8.

They wandered, small and lost, through the strange stone city.

"I'm thirsty," Luz said. Nowar realized that he was thirsty too, his mouth was as dry as dust. "I know where we can get a drink of water," Luz continued. "Follow me."

She led Nowar around a corner, and down a long narrow street, past a row of tall, blank, faceless buildings that looked sort of like office towers. "It's just past this bridge." Luz said. A dizzying arch spanning the street high above them joined two buildings on opposite sides of the street. Just past the bridge, the street did in fact open up into a square, almost a small park, with low benches and cobblestones, and a little well with a bucket and rope at it's center.

The water was clear, sweet, quenching, and impossibly cold. They drank until their heads hurt from the cold, and then they paused and drank some more. Nowar hadn't realized just how thirsty he was. Finally, they both had enough.

"What's that?!" Luz exclaimed. Nowar looked in the direction she was pointing. He saw a flash of movement in the entryway to one of the tall, narrow building on the edge of the square; a glimpse of something red: his very own backpack.

The deep-down throbbing rumble had been building in intensity while they sat and drank. It suddenly surged, booming so loud that it shook Nowar's teeth and made his eyes hurt and his ears feel thick and tender. He felt the mechanical vibrations all the way through his bones. Then there was a different noise, crashing sound and the sudden acrid smell like fireworks, and a large section of the high bridge fell off, exploding when it hit the street, raising an enormous cloud of dust and pulverized rock.

When the dust had mostly cleared, Nowar saw a small creature pinned under a large piece of rubble in the street. It was a little smaller than a human child, but it was clearly not human. It had short stalks on it's head holding big eyes, grey rubbery skin, and long flexible tentacles where a human's arms and legs would have been. A heavy stone was pressed down on one tentacle, keeping it from escaping. Nearby, on the street, was Nowar's red backpack.

7.

As Nowar stood, hesitating in front of the partially open door, he heard the sound again, a low wet, croaking, noise, almost like someone stifling tears. Nowar took a deep breath, counted to three, and pushed the stone door all the way open, stepping into the shadowy room within.

The place might once of been a restaurant or a meeting hall. There were a number of low, round tables, carved out of what looked like smooth white marble, scattered throughout the room. Stone vessels, cups or vases or goblets, stood on some of the tables. There were no chairs.

A small figure, a human figure, cowered under one of the tables. The child, because it was a small child, small than Nowar, crouched under a table near the center of the room, it's face covered with it's small hands, shoulders quivering.

"Luz?" Nowar recognized the little person. Luz was one of the few kids at Budsurry School who was both younger and smaller than Nowar. She looked up, brown eyes wide and red from crying. Tears had left salty tracks down her flushed cheeks.

"Nowar?" she asked, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing. Her face brightened visibly. "I came down here, and then I couldn't find the tunnel back up, and I got scared, and I'm really hungry." Luz came out from under the table and gave Nowar a big hug. Her cheeks felt wet against his shirt.

"Do you have any food?" Luz asked.

"Something stole my backback that had my lunch inside."

Luz nodded understanding, but Nowar could tell that she was really disappointed. He reach into his pocket and pulled out the ziplock baggy with the three slightly smooshed fig bars inside.

"Here you go," he said, handing the bag to Luz. Her eyes lit up, and a big smile appeared on her face. She hopped happily atop a nearby table and set about cramming fig bars into her mouth.

"Thank you!" Luz finally exclaimed , wiping crumbs from her lips. "Thank you so much Nowar! You're my best friend!"

Nowar felt good. He'd never been anyone's best friend before. But his stomach was still empty, and he wondered where they would find something to eat and to drink, and where the tunnel back up to the surface was.

6.

Suddenly Nowar felt very alone and very hungry and a little bit afraid. Before, he had just been contemplating a snack, but now that his backpack was gone, he found that he was ravenous. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, how long ago? Hours and hours surely.

Nowar wondered if he should just quit this adventure, go back up the tunnel to Budsurry School. He glanced over the parapet down the sheer drop to the grey stone street below. He was just in time to see a small figure carrying his backpack scuttle off into the shadows. It seemed to walk on two legs, it was about the size of a child, but something about the way it moved gave Nowar the distinct impression that it was not human.

Down the long spiral staircase he ran, round and round, as fast as he dared. Hunger was, for now, forgotten. Finally, he was off the stairs, breathing hard, into the dim, empty street. Nowar paused, dizzy and out of breath. Deep, deep in the rock below him, he felt a surge of rumbling from the hidden machinery.

Nowar set off in the direction he'd last seen the small thing, the furtive figure carrying his backpack. Tall grey buildings loomed on either side, and now they felt grim and somehow menacing. Nowar's stomach rumbled: after the initial burst of excitement and curiosity from seeing the strange thieving creature, he was fiercely hungry again. He felt in his pocket and --what luck!-- found a ziplock bag with a few semi-crushed fig newtons inside it. Suddenly he no longer felt quite so small, and the city didn't seem nearly as threatening. Somehow, he felt much braver too.

