Awareness slowly returned to Red. The familiar feeling of waking up out of a stupor passed through his mind, but the boy couldn't even brace himself for the explosion of pain that followed. However, this time the agony came from somewhere else.

It hit his head. A pounding headache that appeared to move around every inch of his skull threatened to throw him right back into unconsciousness. All his senses were overwhelmed by sensations the youth couldn't parse through - unexplainable images flashed in front of his eyes.

'The dream... What was-"

As soon as Red tried to make sense of these memories, it was as if his brain was about to explode. The boy could feel organs and other parts of his head squirming beneath his skin and bones - sections of his body that he didn't even know existed. His flesh seemed to lose the unity which made it work seamlessly together, and every inch of material that composed the youth seemed to scream individually in pain.

Red would have cried in agony if he could, but the only thing he had control of at this moment was his awareness and mind. No, not even his mind seemed fully responsive. The images continued to flash past his consciousness and no matter how hard he tried to forget or divert his attention, the pictures didn't disappear. The boy sought blindly to grasp something that would let him escape this hell.

He sought it.

Through nightmarish creatures whose forms seemed to be a violation of life itself.

Through things the size of which defied imagination.

Through symbols speaking truths that threatened to drive him insane.

He searched for something, anything.

And eventually, he found it.

A white slab. It was blurry at first but Red could feel it. Something he recognized, something he could anchor himself to. The boy held on to that sensation, and in the end, it paid off. It wasn't the plate that caught his attention, but rather what was written on it. Letters he didn't understand the meaning of, but that he remembered all the same.

Images continued to flash in his mind. However, the white slab started to become a constant through this ordeal. The visions continued to pass by, but their number started to diminish as the picture of the letters became clearer. Waves of pain and oblivion cleansed his mind of all impurity, but similar to a protector, the plate stood tall in the center of his every thought.

Red felt like hours had passed before the agony lessened enough for him to properly function again. The memories now seemed like a bad dream, and the youth consciously avoided even thinking about them, fearing they might return. He would rather go through a thousand broken bones than suffer this pain anew.

Control over his senses slowly came back too. The rushing sound of the river, the smell of water, the feeling of the cold rock surface against his skin. When Red opened his eyes, he noticed he was lying face down on the cave floor in a rather awkward position - one of the unfortunate consequences of falling unconscious.

Feeling over the rest of his body returned to. Pain and exhaustion riddled every part of his frame, more so than the youth ever felt before. Particularly, the aching seemed to be coming from within his arms and spine, where his opened spiritual veins were located. Red guessed this was the result of the infusion method he used. The boy didn't know if that was the extent of the injuries caused to them, but he was in no condition to examine it further.

The pain he experienced was distressing, but he welcomed the sensation. Compared to the mental torture he had just gone through, he guessed no physical discomfort would ever be as bad. Not to mention, it also meant that he still had a body to walk with.

Now, however, came the harder part - moving. Red had not tried to do it up until now and considering the circumstances he guessed it would be a difficult task. First, he tried his extremities. He gathered strength in his legs and arms, and slowly but surely the muscles responded to him. They trembled and shivered from the effort, and the boy was barely able to lift his right hand, but he could feel some semblance of strength returning to him.

What alarmed him, though, was his left arm. Red was aware of the sort of injury he had suffered in his shoulder - it had compromised the movement of that limb to a great extent - but now it seemed to have gotten worse. The youth could not get his arm to move no matter the force he put into it. Only the slightest tremble of his fingers and the cold feeling on his skin showed him the part was still attached to his body.

He felt concerned with the discovery, and some troubling implications started to cross his mind. However, Red eventually pushed those worries away. Everything could be addressed later, what mattered now was to escape this place and he still had two legs to do it.

The slow process of turning his body over began, but it was abruptly interrupted when the boy felt a sharp pang of pain on his side. In all his distress he had almost forgotten about the broken rib. If the youth had to guess it wasn't as bad of a fracture as the one he had gotten from the centipede, but added to all his other injuries it was still a horrible situation.

His whole right side felt tender to the touch and it drained almost all his strength when he tried to put more effort into that half of his body. Still, it didn't stop Red, and he chose to move in the opposite direction. After some awkward movement, the boy finally managed to roll over and was now facing the slightly green ceiling.

Just doing that alone drained almost all of his stamina, and the youth was tired again. He felt his eyelids getting heavy as sleep threatened to overtake him.

