Volume 1: [Perseverance đź’ś]
Chapter 1: Purple Soul
Act 2: The Meaning Behind the Underground World
The word hangs in the air between them.
Underground.
Paige stares at Synn. Then at the stone walls, the shelves, the candle flickering on the table. Then back at Synn again.
Paige: !?
Her mouth opens, but nothing else comes out. Her mind keeps repeating the same word, as if saying it enough times will make it make sense. The Underground. The place from the old stories. The place that isn't supposed to exist.
She thinks of the gym, the noisy hallways, the coach, the quiet spot under the tree. All of it is still up there somewhere, far above her head, on the other side of a very long fall.
When the shock finally loosens its grip a little, her voice comes out in pieces.
Paige: I-I-I th-thought it was a fairy tale to s-scare kids...
Synn tilts her head. For a moment, it feels like she's looking straight through Paige, past her glasses and her shaky voice, right into what she's thinking.
Synn: What else do humans think of us these days?
Paige holds her notebook a little tighter in her lap. The question is strange, but Synn asks it so calmly that it's easier to answer than she expected. Her shoulders loosen, just a little.
Paige: That monsters—I mean, creatures—are just a myth. A story from the Old Father Church of Dymologic.
The moment the name leaves her mouth, everything changes.
The air around Synn turns heavy. The candle flame shrinks and trembles. The room feels colder, and the silence isn't peaceful anymore. It presses down on Paige like a weight on her chest.
She tries to breathe in, but the air won't come.
Paige: Ah... S-st...op... ple...ase...
Synn doesn't seem to hear her. She's staring at nothing, her bony hands clenched into fists at her sides.
Paige's vision blurs at the edges. Her notebook slips from her lap. Then she slides off the chair after it and hits the floor with a dull thud.
The sound snaps Synn back to reality.
The pressure vanishes all at once. Synn rushes to Paige's side, kneels next to her, and lifts her head off the cold stone.
Synn: Wake up! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!
(Five minutes later)
Paige opens her eyes slowly. Synn's skull hovers above her, and even without a face, she somehow looks worried. She's holding Paige as carefully as if she were made of glass.
Paige: Why... did you get so mad about it?
Synn doesn't answer right away. She helps Paige sit up, then guides her back onto the chair, keeping one hand on her shoulder the whole time, as if she's afraid Paige might fall again. She picks up the notebook from the floor, brushes it off, and sets it gently in Paige's lap.
Then she walks to the other side of the room, where a small iron kettle sits on a stove built into the rock wall. She fills it with water and lights the fire underneath. Her back is turned to Paige, but when she speaks, her voice is steady again.
(Synn sighs.)
Synn: I got mad because that church is the reason we creatures live in the Underground.
Paige doesn't know what to say to that, so she doesn't say anything. She watches Synn take a jar down from one of the shelves and shake a handful of small dried flowers into her palm. Their petals are thin and pale, almost like paper.
When the water starts to bubble, Synn drops the flowers into the kettle. Almost at once, a soft light spreads through the water. By the time she pours it into two cups, the tea is glowing, pale and gentle, like moonlight caught in a cup.
Synn sets one in front of Paige.
Synn: Drink. It'll help.
Paige wraps both hands around the cup. It's warm, and the glow from the tea flickers across her fingers. She hesitates, then takes a small sip.
It tastes sweet, like honey, with something fresh underneath. The warmth spreads from her chest all the way down to her toes, and for the first time since she woke up, her legs stop shaking.
Paige: This is... really good. What is it?
Synn: Tea. It's made from a flower that grows here in the caves.
Paige looks down at the glowing cup, then back up at Synn. She has a hundred questions again, but one keeps pushing its way to the front.
Paige: How do you know all of this? About the church, and... everything?
Synn is quiet for a long moment. She sits down in the chair across from Paige, holding her own cup without drinking from it.
Synn: My father told me.
She turns the cup slowly in her hands.
Synn: My grandmother fought in the war against the humans. So did my mother. And so did my father. He was the only one who came back.
Paige's breath catches in her throat.
Synn: He came back badly wounded. He knew he didn't have much time left, so he sat me down, right here in this house, and told me everything. The whole story, from the beginning. A few days later, he was gone.
Paige: I'm... I'm sorry.
Synn: It was a long time ago.
But the way she says it makes it sound like it wasn't long ago at all.
Paige sets her cup down and opens her notebook to a clean page. Her pencil hovers over the paper.
Paige: Can I... write it down? While you tell me?
Synn looks at the notebook, then at Paige. Something in the way she sits softens.
Synn: If you want.
So Synn tells her.
Synn: A long time ago, humans and creatures lived together on the surface. Not always in peace, but together. We traded with each other. We shared the same forests and the same rivers. Some of us were even friends.
Paige writes as fast as she can: Humans and creatures lived together. On the surface. Some were friends.
