"Tell me again why we're doing this?" I asked Tygra. He was down in the level beneath me. I could see him -- or parts of him anyway -- from where I stood at the head of the metal staircase. Down below there was surprisingly more light than I had expected but the room was cluttered with instruments and with scientific miscellania that I could hardly make out the form of the most important detail as far as I was concerned.

"It's imperative, Cheetara."

"You've said that for weeks."

I heard no response. Perhaps he had not heard me, perhaps he had planed to avoid me. Never the less I was intent to get answers that time.

I walked down the metal staircase -- my footsteps echoed in sharp timbers. I found Tygra working at the end of a long, hollow cylindrical tube from which bright sunlight poured in from above. A black table, topped with a thick sheet of parchment, was placed directly at the end of the tube's opening. An image was clearly focused and distinctly visible on the paper: he was drawing on it when he looked up and saw me.

He spoke: "Do you see that red knob by the side of your head?"

I scrambled in sheer panic to find it, I was never very good at even those slight technical things. "This one?" I asked, I kept my forefinger on it.

"Turn it ever so slightly to your right. I'll tell you when to stop."

The knob was very hard to turn, I needed both hands for the job but even then I was barely able to turn it at all. Its movement, what ever movement it underwent, was imperceptible.

"That's all right. That's enough."

"Are you sure?"

"It's a very precise machine."

Carefully I made my way closer to him and to the table over which he labored. I could then and only then see the image with exactitude. It was the sun and Tygra was drawing its outline and its particular features on the parchment.

"Can't you just take a photograph?"

"It's not the same."

"So why is this ‘imperative’?" I may have playfully mocked his tone or I may have not, I cannot remember.

He looked up at me with the most pathetic face I had ever seen him give me. He returned to the object of his foremost attention. "The sun's been active lately. Two months ago there was a very violent solar flare."

"Oh."

"The ions that it has released has tampered with our equipment."

"I wouldn't have noticed."

"Even the Sword of Omens has been affected." He stopped. "There. There. This is the last one."

He stood up with the sheet of paper in one hand and the pencil in the other and walked briskly to the back of the room. I followed right behind. Hung along the walls in the recesses of the subterranean chamber were about fifty of those drawings posted in an ordered series. Each drawing was dated in red ink.

Very proudly he began to show me his picture show. "Look at what's happened since I began." He pointed along the equator of the sun and I had to admit that even I noticed. There were black spots, some in groups, some all alone and then there was a huge one that appeared about once every two days. "That large sunspot is what's responsible for all the ill effects we've been suffering but I need more information. This lab isn't good enough. The others are busy surveying the land for the site of the new observatory."

I stood outside in that late afternoon hour. Overhead, the sky everywhere was clouded in a thin and in a chaotic cover of mist. The land was flat and dead, it was a desert after all, but every now and then there were tall trees and dense bushes that dotted the oppressively level scenery. A strong but a noiseless gust of wind blew in the distance and swayed the tall, entangled trees of one of those patches of oasis.

Behind me the rest of that long cylinder stuck out of the earth at an acute angle to level of the ground. Tygra had all but finished his day's work and was in the process of shutting down the solar observatory. He scrolled down the lens cap to protect that upper and exposed opening. He climbed down a small set of steps that protruded out of the side of the top half of that concrete bunker.

"Well, Cheetara, that's it for today."

We began to walk across the loose orange sand west toward the edge of the land, toward the rim of a tall cliff. Exposed below was the vast expanse of ocean. We were a thousand feet high on the plateau, so far removed that the sounds of the waves that crashed and that broke on the shore were inaudible. Aside from the snippets and the distorted fragments of the crabmen that roamed and that moved out and round the caverns of their homes, there was very little else down there of interest outside of the nice and the tranquil-looking vegetation.

The plants were all green, all leafy green and overflowing, bending and beating in the ocean-sprayed breeze and the sandy air that circulated down there. The flat line of the horizon at the end of infinity, past even the ocean itself, a large, an obscenely large and red sun, streaked across by elongated, finger-like clouds, far and distant parallel to the horizon, grossly distorted by what Tygra called the ‘action of the atmosphere,’ slowly began to sink, to sink below into the waters.

The air, that had been warm up to that point, became cool and the currents, that had been calm all day, turned more than depressingly violent.

