Splash.
Baines stepped out of the pond.
Water slid off his bare frame in thin rivulets, collecting beneath his feet in a shallow puddle. His body was frail now, noticeably leaner than before. No blood and no grime marred his boy; he was clean. It was just his pale skin, steady breath, and a face set with quiet focus.
He didn't move.
A pale outline flared faintly in his vision, stretching outward in a wide arc. Twenty-five meters away, every jagged edge of stone, every uneven rise of ground, and every silent shape at the cavern's edge appeared as thin lines of light.
They shifted and flickered, alert—waiting.
Just like him.
'It should come soon,' he thought, his eyes shifting in circles. 'Any moment now.'
The past few days had taught him patience.
It taught him restraint.
His thoughts slowed, calculations settling into place. Panic no longer seized him the way it once had. Rather, he had learnt the hard way that fear only made things worse.
Then—
[CRISIS DETECTED: DANGER APPROACHING]
'Now,' he thought, roaring in his mind.
Then Baines exhaled fully, emptying his lungs until his chest felt hollow.
He held his breath, refusing to draw in the thin air around him. His muscles loosened, posture slackening as if he were nothing more than another lifeless figure in the cave.
He stood still and unmoving, just like the statues guarding the entrance.
Then the black tendrils emerged.
They seeped into the cavern like smoke given form, coiling and unfurling through the air. A dull gray pulse shimmered within them, faint and rhythmic. As they drifted closer, the space around them seemed to thin, as though the cave itself recoiled.
The tendrils found him.
They clung to his headfirst, drawn as if by instinct. Water still clinging to his hair vanished instantly, erased without a sound. The tendrils tightened, sliding along his scalp, then burrowed inward.
Cold flooded his senses instantly.
It was sharp and sudden, like icy water poured directly into his skull. His limbs threatened to buckle. His awareness wavered, the edges of his consciousness blurring.
'Hold it,' he recited those words like a chant. 'Don't fight it.'
He stayed still.
The tendrils spread over his body, winding down his shoulders, chest, and legs. Wherever they passed, the remaining water disappeared as if it had never existed, and the cold feeling spread through every inch of his body.
He still held his position.
When they reached his feet, they lingered only a moment longer before withdrawing.
Then they retreated, dissolving back into the dark.
Baines remained frozen.
Seconds passed. Until,
[NO DANGER DETECTED]
He sucked in air greedily, chest rising and falling in sharp gasps. His hands braced against his knees as he steadied himself.
Phew….
"…That was close," he muttered.
Despite the lingering chill in his bones, relief washed through him. Without hesitation, he moved away from the pond, toward the familiar corner he had claimed as his own over the past several days.
This time, there was no panic.
He gathered a set of clothes and dressed slowly with practiced movements. The fabric hung loosely on his thinner frame, but it was still clean and dry.
'Ten days,' he thought as he fastened the last strap. 'It's already been ten days since the day I woke up in this cave.'
He had survived them.
He glanced around the cavern. 'Since then, I have gotten a bit used to my surroundings.' Even with the night vision deactivated, the faint outline of everything in the cave still lingered in his sight. It wasn't enough to see clearly, but enough to move without stumbling.
His gaze drifted toward the cave entrance.
The statues stood there, silent and unmoving.
'I still plan to leave,' he thought, his expression darkening slightly. 'But it's proving harder than I expected.'
On his second day here, he had noticed something wrong.
It was a strange phenomenon that he had never experienced before. It was a natural law in the world that happened regardless of what anyone wanted, so it was odd witness its absence.
Day.
The natural sunlight that shone upon the world after night. It never came.
At first, he had dismissed it as exhaustion. Then suspicion crept in. To be sure, he stayed awake for an entire cycle, or what should have been one.
Nothing happened. The darkness never lifted.
'Well, it isn't that surprising anymore,' he thought now, sitting down as he ate a handful of moodgrains. 'Eye said this place ignores the rules of the world and follows its own.'
The grains tasted faintly sweet today.
And after a careful study, thinking, and eye's deductions, he pieced his predicament together from the thin air to the total absence of air outside, and the constant darkness.
'The cause is that damn black smoke.' He slightly shivered as he thought of it.
On the same day he found out the day hadn't arrived, he decided to take a bath in the pond. After the events of the first day, he couldn't continue his day in dirt and blood, so he got in.
As soon as he stepped out, the black smoke appeared.
He couldn't see it and didn't sense it. It had simply latched onto him invasively and violently ravaged his body.
When it was done, it then burrowed into his body. Due to fear of what might happen, he struggled and fought to resist. It turned out to be a big mistake. It grew worse, the cold spread wider, and eventually, drawing blood.
It wasn't until he gave up struggling, leaving it to do whatever, and accepted his fate that it stopped and withdrew. That encounter had almost killed him, but left him frail and skinny.
Ever since, he knew not to struggle whenever the black tendrils appeared.
"Thankfully, it doesn't react to sound. But these listeners do." He returned his gaze to the exit. For convenience, he named the statues listeners.
"Not only do they respond to sound and have slow movement, but they also attract the black smoke into them. Maybe their movements are slow because of that. Unlike that black smoke that despises the presence of anything. Whenever presence appears, it takes action to eradicate the cause of the presence.'
It could be explained in the situation of his rage outburst. The presence of the crimson energy triggered the presence of everything else present to come alive. The black smoke moved to strike the heart of the problem. The same happened after he took a bath in the pond. It came and took the water, causing the presence appear.
'If not for the listeners blocking the exit, more of the black smoke would have stormed in here.' He couldn't even imagine the catastrophe it would cause.
It would swallow up the already thin air, the whole pond, and maybe even him.
'For now, I can only guess that the black smoke present isn't enough to remove the air and the water in the pond.'
After stuffing the last portion of grain in his mouth, he stood silently and moved close to the statues.
'I have estimated how much food I will need in a day.' He told himself. 'I have ninety days before my food runs out, and I am stranded.'
He approached the statues once more, stopping at a safe distance.
'I can't stay here forever,' he thought. 'And I can't leave like this.'
He swallowed.
'That is why from today onward…'
His chest tightened as the decision settled in.
'I need to learn how to breathe outside.'
That was the only path forward.