Path Through the Darkness

Chapter 5

As we are walking down the tunnels, everyone is silent as if they are scared to make any noise. I feel as my part in this friend group is to keep people happy and laughing, or at the least distracted. Out of no where I start to scream "I hopped off the plane at LAX..."

"with a dream and my cardigan, Welcome to the land of fame excess, am I gonna fit in" Kate starts filling in the noise as we glance toward Robin who is just walking down tapping his hand on his leg. we nudge toward him a bit to get him to start singing until Robin bursts out like a firecracker.

"Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time. I look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign." after we only finished the first verse we all starting cracking up. I glance over toward Cas who just looks at us with a confusing look.

"how come you guys started yelling all the sudden?" Cas asks me, I was a little confused what he meant. At first I thought he meant why we sang so loudly, but he actually thought it was yelling. I asked him if he knew about singing, but he just gave me a little shoulder shrug. It was weird to think that he wouldn't know about singing.

"Well bud that wasn't yelling, it was singing. Basically it is sounds you make from your mouth and most of the time people enjoy it then start dancing." I really don't know much of the music world so I gave him the little bit I do know.

"Well what other things do you guys know how to sing?" Cas asked us but we didn't really give an answer, we did a quick glance over toward each other then busted into song.

"Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world!" Robin was the first to go so he lead with Don't stop Believing by Journey, a classic.

"She took the midnight train going anywhere" I decided if we were going to sing it, might as well do it right, so I jumped right in giving Cas the concert he's never seen. Kate chimed in with a little air guitar and with Robin behind us on top of a rock jamming on some drums. I was at the front-obviously- with an air microphone in one hand and my other one soaring in the air.

Kate lead off for the next part of the song, "Just a city boy, Born and raised in South Detroit. He took the midnight train going anywhere! Take it away Alex!" She pointed at me while flipping her hair all around like a crazy person.

"Just a singer in a smokey room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume!" I pretend to throw the microphone at Robin for him to sing. He looks at me confused by eventually caught on.

"Oh, I sing now. For a smile they can share the night, it goes on and on, and on, and on! Everybody now!" Robin throws his hand to the sky really getting into this whole fake concert. We all chime in, well except for Cas, "Stranger, waiting, up and down the boulevard, their shadows, searchin, in the night." We all take a second to catch our breathe and prepare the second part of the chorus/the end of the concert. We couldn't keep this concert up, we were wasting time. "Streetlights, people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the, night!"

We all start cracking up, I look over to Cas and he sits there and smiles and starts laughing along with us. It was good to see a smile on that kids face, it seems like he hasn't been happy the whole time he has been with us. "So what did you think? Concert satisfy your ears?" Kate asked Cas, he perked his head over to us with a smile from ear to ear. Just looking at him made my heart melt and gave me goosebumps. We gave that kid a smile and that was the best part of it. "Well I'm going to take that huge smile as a yes," we start giggling when Kate says that.

"That was amazing you guys have great yelling sounds!!" We gave a little laugh when Cas says that and correct him that they are voices. Just then a loud screech whales down from behind us back towards the entrance of the cave. We all look at each other in fear wondering what the hell that was. With no other words we all just start venturing deeper in to the tunnel, at least it was getting us away from that...thing.

"What the hell made that loud terrible noise!" Robin shouted, Kate glared at him and Gave him a loud SHH. We all were in fear that it was coming after us, my main question is how did we not pass it. Was that thing out in the world. Then after my questions I remembered that Cas chose our way down this path. He told us to take this way so maybe that thing was down the other path. Could he have known this thing lived in here, if so why didn't he warn us and tell us to be aware. We just gave a concert be as loud as we could've been. what if we woke it up!

"Cas, do you know what that thing is? Was it living down the other tunnel? did you know it was in here?" I had to ask him, at least if he knows anything he can tell us and we can prepare. All he did was look up at me in shock. He looked me straight in the eye, then back down towards the ground.

"Yes, its a Kyaru (Kee-ar-oo)." at first I was shocked that he didn't tell us in the first place, but I kept my cool. "Its a bird like creature, we sometimes raise there babies in return they provide protection." After that I was rendered speechless, this is only stuff you would hear in movies and fantasy. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I started to think about the protection part, no one ever ventures down here how would they need protection.

"What kind of protection do you mean?" Kate spoke up, almost as if she was reading my mind.

"Protection from them, they used to take our young for their babies food. That was until we started offering food. We had a healer in our town that could communicate with the monsters and soon enough we started a bond between them. " From what Cas is saying, it means that their are towns and an ecosystem living in this cave. I want to know more, but I also don't want to spook Cas by asking a lot of questions. It hit me right there, when we take Cas home I can speak to the healer. From his communications with these Kyaru's, he is bound to know many things about what it is about the town.

"Hey Cas, what is your town like? Do you guys have fun events or anything that is really fascinating?" I figured since he was young that he would want to remember the fond things about his home.

Cas looked over to me and put on a huge smile. "There is a tradition that we put on twice a year. The main reason is to celebrate the leaders, but me and my friends always hold a game of our own."

This celebration intrigued me more, why twice a year and how many leaders are there.  I stop my mind from racing, But I do ask one more question for Cas. "Do you want to play the game with us?"

"Yes! That would be so fun and make this journey even more exciting than it is." Cas Jumped for joy and prances around in excitement. "ok ok, so the game is called great protector. The goal of the game is to fortify an area with rocks, then you need to hide and protect your loot, which is a rag or some object. The teams are split to four sides with the middle being a battle ground. In the battleground you must trip an enemy. Once you have been tripped you need to go to the jail, there's a 10 second jail time. When Stealing a flag, if the player has more than one you can only take one. If your flag is stolen, you can still steal. First team to capture all the flags wins." It sounded like a very rough and brutal game, and to think that children play this in that town. At the same time I was also ready to play because it gave me an excitement on this journey that I haven't felt in ages-well except for my curiosity to explore this cave.

"Well, I am totally in what about you guys?" Kate spoke up, she didn't seem to nervous about the game or how violent it is. I nod my head toward her letting her know I'm in. Kate quickly turned her head toward Robin who was trying to stay silent. She gave him the devils death glare, her own kind of glaring that makes you really uneasy. It never seems to fail however, Robin nodded over to her as well. We decided to split the teams up as a 1v1. We gave each other a 10 Minute grace period so we can fortify our area. I went from the simple Medieval style build, using big rocks that are connected with the cave so I can have stability. I took a look around to see what everyone else has in mind. Robin was over at his area creating a fox hole out of rocks. Kate was stock piling on the small rocks to use for a defense mechanism, while using the bigger rocks as shields. Now for the one that I should be most weary of, Cas, he started his build strong and it looks like he really focused on winning.