"Bipo, just wait a second!" Kipo begged. Despite how much Kipo had wanted to go inside the old building, she still knew how important being patient and ensuring their safety would be. But Bipo didn't seem to want to want to wait for all that... well, Kipo supposed they did have that weird power they could rely on... but still! "BIPO!"

Bipo ignored her yet again, slipping inside a circular door hanging off it's hinges and swaying in the wind. It looked like it would fall off at the slightest touch, so Kipo didn't risk it. As quickly as she could, she edged between the door and the wall, hurrying into the room.

"Bi-WHOA!" Kipo cried out in panic, just barely managing to stop herself from falling down into the giant hole in the middle off the room. Kipo backed up quickly, but she couldn't go far. The space between the hole and the wall was only about thirty centimeters.

"What the-?" Kipo looked around quickly, but Bipo was nowhere to be found. Kipo's eyes widened in fear, and she stepped to the edge of the hole again. "BIPO! BIPO, CAN YOU HEAR ME? ARE YOU DOWN THERE?!"

Kipo turned her head, focusing all her attention on her ears. When she listened really closely, she could hear the faint clicking of bones, which confirmed that Bipo was down there, but it didn't tell Kipo if Bipo was ok or not. Kipo knew she needed to get down there.

Kipo quickly looked around the room she was in for anything to climb down the hole with, but the room was barren. There was absolutely nothing here, only bits of rotting wood and old nails.

...Nails?

Before Kipo could really ponder the existence of nails in this world without humans, a loud slam coming from behind her drew her attention away, and she found her self falling forward. The darkness of the hole in front of her rushed up to meet her.

"Kipo!"

Suddenly, Kipo's arm was yanked back, and Kipo found herself dangling over the darkness with Adam determinedly hanging onto her arm.

"Kipo!" Adam yelled, grunting from the effort. "Are you alright?"

Kipo nodded, and from over his shoulder, she saw Wirt looking around nervously. "W-Where did Bipo go?"

"Their down there!" Kipo told them, motioning down to the hole stretching down beneath her. "We have to go save them?"

"I thought you said they have good survival skills!" Adam argued. "Why would they go right into a hole?!"

"I... don't know!" Kipo cried. "But I'm sure they got a plan! I trust them!"

Kipo's eyes suddenly widened with a realization.

"Yeah, I heard you made a really informed decision there," Adam huffed sarcastically. His hold on Kipo's arm was starting to slip "Why would you ever follow a dragon made of bones down a-."

"Drop me!"

"What?!"

"I trust Bipo!" Kipo met Adam's eyes, trying to look as determined as possible. She must have succeeded, because Adam's eyes widened. "So drop me!"

Before Adam could argue, Kipo planted her feet on the wall of the hole and pulled her arm out of Adam's grasp.

"Kipo!" Adam cried, but all he could do was reach for her, because Kipo was already out of his grasp.

Kipo only managed to fall a couple feet before her back hit something solid, and she found herself sliding instead. The slide picked up speed quickly, and before Kipo knew it, she shot out of the slide, bouncing and rolling along the ground before she finally came to a stop.

Kipo curled in on herself, groaning as her newfound bruises ached. Well, that's one way to go down a slide.

A soft, muted clicking drew Kipo back to the present, and she looked up into the face of Bipo, expressionless as ever, but Kipo would be lying if she didn't see a hint of concern laced under Bipo's features. Kipo laughed, and patted Bipo on the head, reassuring them.

"It's ok, Bipo," Kipo told them, adjusting her flower mask. There fog was everywhere, even down here. "These bruises hurt, but I doubt they're painful. Here, I'll just..."

Kipo grasped the wall, pulling herself up with a wince. Bipo stepped forward, and Kipo smiled at them.

"I'm fine," Kipo said. "Hey, do you think-?"

Before Kipo could even get the question out, it was answered. A thud coming from the tunnel was all the warning Kipo got to get out of the way before Wirt and Adam came tumbling down, landing in a heap at Kipo's feet.

"Adam? Wirt?" Kipo knelt down, offering a hand. "Are you two okay?"

"We're not dead yet," Adam grumbled, taking the hand that was offered to him. Wirt pushed himself up, standing up as well.

Adam studied their surroundings, perplexed. "What even is this place?"