It was a big strange city too, and it wasn't laid out in a nice orderly grid like Manhattan: it was all twisty and turny, intersecting grey streets that all looked pretty much the same, and tall buildings mostly without feature of distinction. Nowar realized that he might be a little bit lost. He was no longer entirely sure in what direction the road back up to the surface lay.

Then he heard a noise, a small furtive noise from inside a nearby building, otherwise unremarkable, except for the door, which was ajar.

5.

Silence. All around him, the great city was still and silent, looming over Nowar like a deep stone forest. Nowar felt very small and very alone as he explored the strange, silent city. Silent. And yet not precisely silent, not exactly. Deep and low sometimes softer, sometimes a little more intense, Nowar feel, at the bottoms of his feet and in his stomach, he felt rather than heart the thrum and rumble of powerful but distant machinery.

The underground city seemed to be empty. There was no sign of any habitation --and what sort of people would have lived her, so deep in the under dark? There was no sign of life --the everyday things you normally see but don't notice, which tell you that people are around. No cars, no bicycles, no garbage, no posters on the walls, no advertisements, no decoration of any kind, just smooth grey, softly glowing stone. Doors and been left ajar, windows gaped open, and here and there the buildings had cracks running up them, or the facades were starting to crumble.

Nowar went into one building that looked structurally intact. It was an old clock tower, with hand on a large light-grey face pointing to symbols (maybe numbers?) that Nowar didn't recognize. It was the tallest building in the immediate neighborhood, it's parapets loomed above the rest of the city.

Nowar climbed the staircase that spiraled up the inside of the tower, climbed until he was dizzy. The handrail on the stairs was too short for comfort, and the higher he climbed, the further and more deadly the drop on his right side became.

He passed through a room full of machinery, giant cogwheels and shafts and pendulums all still and silent as if they had never ever moved, as if they had been carved in place. It felt like the whole underground world was holding it's breath. Finally, the narrow stone stairs opened up onto the roof of the tower, a small bare square space about the size of Nowar's own living room, protected from the sheer drop by a low, crenellated parapet, too low for Nowar's liking. It wold be only too easy to stumble over the low wall and fall --how far? Hundreds of feet-- onto the smooth stone street below. It wold not be a fall that one would survive. Nowar stayed well away from the edge.

He looked out over the skyline. From here Nowar could see that it was not a large city, not in terms of area. It was just densely packed, like a miniature underground Manhattan crammed into a huge cave.

Every now and then, at home in Bone Bridge, a squirrel or chipmunk would find it's way into the attic of Nowar's house, and make a frenzied rustling sound up above the ceilings. It was a sound like this that Nowar heard all of a sudden and close behind him, the first real sound he'd heard other than his own footsteps since he'd gone down the secret tunnel in the Budsurry playground.

Nowar spun around. He thought he might have seen a flash of furtive movement in the corner of his eye, but there was nothing there now. Silence, except for the constant deep low mechanical throb.

Nothing. Nothing was there on the clocktower rooftop. His backpack, with his lunch and all his supplies was gone. Nowar had set it down on the stone floor, intending to eat a sandwich, for he was getting quite hungry. Now the backpack was gone, with no sign that it had ever been there at all.

4.

Down, down, down, and down. Nowar felt like he was on a journey to the very center of the earth. The passage dove down steeply at first, almost as steep as a ladder, hewn stone steps so steep that Nowar had to use both hands and feet to keep from tumbling head-over-heels down them. But after a while, the slope lessened, and the steps gave way to a smooth stone passageway that wound it's way into the earth, gradually but inexorably down.

At first, sunlight had streamed in through the secret hole behind Nowar, lighting his way and casting a long wavering shadow. Soon though, the light faded and became dim, and before long, the bright morning sunlight that washed over Budsurry School was just a faded memory.

Nowar had, of course, brought a flashlight, and he was just about to take it out of his backpack and turn it on when he noticed a strange thing: down here, the rock softly glowed. The stone seemed to be covered in a kind of phosphorescent powder or mold that emitted a soft, greenish light. Nowar could actually see quite well; it was like outside at night under a full moon.

At the beginning, the passageway had been quite narrow, almost claustrophobically tight, even for a boy Nowar's size, but gradually it had opened up. Now Nowar found he was walking (still downward mind you) along an underground highway the size of a subway tunnel. The floor and walls were nearly as smooth as glass. There was no mark or decoration, and still the road (for Nowar was sure now that it was some kind of road) led down, deeper and yet deeper still.

Then, without warning, the passage opened up, and the walls and ceiling disappeared. Nowar found himself in a strange, silent, monochromatic city. There were buildings, tall and short; huts, towers,, and arches; high bridges and open squares, spires and domes, all carved from the same cool, grey, glowing rock, all still and silent, a great abandoned subterranean city, a mile or more beneath Budsurry school.

