversation that ended up going absolutely nowhere, the five decided the most they could do was search the cabin for a way out that they might have missed. While they were certain they hadn't missed anything, they didn't have many other options.
"What's our battle plan, leader?" Tei turned to Lily, once again putting her on the leadership pedestal. At least coming up with plans to search a small house wasn't too hard for Lily.
"kokone and I will search the kitchen. Maika, you search the bathroom. Gumi, you search that weird empty room. Tei, stay here and make sure there's nothing we missed. Gumi, Maika, since you're going to be close to the bedroom, be extremely quiet. We can't risk waking Ring up."
"Of course I get stuck with bathroom duty," Maika rolled her eyes.
"Let's not waste any time. We only have until Ring wakes up, and I don't wanna stick around to find out how long it takes a ghost to recharge their energy. Let's get searching!"
On Lily's cue, everyone took off to their respective parts of the cabin. They tried to search as quietly as possible, going over every nook and cranny for anything they might have missed. In the kitchen, Lily and kokone tore through every cabinet and drawer. They found a lot of food far past its expiration date, but nothing that could help them escape. kokone even peeked into a mouse hole, but didn't find anything inside.
"Do you honestly think we'd be able to fit through there?" Lily shook her head.
"M-maybe..."
In the bathroom, Maika searched through everything as if it were on fire. She would only look so deep into the toilet before giving up. "If there's an escape route in there, I don't want to escape." she said. She checked the cabinets beneath the sink, the mirror, and the shower. Nothing. She was about ready to give up, until Gumi popped her head in the room.
"Hey, Maika! I found something!"
"SHH!"
"Oh, right!" Gumi whispered. "Let's go get the others. This is big!"
Gumi and Maika hurried down the hall to find Tei, Lily, and kokone. Once they retrieved their friends, they returned to the empty room to find what Gumi had discovered.
"Gumgum, you're a genius!" Lily said when she saw her friend's discovery.
A small hatch perfectly blended in with the floor, and upon opening it, it revealed a staircase going into a cellar-like area. Gumi climbed down the first couple of steps to show how sturdy they were.
"We can escape through here! There must be a way out down here!" Gumi's voice slightly echoed the further she walked down.
"I don't know," Maika was skeptical. "What if it just leads to a basement or something? Even worse, what if it leads to where Ring is sleeping?"
"Well, then maybe we'll find our escape route in the basement. And I told you, I'm more than convinced Ring sleeps in the bedroom." Lily argued.
"Only one way to find out," Tei stepped over to the hatch. They had no other choice but to see where the staircase led.
One by one, the curious girls stepped down the staircase into the dark cellar. They made sure to close the hatch behind them as quietly as possible, which wasn't quiet at all. Lily took up the rear and the five of them descended down the steps. What horrors awaited them at the bottom? They could not tell, as it was too dark to see ahead. Gumi's bright green hair and orange dress provided most of the light, and she guided the others to the floor.
As the adventurers gradually descended, the air grew chillier and much more frightful. Gumi walked into a large spider web and had to fight through it, tossing it behind her into Tei's hair. Nothing about this journey downwards brought any positivity, but they had to keep their morale high and not lose sight of escaping.
In a row, Gumi, Tei, Maika, kokone, and Lily stepped off the staircase into the strangest basement they had ever seen. As a matter of fact, it wasn't a basement at all. The walls were not man-made, and they appeared to be made of stone. Even the ground was stone, covered in dirt and cracks.
"What is this, a mine shaft?" Tei stepped in front of Gumi and held her knife out.
"It would seem the basement is actually a series of caves," Maika observed. "Maybe explorers built the cabin up there for easy access."
Maika's observation was correct. The underside of the cabin contained a large cave. Stalagmites stuck out from the ground, and stalactites hung from the roof further inside. Tiny rodents scampered across the mucky ground, running for cover when they saw the visitors approaching.
Gumi took up the front, peering around and guiding her friends through the cave. Tei stuck right behind her, ready to strike anything with her knife if it tried to attack them. kokone, as usual, stuck close to Lily. The two of them walked in front of Maika, who seemed more interested in surveying the surroundings than going deeper into the cave.
"Come on, Maika, let's get a move on," Lily encouraged the bright-haired girl.
"Right, right," getting her head back in the game, Maika hurried to the front of the pack to walk beside Tei. Gumi moved back to be closer to Lily and kokone, the latter hiding behind her blonde friend. Tei and Maika exchanged glares for a brief moment, but kept their focus on leading the group out of the cavern.
As Tei, Maika, Gumi, Lily, and kokone marched through the darkness, several red eyes glowered down upon them from all angles. They were soulless and did not contain pupils, and not a single one blinked. The bodies of those who owned the eyes were shrouded in the blackness covering most of the cave, but their eyes lit up like wildfires and almost provided a feasible light source.
What were these creatures? One might call them indefinable. As a matter of fact, that made for a most fitting title. Indefinable beasts that dwelled in the shadows. The unlucky few who had seen them deemed them "Indefinable Shadow Beasts," or "ISBs" for short. Many sources, such as Yuki's book from earlier, referred to them as part of legend. Part of the curse that plagued the Execrated Forest. Those who encountered them were not likely to survive. Nobody knew where these monstrosities came from, but an underground cave beneath the forest made the perfect home for them.
