Bioluminescence
A fantasy short story
This story is also available in my anthology Word Associations Ultimate.
Reminder that I’m also accepting requests for art commissions. Please see this post for details!
Jared lifted himself off the ground. His leg ached, and his elbow stung, and he was sitting on top of a huge pile of dirt. Light and leaves and soil poured on his head from the hole above him, and even if he wasn't the shortest kid at camp, it would have been too high for him to reach. He and some friends had been roaming through the woods, when all of a sudden everything just dropped out from under him. He checked all his limbs and joints, and fortunately none of them were broken, though he did have a scrape painting half his forearm red.
Someone was groaning beside him. Lola sat up, rubbing her head, her arms and legs covered with smudges and scratches. Dirt and mud had also smeared on her Camp Sasquatch T-shirt. "Ugh, what happened?"
"Hey, are you two okay?" Mikhail called from above, his head a giant sunspot breaking the shine in the hole. "Want me to get one of the counselors?"
"I think we're okay," Jared said. "We're still in one piece." He took Lola's hand and pulled her up to her feet. "You all right?"
"I'm fine. But you—your arm!"
He lifted his arm, and found a trickle of blood rolling from the scrape toward his wrist. "I'll be okay, as soon as we get back up."
"If you say so. I think one of us could get up with a boost."
"Right, but how do we get the other one up?" Jared looked around. Everything around was too steep to get a grip or a foothold. In one direction, though, everything faded into darkness, except for a twinge of color out in the distance. "Hey, Mike! You bring a flashlight?"
He did—Mikhail always kept a bag of tools handy in case he got lost—and Jared had him toss the flashlight down. Mikhail also dropped down some disinfectant, gauze, and bandaging for Jared's scrape, and Lola helped put it on.
Jared pointed the beam into the darkness. "Oh wow, it's a whole cave. It just keeps going…" The rocks and soil opened up in front of him, and looked just barely high enough to stand up in. "And there's something down there." He started down the tunnel.
Lola grabbed his shoulder. "What do you think you're doing? Since when are you a spelunker? You can't go exploring a cave you've never been to before!"
"It doesn't look that far," Jared said. "I can go check and be back in a flash."
"There's not even an adult around. Nobody knows we're here! Let's get up topside and find a counselor and they can figure out what's down here."
"Are you kidding? This could be an important discovery. I'm not letting them take the credit."
"What if there's a pit? Or something poisonous? Or—"
There was a draft from deeper in the cave, and a scattering of leaves came with it, scratching along the ground. They were all red and gold and brown as autumn.
"How do you think they got down there?" Lola said.
"There must be another hole that way," Jared said. "Which means there might be another way up."
Lola put her hands on her hips and sighed in a way that said she knew he was right. "Mikhail, we're gonna explore a minute. Keep an eye on things, okay?"
"Wait, what? But what about the counselors? It's not safe down there!"
"We'll be careful!" Jared said, and he and Lola followed the flashlight beam into the cave. More leaves lay in thin piles under their feet. As the ground began to slope down beneath them, they heard something hit the ground behind.
"Wait for me!" Mikhail said as he caught up with them, his supply bag slung over his shoulder.
"What is wrong with you?" Lola said. "Somebody has to stay to help us back up!"
"We can still do that," Mikhail said. "Two of us can lift the third person up, then they can pull someone else, and the third can wait until we get a counselor. It's just you've got my flashlight, and I need to make sure you don't lose it."
Jared rattled the light. "Oh come on, this thing probably cost fifteen bucks, tops."
Mikhail patted his bag. "Everything in here was a birthday present from my Papi. Anything happens to it, you're replacing it."
"Oh for the love of… fine," Lola said. "It's probably safer with more people, anyway."
Mikhail took out his compass, whose marks were glow-in-the-dark, meaning he didn't necessarily need the flashlight to see them. The tunnel was deeper than Jared had thought, but he kept going regardless. Occasionally he and the others had to swerve around stalagmites and duck under stalactites, or step down from a ledge or hold on to the wall when the floor slanted. But soon the walls widened, and the ceiling heightened, and the light ahead brightened.
The light came from mushrooms that grew along the walls of the tunnel and glowed a bright green, bright enough that the kids almost didn't need the flashlight.
"Bioluminescent," Mikhail said. "They make their own light, just like fireflies. I didn't know we had that kind of mushroom around here."
"You think that's what's glowing up ahead?" Jared said.
"It'd have to be a lot of mushrooms," Mikhail said, "but it's possible."
"So if the mushrooms glow by themselves," Lola said, "what's going on with the leaves?"
Jared pointed the flashlight down, not that it added anything. He'd seen exactly what Lola had seen, and had just assumed his eyes were playing tricks on him. But the leaves were glowing—not as bright as the mushrooms, but glowing nonetheless with a soft paleness, like the fading burn in a bulb that's just been put out.
"That shouldn't be possible," Mikhail said, picking one up. "Plants aren't bioluminescent. Scientists have to genetically engineer those."
"Plus," Lola said, "aren't leaves dead? Can dead things bioluminate?"
