"What do you think?" asked Keyro. Martin was surprised to be asked an opinion. But he took a careful look. There was no sign of recent activity. No furniture of any sort around. No graffitti indicating the presence of gangs. Martin thought it was pretty possible that he and Keyro were the first people to pass this way in a very long time. "I guess it's safe enough."
The two boys approached the cabin and found the door. It was closed. The holes that existed for one-time windows were very small. "Somebody wanted privacy." said Keyro, walking up to the door. It opened easily. Martin stood several steps back, rather nervously. "I can't see anything." stated Keyro. "It's like it's totally dark inside. Just a few slight shafts of light from the holes in the roof, but they're not showing anything. But I don't smell anything except musty air and rotted wood. No one's been here for a very long time. Maybe we can poke around and find something interesting, some sort of artifact."
"Well, okay." said Martin, not at all enthusiastic about it. "But let's find a way to prop the door open. Maybe we can see a little better in there."
Keyro found a large rock nearby and propped the door open. "I don't know if this is going to help much." he said. "I mean, for seeing what we're doing. It looks completely dark in there."
"I wonder what could cause that?" asked Martin, as both boys stepped through the doorway.
And found that the floor of the cabin was about six inches lower than the ground outside. Both Martin and Keyro went sprawling, and landed surprisingly softly on what felt like two tons of dust. It gave both of the boys sneezing fits for the next several minutes. Martin's sounded normal enough. Keyro's sneezes sounded somewhere between a whistle and a quack, a sort of "whee-HONK!" sound.
"Wow." wheezed Martin when he finally stopped sneezing. He felt weak from all of it. "Now I know why my mom tells me to dust every so often."
"I'm not sure this is just dust." commented Keyro. "Smells burnt. And it's making my eyes itch."
"I don't think we're gonna find anything in here." suggested Martin. "And I don't wanna trip like that again."
"Agreed." said Keyro. "Let's get out of here."
When they emerged, the two boys looked at each other with astonishment. Their bodies were heavily covered in streaks of grey and black. If it had been even slightly worse, it would've been impossible to discern any color on either boy. "Soot!" said Martin. "That wasn't dust, it was a big mess of soot and ash!"
"Is it harmful?" asked Keyro.
"Not really, I don't think." said Martin. "Just real dirty." He tried to brush himself off, but this just made matters worse.
"We were sort of getting that way, anyway." remarked Keyro. "But why would stuff like that be in there?"
"Maybe a fire, a long time ago." said Martin, trying to wipe some of the grime from his face, at least. "But left the outside of the building standing. Weird."
"So are these woods, at times." said Keyro, also trying to wipe his face clean a bit. "Let's continue on for a while longer, then head back."
Martin nodded. The two boys wandered away from the old rotted cabin and further into the woods, with Keyro in the lead. The next point of interest they discovered was a huge mound of dirt, with some weeds protruding from it at various points. "Odd place for a hill." said Keyro.
"Looks like somebody dumped this dirt pile here and then forgot about it." said Martin. "Race ya to the top of it!"
The dirt of the hill turned out to be fairly loose, and slightly wet from either a recent rainfall or just the local humidity, and the boys' arms and legs sank in as they climbed. By the time they reached the top, they were not only covered with soot and streaked with grass, but had a fair amount of dirt on their arms, lower legs, and chests. Keyro won the race, but not by much. Additional strength doesn't do a whole lot of good when the surface you're racing on is that unstable.
"If we get much dirtier than this, no one's going to know it's us!" said Martin.
"Maybe that should be our objective!" exclaimed Keyro. "I mean, not so they don't recognize us. I think that'd be impossible." Keyro twitched his two antennae as examples. "But I wonder how dirty we can get before we head back and jump in the mud to finish it off?"
"You're weird." giggled Martin.
"But you like the idea?" asked Keyro.
"I don't know how much worse we can get, but I guess at this point it don't make much difference." replied Martin.
"'Worse'?!" protested Keyro, raising an arm in the air in an exaggerated fashion. "No, Martin, you don't understand! We are a culture unto ourselves today! A culture of two, for whom getting dirty is the desired objective! This isn't wrong, or bad. This is good! This is beauty!"
"You been drinkin' orange juice or something?" asked Martin, trying not to laugh.
Keyro pretended to be insulted, but ultimately shrugged and grinned. "Well, I thought it sounded good." The two boys tried to slide down the hill, ended up tumbling a bit, and wound up at the bottom in a cloud of dust. After a bit of coughing to clear their throats, they picked themselves up, Keyro having to prevent Martin from instinctively trying to brush himself off, and they continued further into the forest.
At one point, exploring some tall grasses in the woods, Keyro put up his hand. "Wildlife!" he whispered.
Martin gulped. That could mean anything from a chipmunk to a bear. "What is it?"
"A member of the ophidia family." replied Keyro.
"A what?!" exclaimed Martin, wondering not for the first time if Keyro was really as close in age to himself as he actually looked. The way Keyro spoke sometimes, it was very hard to know for certain.
"A member of the ophidia family." said Keyro again. "In this case it is one of the limbless specimens of…
"Let me see." said Martin. He had no idea what Keyro was talking about. He'd never heard of an «ophidia». He edged around Keyro and looked about twelve paces further along, and saw the animal Keyro was talking about.
It was, in plain language, a snake. A large one, at that.
And Keyro was clearly clueless about it.
Martin nearly wet his underpants. He didn't know if this thing was poisonous or not, and didn't intend to hang around long enough to find out. "Keyro?" Martin squeaked.
"Yes?" asked Keyro.
"RUN!" cried Martin, turning around and taking off at full speed, barely looking over his shoulder long enough to see if Keyro was following. He was. After a few minutes, the two boys stopped. "That was a snake!" said Martin.
"That is the standard term, yes." agreed Keyro.
"Some of them are dangerous!" said Martin. "And they're all creepy."
Keyro blinked. "I didn't know some of them were dangerous. I haven't gotten that far in my reading yet. Was that one dangerous?"
"I don't know." said Martin. "An' I don't care."
The two boys slumped to the ground, Martin leaning up against a tree. "Keyro, how can you sound like you're so smart, act like you know so much, and then something like that happens?"
"I'm still fairly new to this world." replied Keyro. "And there's a lot of animals on this planet."
Martin sighed, and stood. "I gotta pee. I'll be right back."
"Plenty of bushes around here." commented Keyro. "It's not as though I'll be offended."
Martin just shrugged. Inwardly, he didn't really want to separate from Keyro. The forest seemed to be getting thicker. So he turned his back on Keyro, lowered his shorts, and aimed at the nearest bush. He could also hear Keyro stifling a giggle. "What's so funny?" said Martin once he had finished.
"A very dirty you compared to a very clean butt." replied Keyro. "You sure you want to keep wearing those shorts?"
"Yes, and stop lookin' at my butt." replied Martin.