Gab, of all people, called when it was night. She insisted on trusting her biological clock and when no one raised any objections, we decided to stop for a while. It wasn't as if we had anywhere to go. Only the fliers in our team could even hope to get across the lava river, and there was no way we could risk someone falling in while being carried over.
We assembled near the hole in the wall once we'd walked back from as far as the lava river let us go before barring passage. Only Mr. Henry set to sleep inside. This led me to think that maybe we'd gotten accustomed to sleeping under the stars… too fast. So fast we hadn't noticed it.
Well, there was no way I'd ever get used to sleeping without a bed. Mark my words.
… whoever's listening, I guess.
I shook my head, trying to wring out the exhaustion from much too little sleep. Stifling yawns and pawing at the ground wouldn't do the trick forever. I needed sleep, but I just couldn't settle down. I stared at nothing, but eventually rested my eyes on Mr. Henry. Man, to think that fire-breathing dragon was just him !
Mr. Henry had been our substitute for less than a month. We'd been told our usual history teacher, Mrs. Isabelle, had gotten injured in a skiing accident and then he showed up to replace her. I didn't know what kind of slope she'd been trying to ski off of in October and smack-dab in the middle of Manitoba, but... yeah, when you put it like that, I wasn't very surprised she got injured.
"Can't sleep either?" Lola yawned, a few paces from me. She looked completely relaxed, lying on her side with her legs and head resting comfortably on the floor. However, the heavy bags under her eyes begged to differ. Had I seen her ever get a good night's sleep? I probably had, but couldn't remember. Besides, I knew Absol night vision was very light-sensitive. Staying here with the glowing pools of lava, and trying to sleep… that was tough for me already, and couldn't imagine it for her.
"Where do we go now?" Lola asked.
"Beats me," I whispered back. "If we can't go across the streams, it's probably back to the tunnels."
I turned over on my back and stared at a ceiling covered in stalactites. Here and there were bumps on the floor, signaling mineral buildup acquired from the rock above, but there were far less stalagmites than stalactites. I admit, it's better to have a flat surface on the ground than on the ceiling. I also spotted a few cave openings piercing the roof, but no outside light made it through. They were either just holes or a connected part of the tunnels that went much higher than I would've guessed.
"It's worth a shot to try and figure something out", Gab pointed out. I looked to my right and noticed her and Valérie sitting up, along with Kieran watching but still lying down. Gab continued. "This room is way too big for there be nothing in it, right?"
"Right," Lola nodded.
"I think the boss will be somewhere in here," Chloe joined in.
Okay, I guessed everyone was awake. Except…
"I certainly hope not!" Mr. Henry replied. "We were sleeping here!"
I doubted anyone had actually slept a wink, at this rate. Now was the time to exchange ideas. And there was the unavoidable, constant question we'd been dealing with for weeks: where do we go from here?
Lola's suggestion was the first useful one. "Maybe there's a passage in the tunnels that'll let us go to different parts of the big room in the middle? Kind of like a maze."
"Not a maze!" Kieran groaned. "Those are so lame, ugh!"
"Mazes are always fun and are an easily accessible activity made to bond and relax," Chloe muttered.
I didn't know anyone had such strong opinions about mazes. If I had to guess the one person, though…
"The room is right there, though!" Valérie argued. "Can't we explore it somehow? Or look more thoroughly?!"
"I can fly over there!" Chloe declared, feathers all fluffed up except for some that were still pushed down from sleeping on them. Her tone became far less confident when Mr. Henry glared at her incredulously. "If that's okay, of course!"
"No!" Mr. Henry replied. "You see how much lava you have to fly over? No way I'm allowing it."
"What else can we do, though?" Gab asked. I'd almost forgotten the Emolga was awake!
"I've done recon before," Chloe pointed out. "And I'm well-rested! I understand you're worried, but it might give us the edge we need."
Mr. Henry looked at his three-clawed hand anxiously, deep in thought. Finally, he gave her an answer. "… Okay, but you don't land there while you're alone. One quick and easy round trip, got it?"
"Yessir!" Chloe saluted. "If I see anything, I head straight back. No dawdling." She turned to me while saying that, but I couldn't tell whether she was addressing me intentionally.
