"June senpai?!" (Jp: senpai = senior)
Everest woke up frozen as usual. He never had thrilling dreams anyways, only chilling dreams. His world was pitch black all around him. Thankfully his eyes adjusted to the darkness gradually, allowing him to see a morbid illustration.
Apparently he was in a small cave. The air was moist and suffocating, and it was freezing cold too. It was hard to even think straight in the cold. Even his silky robe stood rigid.
How did I even get here?
As for the morbid illustration.
There were countless scratches on the walls, the floor and even the ceiling—some shallow, some deep and ancient, but all of the same length strangely and… everywhere. Looking at them gave Everest a splitting headache and lasting migraine. His vision fractured and blurred. But he still steeled himself to better observe his surroundings.
Apparently the scratches were not the only strange thing about the cave. There were leaves of paper all over the floor. Some in one piece but most destroyed beyond repair, seemingly by moisture or being torn and ripped.
He picked one of the said leaves up—and instantly regretted it. As soon as he saw the frantic scribbles written in black on the paper, his eyes attempted discerning their contents, much to the protest of his mind. As he grasped it even in the slightest, his mind spun and his vision fractured even further. His mind just went black while his heart sunk in raw primal horror.
Everest did not let it continue though. Luckily the darkness spared him from actually grasping the contents of the leaf. Without wasting much time he flung the leaf away and covered his face, relaxing to lean on one of the walls of the cave.
"June senpai!"
Huh?
It was only then that he realized someone else was in the lightless cave with him. Aya Norito was standing across from him near the opposite wall, her dead eyes wide open and a curious expression on her face.
"Ara~June senpai, I get how natural it is to have a sweet dream in such a situation but—" (jp: Ara = oh my)
Hearing her sweet voice and her nonsense had steadied him a bit, so he steeled himself and slowly removed his hands from his face. The deadly cold, at least, was soothing.
He chuckled lightly.
"Well, jokes on you. I don't dream much."
"Sōu?~" (jp: Sōu? = really?)
"That's right."
As he said that, he pushed himself off the wall and reached his arm out to her.
"Come on, we've got work to do."
She tilted her head and looked at him dubiously.
"That's not like you, June senpai. You mean you haven't noticed?"
His expression contorted from humor to confusion to horror.
"W-what is it that I haven't noticed?"
Her dubious gaze only got more intense, then was sharply replaced by suppressed laughter. Her laughter echoed throughout the small cave.
"Nothing much—"
Phew, never knew she had such scary humor. Better file that away.
"Just that there's no way out of here."
Everest was about to say something but then he heard a chilling sound.
A low, yet deep howl, reverberating throughout the cave. It was only then that he noticed a harrowing silhouette directly behind Aya—between her and the far wall.
It was a gaunt, lightless silhouette, almost invisible in the darkness yet now emanating a dreadful aura. It was truly large, and in this tight space it consumed most of that end of the cave. Its form seemed wrong—too many joints bending in its limbs, too many angles where smooth curves should be.
Before Everest had time to finish processing its existence, the figure suddenly lunged forward—straight past Aya, whipping her hair sideways—and whooshed toward him, tearing off his left hand clean in the process. The wolf's momentum carried it past him to the wall at his back.
"Kyaaa~ oh—no, no, no!"
Aya Norito shrieked as she stumbled forward, away from where the wolf had been. She was already picking herself off the ground, reacting quite quickly to the shocking event.
Everest, however, didn't make a sound. He didn't even flinch. Instead, he caught himself with his one remaining arm and lunged in the opposite direction from the wolf—toward the center of the cave.
Toward Aya.
He grabbed her wrists as she rose, and in the heat of the moment frantically searched for a way out of the cave. He saw none.
How the hell did we enter a cave without an entrance?
But maybe he didn't need to.
He just had to create one.
He took a deep breath as his mind rid itself of all unnecessary emotions and got ready to sprint again. But in that moment, the wolf—now positioned behind him near the wall—opened its mouth, and its infinitely receding teeth were revealed, row upon row upon row spiraling back into an impossible throat. Countless eyes, previously hidden, opened along its body like wounds, each one fixed on him with ancient hunger.
The sight gave Everest a crazy idea.
He was taken back and froze mid-step. Then, he suddenly gave out a stupid grin and said to Aya without facing her, his voice deliberately light, almost manic.
"Aya, remind me why we're breathing in a cave without an entrance—"
As he said those words, he pulled her sharply to his chest and spun them both aside. The wolf whooshed past where she had just been, so close the displaced air stung with cold.
She gathered herself and sprang away from him to his left, her back now to the side wall, embarrassment flickering across her features even now.
"How dafuq will I know!? Also, why aren't you bleeding? You lost a whole arm!"
He smiled—too wide, too bright for the darkness. Then he ran to her, pushed her lightly backward along the wall, and jerked himself back toward the center. The shadow wolf whooshed between them, separating them by mere inches. Its countless eyes locked onto Everest with raw malice as it passed, and Everest waved back with his remaining hand as it whooshed toward the opposite wall.
The humor was paper-thin, barely concealing the tremor he refused to acknowledge.
"Okay, then how about how we got here in the first place?"
