Chapter One: The Fall

The day that Jean’s life changed forever, the sky was a blanket of gray and the snow was so thick that it made all of nature silent.  The cold haze of flakes had been falling for two hours before Jean had woken up, so it had had a chance to cover the world before she could see it in the stages where the grass still poked up feebly through the carpet of blinding white.  No, Jean’s world was a pure, beautiful place when she stepped out that morning in her pajama shirt and pants covered by an overlarge coat snatched hastily as she rushed outside to explore.  Her feet sat bare in old hiking boots, the laces dragging gently through the snow with every step.
Upon later inspection, the footprints that marked a solitary path on the perfect winter morning wound around in waving paths through the field in Jean’s backyard, as though she had been wandering aimlessly, gazing at the sky.  This was not uncommon for the girl, who loved nature more than anything else in the world.  She ignored the chilliness: it was not an icy, biting cold, but rather a smooth, pleasant cool that drifted down with the flakes.  The trees held piles of the snow gently in their huge branches that day as Jean made her way deep into their numbers, touching trunks lightly as she passed as though walking into a crowd of close friends.

Rabbits darted out from behind bushes as she made her way along, leaving their own, lighter prints in the fresh newness that the morning had brought them.  Jean was not paying attention to where she was going at all; at that particular moment, she felt more like observing one of her favorite elements than keep an eye out for the stake with the worn orange tag on it that marked the edge of her parents’ property.  It was only when her left boot came down on a snow-covered glass bottle that she realized that she had crossed the line.  She looked around, but didn’t recognize many of the trees here.  She was about to turn and retrace her boot-prints when something caught her eye.

It looked like either a very small dump of a very large trash pile.  Most of it was covered by snow, but Jean could make out the outlines of what looked like tires, taken off of something and piled haphazardly.  Nearby was something that looked vaguely like part of an engine, and a few feet from that was half a bathtub.  Barrels made of steel lay all over, rusted and empty, and a rotted mattress that really only had the springs left was under a tree.  In the middle of the whole mess was a tractor’s midsection, the seat and tires gone, but a large and strange chunk of metal left, its eaten shape resting atop a mountain of dented coffee cans and pieces of a folding chair.  The teenager frowned, puzzled, and took a few steps closer to this fallen beast.

Jean stretched out an arm, then a finger, grazing the cold, rough metal with only the tip.  Curiously, she stepped forward again, having to climb over a rubber boot and onto a trellis.  Wanting to see what was on the other side of the pile but not wanting to go all the way around, Jean put two palms flat on top of the tractor carcass, pushing herself up to get on top of the thing.  Her weight had just transferred and her feet had left the ground slightly in her small jump when the whole pile collapsed downward, snow flying everywhere, confusion and panic dominating Jean’s mind as she plummeted.  A jolt of pain, then another, and that horrible, sickening feeling of falling, and then everything was still.
Jean opened her eyes.  She could hardly see a thing with all of the junk that had fallen on her with the tumble.

Wait a moment, here, she thought suddenly.  I was only a foot or so off of the ground.  Why did I fall so far if-?

Panic overtook her once again as she shoved the discarded bits of stuff off her chest.  Luckily, there wasn’t very much, just a thin combination of snow and a very old piece of tarp.  She sat up quickly and put one hand back for balance, immediately regretting it as a shard of glass pierced her palm.  Light blinded her as she looked up through what seemed to be a hole in the suddenly dark sky.  Or was it-

A hole.  In the ground.  I fell through the ground.

Disbelief clouded her as she stood gingerly, holding her bloody hand aloft.  No bones seemed to be broken, but in a distant sort of way, her left arm and leg throbbed.  I don’t believe it, she moaned mentally.  How did this happen?  Junk piles don’t just cave into the ground like this.

But it was so.  The trash was heaped around her exactly where it had fallen, the hunk of tractor only yards from where Jean had been lying.  She shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if it had landed on top of her.

