Traveler

He followed the woman and her two remaining companions as they followed the lower tunnel. Its structure and appearance, once they left behind the coarse, toppled remnants of the tunnel which had collapsed from above, became much like the path they had been following before. The walls and floor grew barren and boxy. They were built from smooth slabs of gray stone of monstrous size.

The quiet patter of the woman's careful footsteps echoed and reverberated from the walls. She and her companions walked along the corridor's length for a long time. They fed the tiny flame in their lantern as they went. They fed themselves, as well.

The tunnel seemed to stretch on without an end to them. They communicated as much among themselves. He was not convinced of this fact as they were. He knew that all things came to an end.

The tunnel changed. It no longer gradually curved away into the distance, but split into two paths. The woman did not know which way to go. They sat on the cold stone floor to consider. In the end, they could not arrive at any reason why they should favor the one path over the other. They tore a strip of fabric loose and oriented it so they could how which path would retrace their steps if they returned back this way. Then they took the tunnel heading to the left.

They found another in the tunnel after some time. It was old and did not move. Its skin was wrinkled and shrunken, pulled tight around its bones. Its teeth were bared in a snarling grin. It had on clothing of some variety, but it was not made from the same material as the woman's. It had possessions as well. The woman and her companions investigated them. Those were different from those which they carried, too.

They found squarish packets enclosed in a smooth, reflective coating. They found that their fingers could tear the material open. Inside were dried hunks of material. One of the woman's companions broke a corner off and tested it. It did not seem immediately lethal.

They also found a tube. It was shorter than the woman's forearm. The woman took it and touched a part of it. It cast light from one end, a long, strong beam that shone far brighter than the weak lantern the woman had now, nearly as bright as the light which shone, through the layers of stone and metal which separated her from it, above her head. This brought them more comfort and happiness than the crumbly squares. The light was their savior. With this, they could journey farther and in more safety. This buoyed their confidence.

The woman switched off the thing which made light. She worried that it would cease working if its gift of luminescence were squandered. They left the body behind them and continued on.

He lingered for a while. They had overlooked something, a scrap of material attached at the corpse's waist. It had symbols on its surface and some sort of drawing. He remembered the shape of those symbols.

He then followed after the wavering, distant, faint light of the woman's lantern's tiny flame.