3.

Nowar slept in. If he'd dreamed during the night, he couldn't remember it. Teddy still seemed to be smiling secretly at him. Yawning and stretching, rubbing the sleepy out of his eyes, Nowar went downstairs for breakfast.

His Mommy had already gotten on the bus to go to work, and his Daddy was making his lunch. "Make me an extra sandwich please," Nowar said, "I might be extra hungry this afternoon." While his Daddy was packing the lunchbox, Nowar slipped a few extra items into his backpack; a flashlight, a pen and notebook, and a length of string, because he had read before that string is always an useful thing to have with you on an adventure.

Nowar surprised his Daddy by getting dressed right away, shoes and all. They got out the door without any fuss, and Nowar kissed his Daddy goodbye just as the school bus pulled up.

On the bus, Nowar sat next to his friend Aya, who let him play Atom Smashers on her cell phone. Even so, the bus ride seemed to last forever.

In the playground, the secret cave was still there, mostly obscured by fallen leaves and a fern. It was the first thing Nowar checked when he got to Budsurry school that morning: had the whole thing just been in his imagination, a story he'd made up that just seemed real? It had not. The cave was real, hewn from living stone, and cool air blew out the entrance onto Nowar's face.

Shouldering his backpack, lunch tucked inside, Nowar went in. It took a little squirming, especially with the bulky pack on his back, but he fit! He looked around. A steep stone stairway plunged down, as far as Nowar could see, which wasn't very far. It might go ten feet down, it might go all the way to the center of the earth. Nowar swallowed hard, adjusted the straps of his pack, and started to climb down.

2.

The Cave, for it was a cave, a secret cave, Nowar's very own secret cave, was just big enough for a boy Nowar's size to fit inside. None of the bigger kids at Budsurry school would have been able to squeeze through that narrow entrance.

At first glance, the oblong opening looked like a natural fissure, an unobtrusive hole in the rock, partly obscured by a thick tree root. But a closer look revealed that the entrance and been made, carved and crafted by skilled hands. Edges were smoothed, joints and seams were perfect, almost but not quite invisible. A subtle shelf over the top would keep any rainwater out. Cool air blew out of the hole, tendrils of wispy white water vapor were just visible in the warm afternoon sun. It was deep dark inside, and beyond the entryway, the passage sloped steeply away to untold depths.

Nowar was by nature a fairly cautious, sensible child. He was not the type to go worming his way into strange dark caverns... Not without making proper preparations first anyway!

Just then a group of bigger kids came roaring through the playground, chasing a soccer ball. Nowar adjusted some leaves and pine needles, and moved a fern just so, and his secret cave was again invisible. Then he went off to play Space Warriors, and he didn't think about his secret cave again until much later, when he was on the school bus on his way home to Bone Bridge.

That night thought, after dinner, once the lights were turned off and the whole family had gone to bed, Nowar could think of nothing else. Long after his Daddy had started snoring, and his Mommy had closed her book and shut her eyes, Nowar lay awake and thought about the secret cave that he had found. Where did the entrance lead to? Who had made it? What was inside? Nowar thought he would never fall asleep.

He whispered into his stuffed bear's ear "Teddy, tomorrow I'm going to have an adventure. A REAL adventure!" Nowar though, but he wasn't sure, that his stuffed bear smiled at him. And then his eyelids became too heavy to keep open, and he drifted off to sleep.

1.

Once Upon A Time,
There was a boy named Nowar. He wasn't a baby or a little kid, but he wasn't a grown-up or a big kid either. He lived in a big white house with his Mommy and Daddy, and he went to a school called Budsurry.

One day, when the sun was shining through the trees, and it was warm out, but not too hot, Nowar was at Budsurry school. He was playing all by himself, as he liked to. There were nice kids at Budsurry, but Nowar liked to play alone sometimes, just him and his imagination. Anyway, all his friends were inside on this particular day, playing video games. So Nowar was all by himself in the playground, telling himself a story.

Nora was so busy with his story that he didn't see the tree root, lurking out from the pine needles and fallen leaves, just high enough to catch a foot on. He was at a very exciting part of his story, where the Space Warriors spaceplanes were about to fly through hyperspace to the fare-off Trog system. Nowar was running through the playground, pretending that he was an X-71 spaceplane, flown by Space Warrior #1, when his foot got caught on that pernicious tree root, and Nowar went flying headlong, landing with a bump and a thump. His palms stung, and he'd scratched his arm, and he had pine needles in his pants and in his hair, but he didn't seem to be really hurt. Nowar thought about crying, but he decided not to, and just said "Oh Phooey!" instead. He looked around; there were no other kids in the playground, and no-one had seen him fall.

Nowar was just about to pick himself up and go on with his Space Warrior story, when he noticed something curious, something he'd never seen before. At the base of the big oak tree, mostly covered with old leaves and fern leaves, there was a small opening the ground, a little stone cave, just the right size for a small boy to squeeze through.