Red was concerned about resting in this wide-open space, but he knew he had no choice on the matter. The only comforting thought to him was that since no monsters had eaten him after he fell unconscious the first time, then they probably wouldn't do it the second time either.

'That sounds about right...'

The boy tried to convince himself as he fell asleep.

...

Over the next few days, Red's progress was extremely slow. Every little advancement seemed to take his entire energy reserves, and the boy found himself resting more than moving.

First, it was getting up. He managed to do it after dozens of tries, and by the point he succeeded he was completely spent for the day.

Then he had to walk. A couple of stumbles later and barely ten meters crossed, and he had to give up again.

At that point, Red considered whether it wouldn't be better to just wait for his body to recover before proceeding, but he knew it was not possible. His left shoulder wasn't bleeding anymore, but it was still an open wound. The boy didn't know when it might fester with infection, and by then even if he wanted to he wouldn't be able to walk. And there was also food.

The moss he had gathered in the tunnels ran out the previous day. The youth thought himself capable of functioning for a long time without food, but in this wounded state, his hunger started to become a pressing issue to him. At the very least, water wasn't a concern with the stream right next to him, but that alone was not enough to sustain his body.

Red decided to continue moving, one slow step at a time while using the cave walls for support. This last stretch of his journey ironically seemed destined to become the longest, and another few days passed by.

The map was useless here, and the boy couldn't tell for how long the stream extended. However, considering how far down he had traveled it wouldn't be a short journey to the surface. The smallest comfort he had was the fact he needed only to follow the river up.

He came across a lot of other tunnels connecting to this passage. In some of them, the stream even branched off into smaller sections, leading towards other depths of the mine. The flow seemed to be endless though, and the youth wondered how there could be so much water in one place.

Red also had taken the time to examine the insectoid stone. Surprisingly, it seemed to have returned to the same state he and Viran had found it in, with small red streaks scattered over the bright green gem. No signs of the crimson aura or the bloody smell could be found anymore, no matter how hard the boy tried to summon it again. He would have felt safer with the protection of the stone, but it was seemingly not meant to be.

Fungi and moss became more common further into the tunnel due to the moistness, but Red didn't dare to eat them even in his hunger. He did not know if they were safe, and the absence of any monsters up until this point made the boy even more suspicious. The passage had seemingly everything that a creature would need to survive: water, food, and plenty of hiding spaces to nest in. In fact, in the upper levels, the presence of even one of those things was already more than enough for insects to inhabit the area. So why weren't there any around?

'This is too easy.'

In some ways, having no monsters in his way was a secret blessing to Red who could not fight back in his state. However, the boy was cautious by nature, and his journey trying to escape made him expect danger in every corner. This peace left him with a foreboding feeling that didn't seem to leave no matter how much progress he made.

As he moved further, the number of moonstone veins started to decrease and so did the light. Red felt as if the closer he got to his escape the deeper the darkness seemed to get, and at one point he had to rely on his moonstone to light the way ahead. His progress slowed down even further as visibility diminished.

'I'm close...'

The boy could no longer see any green light in the rock surfaces, an indicator he was getting higher up. However, he knew he wouldn't be able to hold on for much longer. Hunger started to drag slow him, and Red felt his skin temperature rise as cold sweat gradually poured down his forehead.

This was the harbinger of death.

Fever.

Other signs would sometimes come with it, but this was always the worst one - the point of no return. He saw many slaves develop the same symptom over the last few years after being wounded. Almost all of them died and the ones that survived most certainly weren't in as bad of a condition as the youth.

'Not long now...'

Red knew he couldn't lay down to rest anymore or he might not be able to get up again. Even if he had to die, he would rather do it while gazing at the sky. The thing he had never been able to look at. People told him it looked blue while the Sun was out and black when the Moon and stars appeared. It stretched as far as the eye could see and no matter how high you reached you couldn't touch it.

The youth had never been able to visualize this complicated image in his mind. The golden sky in his dreams looked too blurry every time he tried to recall it, and there were no suns or moons to gaze at. He was curious, but when he asked about it he was always met with the same answer.

'You will understand it when you see it.'

Suddenly something caught his attention. Up ahead he saw it. A flicker, a glow of light.

Red's eyes lit up.

Suddenly, a lot of other flickers started to appear.

Closer to him. Green lights. Round, bright, and brimming with power

The boy's surroundings were suddenly lit up by the orbs, and the source became clearer to him. Six radiant green eyes, humanoid shape, vicious claws, serrated mandibles, and a dark shining carapace covering its body.

Insectoids.

A dozen of them blocked Red's way forward.