The makeshift cabin seemed awfully lonely amidst the surrealness, the etherealness of those twilight hours. The observatory, by then, was no longer visible to us but we could see the camp that the rest of the Thundercats had made for themselves a good half mile away.

Inside I sat at the edge of the bed and began to read a little something. Ever since we had stumbled upon that old library in the forbidden zone, Bengali and Pumyra had been busy translating the ancient, first-earth materials. While I was enthralled in the book -- titled ‘The Mad Tryst’ -- Tygra was busy on the radio talking to Liono and to Panthro about his latest discovery. I paid little notice.

When the sun completely set and the whole of the world was basked in darkness, Tygra and I ate dinner huddled closely on a small, round table, a plastic table over which a green lamp hung from the exposed beams of the roof of the wooden ceiling.

"Tomorrow we're going back to the others at camp."

"You found all the information you needed?"

"I got all the data I could get." He looked up at me. "I hope I haven't bored you."

I put my hand on his arm and rubbed his fur gently, then I gave him a little pat under the chin. "How could I be bored with you?"

He took my hand in his own and smiled.

Sometime in the middle of the night he nudged me awake.

"I have to go out," he spoke to me with those words exactly, "I'll be back."

"Don't take too long, Tygie" I said.

He got up from the bed, unwrapped the blankets around him. Almost instantly I was colder than before, my body shivered uncontrollably. In the darkness he stumbled to try to find the door without hitting or tripping. The door of the cabin swung open and shut without a noise. I went back to sleep, I do not remember how long I was out.

If I could only remember.

I was alarmed by the strangest sound of tapping. I sat up in bed. Next to me on the mattress, the blankets were rolled up in a long, flat mass. Had Tygra come back and I not notice? Had he covered himself up completely though he was a mummy, a corpse? I was about to reach out and --

Tapping.

Tapping came from a window.

No, of course. The entangled mass of sheets on my side neither reacted to the sudden noise nor did it move at all the way it should have moved, up and down, rise and fall, if there was indeed someone breathing under the dense folds. I was alone in the cabin, I could not see Tygra anywhere.

Tapping.

There were two windows in the cabin. The one right in front of me glowed in the light hue of the early morning. I arose and walked to it, I could see the clear blue sky over the rippled and violent gray of the reflective ocean. The sun was behind me and I turned around.

Tapping.

Yes, it came from that window, from that window right above the bed. I could see the figure but in shadows. It was Tygra, no doubt, perhaps he had locked himself out of the cabin, perhaps -- I approached the window.

It was Tygra but there was something wrong. His eyes were closed shut -- though the light had hurt him -- his nose was off to the side -- though it had been broken -- and his lips. I could tell no more. When I came right up upon the window, Tygra shot back and darted to the side out of the way of my view. I was confused, but --

I opened the cabin door and stepped out into the coldness of that dusk. No sun was out at all, at the least not yet. The sky was aglow in that pre-dawn light. Only the faintest spray or mist of white clouded the sky.

I walked around the cabin to where I had last seen Tygra.

He was not there, instead I found him walking away south. His footsteps in the sand were deep and well preserved, though a dense wind did much to erode their trace.

Since he was still in my sight I trailed him. I shouted his name, of course, but he did not respond. Only every now and then did he stop to look around to see if I was still there, to see if I was still following him.

It began to rain a slight mist, my breath was visible in the ambient coolness of the environment. I shivered, too and that was when I noticed how poorly I was dressed. I wondered if I should not have gone back to the cabin to change into something more appropriate but by then was too late, far too late. I would have lost him completely had I done that.

Without fail Tygra kept himself a good fifty feet from sight. Never at all could I see him clearly, even in the emerging light of morning he remained in the grasp of a somber shadows. His clothes were abnormally loose, though for some reason they no longer fit him well -- the flaps wavered noisily in the strong wind. For the fist time I noticed the spray of the ocean in the air and in the depression of the scene I thought I could almost cry.

Where was he leading me? What had he found? What had happened to him? I kept remembering that face that I saw on the other side of the window. How contorted, how disfigured and then the strangest idea crept up into my head. Was it not a face at all but the mask of a face? I shrugged it off, I could not believe it, I would not believe it. Something had happened to Tygra in those brief moments when he was outside -- or had it been so brief?

I kicked my self for having fallen asleep and having lost track of time.

I could not be sure of anything anymore except that I had to go to where ever my Tygie led me. I could not resist the patheticness of that look he had given me that haunted me -- the lips. And then there was something about the chin, too, that was not right.

