[@ImportantNobody]

[i]Suliss raised his left forearm in a futile attempt to ward off Evvie's blow, only to feel the bone break in two. He was driven to his knees, yowling like a pissed off alley cat. A peak human could surely offer double the charge of a normal one. He had the capacity to initiate the spell, but...

An inky fluttering of doubt. Suliss felt a sodden weight in his chest, a sharp twinge of anxiety. Too late. He thrust his right fist into the ground, grinding dead leaves into the soil. The spell was released, the meaty tendrils multiplying to encompass what blood of Evvie's had fallen. [/i]

[color=9e0b0f][b]*CRACK*[/b][/color]

[i]Between Suliss and Ombard, a crevasse six feet long and four feet wide split the earth. Suliss reeled onto his back, legs kicking and feet shoving in a desperate bid to get as much distance between him and the hole as possible. He had nearly fallen in. A plume of dust exhaled from the crevasse, as if from a chest in an attic left shut for decades. Great flocks of birds scattered into silence, until there was nothing to hear but the tepid shifting of tree leaves in the breeze. 

In close proximity to the crevasse, Ombard might feel a steady, ice cold wind churning out of the black, the subterranean current creating a faint Coke bottle whistle as it gently tousled his hair. The tangy odor of mildew mingled with the oozing sweetness of a putrifying wound. Echoes so distant and dim that they could have been mistaken for tricks of the imagination trickled through the damp nether. They could have been cries, they could have been laughter, they could have been human. Out in the sticks, boys explore. It's what they do. They adventure, following wherever a fancy may lead. Out into vacant lots, under railways and through the boonies. Sometimes boys find small caves and cracks large enough to crawl through. They are hidey holes, but few boys hide in them. Always, the reason is because the possibility exists that the hidey hole is occupied. Cougars? Snakes? Yes, very often that's the case.

Sometimes, though, just sometimes...

There might be a hidey hole that wasn't there before, or isn't there anymore. One that travels. An opening to another place, a lonely place. It has an allure to it, an obvious one. An unsettling mystery that begs to be solved. One strong enough to provoke a response from even the most tame of children. Ombard in his simplicity might feel it tugging at his heart, a morbid curiosity calling him by name. It was still close to evening, the sun not yet risen over the treeline. If one had exceptional eyes, though, that might not stop them from vaguely deciphering a view into the crevasse. 

Brown and yellow mounds of what appeared to be glistening sticks and rocks, well over a hundred feet below. [/i]