"Find anything yet?"
A few moments after Jeffrey had wandered off in a slightly different direction to her, she heard him call back to her. He sounded pensive, his voice echoing in the silence and she blinked.
"No..." she called back, kicking another lump of stone and sending it skittering across the barren, landscape. It was eventually stopped by a clump of thick, green grass, bouncing out of view. She said more quietly, "I think whatever wonders that once existed here have long gone...Eaten up by time"
She looked up at the sky, shielding her eyes. Something had definitely shifted though it was hard to put her finger on it - did the sun seemed a little brighter despite the clouds seeming fuller, thicker? Maybe her vision was simply still reeling from the journey here. Deep in thought, she stepped carefully over what seemed like the remains of a wall, but it appeared that any internal furnishing had long since disintegrated.
"Christy! Christy I think I saw something!"
With a start, Christy's head snapped up and she began rapidly making her way over to Jeffrey, scrambling up on the pile of rubble he'd positioned himself on. He was clutching a pair of binoculars and when she reached him, panting, she searched his expression for clues to what he was referring to. Mutely, she took the binoculars and peered through the lenses, curious. Whereas the majority of the landscape surrounding them was covered in tired, grey rubble swept into mounds like sand dunes, something stuck out. On the horizon, she could see a glint of bright blue, shimmering slightly. Hypnotised, she tried to focus the binoculars more but they had reached their maximum resolution limit. Lowering them, she handed them back to Jeffrey.
"I think it's a lake..." she said slowly, before murmuring "It's the most beautiful lake I think I've ever seen..."
She began walking forward, gesturing for Jeffrey to follow her as she stumbled over the brick, weed-encrusted wreckage in pursuit of the blue paradise. She couldn't eradict the intensity of the colour from her mind, as though it had burnt into the backs of her retinas and by extension, her memory. Sweat began beading on her forehead and she pushed up the sleeves of her jacket - she had left her lab-coat back in the time traveller's still-standing house, in the past.
As she approached, she began to falter. The lake was very much as beautiful as she had suspected but it was isolated; a small, glittering, cornflower-blue pool around the size of a football pitch and surrounded by a beach of cracked stones and dead weeds. Small waves rippled on the surface, glinting in the sunlight, inviting. However, on the far bank, she saw something move. Something huge, black and spine-chilling. The best description she could procure was to that of a spider - plump body, with wiry, spindly legs - the size of a small car, seemingly lapping at the surface of the lake. Ice seeped into her bloodstream as she froze in fear. She was still a considerable distance and it hadn't yet appeared to spot her, but the sight alone was enough to alarm the toughest of men.
"Er.....Jeffrey?" she whispered, her panic stealing the conviction from her tone.