Synn: Then the Old Father Church of Dymologic began to preach that creatures were dangerous. They said we killed humans when no one was looking. That we waited in the dark until someone was alone, and then we struck. Every time someone went missing, every time someone got hurt in the woods, the church said it was us.
Paige's pencil stops.
Paige: Was any of it true?
Synn: No. We never did anything like that. It was a lie.
Her voice doesn't rise this time, but her grip on the cup tightens. The candle flame flickers, just once, and then goes still.
Synn: But it didn't matter that it was a lie. People were scared, and fear spreads faster than the truth ever could. Our neighbors stopped talking to us. Then they stopped trading with us. And then they picked up weapons.
She pauses, staring down into her cup.
Synn: That's how the war started. Not because of anything we did, but because of what they believed we did.
Paige writes it down, word by word. Her handwriting, usually so neat, comes out a little shaky.
Synn: We lost. When it was over, the ones who survived were driven down here, into the Underground. We've been here ever since.
Paige: And the church?
Synn: The church made sure no one would remember. They turned our history into a fairy tale, something parents tell their kids so they'll stay out of the woods after dark. After enough years, every human who lived through it was gone, and the story was all that was left.
Paige looks down at the last line she wrote: Turned into a fairy tale to scare kids. The same words she said to Synn only a little while ago. Her stomach twists.
For a while, neither of them says anything. The candle flickers. Somewhere deep in the walls, water drips, slow and steady. The tea in Paige's cup has stopped steaming, but it still glows softly.
Paige remembers the story now, the way everyone in town knows it. If you wander into the woods alone after dark, the creatures from under the mountain will get you. They wait until no one is looking. Then you're gone, and no one ever finds you. Kids tell it to each other at sleepovers, and parents use it to make sure everyone is home before the sun goes down.
Paige heard it for the first time when she was little, and for weeks she was too scared to look out her window at night. She never once wondered where the story came from. Nobody did.
There's one more question in her head, but she can't make herself ask it. If humans did all of that... does Synn hate them? Does she hate her?
In the end, Synn is the one who breaks the silence.
Synn: Why do you write everything down?
Paige looks at the pages in front of her, full of Synn's words in her own handwriting.
Paige: So I don't forget. When I write something down, it stays. Even if everyone else forgets it, it's still there, on the page.
Synn doesn't answer. She just looks at the notebook for a long moment, as if she's seeing it for the first time. Then she nods slowly, once. Paige isn't sure what that nod means, but it doesn't feel like a bad thing.
Paige flips back through her notes to make sure she didn't miss anything. As she turns the pages, the notebook falls open on the table between them, right to the page with the rabbit.
Synn leans forward a little.
Synn: Did you draw that?
Paige: Oh... yes. Earlier today, in the forest. Before... all of this.
Synn looks at the drawing for a long time. Then she does something Paige didn't know a skeleton could do: she smiles.
Paige can't explain how, exactly. Synn's skull doesn't really change. But it's there, in the way her shoulders relax and her head tilts toward the page. Paige is sure of it.
Synn: It's cute. It looks like it's about to hop right off the page.
She reaches out with one bony finger, almost touching the paper, then stops, as if she's afraid to smudge it.
Paige feels her cheeks warm up. At school, nobody ever asks what she's drawing. Most people don't even notice she's drawing at all.
Paige: Thank you.
Synn: I just realized something. I told you my name, but I never asked for yours.
Paige: Oh. It's Paige.
Synn: Paige.
She says it slowly, like she's trying it out, the same way Paige keeps turning the word Underground over in her head.
Synn: It's nice to meet you, Paige.
Paige: It's nice to meet you too, Synn.
It's the first time she has said Synn's name out loud. It feels strange and nice at the same time.
Something about the way Synn says her name makes the question in Paige's head feel a little smaller.
She leaves the notebook open on the table, the rabbit facing up, and picks up her cup again. The tea is cooler now, but it still tastes sweet.
From her chair, she can see down the short hallway. Past the bedroom she woke up in, there's another door. It's closed, and something about it makes Paige think it hasn't been opened in a long time. She doesn't ask about it.
It's quiet here, she realizes. Really quiet. No shouting. No whistles. No whispering in groups. Not the heavy kind of quiet from before, when she couldn't breathe, but the soft kind. The kind she spent the whole day looking for.
For the first time since she fell, Paige feels almost calm.
Then—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three slow, heavy knocks shake the front door. The sound is hard, almost like metal against wood.
Synn freezes, her cup halfway to the table.
For a moment, nobody moves. Not Paige. Not Synn. Not even the candle flame.
Paige's heart starts pounding again. Nobody knows she's down here. Nobody from up there, anyway. So who could be knocking?
Paige looks at the door. Then at Synn.
Synn is already looking at her.