"I'll follow," Kieran mumbled.
As he took off, a blast of hot air from the stream hit the camp. It wasn't anything dangerous, just unexpected— no cinders or sparks. His wings buzzed briefly, but he suddenly pulled back due to the heat and it threw him off. The lift he had all but vanished and he fell forward. Beedrill weren't made to fall face first. Even with his arm stingers perpendicular to the ground, they slid and his face hit the floor.
"God damn it," he muttered, earning him a disapproving glare from our Charizard teacher.
"Sit this one out, buddy," I sighed.
Lola cleared her throat and brought a paw to her heart. "Commandment four: don't run off like a headless chicken, idiot."
"Those commandments are starting to get really pointed, you know," Kieran snapped.
Chloe was gone for at most twenty minutes. Throughout, she kept shouting about whatever she was seeing, but she'd gotten out of earshot very early on, so all we'd heard was chipper gibberish. At least there were never yells or anything resembling panic. Still, sometimes the parts where we couldn't see her made me uneasy. I knew the incident before the Tentacool battle was an accident, but I didn't want anything like that having a chance of repeating itself.
God, should we have let her go? What if something happens to her?
As if answering my prayer, the Swablu came into view again. After going around the corner, she made a beeline for our position. She landed without much fanfare, though everyone was suddenly more relaxed.
"… inconclusive," she announced after a long pause to catch her breath. "I saw holes in the wall, but I didn't get close enough to inspect them."
"So, in other words…" Mr. Henry sighed.
"I didn't find much for sure," Chloe looked down. "Maybe we have to go back through the tunnels. Or… the lava? Just to get an idea of things up close."
Valérie scoffed. "How do we get across the lava? It's lava."
"I can go," Mr. Henry volunteered.
The group fell silent as our unsure heads turned toward him. He looked side to side awkwardly. After a few moments of consideration, we got an answer.
"… It's where I appeared," he admitted.
"In lava ?! " I exclaimed. And he was fine?
"They just dunked you in there," Lola said in disbelief.
"They very much did!" Mr. Henry huffed. "One moment, I'm in that light tornado and the next, I'm a dragon crashing into a lava pool at the end of a tunnel. I thought I'd gone to Hell ."
That was, uh… sobering.
Chloe perked up. "I know Charizard are Fire types, but it didn't hurt? At all ?"
"No," Mr. Henry answered. "More existential dread than harm." More looking away side to side. "Just because I was swimming in lava doesn't mean I wanted to encourage you guys! I'm the adult!"
"So… Micheal," Valérie thought aloud. One suggestion from the Meditite, and all eyes were now on me.
"I know", I sighed, already walking toward the pool.
"You don't have to come with!" Mr. Henry protested. "God, this is what I was afraid of."
"He's a Fire type too," Valérie reasoned, though she'd said it too fast for her to be confident. That was real reassuring.
"Just—" Kieran cleared his throat. "Just kind of hover around it first. Make sure it doesn't hurt to get close."
I did as instructed, slowing down my pace and resolving to turn back as soon as the heat became unbearable. If this worked, I'd kick myself for ever thinking of missing out on swimming in lava. On the other hand, it might be one of the dumbest ways to die. So… both ends of the spectrum, really.
As a Litleo, my brain had an odd and inconsistent relationship with water. I had no problem drinking it. Swimming? Good to go if I was already in it. Getting into water was the hard part. There was something in the very back of my head that recoiled if I got close enough, almost as urgent as the instinct I got trying to avoid Water type attacks. It was like when I was about to get into the shower, but suddenly saw a huge spider in the tub. I could override it, but the shock was there.
I didn't get any of that from the lava. All the nervousness was human.
I dipped a paw in.
The sensation left me at a complete loss for words. Searing heat? Check. It was almost overwhelming. Pain? None. I remembered the feeling of when I'd managed to spit out my first Ember. Heat I knew should've been uncomfortable was… numb to the pain receptors in my throat. It was like having your gums frozen at the dentist's.
I pulled the paw back out, completely intact. Not even a single hair was singed. My mind was split right down the middle on whether this was eerie or insanely cool.
I looked back to the others, jaw agape. I was met with the same looking back at me. I coughed. "I'm coming with, then."