Kipo took a step back, taking a look around as well. They seemed to be in a cave, or a tunnel, lit by lanterns spread evenly along the wall. They seemed to be giving of pretty good light. Kipo narrowed her eyes at the them, they looked familiar somehow...

Kipo took a step back, glancing at Adam. "Aren't there lanterns like this in your house?"

Adam shrugged. "I think it's too much to call it a house," he pointed out. "And, well, I don't know. The fires in my house had some... particular qualities, right?"

"Oh, that's right," Kipo remembered, and she stuck her hand in the fire.

"K-Kipo?!" Wirt cried.

"What are you doing?!" Adam shouted. "That's what you both were teasing me for before!"

"It's fine, it's fine," Kipo assured them, pulling out her hand. It was completely fine. "Adam already went through the whole scientific process, so we didn't need to worry about any of that. Besides we don't have anything else we can stick in it, so..."

"...Did we really need to stick anything in it?" Adam huffed after what Kipo said finally sunk in. "In what situation would we ever need to stick are hands in fire?"

"You never know," Kipo told them. "It's better to know than to not know."

"At the cost of your hand?" Adam huffed, but before Kipo could answer, he just shook his head, grabbing a torch off the wall. "Whatever. Do you still smell that fruit?"

Kipo focused for a minute, and then nodded. "Yep, follow me!"

Kipo started off down the tunnel, but she did it without her usual rush. She supposed she should be used to tunnels, after spending most of her life in a burrow, but while the burrow she lived in was a warm and friendly place, this just... wasn't. It was creepy and dirty and promised monster in every dark corner. Her old burrow felt like a family's home, filled with community and love, but this place just made Kipo's skin crawl. It was claustrophobic and when the darkness pressed in it made her feel utterly alone.

But she wasn't alone. Kipo quickly reminded herself of that as she listened to Adam's loud confident steps, Wirt's fidgeting and muttering, and the click of Bipo's bones. Yes, even if there weren't many of them, they still trusted each other completely, and Kipo knew she could count on them. She wasn't alone.

Kipo drew her shoulders up, walking more confidently. She wouldn't let the darkness press into her; she refused.

Suddenly, Kipo paused, tilting her head. Adam, who apparently didn't notice, walked right into her.

"Ow!" Adam complained. "What the-?"

Kipo pressed a finger to her lips. "The fruit is right around the corner, but..."

Wirt did not look thrilled to hear the rest of that sentence. "...B-But what?"

"There's a lot of buzzing, and clicking," Kipo admitted. "And a lot of weird smells."

"Weird smells?" Adam repeated. "What does-WOAH!"

Adam jumped in front of Kipo and Wirt, smoothly pulling out his knife. A surprised Kipo and Wirt peeked out from behind him.

"Wha-?" Wirt backed away quickly. "What's that doing here?!"

"An ant?" Kipo blinked confused. "But it looks so small..."

"It must be a younger one," Adam guess, his knife still pointed at it. As if he saw the look on Kipo's face, he added "Don't trust it!"

The ant looked up at them curiously. Now that it was closer and Kipo wasn't fighting for her life, she saw that it really didn't look like a sized-up bug, like she'd previously thought. The dark, human-like eyes especially stood out, but it also was bipedal, and used it's limbs like a human would. Kipo gulped. It looked especially more human up close...

"What's it carrying?" Wirt cried from the wall. Kipo shook herself out of her thoughts. The ant thing was carrying something, a small, green pill shaped thing that... pulsated.

Adam tensed. "A weapon?"

"No!" Kipo shouted. She took a close look at the thing. "I think it's another type of bug."

Adam relaxed, but only slightly. "Oh. An aphid, then?"

"Probably," Kipo agreed. Suddenly, all three of jumped to attention again when the ant moved, but not to attack them. Apparently, the ant had lost interest in them, and started off down the hall. Kipo, Adam and Wirt watched it go with mixed and varying degrees of shock, fear and confusion.

"What's it doing now?!" Adam asked.

"It didn't look like it cared about us at all," Kipo noted.

"It's probably just going to get more reinforcements!" Wirt cried. "We have to hide!"

"I don't think-," Kipo started, but Adam was already on the move. Kipo winced as he stepped forward, right around the corner into the room with the buzzing and clicking. "Adam!"