“It would have crushed me.  That’s what would have happened.”  Fear gripped her as she looked around at the sides.  She was in a sort of tunnel, dug roughly and widely.  Looking to either side, Jean saw that she was by a dead end.  The end that continued on was black and utterly lifeless.  She looked up at the hole again.  It had to be almost twenty feet up to the ripped earth that marked the edges of the hole.  This was definitely too far to jump, and the biggest piece of junk there- the chunk of tractor- was not positioned in a way that would get her anywhere near close enough.  It seemed so close!  Jean squinted up one last time desperately, eyes peeled for anything that could help her.  It was then that she noticed the mist for the first time.  It was a pale gray, only a little darker than the sky, and it covered the space where the ground had been before it had broken away and fallen.  Jean stared at it for a moment, wondering if she had hit her head on something hard, when she heard a noise.  It was like soft voices, although she couldn’t discern what they were saying.  Up until now Jean had been thinking that perhaps a very large animal had dug this tunnel, but it occurred to her that this could be for pipes or some construction project in town.  She picked her way through the snow and trash, picking a pole up that may have been a part of a chair along the way.  She stopped at the edge of where the sunlight fell from the hole, trying to see into the deep darkness.  Her eyes had adjusted slightly in the past few minutes, so she could see a little bit, but it was still mostly darkness.  She eased herself forward a little, the pole held in her good hand, and then scooted forward a foot or two more.  The bottom of the tunnel was packed dirt, damp but solid, and completely bare of anything besides the junk from the fall.

She listened once again, straining.  Nothing.  Visions of the workers leaving or moving deeper into the strange tunnel crossed her mind, and she began to jog, not seeing anything because it was so very dark.  She had gone a hundred feet or so when she stopped, listening intently.  Was that scuffling?  Jean took another step forward.  It had to be, but it sounded like it was coming from in front of her and below, not just in front of her-

She took one more step forward, and for the second time that day she fell.  It wasn’t like before: there was simply no ground where she put her foot.  The pole flew out of her hand as she dropped and hit the ground hard.  She barely had time to groan and put a hand to her left shoulder before something had hold of her leg.  She screamed and twisted, reaching out in the dark for her attacker, wishing that the pole had stayed in her grip.  Her fingers grazed something very alive, and she dove for it as well as she could with one leg being held onto.  Jean flailed wildly, hands rolled into fists, and connected with something.  A voice spoke from behind her.

“Quit moving, Sunsie, or I’ll lay your head open.”

“I- I…  What?”  Jean was taken aback at both the voice and being called a…  what?
“I said, just quiet down and we’ll take care of ya quickly.  We promise not to kill ya yet, filth.”

Completely bewildered, Jean stopped jerking around for the moment.  “What did you call me before?”

“Don’t play dumb.  Ya should know not to with the likes of us.  Knocking out lanterns… stupid kid.”

Jean opened her mouth to protest that she had no idea what he was talking about, but before any words could come out, a cloth was stuffed into her mouth and she was dragged to her feet, her wrists gripped tightly by a strong set of hands behind her back.  Jean struggled helplessly as two sets of hands pushed and pulled her through the tunnel.  She quickly lost track of time and distance.  All she could hear was the somewhat ragged breathing of the two men yanking her along.  Her mind jumped all over the place, remembering every terrible news story on kidnap she had ever seen and then searching for a way out of this, but she could think of nothing.  She was in a tunnel where she couldn’t see anything, she was overpowered, and she had lost her only weapon.  Also, her hand was bleeding freely and her whole left side hurt from falling on it- twice.  Her heart pounded as she realized that she couldn’t do anything about her situation at the moment.

Fortunately, Jean did not have to stay in this state for very long.  The men came to a sudden halt and she heard one of them open a door.

A very dim light fell through the doorway and into the tunnel, making Jean squint.  She was shoved into a small room with wooden planks stood floor to ceiling as the walls.  A table was in the center of the room, with a few chairs grouped around it.  Jean could see very little else, as it was so dark and shadows were cast on everything.  She thought she could make out a door in the back corner, but before she could take a closer look, the person behind her that was gripping her wrists turned her around roughly.

“Well, I’ll be.”

There was a long silence.  Jean could not see any of their faces for all of the shadow, but apparently they could see her, because they stood completely motionless.

“Is it…”  The voice trailed off.

“This isn’t a Sunsie.”

