And those islands were not bare. They were covered with trees or grass or sand or rock or even rubble. Kain could only see what was within his eyesight and could not even see the places above him.

‘What could be up there? Wait… where am I?’

He looked down to see where he was. If there were islands that he could see the top of, didn’t that mean that they were at about the same height as the place where he was standing? If that were the case, what was he standing on? Kain gave a start and shot his gaze down to his surroundings. He was standing in a cave near the top of a mountain of blue stone. Below him, at the foot of the mountain, there was a forest with trees that had dark, lush, bluish green leaves that gave a heavy contrast to the paleish blue stone of the mountain. At some point, some 50 miles away from where Kain was standing, the trees simply stopped. There was no clearing or meadow or anything after the last trees. Just empty space. One fact sunk into Kain like a knife.

‘Those islands… I’m on one as well, huh?’

He felt a strange comfort, despite his nonsensical situation. Looking at those islands that simply hung in the air, unmoving, uncaring for the laws of gravity, Kain had the feeling that there was nothing that could possibly bring the whole island down short of obliterating the land entirely. Kain decided to calm down and observe his surroundings. The cave he was in was near the top of the mountain, but some trees that looked like the trees in the forest below were growing here as well in small areas that had usable soil. He looked at the soil which had a color that looked like a mix of brown and blue, just like everything else in this crazy place. It looked wet and lush, like it was being nourished by a river despite the fact that it was halfway up a damn mountain. He looked toward the top of the mountain, which seemed to be reaching the sky above. Looking at the sky, he realized that there was no sun. No sun! How could a lush forest be supported without a sun!? As such thoughts were brewing in Kain’s mind, he looked for the light that allowed him to see everything around him. It must be strong because he can see every island around the mountain and the forest below, so it should be somewhere. Despite that, there was no source of the light that Kain saw.

‘Where is it!? It can’t be the air because, one, that makes no sense, and two, if it was, why was that cave so dark?’

Looking around, Kain decided to perform an experiment. He held Dea in its sheath above the ground to look for a shadow. There was a shadow, but it was right below the knife, as if it was noon where the sun sat in the center of the sky. Kain looked up to see that the island above him was jutting out to be above himself. He looked to find the shadow of the island on his own island and saw nothing. It was as if the island were simply not there, and light coming from above went unimpeded to Kain and his Dea. He sighed and shrugged. ‘I am standing on something that literally defies the laws of gravity. Seeing light is not as big of a deal.’ Kain looked up once more and tried to visualize the islands based on what they had in common with each other. The one above him had rock and stone on the bottom, and a lot of it. Luckily, Kain was not directly under the island above him, and saw that the stone was deep. It was so deep that Kain, who suddenly remembered his high school geology class, thought that it looked as deep as the mantle of earth, perhaps somehow even deeper. The shape of the island was not uniform, as it looked like a reverse mountain, with its peak in the middle. Kain could not see the whole island above him, so he looked at the other islands around him.

Some had ground levels that were about a third of his mountain up, while others lay below his mountain. Kain guessed that the height of the mountain was about a mile and 2/3rds high. It was not a very tall mountain, but Kain would prefer not to fall off of it. Looking at those other islands, he guessed that they all were about 100 miles wide and with no consistent edge to any of them. They had many different shapes, from wide open and full like the desert island to thin and long islands like the one that had rubble on it.

All in all, the islands seemed like chunks of land that consisted of the crust layer and everything above it. Kain felt like this was the right answer, but continued to tell himself that it was likely wrong, because the fact that huge chunks of planet were floating in the sky caused him to question the usefulness of rationality and common sense in this situation. Either way, he assessed the surroundings and he came to a conclusion: he had no idea where he was. To him, this place could be literally anywhere but Earth.

‘Well, at least I’m not burning in the pits of Hell or Tartarus or whatever other afterlife there is, so there’s that.’

Kain had enough of looking at the completely mind-melting islands and decided to explore the one he had gotten stuck on. He looked at the pale blue mountain and sighed. The mountain was quite tall, and he was most of the way to the top, about a mile and a half away from the ground. This height meant that there was little chance of there being an easy way down. He decided to employ an old trick that wanderer characters in movies and t.v. shows used. In the surroundings were some short trees with branches that had fallen off for some reason. They looked dried and cracked, but when Kain tried to snap it, the branches seemed quite hard. As he picked up a stick, he took notice that the blue hue that existed on everything here for some reason was quite weak on the stick compared to the tree. The tree’s branches had a nourished feeling, like a garden that had been meticulously cared for.

Kain ignored this fact as it was likely due to some unique function of the tree and picked up the stick and placed it point down on the ground. He let the stick fall and the stick pointed to a spot to the right and there Kain saw a small winding path leading to who knows where. Kain shrugged. It may have been dangerous, but the stick has spoken. He made his way to the path and began to traverse it. There were more plants on the mountain than he saw at the exit of the cave. There were flowers of many colors, but all of their colors boiled down to ‘a color with a shade of blue’. It was the strangest thing to Kain, everything here was blue. Blue mountains and blue stones and blue trees and blue flowers and even blue fog in the distance that seemed like it was put there specifically to annoy anyone who looked further than two or so islands. The only thing in this whole damn place that wasn’t blue was the weird red pillar and the stone around it. But even that was being invaded by the blue stone.

While the color scheme of wherever Kain was annoyed him and he thought up his grievances, he happened upon a clearing in the path. In the center of it was a small stream, one that could not have been more than a few feet wide, and surrounding it were various blue animals drinking from the stream. When Kain looked, the water in the stream was blue as well. The animals were quite unique as well; there was a rabbit with light blue fur and dark blue patterns that coiled around it, there was a herd of deer with blue fur and a third horn protruding from their heads, as well as those two, there was a small turtle with a blue shell that had patterns similar to the rabbit.

After observing the animals, Kain noticed a sweet smell in the air. It smelled like some wondrous spice that could make even the blandest meals taste fit for a king. The smell swirled in the air and wafted about. Kain knew exactly where it was coming from though, and it drew his gaze. The smell was enthralling and enticing. It was as if the song of the sirens were condensed into a smell and was poured into the little stream that flowed down the mountain.

*=====*

While Kain gazed upon the unique stream, the cave where he first woke up began to change. The intrusions by the blue stone into the red stone had evolved. There was no longer a rigid line of separation between them anymore. The blue swirled around the red and looked like a piece of art or a clash between two whirlpools of different colors. The blue and red seemed to dance and dance along the walls and ceiling and floor. The mix could be described as a storm or a hurricane, and in the center of it, was the pillar, now dyed with a whirlwind of blue and red.