Eventually the flat land sloped gently. The ripples in the sand grew sparse until the very earth itself was replaced by barren rocks. The stones were not gray but a light yellow and rough and serrated by long cracks. I had an awful hard time climbing down into the wide and open pit the monoliths formed.

Tygra stood before an enshadowed entrance. I called to him and the shrillness of my voice must have startled him for he took notice. He looked up at me while I spoke: "Tygra! What happened? What's wrong? Tygra?"

No answer, no answer was given.

For a moment, for a brief moment I turned around to face the side of the rock wall that I was steadily descending. When I came to look back, when I was safely on the ground of the pit, he was gone. Once more I called but even then I knew that would be in vain.

I crawled to the darkened spot I had seen him last. The skies then cleared though at the distance there was a loud clasp of thunder and there was the faintest trace of a lightning bolt that struck from one cloud to another. The mist no longer fell and for the first time that morning the air was warm.

I entered the shadows and before me the wall that I had expected to meet me was replaced instead by an unusual opening. Mouth in shape, complete with ‘teeth’ that were of course not teeth at all but stalagmites and thin pillars of brown rock. The faintest red light glowed from within.

The floor that had been covered with that orange sand and small pebbles had very quickly transformed under my feet. Shiny red tiles grew out of the naturalness and at the same time that the cramped passage exploded into a vast cavern of inconceivable proportions. Only the immediacy was visible of the rest, to the farthest recesses, I could see the embryonic beginnings of yet more passages, yet more tunnels, yet more caverns but darkened in the shades of shadowy gray.

The cavern I was in was supported at odd places by what I supposed could pass for columns. Every so often the ceiling rocks or the floor -- that was dotted with intermittent, uncovered patches of that red tile -- would sink or rise, one to the other, one to meet the other and in that chaotic method I would suppose that the large cavern could be conceivably separated into various smaller chambers. Each little chamber had a fire pit, orange and blue flames shot up to lick the air and to cast moving, dancing shadows on the walls.

The walls.

The walls were red, red like the tiles were red but it was not the same. I approached one that was the nearest to me. A dense liquid oozed from the surface of the rocks though the walls had pores -- and could bleed. It was blood and it dripped down onto the ground slowly like honey, like stringy honey.

"Tygra!" I screamed and I ran aback. That was when I noticed something else about that cavern. Around the fires the ground was littered with bones. Bones! Of every shape and variety. Hacked free from the flesh. Some were chalky white, some were brown, some were burnt crisp to a brittle black that the wind alone could have erased from existence.

In that frenzied stupor, in that utter confusion, I bumped into Tygra.

He had his back to me. I was hysterical, I screamed and yelled his name. When I received no response yet again I grabbed his shoulder and I turned him around.

I saw that face again, exactly the same face again. The eyes were closed and there I noticed slight traces of blood, crusty blood under the lids. His nose was loose and crocked. His lips were simply too far removed from the contours of where his mouth should have been to have been real, to have been actual. Then the chin, then the chin drooped down and as I watched and as I looked on in horror the chin kept moving down. Slowly at first -- was his mouth opening? No, his lips as well as the rest of his features remained unchanged. Yet the chin continued to fall and there, very quickly at the end, it fell.

His whole face fell to the ground where it flopped around until it came to rest folded in on itself.

I screamed and darted back. I tripped over a pile of bones. I was stabbed or cut by the sharp tips of broken rib cages.

I looked at the figure for I knew then that it was not Tygra. There was a face under there, yellow green eyes deep and embedded into the skull. The nose was missing or else it was flat against the face, reduced to nothing more than the openings of the nostrils. But the mouth! Wide open, the jaw moved up and down though it was chewing on the air, up and down though it was mechanical, though it was not alive at all. The flesh was dried, painfully dried and wrinkled to the extreme, so wrinkled it seemed that the skin would come apart like an erase being used up, coming apart into tiny shreds.

Then at last it took notice of me and in a swift moment turned my way. I got up as quickly as I could and ran to the opening out of the cavern. I knew I had to be swift, I knew my life depended on it and I was not intent to suffer the fate, the grizzly fate that no doubt had befallen Tygra.

Tygra.

