What Feeds Below

The man’s lips have been ripped from his face, his teeth bared in a terrible grin. Blood oozes from the mangled flesh where his right hand should be. I wince. Which creature could it have been? The stringy bits of tissue make it hard to identify specific teeth marks. Any predator in the Second Layer or deeper could’ve done that, really.

‍

“What do you think got him?” I ask Jade.

‍

“Stupidity.” She pops her bubble gum.

‍

I shield my eyes from the early morning sun, searching for this man’s guide. I want to ask what went wrong so I can add his misstep to my ever-growing list of “Things Not to Do in the Void,” but no one’s claiming the lipless man. He didn’t go into the Void alone, did he?

‍

The rescuers heave his body onto a tarp to carry him away from the mist of the First Layer and toward the nearby crematorium.

‍

“Any chance we can save him?” one of the medics asks his colleague.

‍

The other medic shakes his head. “We lost his pulse a minute ago. Looks like the poor bastard went in by himself. Barely made it halfway through the Second Layer.”

‍

Jade and I give each other a look.

‍

“Told you,” she says.

‍

The medics pass by us with the corpse, the rank stench of shit and piss souring the air. I itch the raised scar on my calf from the time I was bit by a cavetrapper. Jade and I are skilled Void divers with more than a thousand climbing, hiking, and caving hours in the Void’s upper layers, but still…each time we take a job, we’re one wrong step away from suffering the same fate.

‍

Jade reads my expression. “If you’re scared of that happening to us, don’t worry. We know what we’re doing, and more importantly, we have each other.”

‍

I nod. “I’ll always get you back to the top.” It’s been our saying since our first Void dive together five years ago. We’re best friends, practically sisters, and dive partners—for life. No matter what, Jade and I will always make sure the other returns to the surface.