Mr. Henry stopped clutching his chest, letting out a big sigh. "If you're fine with it."
Swimming in the lava actually came quite easy after a while. It was nice, in a way. It was a fine substitute for a hot bath for the time being. Despite the foreboding look of the magma, as a Fire type I had no problem staying in, and there was no current for me to fight.
Mr. Henry didn't have to swim, as he could walk in the deeper parts and only get lava up to his chest. The tip of his tail bobbed above and below the surface, and I never spotted any stop in the fire. It was weird to see flames not getting extinguished when going into a liquid! How did that flame tail work in the first place? Was there a hole or something at the tip that expelled a mildly combustible gas? Or… maybe I was overthinking it. Dragons weren't real, and physics didn't have to be either. I recalled Gab's magically respawning backpack falling from the sky. Had someone else found it yet?
"You really haven't seen anyone else before us?" I asked Mr. Henry, careful to keep my face over the surface.
"No," he replied. "I wish I'd seen your mystery note person, that's for sure. You said most of the papers were about plants?"
"Mm-hm, from what we could make out anyway. The early ones we found were really worn out, and half the ones last level were in French."
"So nothing new, then," he sighed. Bold to say that as a lizard wading through lava.
"No," I confirmed. "It would've been nice, but, uh, no dice. Just more gardening notes."
"Do you know if anyone in class had botany as a hobby?" He asked.
Now that was something I hadn't considered. "Not that I know of. Was there anyone who signed their assignments with a smiley face?"
The Charizard shook his head. "No, I know Isabelle was pretty strict about format and "professionalism." I can't fault her effectiveness, though. Never saw a single test doodle in your class."
That did track. I recalled an incident involving Lola and wolf drawings on the back of an essay that she absolutely refused to erase, followed by an argument that ruled over all detention slip stories. It was a year ago, but as if I could ever forget being a witness to that. I guess Lola did never have a fight with Mrs. Isabelle like that again, so to reiterate: effectiveness, although a little misplaced.
"To be honest… I'm not sure we care what's in the notes," I confessed. "Just what it means that they're there. There's someone else that knows enough about what's happening to help others. It gives me a little hope, you know?"
Mr. Henry smiled at that. He finally heaved himself out of the lava lake, stringy orange droplets falling off his legs and sizzling on the ground. He offered a hand to me. I held a paw up and he pulled me out.
"Could say the same for you six," Mr. Henry chuckled as I shook out my fur. "I can't tell you how much this is doing for my sanity."
That's the first time I've heard a teacher say that about our class. Good to know we're better than Hell, I suppose.
After that quick break, we kept walking.
"You ever going to ask that girl out, by the way?" He smiled knowingly.
Well, apparently his knowing was wrong. I had no idea who he could be talking about. I stared at him quizzically.
"Gabrielle. I know you two got along during the group project. I think you have a shot, kid."
I tilted my head. "Isn't Gab gay?"
"… Ah. Well, then," Mr. Henry awkwardly cleared his throat. "My bad."
We finally reached one of the edges. From the top of the cliff, I could see a free-flowing lava river. It was really something else to see it actually moving— a little unfathomable. It felt like if I threw a pebble in and waited ten seconds to go find it, I would have no idea where it would be on the X, Y, or Z axis. However, from my viewpoint I could also observe the area downriver, and something absolutely daunting waited there.
A lava waterfall.
… or lavafall. Whatever.
It was so different than how waterfalls looked. Big waterfalls were loud and flashy. The cascading water drops couldn't hold together on the way down, and they made big clouds of mist and a thin sheet of painful showers. It was like a hailstorm in a sauna. When lava fell off a tall cliff, there was no byproduct. The waves broke apart fast but reunited just as quick. It was crazy how little time passed as lava from the top crashed at the bottom. With it being so heavy, I expected it to fall a bit more like heated molasses, but the current was ruthless. And God, the sound! I thought the still lava was loud but this? Imagine the grossest sounding slime crossed with the sound of a blazing oil fryer.
There was no stopping lava. You could either join the flow or run like hell.
"Best not bother with that, huh?" Mr. Henry suggested with a voice quieted by awe.
"Yeah," I hastily replied. That would be a landmark forever seared into the map.