(Fool's) Gold on the Ceiling
Darcy absentmindedly trails the pads of her fingers along the rough limestone wall of the cave as she hums tunelessly to herself. Life was grand. Life was awesome. Life was flipping amazing. When they’d walked off the edge of the world two years ago, totally ignoring the ‘here there be dragons’ sign, she’d (like Jane and Erik and Ian) figured this would be a pretty textbook fact-finding trip. Like, literally, the itinerary Jane had had her type up print out and laminate went like this:
- Land in the DRoC (Democratic Republic of Congo)
- Explore all anomalous energy readings and/or local folklore indicative of possible Einstein-Rosen Bridge-type existences
- Get Bitchin’ tans
…Or something like that. She can’t quite remember exactly since she sort of lost it like, three days in to the trip. While they were all hoping to find some never found before space awesomeness that would prove Jane even more right, thus making all those science jerkholes who’d ever called her theories crazy vomit their previously eaten words back up and eat them all again, they’d all pretty much unspokenly agreed that it was kind-of-sort-of basically a vacation funded endlessly by Stark Industries.
Darcy didn’t think it could get anymore win than that.
Of course, it could never just go their way. In fact, other than the tans it’d pretty much been a complete shit show, if you asked her. With a hundred-and-ten percent humidity and giant man eating mosquitoes free of charge. The only good thing about the DRoC had been the bananas and Tanzania wasn’t worth even the stamp in her passport. Seeing all the animals in Kenya had been uber cool up until she had had to pee in the middle of the night and there were a million glowing eyes gleaming in the beam of her flashlight and her pants were around her ankles. It was too soon to even hint at the mention of Sudan. Darcy was still finding sand in places she was pretty sure her gynecologist would find worrisome. Jane had even begun to lose her optimistic glow after that debacle.
Now though, it all seemed worth it, listening to Jane and Erik’s excited Science! chatter as Ian struggles to produce the equipment they kept demanding between sentences from the overly large pack he’s been unlucky enough to have to carry during the entire expedition.
“Holy- Erik, just look at these readings- Ian! Get me the electro-thermal refraction-“
“We’re really onto something here, Janey! Ian hand me the matter density-“
“We haven’t had readings this good since New Mexico-“
“Almost exactly the same type of energy as back then! My god it’s extraordinary! Ian, hold my pants-“
“I can’t believe we wasted so much time in those other-wait, what? ERIK! Put your pants back on!”
Yes. Life was indeed grand. With the dulcet sounds of discovery babbling on behind her, Darcy focuses her attention on the unimpressive interior of the cave that lay before her. As far as African caves went, it was as generic as the rest that they’d wondered into in the name of Science!. Like, if someone looked up the definition of 'cave' in the dictionary a pic of this cave would be next to it.
Craggy limestone made up the irregular shape of domed space and in the dim light she could see the odd pre-Neanderthal drawling decorating its bumpy walls here and there (if she squinted and tilted her head sideways they sort of looked like the Loki looking ones they saw in Sudan). The ceiling is just tall enough that Erik didn’t have to worry about bumping his head on the lower hanging stalactites, but Ian has to occasionally duck here and there. Glancing up into the dark shadows that hid some higher parts of the cave, Darcy really hopes that there wasn’t any bats in this one. That one scene from the Goonies had really scarred her as a kid. Rabies.
As she slowly meanders her way deeper in, the sound of her worn Keds is muffled by the fine layer of dirt that makes up the gently slanting cave floor. It was so fine that it is almost like walking on powdered sugar; with each step she felt the ground slightly give under her foot and she leaves a perfect imprint of her size sixes behind.
Pausing in her humming to take a breath, she feels the thick, stagnant air flow sluggishly into her lungs through her nose. It was musty, and she could practically taste the minerals in it with each inhale. So far, she’d been lucky and hasn’t found any bones of whatever sorry saps had crawled in here to die alone, like they had in quite a few of the deeper caves they had explored, so that was a plus. She always felt sorry for those dudes. Like, who didn’t at least have one person in the whole world who gave a shit if they wandered off to some random cave to kick the bucket? Apparently a lot of people in Africa, that’s who.
De-pressing.
“-serious Erik. Everybody. Darcy, back me up. Darcy? DARCE!”
Spinning on a toe, Darcy continues her slow trek backward, “Right here Boss Lady.”
“What are you doing? Don’t get so far ahead. Why aren’t you taking any readings? It’s pretty dim back there, do you have your flash light?” came Jane’s quick fire questions.
Pausing, Darcy rolls her eyes and reaches for the small flashlight sticking out of the back pocket of her shorts, switching it on and giving it a little shake above her head, “Yeah. Jeez mom-“
And then the ground beneath her opens up and swallows her.
Fucking Africa, man.