"Target is approximately twenty meters away," a kneeling man whispered. He wore an ebony colored suit with a greatcoat on top, holding up a set of infrared binoculars up to his eyes. "Directly twelve 'o clock, a meter up."
A man next to him wore a ghillie suit; a bizarre looking ensemble designed to resemble heavy moss-like foliage. It was commonly used by big-game hunters and the military. He flicked a switch on the rifle in his hands and observed through the scope on top. "Taking the shot...” squeezing the trigger, a little 'phut' was heard.
Not very far away from these two men, a great big shady grey beast was hit by an orange painted tranquillizer dart right on its neck. The creature attempted to escape but numbness little by little consumed its entire body and doziness was evident in its eyes. Slowly but eventually, the beast slumped against the cave wall and finally fell unconscious on the gravel under it.
"It's a hit." The man in the greatcoat pulled a walkie-talkie out from his pocket. "Capture Unit 3 to base, we got the target. Neck hit, he's out like a light and ready for pickup. Send in the closest retrieval team. Over."
Some crackling was heard through the receiver, but no response. "Oh damn it, should have known the radio won't work in a fucking cave." The man stomped the cave floor. "The cave walls must be too thick for the signals to penetrate. Hehe, penetrate..."
"Seriously, Vergil, can you stop with your perverted jokes for more than ten minutes at a time? Here's a bigger problem: We’re in some gigantic cave system, and we forgot to mark our path. Worst case scenario, we'll slowly die of starvation, dehydration, hypothermia or whichever comes first in this pothole. Best case scenario, in case you're wondering, is being found before we decide to kill and eat the rhino," the man wearing the ghillie suit grumbled.
"Come on, Ray, you gotta be more optimistic about this." Vergil walked over to the rhino. "After all, we're still alive and can wait for a rescue team, right? Now let's get this rhinocerotidae tied up in case it decides to wake up and fight back."
"Wow, that's the most intelligent thing I've heard from you in weeks! Now, where did I put that rope?" Ray looked through his bag while walking over to the rhino. "Wait, what was that? It kind of feels like the ground is rumbling, but it can't be an earthquake - this kind of large cave system wouldn't last in an earthquake-prone area."
"Could be one of those digging machi-" Vergil was cut off by the rock suddenly collapsing below them, and they fell screaming into the depths below
.
A single splash came down, and then another as they landed in a lake. Water blurred Ray’s vision for a few moments before he regained his bearings and started swimming up to get some air. Breaking the surface and breathing deeply, he looked around, “Vergil?” his mind still grasping on where his friend could be, until it hit him like a ton of bricks. "Oh fuck, Vergil!" He then took an unfathomably deep breath and dived back down looking for his friend.
***
“Gah, what have you been eating, man? Rocks?” Ray complained as he pulled his still unconscious companion out of the lake and onto some nearby slab-like boulders. He checked if his chest was in motion and regrettably, Vergil’s torso was as solid as stone. Ray then placed his ear on his comrade’s chest to see if there was a pulse. After doing so, his heart sank deeper than the netherworld itself. Even his heart wasn't beating; but there was still one thing left to do.
He placed the heel of one of his hands on the center of the chest and pushed with the other hand on top of it. He began to compress the ribcage with his hands while making sure that the chest rose completely between the pushes.
Water came spewing out of Vergil’s mouth like a national park’s fountain, and a few coughs could be heard. Ray was thankful that he did not need to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He would have nightmares for a week if he did any of the sort. Ray stood up to finally observe the surroundings.
They had come out of a pretty decent-sized lake, probably a hundred meters across. On the far side, there was a forest. There were signs of habitation in the distance; a cottage near the woods and the outskirts of a city in the distance. There was a hill between them and the town, perfect for observing without being detected.
He was surrounded by pink flowers.
It was all bright and colorful.
He did not like one bit of it.
“Where are we?” Vergil asked, choking on a minor amount of water that still remained in his throat.
“I wish I knew,” he replied. “Oh, and it’s good to see that you’re awake.”
“Did my ears deceive me or did I hear the prodigious Rayan Ramsey actually care for another living being?” Vergil said with a smirk.
Ray dropped off the boulder and landed on the soft grass. He then walked next to a pair of saturated backpacks.
“No, I just need a lackey to help me see what we can recover in our backpacks.” He pointed at the soaked bags. Vergil simply shrugged and jumped off the boulder. The two men scuffled through their bags to see what they could scavenge.
“Well gee, sure glad that I have a reliable and compassionate friend,” Vergil said.
“Awe shucks, if I knew how kind I was then I wouldn’t have saved your life,” Rayan shot back.
“That was dark, man. Dark,” Vergil retorted with a frown, getting a few vials out of the pack.
“Eh,” he said, "we're still alive, nothing to complain about."
"Fair enough, and the more important stuff seems to have survived." On the grass in front of Vergil there were a few vials, some basic chemistry equipment, a red plastic pouch of tobacco with the letters "Rød 3" on the side, a well-chewed pipe, a butane lighter, a first-aid kit, his trusty binoculars, some MREs, and two aerosol spray cans respectively marked 'bugs' and 'flamethrower' with permanent marker. "Or rather, the emergency toilet paper is deader than an emo zombie, but everything else was useless or unimportant. The water probably busted the infrared function on the binoculars, but they should still work."
