I looked around for Charm to see her on her butt looking at the ceiling in awe and confusion. 

I went over and held out a hand for her, partially relieved and another emotion crept up as she took it. The cave itself wasn't that bad from what could be seen so far: giant stalactites and stalagmites were lined with glowing moss allowing us to see the general lay out of the area, the room was circular and roomy, and there were several areas and holes that we could use to hide in if the need arose. We were lucky; There was an equal chance one of us could've landed on one of those spikes in any way to injure or kill as there was we could've landed on the floor and broken something or have been fine. 

"Are you alright Charm?" I asked and she rubbed her butt as she stood up and looked around in awe, apparently not even aware of the danger that we had been and currently were in. "I'll take that as a yes." I moved to one of the moss covered stalagmites and inspected the surface. I looked around for something that I could touch it with and found a rock about a meter away from the formation. 

I went over and picked it up before tossing it over to the stalagmite and breathing with relief when nothing came roaring or crawling as the rock bounced harmlessly off of the formation and back onto the ground, the moss glowing a bit around the areas the rock traveled. I looked around for Charm and saw that she was looking into one of the many holes leading out of the cave, and I quietly went over to her and gently kept her away from it. 

"Don't go staring into some random holes." I growled pulling her away from the edge, "We don't know what kinds of creatures are in this world, nor how to kill them should we encounter anything."

"S-sorry" She whispered and I sighed, bringing her to the middle of the cave where there was no moss or other things that could potentially kill us. 

"Right now, we need to rest and this seems to be the best place to do so, but were gonna have to be close to each other the entire night okay." I said and she looked down and nodded. I sat on the ground and lay on my back with my hands behind my head to look at the ceiling. "We're gonna need to sleep next to each other just in case the temperature in the cave gets colder and it also helps to stick together anyways just in case." I looked at her, thankfully she was wearing long pants because otherwise I would've had a very good view of her underneath. 

She knelt down at my side before settling against my left side and putting her head on my chest. 

"Goodnight Charm." I said watching as she closed her eyes for the night.

"Goodnight Jo." She whispered and then everything was quiet. 

I woke up to the feeling of being crushed underneath something, and took a moment when I saw was the light of the moss covered cave formations. We're still here huh? I looked down I saw that Charm had somehow fully draped herself on-top of me sleeping rather peacefully. One of her legs was in-between mine and the other was over my left leg, her head rested on my chest, and her arms were hugging my sides tightly, one arm included. I didn't wake her up just yet, but eventually the need to go the bathroom overrode my will to stay still and I shook her shoulder a little to get her started. 

She awoke with a cute mumble and opened her eyes to see me staring at her from where she was on my chest, and then she looked down at where she was sleeping and in a blink she was standing up with her back to me and her face buried in her hands. Her head shaking from side to side as she calmed down, she looked back at me for a moment before snapping back to looking at the floor in front of her. 

"Do you need to go to the bathroom?" I asked getting up and she seemed to want to shake her head 'no', but eventually nodded and I chuckled at her. "I do too, and no we don't have to stick together for that, but just stay close, just in case okay?" She nodded and walked to the opposite side of the cave without warning, and with that side taken I chose the opposite side to relieve myself. 

After we had gone to the bathroom in our respective areas we both met back in the middle, and as soon as she saw me looking at her she immediately looked away and her face turned red. I sighed and looked around at the series of holes lining the walls, all of them were dark and  all of them were dark except for one, that one had a faint sliver of light coming from the other side. The same color at the moss in our room. Better go somewhere where there's light than go through something dark right? I looked back at her and then pointed to the hole I was at. 

"I'm going to go and check out this hole real quick, there's a light coming from the other side and I want to know if it's safe for us. Can you stay here while I do this?" I asked picking up a lighter colored rock to mark the walls just in case I lost which hole I had gone through, and another rock to throw out as a test. 

"Wait!" She whisper-yelled coming up and grabbing my arm, "I don't want to be left alone down here."

"Don't worry." I said turning to her and grabbing her hands, "I just want to look around a bit. I won't even leave the hole until I know that it's safe okay."

"Okay." She said looking conflicted and I nodded climbing into the hole where the light was coming through. It was wide enough for me to crawl through without trouble, on my stomach anyways, hopefully there wasn't anything sharp in here, nor anything venomous. I also hoped that if there was something on the other side, that it wasn't small enough to come through after me. 