“No kidding, egg brains.”

“How did it get in?”

“Never mind that; what do we DO with it?  It can’t just stay here.”

Jean reached up tentatively, then, when no one stopped her, pulled the cloth out of her mouth and dropped it on the floor.  “Just what exactly is a Sunsie?” she asked, pulling her coat around her tightly.  “Because I’m pretty sure I’m not one.  Whatever they are.”

“You don’t have any idea where you are, do you?”  One of the figures stepped forward.

“I think that’s the second time you people have refused to tell me what a Sunsie…”  Words escaped her.  The man who had stepped forward had reached up and done something to the light on the ceiling, making it brighter.  Jean’s surroundings were now very visible, and what she saw made her not worry about the door anymore.
The three men were tall.  Each had black hair, one’s sleek, and the other two’s thick and slightly overgrown.  All three of them had skin so pale, so horribly translucent, that she could trace veins beneath the flesh.  And then, their eyes: a deep, charcoal black, no whites and no color, just completely black.  The eyes also seemed tilted in, like a letter V that didn’t meet in the middle.  Finally, something in the proportions of the features of their faces was distinctly abnormal: the eyes were too large and less circular than normal, and seemed more like a stocky pea pod.  The whole effect was extremely alarming.  Jean backed into the wall, her own eyes wide.

“What- I… how…”

“The kid isn’t from here, Vil.”  One of the thick-maned men turned to face the sleek-haired man next to him.  His skin was so pale that Jean could see a vein pulsing in his neck.  She gulped.

“Right.  Uh, human?”  Vil turned his black eyes on her and blinked.  Oh, Lord, she thought.  I can see through his eyelids.  It’s like they’re not there!  “Y-yes?”

“How in hell did you get here?”

Jean stuttered, panicking.  “I- I- here?  I…”  Focus!  “I f-fell.  Through the top of the tunnel.  But it wasn’t the top of the tunnel.  It was the ground…”  As she trailed off, the men looked at each other, their expressions unreadable.  Jean couldn’t help but stare at them.  They were so wrong!

“We’ll have to take her to the Main.  They’ll have to figure out what to do.”

Vil blinked again and then spoke.  “If she tore the barrier somehow, then the backups will have fallen into place.  Crane, you go take a look.”  The man on his left nodded and left the room.  Vil turned to Jean.  “You-“

“Jean.  My name is Jean.”

“Jean, then.  Are you going to make any trouble?  We have no hate for you.  You’re no Sunsie.”

“Will someone PLEASE-“

“Does this mean you’ll make trouble?”

“Only if you try to drag me along again.  I hate that.”

Vil looked at her thoughtfully, and Jean could have sworn that she had seen his mouth twitch.  “Fine.  No dragging.”

They left the room and entered the pitch-black tunnel once again.  The tiny bit of light was barely enough to show that the tunnel was very much like the one she had fallen into earlier: the walls were still rough and made of packed earth, and the floor was bare.  This tunnel seemed narrower, however, and so she went to one wall and placed her hand on it to guide her.  It seemed oddly cold.  The door closed, killing all sight for Jean, and they began to walk.

No one spoke.  Occasionally, Jean would bump into one of the men on accident, but they never even nudged her.  Either they know these tunnels very well, or they can see in the dark, she thought.

After about ten minutes, the tunnel began to curve to the left a little.  As they walked, she began to wonder how it was that no one she knew of had ever broken into the tunnel by accident.  They couldn’t be that far beneath the surface, and the tunnel was very long- how was it that she had never heard of this?

Her thoughts were disturbed when a hand landed on her shoulder very suddenly, making her jump.  “Stop, Jean.  The path lowers here.”

Vil took her wrist and placed her hand on something rough and wooden.  Feeling around, Jean discovered a horizontal dowel- a ladder.  Vil’s voice penetrated the still air once again.  “Be careful not to fall.  The ground stops two hand-spans from your right foot.”

This must be like what I fell down before, she thought as she made her way down the ladder.  Her foot found the dirt floor once again, and she carefully stepped away from the ladder to make way for Vil and the other man.