Like always, the girls failed their spot checks. They walked fairly deep into the cave without noticing the wandering eyes following their every movement. It wasn't until kokone felt a chill down her back, a typical sign of an ISB's presence, that they realized something was wrong. Of course, none of them did much reading, so they were quite unfamiliar with the signs of the Indefinable Shadow Beast.
"What's wrong, kokonut?" Lily asked her chilly friend.
"N-nothing. D-did it get cold in here, or is it just me?"
It was not just her. Around every corner, through every crevice, big and small, pairs of eyes closed in on the group of five. The red orbs floated in the darkness and moved closer and closer to where they stood. Parting from the darkness, the creatures began to take shape. Only then did someone finally take notice of them.
"Girls, look!" Maika pointed to the beasts that now completely surrounded them.
Everyone gasped and backed into one another to distance themselves from the approaching enemies. Even after parting from the darkness, the monsters appeared to resemble large orbs of darkness, themselves. They changed shape as they moved, as if they were heapings of jello. The air grew colder and colder, and the monsters grew closer and closer.
"What do we do?! What do we do?!" kokone shouted, frantically.
"Stay away from us! I'm armed!" Tei swung her knife at the nearest ISB. It detracted its skin to avoid contact, but the swing was just enough to get it to back down.
"We're completely surrounded! We can't get out of here!" Maika panicked, beginning to lose all hope.
Much like Maika, Lily, Gumi, and kokone were terrified. They almost couldn't move, as they were scared stiff. The only one seeming to keep her composure was Tei, and that was probably because she had a knife. The more she swung it, the more the ISBs backed away. Unlike Ring, these things might have actually feared the knife.
"Come get some!" Tei leaped at the nearest Indefinable Shadow Beast and struck it. It gave a shrill, deafening screech upon being struck, which forced all the girls to cover their ears. This only served as a momentary distraction, as the beasts continued to circle the girls. The soon-to-be victims were about to find out just what these monsters did to their prey.
"Lily..." Tei pulled the leader close and spoke quietly to her. "I'm going to distract these things. You take the others and run. Get out of here while they're distracted. I'll catch up with you later."
"What?!" Lily gasped. "You can't! There are so many of them!"
"GO! I can handle myself!"
Tei shoved Lily through an opening between a couple of ISBs. Before they could hasten after her, Tei struck them both with her knife. They also gave loud screeches of pain, which distracted them long enough for Gumi, Maika, and kokone to slip through them.
"Go! Get out of here! They won't even scratch me!" Tei commanded the others. She did not stop swinging her knife at every monster that came near her.
"You always did make a good leader, Tei," Maika shook her head and cracked a smile. "But you need to learn one little thing..."
Maika stepped away from Gumi, Lily, and kokone to pick up a sharp stone on the ground. Giving a small shout, she leaped back through the ISBs to land by Tei's side, then proceeded to stab the nearest fiend with the rock. It gave the same effect as the knife.
"You need to learn when you can't do something alone." Maika smiled at the white-haired knife-wielder, who smiled back at her.
"You're right. Let's do this together."
"Mhm," Maika nodded. "You girls go, we'll catch up. We promise."
Tei and Maika unleashed havoc on the beasts, while their hesitant friends mulled over whether they should take the opportunity to escape or not. Realizing they probably wouldn't get the chance again, Gumi made the decision for them.
"Come on! Let's get out of here! They got this!" Gumi snatched Lily's hand and pulled her along. Lily grabbed kokone by the arm and dragged her along, too.
"Wh-hey! We can't just leave them!" Lily looked back as Gumi sprinted with her in hand.
"We can't stick around here, either! Let's go!"
Gumi, Lily, and kokone sprinted as fast as they could. Rocks, stalagmites, bats, and rats passed them while they ran, bent on trying to reach the exit wherever it may have been. After a while, the ISBs, Tei, and Maika faded into the far distance. The girls were not being chased, but they did not want to take any chances.
After several minutes of nonstop running, each of the escapees dripping with sweat and panting heavily, a ray of hope made itself known. Across the ground, past the many rocks that made up the cave that imprisoned them, they saw a light.
"Look, that must be the way out!" Gumi pointed toward the light and guided her pals to it.
With luck, Gumi's guess was right on the ball. The big ray of sunlight came through a large opening in the cave, which led back into the forest outside. As they moved closer to it, Gumi, Lily, and kokone slowed down a bit, regaining their breath and recovering from the heavy exertion.
The three survivors emerged from the caverns into the sunny Execrated Forest. The sunlight kissing the top of their heads was the greatest feeling they ever felt in the world. Nothing made them happier than seeing the blanket of greenery that covered the forest. They were alive. They made it out.
"I should have known it would come down to the three of us," Lily sighed and took a look at her best pals. The three of them were semi-safe, but they weren't out of the woods yet (in quite a literal sense).
"We better keep moving. Those demon things might follow us out here!" Gumi said after taking one last look into the cave.
"You're right. We better find help or something. Whatever's going on in this forest is not good. Something evil lives here," Lily turned to the small beaten path that stretched through the trees in front of her. "Where do you think this leads?"
"We can follow it and find out! Could be an adventure."
"No, please. No more adventures, no more..." kokone sobbed.
"Too bad. We have to find help, our friends, and a way out of this forest. Let's go!" Lily declared, taking her place as leader once again.
Under their leader's command, the three girls of the Internet household marched down the path to find wherever it led them. With adventure both ahead of them and behind them, they had much to look forward to. Their camping trip was far from over.