When I reached the end of the hole I stayed in the darkness just in case there was something that had smelled me coming and was waiting for me to poke out so that it could take me the rest of the way and finish me off.

I slowly inched forwards and then turned and peeked upwards before looking around and from what I could see nothing was there, but the uneasiness in my chest hadn't gone away yet. I was scared, and I knew it, but I didn't want to show it for the fear of letting down Charm, and for alerting something that could sense our location through sound or something. Nothing's found us yet and I could tell that Charm was scared out of her mind even without that potential threat looming over us. I looked around from the hole and saw that there was an archway tall enough to walk through at full height and some strange symbols. A path! That must be a way to get our of here, or at least something that we could follow to potentially get to the surface. 

I kept my promise and didn't leave the hole, but it was difficult shuffling backwards to our cave, where Charm was waiting, and when I was fully out of the hole she jumped at me enveloping me in a hug embodying that of Death itself. 

"It's okay, it's okay." I said patting her head as she buried her head in my chest and gripped my sides tightly, "Don't worry I may have seen a way out of here, we both are going to be leaving her eventually, and nothing it going to stop me from making sure we do." I looked down at her and sighed. 

"Is it safe?" She whispered. She said it so quietly that I wouldn't have heard her if it wasn't so quiet in here already. 

"Yeah from what I could tell it was, but just to be sure I'm still going through first, and once I'm through I'll help you through as well." I said, "We need to find food and water soon, preferably water sooner and maybe find a way to store it as well." 

"Okay." She breathed and I smiled and squeezed her tighter to try and relieve her freight and when she was ready we separated and I brought her over to the hole. 

"Good." I turned to the hole again and looked back at her, "I will go first, grab my legs if you need help getting into the hole. I will not be able to turn around once I go in, so once we're in it's all or nothing okay?" I said and she nodded. 

"I'll be strong enough" she said, "I'm not some weak little girl anymore." That last part seemed like she was trying to convince herself of it more so than me. 

"I know." I said with a knowing smirk and climbed into the hole. I crawled forwards at a steady pace while she shuffled behind me. I wasn't able to look back or under due to how cramped the hole was already so I had to trust that she was able to move fine. The tunnel itself was actually strangely smooth, even through there were plenty of handholds and grooves nothing was actually sharp. I started forwards and stopped just before the entrance into the other cave and looked around once again to make sure that we were actually safe and crawled through. 

When I was out I helped Charm out and to her feet. She thanked me and stood trembling less than before and I held out a hand for her as comfort, and she readily grabbed it as we both examined the room. Each room that we went was a mystery, every step we took may lead us closer to death or freedom. It was quite scary but it was also very thrilling. The fear of what was to come was fading away into anticipation. 

I took a step forward leading Charm as I went and the first thing I did was grab the lighter rock and mark the wall where the hole was to the before safe area. A large white X marking the wall just in case we or anyone else came through here. The walls looked stronger than normal and while I would like to test that we lacked metal tools, and there weren't really any laying around either. 

I went over to the archway and as soon as I stepped through the tunnel's walls lit up with fire that seemed to stretch far into the distance. The fire wasn't even torches that I could grab, no it seemed to be a crack in the wall that held the fire within. Spitting out heat and embers every few seconds. Great, now we had to walk down some seemingly endless tunnel that probably held a stupid amount of dangers. As I lead Charm down the tunnel she gripped my hand tighter and growled to herself.

"What am I doing?" She muttered and I stopped.

"What do you mean?" I asked looking at her confused. 

"I don't know what's happened to me. I have never cared about how dangerous something was before and my parents always praised me for being such a 'strong girl that people can look up to', but look at me now! I can't even walk down a dam tunnel by myself without needing someone to lead me along!" She growled but I just smiled and pulled her into a hug. 

"You don't need to act strong to be strong Charm." I said, "We haven't had much time to actually relax and take everything in since we got here. This is a different world entirely and new world or not all we can do is move forwards and learn along the way." I smiled and looked down the tunnel. 

"So what do you say. You want to join me on an adventure?" I looked down at Charm who looked up to meet my eyes, and she nodded but didn't say anything as I continued on, still leading her on while she processed it all. 

"How are you so strong?" She mumbled. A question that I could not hear.