The DTH made a quick series of strange beeps, they varied in tone almost sounding like the device was confused.
Darkness everywhere.
There was several long seconds of silence. "Jon?" Karyn's voice asked, a slight tone of panic in it.
"Yes?" his voice responded from the dark.
"Oh, thank goodness," she said, relieved. "I can't see anything. I was worried."
"You are still holding on to my hand," Jon reminded her as he lifted the unseen appendage.
"Yes, obviously but I can't see you, so who knows what I was actually holding on to."
"Hang on a second," he said as he let her hand drop. Suddenly, they were both dimly illuminated in the ghostly white light from the screen of the DTH. He pointed to himself. "See it is still me, I haven't morphed into a monster or something."
"Yeah, I know, I'm just well..."
"What?"
"It is embarrassing..." She took a deep breath. "I'm afraid of the dark."
"Really?" In all the years they had been friends, he'd never known this about her.
"Not super frightened but my imagination runs away with me. Don't go on about it."
"I'm not," Jon said, "it is a perfectly natural reaction."
"Where are we anyway?" she asked in an effort to change the topic. She spun around trying to make out anything visible.
"Good question," he said as he examined the screen. "We've just branched off a section of quite a long timeline. Nothing out of the ordinary."
Karyn had already pulled out her phone. She turned on the flashlight function and pointed it outward. Apart from the featureless flat grey ground they were standing on, the beam of light illuminated nothing. "Okay this is getting a bit freaky. This place is completely empty."
Jon lifted his head up to see what she was doing. "We're probably in a large cave or a mine," he said, assuming a rational explanation.
Karyn pointed the beam upwards. "It must be massive. It is like there is absolutely nothing here."
Jon tilted his head. "There's an echo."
"So?" she asked as she turned to face him.
"There must be something for the sound to bounce off."
"I've shone this," she said waving her phone, "everywhere and I can't see it."
"The LED in that isn't very powerful," he said as he pointed at the flashlight.
"It is usually good enough."
"I guess you need convincing. When in Rome," he said as he got on to his knees on the hard stone floor. "Open the stopwatch app on your phone," he instructed.
"Why?" she asked as she complied with the request.
"We'll do it like bats, using echo-location. I'll make a noise, when I hear the echo, I'll make the same noise again. You time me doing it five times, we'll get an average duration and an approximated distance."
"Okay clever clogs," she said, her finger hovering over the icon to start the stopwatch.
He swung his arms down, hitting the floor with the DTH, causing a loud thump. He was confident in the knowledge it couldn't be damaged. He became a little concerned when he heard how long it took the very quiet echo to return but he put it down to his imagination. He repeated the process over and over.
"Okay got it," she said.
He stood up and brushed down his still clean trousers. "How long?"
"Um, 10.3 seconds," she read off the screen.
He decided to speak out the calculation, to make it clear to her. "Okay so assuming we're somewhere near sea-level, that's about 330 metres a second, so that is about 3400 metres. The sound bounced five times, that is ten complete journeys, so about 340 metres." He gave a large boastful grin, which slowly morphed into a more sullen expression. "Actually, that is massive."
"See, I told you." She went back to examining the darkness.
Just as her back was to Jon, he tapped her on the shoulder. "I thought I saw something," he said.
She spun back around. "Where?"
"Over there," he said as he pointed in front of himself into the distance. He squinted as Karyn pointed the light in that direction. "It has gone now."
She made a noise of disappointment. "Crap!" She peered in the direction he pointed. "We could walk over there."
"Yeah, but what if we get lost."
"We could leave a marker."
"Like what?"
Karyn pulled the backpack off. She looked inside it. There was a big bundle of cash, the interdimensional phone and some of Jon's clothes. "This has a reflective panel on it. We can carry the money and the magic phone. If we leave the backpack and have this panel facing us we can keep checking our position with the flashlight."
"Good thinking, better keep the light pointed at the floor in front of us while we move though in case there are any deep holes and we can't see them."
They spent a few minutes standing the backpack up as high as possible. Holding hands the two of them walked off slowly into the darkness.
After a few minutes of travel, Karyn asked, "This isn't a regular cave is it?"