They walked for another half-hour or so, coming down three more ladders.  As they finished the third, Jean was beginning to wonder just how big the place was when she felt something remarkable- a chilled draft of wind lifted the hem of her coat and raised her spirits drastically.  Going outside meant light.  She found the wall and rushed along it, reaching out with her toe every few feet to check for another sudden drop.  As she hurried down the tunnel, the cool current of air grew stronger.  It wasn’t like wind, exactly- it was more like the breeze one feels when someone runs past.  Jean strained her eyes until she could see a faint, weak light further along the tunnel.  Exhilarated, Jean kept her hand on the wall and sprinted forward, throwing herself through  an arch made of rough boards.

Her heart stopped.

She had not, as she had thought, come out into some small cave connected to the outside.  Laid out before her was a city, impossibly huge, stretching far out of sight.  She looked up and could barely see the top.  It was not any sky at all, but a half-rock, half-dirt domed ceiling.  The buildings of the city seemed to be made of a combination of roughly carved stone and dirt packed into bricks although it was hard to tell from so far up.  People- or, to be precise, beings like the creatures she had met in the tunnel- surged through the flat, graveled streets.  The whole effect was rather like being in the highest box in an impossibly massive theater looking down on a bizarre play.  Everywhere she looked, she saw squat, earthy buildings and pale, black-eyed people.  She could do nothing but stare as she sensed Vil and the other man coming up behind her.

“Not what you expected.”  The words formed the statement softly, gently.  Vil knew that she was paralyzed with shock, and pity was apparent on his inhuman features.  Unable to create words of her own, she simply nodded and stared, eyes roving at the impossible sight.  The light, pale and strangled, added to the unreality.  She wanted to look away, to ask what this was, but the need to gaze at this bizarre wonder dominated her urge to understand.  The seconds passed silently.

“Jean, if you will follow me, I will take you to the Main.”  Vil began to move, breaking her shocked stare.  She tore her eyes from the city and turned to follow him.  A set of stone steps back by the entrance to the tunnel led down along an earth wall.  She followed, her mind racing.  Who were these people?  How long had the city been there, and why was it built?  And most of all, where was she?  Questions chased each other through her mind as she came down the stairs, a new thought igniting a new possibility with every step.

It came to her attention that they had reached the bottom of the staircase.  The hulking back wall of a building blocked her view of the city and the people in it, but the sight seemed burned into her eyes.  She could still see the winding roads, the mass movement of so many people…

“This way,” Vil called.  He was far enough ahead that she could not hear what he was saying to the other man; they seemed to be arguing.  Jean knew that it was probably about her and stayed far enough back that it didn’t seem like she should be able to hear, then strained to catch every word.

“… can’t stay here, she’s so far from-“

“She has to,” Vil interjected sharply.  “The world-workers will have to find her a way out, and that will take ages.”

“She doesn’t exactly blend in!”

“Well, good thing we’re not trying to hide her, then.”

“Once they see her, there will be chaos.  She looks like a Sunsie at first; you can’t deny it!  We have the best dark-sight of anyone, and we thought she was one of them.”

“We’ll have to be discreet until we get there, obviously, but once the word is out, I don’t see the problem.”

“There will be some prejudices, Vil!”  The man looked very uncomfortable and agitated.  “People will not allow-“

“Or you will not allow?”  Vil gave him a hard look.  “She is not a Sunsie.  She is a human.”

The other man glowered for a moment, a very bright barn-red color apparent on his cheeks beneath the nearly transparent skin.  Then his expression changed to something like pleading.  “She resembles them very much, doesn’t she?”

Vil paused.  “Yes.  She does.”

They were not speaking any more.  The silence was needed, however, as Jean began to process what had been said.  Another phrase that confused her: world-worker.  They seemed to be associated with the gray mist that had been above her, if that was the barrier they had been talking about.  The barrier that she had broken.  What did that mean?  Had she fallen into another world?  It was all too easy to believe, considering the whole matter of the underground city and the transparent people.  And there was that word again- “Sunsie.”  They really seemed to hate these people.  They think that I look like one of them, too!  she thought.  It figures.  I happen upon an alternate universe, if that’s what this is, and they all hate me.