Opal proceeds to have a Horrifying Realization about the other rocks, and breaks down weeping.

Malen, meanwhile, wakes up somewhere thoroughly strange.

Specifically, she wakes up in a flooded field, beneath a grey, slate sky. Literally. There appears to be a stone ceiling above her, stretching out unto infinity in all directions. Instead of stars, there are thousands upon thousands of diamonds set into the sky. No sun or moon in sight, but dull light seems to permeate everything. Stalks of yellow grass surround her, and in the distance, she sees what looks like a mountain. An unusually circular mountain. 

Luckily, the water isn't too deep.

Not hurting anymore is nice.

She gets up, calls out, "Hello? Opal? Anyone there?"

She hears a voice coming from some reeds. "Uh, hi? Not Opal, whoever that is."

"Uh. My friend. Do you know where we are? I was in the Spooky Forest, then I saw a land-minnow and got bit and it hurt and now I'm here."

What is probably a boy emerges from the reeds. His skin is covered with a thin layer of black fur, catlike eyes catching and throwing back the dim light of the chamber. "Oh, you never die before?" he asks. "This is the underworld." A tail swishes behind him, somewhat like the land-minnow. 

"That's what happened? Dying? Nope. And you're really cool, you don't look like any of the people I've seen!" Which admittedly hasn't been many.

The creature looks her over, whistling.  "Wow, you must be real new."

She doesn't like that tone. "What do you mean?"

"You look new. No improvements."

"...You can get improvements?"

"...Yeah. So you can survive better."

"Surviving wasn't a problem in the plains! It was just that weird land-minnow!"

"What's a land-minnow? And the plains? Survival isn't a problem? How?"

"It was long and shiny and hissing, and I don't know its name so it's a minnow. The plains are where we woke up, they've got grass and streams and a bunch of fruit. I guess survival could be a problem if you were really bad at finding fruit, but even the Spooky Forest has fruit, it's just all spiky."

"Sounds nice," he sounds a touch jealous. "Never heard of a place like that. And I think that was a snake."

"Snake! That's it's name. And you said died before, if you can die a lot how do you get back? You could come with me maybe? Or find somewhere else to go."

"Could do... and there's some boy-thing called a god that shouts at--"

A plume of water bursts from the surface, falling to reveal a boy--somehow more real and terrible than anything Malen has seen before in her short life. Darkness whips around him, along with the pale shades of what look like the memory of children... wriggling their smokey fingers and going "woooooh"

"You talkin' about me?" 

The creature prostrates himself before the figure. "No, Lord Veles, I swear!"

Malen is extremely Not Impressed.

"The land-minnow was spookier," she tells him haughtily. 

"Mind your tongue, mortal."

"I am. You're not scary."

"I control your future!"