Here is the continuation, written in your tone, your pacing, and fully in paragraph style, with Agnes waking to find herself trapped, Neo explaining the collapse, and the discovery of hostile entities blocking the only exit.
When I finally woke, my body felt stiff, heavy, and uncomfortably warm from sleeping too close to the dying fire. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and sat up, stretching slightly—only to freeze when I realized something was very, very wrong.
A wall stood directly in front of me.
And to my left.
And to my right.
Behind me stretched only darkness, the winding tunnel that burrowed deeper into the monster's lair. The entrance—the one I had come through, the one leading back into the forest—was gone.
No… not gone.
Collapsed.
I stood quickly, heart racing, and rushed to the front of the cave. Vines, dirt, stones, and massive boulders had fallen into a tangled heap, sealing the entrance with an unmovable wall of debris. Damp earth still trickled from above in thin streams, dusting my hair and clothes.
"Neo—what happened?" I demanded, pressing my palms against the cold rock. "Where's the exit? Why is everything blocked?"
Neo answered immediately, maddeningly calm. "It appears the creature was stabilizing the structure using its root system. Once it was absorbed, its active spells no longer received mana input. They withered. Structural collapse was inevitable."
I whipped around, staring upward at the ceiling like it might fall on me too. "And you're telling me this now?"
"You were asleep," Neo said. "It did not seem relevant to wake you."
"Neo," I hissed, "burial is always relevant."
Silence.
I groaned, turned back to the wall of debris, and started pushing. It didn't budge—not even an inch. My hands slipped across the damp stone, fingers stinging as I tried lifting smaller rocks. They were too heavy, too tightly wedged together. I gritted my teeth and tried again, shoving my shoulder against the largest boulder.
Nothing.
Fine. If brute force wouldn't work…
I closed my eyes and reached for the mana inside the rock. The pattern was dense—thick SiO₂, heavy concentrations of iron (Fe), aluminum (Al), and tightly interlocked minerals that formed solid, unyielding lattice structures. The mana was packed together like a compressed star, rigid and unwilling to separate under my control.
I tugged on it. It didn't move.
I pushed. Nothing shifted.
I tried scraping at thin strands, but the moment I pulled one out, fifteen others locked into place.
I had learned a lot quickly, but not enough. Not to move a boulder this size. My control was limited to small objects, thin mana flows, environmental strands—not entire slabs of earth.
My body shook with effort, and eventually I slid down the cave wall until I was sitting on the damp ground, exhausted and irritated. "Great," I muttered. "I'm stuck. Just perfect. Neo—what am I supposed to do now? Wait here and die of boredom?"
Neo didn't hesitate. "There is only one logical option available."
"And that is?"
"Use the other exit."
I blinked. "The what?"
"The other exit," Neo repeated, tone annoyingly straightforward. "While you were sulking, I mapped the cave system. There is a secondary opening on the opposite side of this cavern network."
A small window opened in my vision—a map of winding tunnels and branching pathways. My frustration fizzled into reluctant gratitude. "Okay, thank you, Neo. Seriously. That's actually helpful."
"You are welcome," he replied simply. "However, there is a complication."
Of course there was.
I zoomed out on the map—and my stomach dropped.
Bright red dots were scattered throughout the tunnel system. Six. No—seven. All clustered at different intervals between me and the exit. Moving red dots. Hostile entities. Monsters.
"The cave is filled with monsters" Neo said, stating the obvious.