Work Text:
[DATE: JUNE 19
TIME: 8:20 AM
LOCATION: UNDERNEATH HAITI
VIDEO BEGINS]
"Is, is this thing on?" A caramel-skinned woman with a ponytail said into her camera, trying to adjust it so it would take just the right video in the darkness of this cave. "Emmanuel, you're good with these things."
The woman handed it over to a taller, thin man with glasses, who eyed it closely. "Yep, you're good. Light's on and everything."
She took the camera back, attaching it to a selfie stick. "Okay. In case you find this with our corpses, I'm Jean Page, and the string bean over there is my brother, Emmanuel."
"Hello!" Emmanuel waved.
"And we're here in this cave! Yeah, who knows what we're gonna find down here?"
"Mhm!"
"So… yeah…"
The video continues with little of note as they travel through the cavern. Emmanuel begins to hum a melody, to the tune of 'I'm a Little Teapot'.
"What are you doing?"
"Oh, you know me, humming… keeps my nerves down."
"Well, could you do it a little quieter?"
"Sorry." He acceded to her demand, and went quieter.
The camera traded hands a few times as they tried to find interesting things in the darkness. They didn't really succeed. Especially when jittery Emmanuel was holding on to it, which was when it was barely intelligible.
"Emmanuel, let go! You're wasting the video!"
"But you never look at anything cool here-" With a 'conk', he bumped into a nearby support pole, likely from an old mining dig.
"Manny, you okay?!" Jean rushed over to her brother.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just bumped into something."
"Oh. Of course you did." Relief turned to annoyance. "You know what we were told? Be very, very careful. Don't touch anything that looks fragile. If it's hollow, don't touch, if it's cracked, don't touch, if it's-"
"Yes, of course, I got it."
They moved on down the cave for several minutes, just as uneventful as before. Or so it was until their feet slipped off of a ledge, and they fell to the ground.
"Nice going, you almost broke the camera." Jean criticized as she pushed herself up.
"Better than almost cracking a rib…which I just did, actually…" Little did they know, when they slipped on the ledge, they knocked loose one tiny pebble. One pebble led to another, and then another, so on and so forth until a load-bearing stone in another part of the cave was knocked free.
"Wait, what's that sound?" Jean heard a distant crumbling and cracking. Dust began to fall from the ceiling above.
Jean looked above, and knew what was going to happen next.
She began to plead, like her voice was going to stop it from happening. "No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, noooooooo!!!!!!!!!" It was too late… they were trapped, caved in.
Jean's fear was silent, stone-faced.
Emannuel's was loud, hyperventilating, shivering. "Is this a bad time to mention I have… very severe claustrophobia?
"God dammit, Emmanuel!"
"I'm sorry, Jean!"
"We're in a cave together, something that neither of us have ever done before and might not ever get the chance to do again, and you didn't tell me you were claustrophobic?"
"STOP SHOUTING!" Emmanuel screamed. The echo traveled far outward from the duo.
The two went quiet, but the cave wasn't silent. "Do you hear that?" A small, slow rumbling was coming from beneath them.
The noise grew closer… and closer… and closer…
With a thundering SMASH, someone practically leaped through the stone floor, and landed in front of the siblings. Neither of them, nor the camera could really get a good look at him, though they could definitely tell underneath his armored clothes, he had a powerful build.
"You two." The man looked at them, his green eyes speckled with amber shining through the darkness. "You aren't supposed to be down here." His voice had an earthy power to it that shook the siblings to their core. It had an accent that was vaguely Middle Eastern, but not easy to trace.
He scoffed at their stunned silence, looking between their eyes. "You aren't supposed to die here, either."
The two of them sighed, relieved. "At least you're looking to help us!" said Jean.
"Only 'cause you'd die if I didn't." The man remarked, turning his head to the cave's ceiling. He leapt upwards a couple of times, before breaking through the ceiling. The brother and sister looked astonished as that same burrowing sound from earlier was now fading away.
After a few seconds, the man descended, a ray of light shining down upon him. The cave was slightly illuminated by the reflection of his copper armor.
Jean laughed inside. He flew through that stone like it was air!
Looking upwards, the hole led to the surface, with the sun's morning light reaching all the way down.
"Both of you, stay very, very still." He commanded.
First, the man grabbed Emmanuel by the waist. He hoisted him on top of his shoulders, and leaped out of the hole.
"Jesus Christ!" Jean steadied her camera and looked up to where they leapt through. She could see two very faint silhouettes looking downward towards her.
"Jean! I'm okay!" Emmanuel shouted from the surface, sound echoing down the hole.
"Get back! I'm coming back down!" Our hero fell back down through the hole like he had said, landing on his feet with a 'THUD'. "Your turn, ma'am." The process was repeated with Jean. She was hoisted by the waist onto his shoulders, and he leapt through the hole he created before gently setting her down on the ground. As they came out, the hole in the ground practically sealed itself beneath them.
"Oh my God!" Jean called out ecstatically, relieved to be out of that cave forever. "We're… we're alive!"
"Oh I am never going underground again!" Emmanuel kneeled on the ground, kissing the dirt with gusto.
"Thank you so much!" Jean hugged the man closely, her token of gratitude.
"You're welcome. Don't try to get in another cave-in next time."
After what may have been just slightly too long, Jean pulled away from the man. Now that she could get a better look, he was rather dashing. Long braided hair, pointed goatee, and a face that had a rugged action-star quality to it. The intricate design of his copper-colored costume was something to be marveled at, like something from another world.
"So… do you have a name?" Emmanuel asked, calmed down from his ecstasy of being on terra firma once more.
"Excuse me?"
"Well… we have this on video. You're a hero. Like, a real superhero. People should know who you are."
He paused. "I am not a hero. I'm just someone who did the right thing. And a name…"
"Oh, don't be so humble. You just- just cut through a kilometer of stone like it was nothing!"
The two siblings turned to each other, making sure they had their hero in frame on the camera. "STONECUTTER!"
[DATE: JUNE 19
TIME: 9:03 AM
LOCATION: HAITI
VIDEO ENDS]