Sid walked through the tunnel, loose bones clicking against stone.
Kaya followed a few paces behind, trailing her fingers along the damp cavern wall.
“So…” she began cautiously. “How did you get here?”
Sid tapped the side of his skull.
“Haven’t the slightest idea. Summoned, maybe? That’s my current theory.”
Kaya stared at him.
Bones littered the tunnel around them, faintly illuminated by the blue glow of their eyes.
“Where are we going?”
“Also haven’t the slightest idea.”
Water dripped somewhere ahead, growing louder as they walked.
Sid glanced back at her.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Huh?”
“Before waking up here.”
Kaya looked down at her feet.
“I think I was crossing the street.”
She hesitated.
“Then a truck ran a red light and…”
Her voice faded.
Sid nodded.
“Interesting.”
Kaya looked at him.
“So I died?”
“Seems likely.”
“And you?”
“Also seems likely!”
She stared at him.
Sid continued walking.
The tunnel gradually widened around them, its ceiling climbing higher into the darkness.
After a while, he spoke again.
“So what did you do back on Earth?”
Kaya rubbed the back of her neck.
“I was a streamer.”
Sid’s response escaped before good judgement could intervene.
“Useless.”
The tunnel repeated it.
USELESS.
USELESS.
USELESS.
Sid stopped.
“Oh—”
He raised both hands.
“Ha. I mean, not useless useless. Entertainment has societal value. Morale. Culture. All that.”
Kaya’s pink eye lights narrowed at the back of his skull.
“…Right.”
She crossed her arms.
“And what did you do?”
“I think I was a surgeon.”
Kaya blinked.
“Oh, bullshit.”
Sid turned toward her.
“What?”
“You?”
“Yes, me.”
“A surgeon?”
“I’m beginning to find this reaction insulting.”
Kaya opened her mouth—
Then stopped.
The tunnel had ended.
Both skeletons stared.
The vast cavern stretched before them, colossal stone walls threaded with rivers of glowing blue crystal. Waterfalls spilled into unseen depths, their distant roar filling the abyss. Beyond the crystal fields, shadows shifted in darkness too deep for even their unnatural vision to penetrate.
Kaya slowly looked up.
“…What the hell is this place?”
Sid gestured toward the enormous carcass impaled among the crystals.
“Dunno. But that tried to eat me.”
Kaya turned.
She stared at the creature.
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Then at Sid.
Then back at the creature.
“That?”
“Yes.”
“That tried to eat you?”
“Very enthusiastically.”
Sid walked toward the corpse.
“Honestly, I’m surprised nothing’s scavenged it yet. Feels like it’s been at least a day.”
He scratched absently at his skull.
Then stopped.
Something had changed.
Several crystals remained buried deep inside the creature’s chest, but they were no longer blue.
A dark red glow pulsed beneath the blood.
“…Oh.”
Sid crouched immediately.
“Oh, that is very interesting.”
He pulled the sharpened blue crystal from beneath his hide cloak and started cutting into the creature’s chest.
Kaya stared at him.
“What are you?”
“Mm.”
“That wasn’t rhetorical.”
Sid ignored her.
He worked with quick, precise cuts, widening the opening around the embedded crystals. While he was there, he sliced several narrow strips from the hide and wound them tightly around his fingers and palms.
Primitive gloves.
Better than nothing.
“Help me pull this.”
He pointed between the creature’s ribs.
Kaya recoiled.
“You want me to put my hands in there?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
Sid looked at her bare fingers.
“You currently have no skin.”
Kaya looked at them too.
“…Fine.”
She crouched beside him.
Together, they gripped one of the red crystals and pulled.
It resisted.
Sid adjusted his grip.
“Again.”
They hauled.
The shard tore free with a wet crack.
Sid nearly toppled backward.
Red light pulsed through the translucent crystal in his hands.
“…Huh.”
He rotated it slowly.
“The crystals absorb properties from their surroundings?”
Kaya stared at him.
“What?”
“They were blue before.” Sid held the shard toward the light. “Now this one's been sitting inside a corpse and turned red.”
He tapped a finger against its surface.
“Environmental influence, maybe. Heat? Blood? Organic transfer? Some form of eroto-wart contamination?”
Kaya narrowed her eyes.
“You’re making up words now.”
“I absolutely am.”
Sid slipped the red crystal beneath his cloak, then tossed Kaya the sharpened blue shard.
She fumbled it.
“Here.”
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Make yourself useful and carve some clothes.”
He pointed at the corpse.
Kaya stared at it.
“…You want me to skin that?”
Sid looked at her exposed skeleton.
“You really don’t want to find out how easily bare bones break.”
Kaya looked down at herself.
Then at the carcass.
“…I hate this place.”
While she reluctantly approached the creature’s flank, Sid circled toward the exposed ribs.
An idea had begun to form.
He crouched.
Using the red crystal, he copied several of the runes from his own bones onto the creature’s exposed ribs.
Kaya glanced over.
“What are you doing now?”
“Science.”
“That word is doing a lot of work.”
Sid carved the final symbol and sat back.
“You,” he declared, “will be known as Kimu.”
Nothing happened.
Sid waited.
The cavern remained still.
He pointed dramatically at the corpse.
“Arise, Kimu!”
Water dripped somewhere far below.