"Speak for yourself; my ghillie suit is a wreck,” Ray said as he pointed at himself with both of his index fingers. The remarkable moss-covered getup had been reduced to a drenched wetsuit with only morsels of leaves and twigs sticking out of it. "Most of my other equipment survived, though." In front of him in a pile were two boxes marked '.308' and 'darts', a few packs of MREs, some spare parts and a maintenance kit for his rifle, a set of blue binoculars, a pack of batteries, some rope, and his soaked casual clothes.
“Don’t be such a baby, you can always dry that thing and use the local plants to cover it up,” Vergil exclaimed. He pulled a small patch of grass and flowers out of the ground and held it up in front of Rayan. “See, you use these delightfully chromatic flowers and some grass!”
Ray took a closer look at the astonishing flora. "What, you mean this colorful flora? Don't be stupid, that's like painting a giant bulls-eye on yourself. No self-respecting sniper would be caught using that, it would be terrible camo," he said.
"Actually, you don't have a choice. It's that or nothing, but you can always use something else if you find anything useful later." Vergil grinned. "Besides, I'm sure you'll look great in pink and green."
***
Grumbling about shoving thorny vines into certain body parts, Ray nonetheless picked up his rifle and got to work fixing the suit with the abominable flora.
After all those months of painstakingly sewing the fabric into what it used to be, it had been reduced back into camouflage-style clothes. Upon closer inspection, there were transparent threads sticking out of the cloth and thicker chocolate and sea green twines scarce around the suit. Despite his experience screaming at him to stop, he removed the remnants of thread and moss - these colors did not fit the scenery.
He scavenged through the vegetation to get the most suitable jute-like pieces to attach to his suit. After going through the foliage, he managed to get a few but it wasn’t much. Then again, he didn’t have an adequate amount of treads he could sew with. The colors fit with the environment adequately but it wasn’t enough. Ray picked up a couple of sticks and leaves. He then attached the twigs and other sorts onto the ghillie suit.
Rayan examined his completed ghillie suit. The new-fangled ghillie suit had only a couple of strings hanging on its hood, shoulder and feet. Alright, it was actually still a long way from finished but it was sufficient that no one could spot him a few hundred feet away. Enough for what he had in mind.
Meanwhile, Vergil was lounging around, smoking his pipe. "Hey Ray, you think they'll find us?"
"Eh, I hope so. It's too bright around here," Ray responded. "Besides, I have no idea if the local wildlife will be edible, seeing as we're probably in a new biosphere. Anything might be poisonous to us, and we have a limited amount of food. The water seems safe or you'd probably be sick right now, so that shouldn't be a problem."
"I think I read somewhere about testing if something is safe by starving yourself and then trying a bite. We could probably figure something out eventually."
"You... Read?"
"Barely. It took me a while to puzzle out the fancy curves and lines, but I got it eventually."
"Hehe. You wanna go scope out the area when I'm done fixing my suit?"
"Sure, let's sneak that shit."
***
Having fixed his ghillie suit with disgustingly colorful flora and laid some basic plans with Vergil, Ray crawled up the hill. When he got to the top, he looked around and waved Vergil up, looking through his binoculars while he waited.
As Vergil got to the top, he got out his binoculars and peered through. The town was filled with colorful horses.
"Dude, this is strange. Did someone knock us out and paint a bunch of horses to mess with us?" Vergil was not very amused. "Kind of cool, though. Bet you can't find this kind of scenery back home. It's really tranquil, too."
"I think we just discovered another sapient species. Look at the houses, they have doors adjusted to equine proportions, and those things seem to be pretty much the only organized creatures around." Ray, on the other hand, was fascinated. Getting out a notebook, he star-
"Wait a minute, how do you have dry paper?"
"The ghillie suit has watertight pockets. I keep my water sensitive items - like my notebook - in them." As I was saying, he started scribbling, occasionally looking through his binoculars.
Day 1 of Observations, Rayan "Ray" Ramsey
My companion and I got lost in a cave system and fell into what seems like another world. We have yet to figure out if it's Alice in Wonderland or Agartha style, but we are nonetheless not in a familiar environment. In our search for food, we seem to have discovered another sapient species. In the following entries, I intend to document what I can learn of them from observation. When we feel confident in their being beneficial, my companion will start approaching them to see about building trust and perhaps communicating.
At first glance, the creatures seem to resemble small equines, perhaps ponies. They will be referred to as such from now on. Notable differences are their manes, legs, and of course their unusual colors. Their hairs seem to have a more rigid structure than what we're used to, evidenced by "hairstyles" defying normal laws of physics. Their legs are thicker, which might indicate increased strength compared to "surface ponies". They seem to have a variety of color schemes, most being primary and secondary colors. Plenty of tertiary colors are also in the mix, but less common. I have yet to discover a pattern to this, but I suspect I will find one upon further observation.
Interrupted by a pat on his shoulder, Ray turned to Vergil. "Yeah, what's up?"
"We should probably go back and set up a camp. A fire, something to eat, and some water. Man does not live on science alone, it provides little nutrition," Vergil postulated.
"Good idea." Ray crawled backwards for a bit until the town was outside his line of sight, then turned around, stood up into a crouch, and hurried down the hill, Vergil following close behind.
"By the way, you look fabulous in pink and green," Vergil quipped. "I'm sure even the Westboro Baptist Church would agree." His joke earned him a smack to the head, but he kept his grin.
"Shut up and go get some wood while I dig a fire pit."