Adam froze, and then jumped back, holding up his knife. But nothing happened, no one came to attack him. Eventually, Adam lowered his knife, and Kipo and Wirt poked their heads around the corner.

Wirt sucked in a terrified breath, and Kipo gasped.

The room they looked into reminded Kipo of a restaurant. There were a bunch of rocks scattered around the room, and a bunch of fruit as well, but they could barely be seen through all the giant bug creatures scattered around, crawling on the floor, the rocks and even the walls and ceiling.

"Ugh." Wirt put a hand over his mouth. "This is..."

"Awful," Adam finished for him, grimacing. "Is this food really worth it?"

"They might not care about us," Kipo pointed out. "Like that ant did."

"Might," Adam argued. "If things get hairy-."

Suddenly, Kipo cocked her head, listening closely. "Wait... do you hear that?"

The three of them froze, and focused on listening. It was difficult to pick up the sound through the buzzing and clicking of the room right next to them, but when they focused, they could hear a steady clicking getting louder and louder. The three tensed, before slowly turning around, right into a giant wasp that towered over them.

For a second, nothing happened. The bipedal wasp started at them through its big eyes (which, Kipo realized, had human pupils in every lens) seeming to study every inch of them while Kipo, Adam and Wirt stared in shock. What were they supposed to do?"

Unfortunately, they didn't really have the time to sit back and figure that out. Before they could do anything, the wasp raised it's (oddly human-like) hands, and gently pushed them into the room. Bipo, who had apparently been resting on the floor, made sure to follow at their own pace.

"Wha-HEY!" Adam shouted, but he couldn't do anything before they stumbled into the room, and all the movements stopped.

At first, Kipo was certain that when she looked up she'd meet faces of resentment and judgment (that was what usually happened when Kipo met new mutes before they got to know each other), but when she raised her head, she was pleasantly surprised to find that the bugs in the room didn't seem to take notice in her Adam or Wirt at all. They were all focused on the wasp, who was considerably bigger than all the other bugs, even the caterpillars with human faces and other wasps. It seemed to command attention, stealing it from the three humans.

Apparently, Adam noticed as well. He looked from the assembled bugs to the wasp, frowning. "It's just like the ant... why don't they care about us?"

"Let's count it as a blessing," Kipo said. "You were right, after all, we probably couldn't fight all of them."

That didn't seem to reassure Adam at all. "There's something weird about this..."

Before Kipo could reply, she was caught off guard by the same ant from earlier (probably) hurried in, settling down next to Wirt, who flinched away. When Kipo looked closely at it, she realized it was missing its aphid friend.

Kipo blinked, but before she could say anything to Adam or Wirt, the wasp at the front of the room started chattering. It was almost like it was making a speech, or something like that. Kipo wasn't sure what it was, but it seemed to keep the other bugs attention.

"It's like a classroom..." Wirt mumbled to himself. Kipo looked over to him with wide eyes.

"Huh?"

Wirt jumped, startled, and then he shrugged, embarrassed. "Er... it just reminds me of this weird school I went in when I was in The Unknown. All the animals were the students, but the teacher was human... it was weird, okay?"

Kipo frowned. "That doesn't sound that weird."

"Oh, right," Wirt looked even more embarrassed now. "Right, the mutes... well the teacher was the weirdest part, really, but-."

Suddenly, Wirt was cut off as the wasp pushed its terrifying head up to him. He fell back with a scream and Adam and Kipo put up their hands, ready to fight, but the wasp didn't attack Wirt. Instead, it put it's hand on its hip and pointed to a corner in the room.

Adam and Kipo tilted their heads in confusion, but Wirt apparently understood. He got up with a sigh and march over to the corner where the wasp was pointing with his head held low.

It took a couple seconds for Adam and Kipo to get it, at least until Wirt was in the corner.

"Wait, did Wirt get in trouble for talking to much?" Kipo had to put a hand over her mouth to keep herself from giggling.

"The teacher put him in the naughty corner!" Adam snorted. Wirt turned around to give them both a look, but it didn't really work that well on account of his beet red face. It only made Kipo and Adam laugh harder.

Well, at least until the wasp gave them a dirty look, or what they figure was a dirty look. Kipo and Adam made sure to stay quiet after that, but they couldn't help but let out a few snickers throughout the class.