Kaya, halfway through wrestling herself into a poorly cut strip of hide, stared at him.
“…You seriously thought that would work?”
Sid ignored her and examined the red crystal.
“Hm.”
He tapped his jaw.
“Maybe red ones are duds.”
He tucked it into the crude belt around his waist.
“A shame.”
“You sound genuinely disappointed.”
“I was hoping for a giant undead attack dinosaur.”
“…Of course you were.”
Sid looked once more at the carcass, then toward the darkness beyond the crystal fields.
The sound of rushing water carried through the cavern.
His blue eye lights widened.
“A river…”
Kaya followed his gaze.
“And if there’s flowing water…”
“Life,” she finished.
Sid nodded.
“What a pickle.”
Kaya stared at him.
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Several minutes later, Kaya stood and lifted her newly fashioned clothing for inspection.
“Finally done.”
A crooked sack of grey hide hung from her frame, tied together with strips of connective tissue.
Sid studied it.
“…Functional.”
“I’m choosing to take that as a compliment.”
“Good.”
Sid turned toward the tunnel.
“Because we really don’t want to stay here much longer.”
They made it inside and after a dozen paces Sid stopped.
“…Oh.”
Kaya nearly walked into him.
“What now?”
Sid crouched beside another pile of bones.
His hands hovered over them.
“This one is perfect.”
Kaya looked at the remains.
“What?”
Sid lifted the skull into the blue light.
“The clavicles are almost identical in length.” His voice dropped with something approaching reverence. “Mandibular symmetry is excellent. Look at the spacing between the ribs.”
His fingers traced across the skeleton’s chest.
“The femurs match. Pelvis is intact…”
He looked up at Kaya.
“I have never seen bones this symmetrical before.”
She stared at him.
“…You are such a weirdo.”
“Hehehe.”
His rattling laugh followed them down the tunnel.
Then his hands moved.
Ribs slid into position. Vertebrae aligned. Radius beside ulna. Phalanges arranged in sequence.
Kaya watched the scattered remains become a complete skeleton with unsettling efficiency.
“…Okay. That’s actually creepy.”
“Thank you.”
Sid carved the runic patterns across the skeleton, matching their placement to his own as closely as possible.
When he finished, he sat back.
“Perfect.”
The blue light in his sockets brightened.
“From now on, you shall be known as Dud.”
Kaya stared at him.
“Dud?”
“Short for Dudley.”
“That somehow made it worse.”
The red crystal dimmed.
Sid stopped.
The bones moved.
Loose joints snapped together one after another, drawn into alignment by an invisible force.
Grey light flickered inside the skeleton’s sockets.
Sid went completely still.
Kaya took a step back.
The newly assembled skeleton stared upward.
Its jaw twitched.
Grey light fluttered uncertainly inside its skull.
Sid leaned closer, practically vibrating.
“So…” he asked, “how do you feel?”
No response.
The skeleton looked down at its body.
Its fingers curled.
Sid tilted his head.
“Oh good, motor functio—”
CRACK.
A fist slammed into his skull.
A small fragment of bone chipped and shot across the tunnel as Sid collapsed sideways into a heap.
Kaya jumped back.
“OH MY GOD.”
The newly awakened skeleton stared at its fist.
Then it stood.
And ran.
“WAIT—”
Sid twitched on the ground.
One hand rose from the heap.
“DUD, NO!”
The tunnel answered.
DUD, NO!
DUD, NO!
DUD, NO!
Dud ran faster.
Kaya watched him disappear around a bend.
Then she looked down at Sid.
A small section of his skull was missing.
“…You deserved that.”
Sid sat up.
He picked the broken fragment from the floor and turned it over in his fingers.
“…Collagen.”
Kaya stared at him.
“What?”
“The tendons. The hide. Connective tissue.” His blue eye lights widened. “If I boil it long enough…”
“What are you talking about?”
“Glue.”
Sid stood.
“We could make glue.”
“With dinosaur tendons?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sid held up the fragment missing from his skull.
Kaya considered this.
“Right.”
“But we need something to boil it in.” Sid began pacing. “And ignition. Sustained heat. Fuel. If there are mineral deposits down here, coal is possible, but without fire we can’t process anything, and without processed materials we can’t—”
He stopped.
“There’s no wood.”
Silence.
“Fuck.”
Kaya leaned against the cavern wall.
Sid looked toward the carcass.
Then the tunnel.
Then back again.
“No. No, no…”
His pacing quickened.
“Nothing here works. We have materials but no infrastructure. No combustion source. No containers. No refining process…”
He rubbed hard at the side of his skull.
“I don’t know what to do.”
His gaze drifted downward.
Bones covered the tunnel floor.
Kaya followed his eyes.
“Oh no.”
Sid crouched.
“Not this again…”
His hands flew through the remains.
Skull.
Vertebrae.
Ribcage. Pelvis.
Arms and legs.
Within minutes, another skeleton lay assembled before him.
Sid stared at it.
Then snatched up the red crystal.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
The word blasted through the tunnel as he attacked the skull with frantic strokes.
Kaya recoiled from the echo.
“SID—”
Red light ignited inside the skeleton’s sockets.
Sid stopped.
So did Kaya.
The newly awakened skeleton raised its head.
Deep crimson eyes locked onto them both.