"It could be something from the mushrooms that got all over them. Or leftover juice from whatever plant they came from. Or it could be something else."
"So what you're saying is, there's something weird down here," Jared said. "And it's something nobody's ever seen before. Sounds good to me! Who wants to go revolutionize science?"
Lola and Mikhail both halfheartedly went "Yeah" and followed Jared onward.
The walls spread out, and the kids found themselves in a vaulted chamber as vast as a football stadium. Wind blew in and echoed from the tunnels, large and small, pocked in the earth all around. Leaves piled around the stalagmites like a Thanksgiving lawn, and mushrooms and other fungi glowed bright as neon lights all over the place. In the center was a tree. Not only did the leaves glow brighter than the mushrooms, but so did the bark, from the branches to the roots, as if a fire blazed inside the tree itself.
"Where are we?" Lola said as they approached the tree.
"Judging by my compass," Mikhail said, "we should be right underneath the ridge behind the main hall. But this cave is way too big to fit under there. This is something you'd see under a mountain."
"And what about the tree?" Jared said. "I guess it wasn't just the mushrooms lighting the leaves up."
"You're right. But that tree! How did it get so big? Even with all this light, it's still not as much as it would get from sunlight."
Lola bent down and plucked one of the brighter leaves off the floor. "So what say we take this back to the camp and show everybody?"
"Works for me," Jared said. "Sounds pretty revolutionary if Mike hasn't heard of it."
They put Lola's leaf, as well as a few others, inside Mikhail's bag for safekeeping.
Just as they were about to head back to the tunnel they'd come from, Jared's foot rammed into a rock, and he dropped the flashlight. The clatter when it hit the ground ricocheted throughout the cave.
Mikhail scooped up the flashlight. "Try and be careful, you blockhead! I told you this was a birthday present, didn't I? You're lucky it's not cracked."
"Okay, I'm sorry, really. You can use it from now—"
A low rumble rattled out of one of the tunnels.
The ground shook.
"What was that?" Jared said. "We didn't wake something up, did we?"
"Whattaya mean 'we'?" Lola said.
The ground shook again.
"Be quiet!" Mikhail said. A slow but steady rhythm pounded on the ground. "It's coming closer."
"Jared, somehow I always knew you'd get me killed," Lola said.
"We only met two weeks ago!" Jared said.
A shadow suddenly filled one of the larger tunnels. A giant shape followed it, and stepped into the chamber. It was a man, or at least seemed like one—its arms were a little too long—and it stood as tall as a cell tower. It wore—or was made of—large iron plates. One plate covered its entire face, with three vertical slits for the eyes.
Jared, Lola, and Mikhail ran to the tree and climbed over one of the roots, big enough for all of them to hide behind it.
The giant paced through the chamber, blocking the way out.
"How're we supposed to get past that thing?" Mikhail said.
"We can do it," Jared said. "That thing's slow, and there's no way it can see too well. Let's just run for it. He won't even notice."
Suddenly, the giant twitched its head a little to the side. It had noticed something moving immediately below it. It stamped its foot on the ground, so fast its leg hardly seemed to move. The ground trembled and the roar echoed as dust rose around his leg. The kids huddled together in each other's arms until the shaking stopped.
"I think he'll notice," Lola said.
The giant rotated its head, its eyes glowing with a harsh red. Whenever it found the source of the noise from earlier, it was probably going to be just as ruthless as it was with whatever it had stepped on. It circled the tree, scanning the ground, as the kids climbed over roots, trying to circle the trunk and stay out of sight.
Until they came face to face with a colossal rat, and all belted out a simultaneous scream—rat included.
The rat scurried off, and the kids clamped on to each other. The rumbling of the giant's footsteps stopped. It was now kneeling right next to the tree. Staring at the three of them.
Jared, Lola, and Mikhail tightened their grips on one another. "It was nice knowing you," Jared said. He thought of his parents back home, his little sisters, his cousins, the friends from the neighborhood he'd never see again. He especially thought about Clarissa, the head counselor, beautiful enough to rival Helen of Troy.
The giant lowered its head toward them. Its hand hovered over them. Any minute now it would come slamming down.
But when the hand came lower, all that happened was that a finger rubbed Jared's head. The skin—if you could call it that—was scratchy, but the giant was keeping the touch light. It then ruffled Mikhail and Lola's hair. It didn't want to hurt them at all.
"We're in luck," Jared said. "It's a friendly giant!"
They drew away from each other, waved up at the giant, and started off toward the tunnel.
The giant's hand chopped down and blocked their way. The other hand did the same behind them, and began to sweep toward them. It pushed them onto the giant's palm, forcing them to pile together among the grooves. The palm was as big as the entire boys' cabin. And it was rising fast, the upward force pinning them down. They couldn't move until the giant was once again standing upright. Not that Jared wanted to. Just the thought of how high he was made him want to puke.
The eyes flickered, and an odd sound came from its faceplate. It was calling something.
Footsteps boomed from the tunnel the giant had come from. A much smaller giant, only a little over half the original's size, trotted out into the chamber. It was followed by another one, just a little smaller. They both looked up at the big giant with respect and awe.
