Outside the cave, Rosario was getting restless.

The rope stopped unwinding a while ago; did that mean the children found the tunnel and were gathering crystals? Or perhaps they were already on their way back. She kneeled by the cave entrance and was about to shout something when the light-headedness she had been experiencing since the day before struck again. Up to that point, her willpower had been enough to resist it, but this time the pain was stronger and she fell. What was happening to her? All her life, she hardly ever had headaches. Surely it was just stress; after they had gathered some crystals, she would take a good break and be back to normal.

Lying on the side and unable to move, Rosario took in a deep breath, trying to calm her racing thoughts. The chill of the morning was still in the air, as it was common in Alpine regions in late summer, but the sky was clear, and once the Sun made its way past the tall mountains on the east, it would soon become numbingly hot. At ground level, she felt the dewdrops over the short grass that grew below the dense forest, smelled fungi and decomposing leaves, and noticed the little insects crawling all over and going on about their business. With her consciousness fading, she wished to be an insect, small enough so she could go find the children inside the cave. But critters did not go that far into total darkness. In that case, she’d be a tree, and spread her roots deep into the cave until she found those two rascals.

In her state, she didn’t notice the wind gently rustling the leaves. The colorful mist that came out of the vessels surrounding the campsite was briefly lifted, leaving a narrow passage at ground level, through which a wall lizard quickly skittered through.

The critter had probably waited a long time for this opportunity, perhaps since the day before, when the group first arrived and set up the barrier. As if in disbelief, the little reptile stopped and looked around. Its slender body, with light brown scales and dark spots, was missing the tail, and an abnormal bump of tissue was visible on the back of its neck.

The animal ran towards the camper and hid under it, from where it began making a loud clicking sound.

*****

Back inside the cave, Stefan and Franziska ran desperately as the tunnel cracked above them. They reached a curve, and both silently hoped to see the exit from there; instead, they saw their path blocked by large boulders and another large morsus waiting for them.

Stefan took the last green pebble and aimed it at the ceiling right above the narrow passage. The compressed crystal exploded, and the particles expanded like a firework; the creature hissed in anger as it tried to move its sessile body as far away from the bright green sparkles that still floated in the air.

Knowing they had little time, the siblings climbed over the rocks and made it to the other side of the blockade. Fortunately, in that part of the tunnel, the concrete looked mostly intact, and it seemed the monsters had not expanded to that part yet.

They collapsed onto the dusty pavement, panting.

It had been way too close. And now, with half of the tunnel infested by creatures and no green crystals left, going back was impossible.

“I hate ceiling leeches,” said Stefan, still out of breath.

“They’re called Morsus inversus,” his sister corrected, equally breathless.

“I don’t care. They grow from the ceiling and look like leeches.”

“Hey Stefan, doesn’t that feel like fresh air to you?” said Franziska, her tiredness gone.

He sat up and stayed quiet. It was true. He also noticed a light breeze on his skin.

Both got up and started walking again, going deeper inside the tunnel, with Franziska holding onto her brother’s arm. “It’s so dark here… there are no more roots or crystals.”

The small crystals they had on their hair, clothes and accessories didn’t give off enough of a glow to reach the nearest wall, and Stefan’s headlamp was now flickering.

“Yeah, this side of the tunnel is mostly intact and—” he gasped when something ahead reflected the light of his lamp. “Hell, that scared me. I thought it was eyes, but it’s a reflecting road sign. Let’s go see it!”

Despite being covered in dirt, they still recognized the green and white icon of an emergency exit and an arrow pointing ahead. As he looked up in the direction the arrow indicated, the flashlight stopped working.

“Dammit, this stupid thing!”

Franziska heard him hitting the lamp with his hand and then against the wall.

“If you break it, it will never work. Give it to me, I can fix it.”

Her brother did so.

“Come Franzi, get on my back. The door must be nearby. I’ll walk along the wall until we find it, and you can play with the flashlight in the meantime.”

“I’m not playing with it. I’m fixing it.”

“Yeah, whatever you… ew!”

“What happened?”

“I think I touched something, maybe a root or…” he was still talking when the flashlight in Franziska’s hands turned on again.

They found themselves standing, still in the old road tunnel, but surrounded by dozens of large flower buds at least as tall as Stefan.

The aberrant plants resembled young rose buds and grew all over the concrete floor. They were tightly closed, but from their shape, it looked like something round was inside them.

“Are those dust roses?” said Franziska in a whisper. “Uh… Oeshis absconditus,” she corrected herself, but her brother gestured her to remain silent. She understood. It was best not to awaken the sleeping monsters.

Stefan tiptoed while going through the grotesque garden patch and both felt relieved when they left it behind. Everything seemed to be fine, even more: they saw the emergency exit door just a few steps ahead.

In the cave’s quiet, they sensed their heartbeats as they stood in front of it. Stefan pushed the emergency handle; the mechanism worked, but the door only shifted slightly. Years of pressure from the surrounding mountain had deformed the doorframe.

Still, there was undoubtedly a light draft coming from the other side, which meant there had to be an exit. He pushed again with both hands, and the door moved another inch. He just had to keep going.

As he prepared to force the door again, they noticed a shuffling sound and a ticking noise over the concrete. Franziska froze, yet Stefan continued focusing on the door.

Broadly speaking, there were two types of monster plants: those that produced crystals, and those that generated structures meant to attack animal life forms. Of the latter category, some of the carnivorous structures remained attached to the plant that generated them during their lifespan, while others could separate and operate independently. The ceiling leeches began to the first subcategory, while the patch of dust flowers they’d left behind was in the second one.

“Stefan…”
“I know!” He slammed against the door, but the gap was not wide enough. “I need more time!” He took off his backpack and gave it to her. “Don’t let them get closer.”

With shaking hands, Franziska found the three yellow marbles Stefan had packed before he went into the cave that morning.

Three marbles were nowhere near enough to defend themselves against the monsters that were now crawling towards them. And that was only the first wave. Behind the creatures, she saw more roses opening, revealing a scale-covered ball inside. The ball quickly unrolled and stretched out into an elongated creature similar to a large woodlouse, armored on the top and with some thirty pairs of pointy legs below. Black ocelli and sharp pincers were on the front end. It took the creatures only a second to detect their prey and start running towards them, with their many thin legs making a ticking noise on the concrete floor.

The noise became faster and louder. Franzi screamed in terror. There were so many monstrous woodlice they covered the entire width of the road, and they were almost upon them when the upper wall of the tunnel imploded and several gigantic roots found their way inside, falling over the lice.

At the same time, Stefan pushed the emergency door one last time and it finally opened, revealing a narrow tunnel. It smelled of mold, and water was seeping through the concrete, but it looked mostly intact. Without hesitation, they ran through the passage and saw a light at the distant end.

The siblings ran as fast as they could… and then desperately held onto the walls to stop: the emergency escape tunnel ended abruptly on the vertical side of the mountain.

Time ago, the tunnel probably ended in another door, which led to a service road on the side of the mountain. But at some point during the last twenty years, part of the mountain plummeted off and into the ravine below, leaving only an opening on a vertical wall of rock. From inside the tunnel came only silence.

“Do you think that stopped them?” asked Franziska.

But the faint ticking sound that echoed from inside the mountain gave her the answer.

The two held each other as they heard the monsters’ steps quickly catching up to them.

*****