The wolf turned, its movements uncannily silent for something so large. Everest darted to Aya's position against the wall as the creature repositioned itself across from them. He caught her before she could catch herself and swept her off her feet, holding her as he moved along the perimeter.
"Are you really messing with me?"
She paused, then screamed.
"NOW?!"
He shook his head dismissively and said, suppressing a laugh that sounded slightly unhinged.
"No, Aya, think hard. Our lives depend on it."
"Sō ka?! 'Cuz you sure don't sound like it!"
(Jp: Sō ka = is that so?)
He caught himself grinning from ear to ear—the expression felt foreign on his face, like something wearing his skin.
"No, I'm serious. Just… I've never had this much fun."
She looked at him, for longer than intended, searching his face in the dim light. Then, very quietly,
"Me neither."
"What was that?"
"Nandemonai! Hai, hai! Your question, what was it again?" (Jp: Nandemonai = it's nothing, hai! = Yes!)
"I asked how we got in here in the first place."
Everest just continued moving in a wide arc around the cave as they spoke, keeping distance between them and the wolf. The creature wrathfully stalked them from the opposite side, its gait disturbingly fluid, but he didn't seem to care.
"I—uh. Angel! Didn't we see an angel?!"
He looked at her dubiously, still moving.
"Y'know, in my head I imagined you'd be offended if I called her that."
"Haaaah?—"
"Anyways, we saw the angel, then next thing I knew I was here… was it any different for you?"
Everest slid under the wolf as it lunged from the side, its claws whistling over them. He'd somehow developed a sort of muscle memory for handling this thing. By now, he was near where the chase had started—close to the wall where he'd first leaned.
Then he remembered he was holding her—too late—as he lost his balance and they tumbled. He was pinned to the ground, her weight and her body pressed upon him, her purple hair veiling his sight even further in the darkness. The wolf circled somewhere behind her, its presence a weight in the air.
"Not really, but I do remember seeing the wolf before blacking out."
Her voice was incoherent and dazed, breath quick against his neck.
"Hey, Aya?"
He remembered one of the most cliché lines in all of those K-dramas Dorothy and he had spent hours watching. His voice dropped, quieter, almost gentle—something real beneath the manic energy.
"Do you trust me?"
She lifted her head and sat up, still sitting on him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were darting all over the cave, tracking the wolf's position.
"Hai, hai—tte, matte! What are you grinning about?"
Everest didn't answer her and instead sat up as well, coming face to face with her. The wolf's breathing echoed from somewhere to their right.
"If you trust me… then close your eyes."
Aya smiled despite everything, then whispered in his ear, her voice shaking just slightly.
"I'm fourteen."
His grin did not waver.
"Then trust the adult."
He gracefully tossed her off himself to the left, and immediately after, the wolf's claws cut through the space where she had been, so close they displaced the fabric of her clothing. He himself rolled back before springing up and dashing to where she landed.
Without slowing down, he lifted her up… and ran.
He ran straight toward the "wall" where the wolf had first protected—the one he'd never really looked at until now. As he reached it, his fingers penetrated the darkness, passing through what had seemed solid stone.
'There was a way after all. The walls on the other side.'
Everest was about to jump through when he paused in realization, then spun and frantically pocketed a few of the leaves of paper scattered all over the floor, suspending Aya over one shoulder. His body betrayed him—even now, curiosity overrode survival.
As he did that though, his grin shrank and he said, glancing back at the wolf now charging toward them from across the cave:
"Goodbye, cave of my worst nightmare. I hope I never see you again. As for you…"
He looked at the wolf. Its countless eyes locked on him, unblinking, hungering.
"I hope we see each other soon. I'm getting that arm back one way or another."
His pockets were now stuffed with papers and so were Aya's arms. So in one fluid motion, he spun again and blitzed into the darkness of the false wall. Then, the world collapsed all around him.
In the next moment, Everest was assaulted by immense heat. And the air was even more moist than before—more than that, it was putrid.
He and Aya were still surrounded by rocks. At least these rocks had those same green glowing moss growing on them. The walls on his left and right also seemed to curve in and meet at the ceiling, which was veiled in darkness, but there were no walls in front of him. After much effort, he saw there weren't any behind him either.
A tunnel.
"Mmmmn~ June senpai?"
Her voice was soft, like she had just woken up. Not like he cared.
"Up!"
She jolted upward, standing over him.
"Hai!"
He sat up, then slowly stood. His golden eyes glimmered stronger for some reason, while his grin had been replaced by his easy-going smile.
"We're out. Now… we find the angel."
"Nani!? How are you sure she's not just some illusion of the forest or another vile creature?!"
The moment the words left her mouth, she flinched in realization covered her mouth and looked at him in horror.
Everest looked at her like a proud parent and smiled smugly.
"That's right, you're learning."
She puffed her cheeks out dramatically.
"So are you, being the nice guy all of a sudden."
He burst out in laughter.
"Me? Nice? Gods, no! I'm just following our only lead. If we find the angel, she might know a way out. Or at least a way to last longer. I am not forfeiting that opportunity."
They engaged in some idle banter as they strolled toward one end of the tunnel, their voices echoing softly off stone.
And just as expected.
The angel was there.