I cried out for help hoping that someone, anyone could have heard me. Outside in the pit I tried to climb up the steppe walls. The walls were so steep and the rocks were so slippery from the rain that it was impossible to latch onto a secure hold. I did manage enough strength to make it up half way when my left foot stepped on an outcrop of rock that was apparently more unstable than it looked. It gave way in a great crunch and I fell backwards fifteen feet.

On the floor of the pit I felt something on the back of my shoulders. When I looked up I saw that the thing -- the what ever it was, the What-Is-It -- was absolutely, completely behind me, next to me, over me.

I screamed. I got up and ran to the other side of the pit in a mad dash. I do not know by whose will or by what strength but that time I was able to reach the top edge, the rim of the pit. My hands felt the orange sand of the plateau, my lower legs felt the grip of that figure. I kicked back -- I do not know if I hit it but I broke free none the less.

Safely above I ran to the camp where the rest of the Thundercats were already up and doing their morning exercises. I was out of breath and hysterical.

"It’s Tygra," I said, "Something’s happened to Tygra."

Liono looked at me blankly.

Panthro stepped forward from behind the central fire he had been tending. "What about the Eye of Thundera?" He asked.

Liono quickly unhilted the blade. "Sword of Omens," he began and continued but the sword did not respond.

"No, no, Tygra said the sword wouldn’t work."

"That’s right, of course," Liono slapped himself, "the solar flares." He looked at everyone -- Bengali had just come into the group. "I can’t use the Sword of Omens, I don’t --"

"Where did you last see him?"

I was dumb, silent.

"Where did something happen to him?"

I shook my head, I did not know what else to tell them -- I could not believe it myself -- but I told them everything that had happened as fast as I could while still retaining some level of coherence.

The whole group of us, Liono, Panthro, Bengali and me, we all walked to the pit. My footprints were still there, fresh in the sand.

We climbed down and I pointed to where the opening had been but the entrance was gone. Once again I was hysterical. Panthro tried to blast it open but all the instruments we had told us that the pit walls were rocks several feet thick.

Bengali, who had remained up above on the sands of the plateau, said he found an extra set of foot prints that led northwest, to the cabin Tygra and I had been in since we had arrived at the site.

The footprints we followed lead to the door and backtracked to the edge of the cliff where the trail ended and where no trace, no visible trace began.

"That What-Is-It must have jumped," someone said, I could not remember who it was exactly, I was too busy thinking about something else.

The smell of death and of decay was ripe and repugnantly fresh.

No one else would go into the cabin, no one else would accompany me so I entered alone. The front door was wide open and I knew that I had shut it before when I had left at the start of the whole ordeal. Inside the first thing that I did was grab for that lamp that rested over the surface of the small, round table. I turned it on and the entire scene was lit, aglow in green.

The bed was not empty.

There was a form, or at the least there was the suggestion of a form on it. Somehow I remembered it that way from before, from when I had awoken in the early dawn. I had seen that very form on the bed next to me but I had dismissed it because at the time it looked like nothing more than the masses of the blanket, folded in on itself when Tygra had left in the middle of the night. But when I stood there just then all of a sudden there had been a shattering of paradigm -- I saw it in a whole completely new and different way.

I approached slowly and cautiously. I grabbed the ends of the blanket that draped on the floor lifeless and lifted it in the air. I began to draw back the sheets, slowly, slowly then, half way done, I screamed.

The rest of the Thundercats came running into the cabin to stand in a semicircle behind me.

Tygra was on the bed, he had been there all along, all along, he had been there since I had awoken. His body shook and quivered and was perversely distorted -- the face was missing but all the other features were identical to his. The body was structureless and all the way down his sides, from the legs to the skull, there was long, deep slit from which all the bones had been removed, a gash from which spare organs were not only visible but seeped through.

"Stop, Cheetara, stop it, don’t do it, don’t," Bengali said. He stood before me and I thought he was about to cry. He hand his hands around my shoulders.

Liono stood behind me: "Don’t look at any more this. Get out, let’s all just get out."

"Give me that blanket," Panthro said. In fear and in terror he pushed Bengali to the side. I looked into his face, right into his eyes. Were those tears? Panthro tried to pry the blanket from my clenched fists.

I knew he meant well, I knew none of them wanted me to see it -- what ever it was that was on the bed -- and though while they spoke I could not make out the words, I could not hear them at all.

In shock I fell to the ground in a moment of lightheaded stupor and in so doing I pulled the blankets back all the way, all the way, all the way -- Tygra's severed face fell to my feet.