WHO: Lois Lane WHEN: Day 4 WHERE: The Hole Cave WHAT: Lois explores a cave WARNINGS: Hunger Games. That damn cave.
She missed the stars.
While they hadn’t been the easiest thing to spot in the middle of Metropolis, looking out at the night sky had always been a source of comfort. No matter how often her family moved when she was younger or how varied her own travels had been, there had always been stars. They might have shifted or changed completely depending on the hemisphere she had been in, but they had always been there. She’d even been among them for a brief moment in time, sequestered on that Kryptonian spaceship before hurtling back down to Earth. It’d been terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure. But even being among them never quite matched how close she felt to the night sky when she soaring in Clark’s arms. Maybe it was partly because he’d come from them, because he touched them in ways she never would, but felt as though she might when she was with him. There had been a sense of safety there, of love that she’d never felt before and doubted that she ever would again.
But there was no access to starlight in the caves, nothing that quite brought her the comfort and safety that she longed for. She’d managed to survive this long though and wasn’t about to stop trying to do so. Water was a necessity though, as was keeping her distance from others. She’d heard various people moving around near her, but kept her distance. Some voices she recognized, but after the chaos at the Cornucopia, Lois was still wary of meeting any of them.
She steered as far away from the hot springs as possible before venturing into the winding pathway that she stumbled upon next. The rustling of beetles seemed to stop, as did the scurrying of the snakes that had moved across the floor of the previous cave, but she heard the sounds of water. Lois fingered the bottle of iodine she’d secured in one of her pockets before pulling out the hand crank flashlight that she’d managed to get and started scanning the area, nearly smiling as she spotted the waterfall.
It took effort not to gulp down handfuls of the water, forcing herself to take it slowly before filling up her water bottle as well. Lois scanned the cave with the flashlight, moving further into it before taking note of the unique designs that seemed to be shaped like people in one of the walls.
Her brow furrowed as she scanned over them, stepping closer as she realized that they were actually holes that had somehow been carved into the wall. She peered as best as she could down one of them, trying to see where it might lead to, but the light only extended so far. Stepping back again Lois continued to scan the wall, sucking in a breath as the light stopped on one of the figures.
It was her.
That didn’t make any sense, how could a carved out figure be her, but Lois couldn’t deny the pull that she felt toward it. She reached out tentatively and touched the outside of it, drawing her fingers along the outline as the urge to try and enter it beat at the back of her mind.
Snatching her hand back, Lois turned off the light and stepped backward, pushing the strange need down as far as she could. It took every bit of effort to not turn back and look toward the figure again as she made her way out of the cave and back toward a ledge to hide out on again.