"Those must be its kids," Lola whispered. "This giant's a dad."
"We have to get down." Mikhail was lying face down, his fingers tangled on the back of his head. "I hate heights. If he drops us we're dead."
"We can't afford to panic," Jared said, as his heartbeat went wild. "We can think of something."
The big giant knelt down in front of his children, and showed them what he'd found. They made noises at each other—they were clearly speaking, but not in any language the kids could understand. But even so, Jared could hear the young giants' voices brighten at the sight of him. They must not have ever seen human children before. They must have looked like baby birds to them.
The larger of the two child giants asked the father something, and the big giant approved. The older sibling placed its hands around Lola, and scooped her out of the big one's palm. "Hey! Let me go! Put me down! I wanna go home!"
But it kept her in its palm, about as big as a car, and began petting her.
The big giant lowered his hand down to the smallest one. With its still massive fingers it pinched the back of Mikhail's t-shirt and lifted him up. "Whoa! Hey! Aaaaagh!" His flashlight fell and hit the ground with a thin, distant crack. And he kept screaming until he was in the smaller giant's palm. It wrapped its fingers around him, and rubbed his head so hard it started turning in painful directions. Mikhail stopped screaming, only going "Ow! Quit it!" instead.
Jared was watching all this from the big giant's hand, unable to do anything to help either Lola quaking in the older sibling's hand or Mikhail in the younger sibling's clutches. And all because Jared had gotten pig-headed and wanted to go on an adventure. He wanted to tell them he was sorry, but they probably couldn't even hear him, between their own shouts and the giants' cooing over them.
Even the older sibling seemed to notice how rough the younger one was playing. It tapped the younger one's head, and got it to open its hand, and gave Lola a few pets to show the younger one how it was done. Jared could remember doing something like this with his littlest sister when she got her first kitten.
The older one reached over the father's hand and gave Jared another pat, then the three of them all began to head toward their own tunnel.
So this was it. Jared wouldn't get to be a regular kid anymore. He was just going to be a pet for a bunch of faceless giants, and Lola and Mikhail were coming with him. None of them would ever make it back to camp. They'd never go back home. Never see their families again.
The worst part was, no one would ever know. The camp counselors would call the authorities, there would be a search, and maybe if they were lucky they'd find the hole he'd fallen into. Mom and Dad and his sisters would be sad, and probably even have a funeral for him. And he'd never get a chance to explain what happened, how much he wanted to see them right now, how much he wanted to tell them goodbye.
So he started crying. It came out as a huge, blubbering wail, with tears gushing down to his chin.
The big giant stopped. The child giants stopped as well, and approached for a closer look. Jared took one look at their blank metallic faces, the faces he'd have to see the rest of his life, and his sobbing started all over again.
Lola began to cry, too, in the knife-twisting way only a girl can. Then as if it was contagious, Mikhail started up the waterworks as well.
Jared could tell even from up here that they were faking it—their faces weren't even red and gnarled-up—but would the giants?
The giants looked at each other. The younger one tilted its head, and it made a mournful noise.
The older sibling said something to the big giant.
The big giant nodded.
The older spoke to the younger. The younger stooped down and lowered Mikhail to the ground. The older placed Lola next to him. The big giant lowered his hand and let Jared hop off.
The three giants took a step back, and the older sibling gestured toward them. So they weren't monsters. They'd heard the kids' anguish, and weren't going to take them anywhere they didn't want to go. It was up to the kids to leave.
So Jared and the others headed out toward the tunnel they'd all come from. The giants stayed put. The older giant sibling waved good-bye.
The younger sibling, on the other hand, started chasing after them just as they reached the opening of the tunnel. The kids started running, and the small giant's hand reached in after them. It must have changed its mind. But it could only reach in so far. They were well ahead of its groping fingers.
They went on through the dark tunnel, over ledges and around stalagmites and under stalactites, until they finally reached the hole they'd come from.
Jared boosted Lola onto his shoulders, then the two of them boosted Mikhail out of the hole, where he then pulled Lola up to the surface. That only left Jared at the bottom, too deep for either of them to reach with their arms.
"I'll go find a counselor," Lola said. "You two hang tight in the meantime."
"Sure thing." Mikhail sat down on the rim of the hole as Lola ran off. "I owe you one, buddy. I wouldn't have thought to try crying my way out of that. I felt like a wuss doing it, but it worked like a charm."
"Right," Jared said. "Yeah. Exactly according to plan." Mikhail could think whatever he wanted, as long as they were all far away from those giants. Were those things really under the campground all along? "You don't think the camp's in any danger from those things, do you?"
"I dunno. They were never a problem before. And that cave was so much bigger than it should have been. Maybe there was something in there warping the space around that tree, and those things are actually smaller than they seemed." Mikhail's head wobbled, and he rubbed his temple. "Ugh, I'm still dizzy after all that. I hope I don't have a concussion."
"I'm really sorry, man," Jared said.
"Yeah, well, you can make it up by paying for my flashlight. I dropped it back there."
"You just said you owed me one."
"Two completely different things, Jared."
"Don't make me come up there."