Jon who had been using the screen of the DTH as an additional light source glanced at it while shaking his head. "I'm having my doubts. It doesn't make much sense though."
"Couldn't we just go up the timeline?"
"That's very risky."
"Why?"
"If something catastrophic did happen earlier, there is a strong possibility whatever caused this..." He held his hand out grasping the DTH and pointed around to the surrounding darkness, "Is likely to happen again. It could destroy us too. This is supposed to be Lake Point."
"Well, there's a cheery thought," she said sarcastically as she spun around to shine the light towards the backpack.
He put his hand out to stop her. "I think I saw that light again," he said.
"Where?" Karyn asked as she quickly turned around.
"Gone again."
"Hm, you sure you aren't seeing things?"
After about a few minutes walking it was Karyn's turn to stop. "I think I see something now, there it is on the floor." She pointed to a small anomaly in the distance.
"I hope it is more than that," Jon said as he tried to see it too, "we must have walked well over 340 metres by now, probably nearer a kilometre."
"Yeah and I can barely see the reflection from the backpack any more," Karyn said as she glanced behind them.
It was difficult to judge how big the new object was as there was no reference points for them to estimate its size.
"Are those straps?" Karyn asked as she started running in front of Jon.
"Karyn wait!" Jon shouted as he ran to catch up, still concerned about hidden hazards.
"It's another backpack," Karyn said as she picked it up. "There must be other people in here." She inspected the backpack. "Hm, it looks just like yours. Maybe it is another Jon and Karyn." She unzipped it and examined the contents. "It must be, these clothes are the same as yours."
"Mister Occam and his razor would like a word," he said.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"There is nothing on the DTH to suggest another interdimensional traveller has been here. The timeline hasn't branched since we arrived. If they had arrived earlier up the timeline they would be gone like everyone and everything else."
She considered it for a moment. "We couldn't have got turned around in here, could we?"
"Very unlikely, that leaves one rather unfortunate conclusion."
"Which is?" Karyn asked.
"There is a strong possibility you won't believe me, so I better show you." He put his hand out. "Can I borrow your phone for a second?"
Karyn slowly placed it in his hand.
He held it as high above his head as he could and pointed the flashlight behind himself. "Now look," he said as he pointed forwards.
"I can see that other light Jon!" Karyn squealed as she turned to him.
"I know," the unsurprised Jon said before turning the light to the right. He pointed to the left.
"What the hell?" Karyn asked now seeing a second light.
"Now keep watching that light." He slowly rotated the phone. The distant light began moving in an arc around them till it had made a complete circle.
"It's not some kind of optical illusion is it?" she asked now thoroughly confused.
"Nope," he said as he brought his tired arm down.
"Well! Tell me!" she demanded angrily.
"This entire universe is less than a kilometre across. We've walked its entire length and we're back where we started."
"Huh?"
"We could walk in any direction and it would take us right back here. There is no beginning or end. It is a closed energy system."
"But..., but what about the echo?"
"The ceiling I imagine," he said before looking downwards, "which is simply the underside of this floor. I've no idea how thick it is but if you could drill a hole straight down you'd be able to see us down it..., looking down a hole."
"Well talk about a mind screw," the flabbergasted Karyn gasped. "So if there was light in here I'd be able to see myself?"
"Yep, in multiple directions like a giant hall of mirrors except it wouldn't be a reversed reflection. You'd be looking at the back of your head all the time. You'd never be able to get closer to them either, they'd all just walk away from you."
Karyn rubbed her face slowly. "Do you have any idea why it is so small?" she asked as she took back her phone.
"We know the stone corrupts the multiverse. It is possible this particular timeline could be glitching in unexpected ways. It seems to branch normally past here."
"Maybe that timeline is just more of this..., nonsense?" she said as she waved her arm towards the darkness.
Jon frowned slightly as he thought deeply about it. "This place is empty, there are no distinct events that should cause it to keep branching. I suspect the timeline briefly phased out, without anyone being aware of it and then carried on as normal afterwards. There are likely some causality issues –"
"Okay, okay don't go all nerdy on me."
Jon shrugged, "You wanted to go somewhere different."
