The all-consuming blackness receded slowly, like the tide pulling away from the shore. Hill's first sensation was a rough texture brushing against his cheek, followed by an earthy scent he didn't recognize.
He groaned, his voice sounding strangely deep and ragged, and pushed himself up. The searing agony from the starlight tunnel was gone. Now he felt weary but complete, as if his mind and body were back to normal.
When he finally managed to pry his eyelids open, the sight that greeted him immediately stunned him. He was in a forest, but unlike any he could have imagined. Towering above him with colossal trunks that were a dull purple, trees scraped at a sky he couldn't quite see. Their leaves, which appeared incredibly thick and wide from below, formed a dense canopy far overhead that shrouded the forest floor in darkness. Only beams of light coming from gaps in the canopy provided illumination.
Trees like these didn't exist back on Earth, he was sure of it. This place...this is Igashia. The new world that I've been sent to.
The ground beneath his worn-down leather shoes felt soft yet hard at the same time. Looking down, he saw that it was a strange tapestry of moss and smooth grey stone with barely any soil. In fact, the more he looked, the more he realized that the forest had actually grown out of the hard stone beneath his feet. How? Don't plants need soil to grow? The exposed roots of the trees indeed seemed to burrow through the stone, leaving the smooth surface cracked and torn apart in some areas.
The air was cool, and the breeze made it feel cold. He shivered and slapped himself in the face.
Alright, Hill. Compose yourself! You're in some alien world now...and based on what the glyphs described...you have to survive!
But...where do I start?
He had never had to live in the depths of nature. His entire life was lived within Agshaka city, moving from tenement to tenement without ever leaving the city boundaries. His only encounters with true nature were when he would visit the riverfront with his sister. As a result, he had no survival skills.
Well, I can't survive without finding food and water, right? I guess I'll look for some water first, and then food...and then shelter after that. Yeah, that seems right.
He began to wander through the forest, walking in no particular direction, hoping to find something useful. But the forest seemed to stretch on forever, and the darkness prevented him from seeing much anyway. One thing he noticed was that there seemed to be no other animals, which made it awfully quiet and caused his soft footsteps to sound deceptively louder than they were. The realization only made his anxiety grow worse.
After a half-hour or so of wandering, the forest suddenly ended.
One moment, he was stepping past the gnarled roots of a particularly massive purple tree; the next, he stood on the edge of a different world. Before him lay a wide yet calm river that cut through the landscape approximately two hundred feet ahead of the forest boundary. At the other side, the forest seemed to continue onward, but the distance between that half of the forest and this half stood at an equal distance from the river.
But it wasn't the river itself that seized his attention, despite his thirst—it was the land around it. There was no growth along its banks. No moss, no alien purple trees. He couldn't even see a blade of grass. Instead, the riverbank was made completely from a bleached smooth stone material, as if the river exuded some sort of aura that repelled life away from it.
Thanks to the river, though, Hill could finally look past the oppressive canopy and see the sky. His eyes narrowed as he looked up.
This...I didn't expect this.
Instead of a normal sky, with or without clouds, he found himself staring at the distant roof of a colossal cavern. There were monstrously large stalactites that hung from the ceiling like the teeth of some primordial being. Nestled among them were orbs of pulsating light—hundreds of them, casting their illumination downward.
Hill immediately realized what this place was. The stone ground, the strange trees, the absence of the sky—this was an underground forest. And based on his wandering from earlier, the scale of it was too vast to comprehend.
Unsure of what to make of his surroundings, he turned back to the river. Walking to the edge of the moving waters, he felt a parching thirst beginning to seize his throat. The waters were crystal clear, and he could see the riverbed with stunning clarity. He knelt down by the river's edge and cupped his hands, dipping them into the water.
The cold shocked him. It was as if a tremor had shot through him instantly, causing his teeth to chatter and chills to shoot through his spine. The water felt unnaturally frigid, and his hands began to sting from the cold-induced pain. Clenching his teeth, he brought his cupped hands toward his lips. He needed to hydrate himself, after all. So what if it was this cold?
But before he could even take a sip, a voice came from directly behind him. Feminine and shaky.
"Don't move."
Hill froze, his eyes widening as he glanced around him. He could make out the outline of the person behind him reflected on the river's surface, but it was just an outline and didn't tell him much besides their humanoid shape. But one thing was clear—they had snuck up on him without him noticing. Because of that, they had to be dangerous.
His heart began to pound in his chest, his cupped hands still pressed against his chin. His hands were beginning to feel like they were burning from the cold, but he kept them closed together. For whatever reason, he didn't want to make any movements. The voice had sparked enough fear into him.
The voice spoke again. "W-why are you drinking that?"
Hill opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. What kind of question is that? Who wouldn't drink fresh water like this? His response came out unconfident and shaky in comparison to his thoughts. "Haha...what do you mean...who wouldn't d-drink...fresh water like...this?"
"Water? That's not water," the voice responded. "That's blood."
Hill's eyes widened instantly, his crimson eyes staring into the crystal clear liquid that was nestled within his trembling hands. He broke the cupped shape, letting the water—no, blood—spill onto the ground.
"You're from E-Earth, right?" the voice asked.
Hill turned around slowly, his eyes fixing themselves upon the person behind him. It was a girl with light blue hair and pale skin. Her eyes, shimmering from the cave lights above, were a captivating amethyst that seemed to steal the breath from his lungs. She was dressed in what looked like the tattered remains of a traveling outfit. The tunic, made from a fancy-looking violet colored fabric, was smudged with dust and grime and possessed several snags. Her trousers, which were darker and seemed more durable than her tunic, were tucked into scuffed knee-high leather boots. A simple leather belt cinched her curvy waist.
In her hands, she held firmly onto a stone axe that looked like it had been created from the stone and wood of the underground forest.
"A-answer me!"
Hill flinched, gasping as he recognized how entranced he had become. He cleared his throat and gulped, before looking the girl in the eyes. "Yeah...I'm from Earth...What about you?"
They stared at each other for a few more seconds, panting nervously. The girl finally responded.
"Yeah...I am too."