An Unfamiliar Cavern

The mineral tang stung my nose, my eyes opening with a stark realisation of a dim mineral environment around me, in this utter darkness, my eyes adjusted quite stumbling through to finally gauge the surroundings, a noticeably slow pulsating crystal-luminous with a soft blue glow,
so calming as the chill air, that the eyes felt at ease, yet my gut remained in unease, such a strange environment had I stuck up in,so suddenly is as confusing as I clearly remember my memories as clear as day without fog, yet there remained this haze- ‘how could I have possibly arrived here?’

A strange sensation tingled all over my body, similar to that of some mint-cool gas, perhaps something different, my mind assessing the tingle over my skin, it struck to me about it being something particulate- small and fluid but not a gas, my gut filled with unease whether it is flammable or explosive, yet in this dark atmosphere, the chance is not zero, there do exist cavities underground filled with explosive gas, but those would normally be heavier.

The wind came out of my lungs with relief, the tension on my forehead was at ease, yet I felt the cold wind breezing over my spine, turning to look behind… I saw no presence, yet there was a feeling, I may not be alone…, if the concentration of the explosive or heavy gas was more than what I survived while being unconscious, I wouldn’t be here thinking.

I knew adrenaline was running in my veins, right now, yet there was something uncanny furthermore!
There really was something behind me, my heart felt like it will explode sooner or later with stress, yet with intense discomfort, my legs were kicking and sound, my lungs felt heavy, my stress…no…it’s not stress…why are my legs feeling like lead? It had only been a few minutes–

“Rawr!!” growled a beast several metres behind me.
That growl, it’s similar to that of a predator hungry and desperate, yet the sound seemed immature…a beast cub…

My legs bolted forward, my eyes noticed some strange visual information…like how my eyes would see normally but grainy, textured with a blue tint…this visual information was flickering..

As my legs covered the distance away, the cavity expanded further, to an area full of stalagmites and stalactites.

My ears heard the exhales of the beast cub trying to cover the distance between us, by the sound of its legs hitting the ground, it was a quadruped.

Finally I stopped at a ditch, and now I had a choice… there was a chasm just in between, unfathomably deep…if I jumped, and covered the gap of a few meters… I could escape the beast cub, I heaved a breath,calming myself and correcting my posture and swiftly moved a metre behind, away from the chasm…my legs swiftly contracted as fast as possible, bolting from rest, my body had gotten the horizontal speed to cover the gap by leaping across, but if I failed, my body would fall down the chasm and maybe get impaled by a stalagmite.

The moment of truth came.
My left leg launched my body at the last step,leaping – looking at the chasm below was staggering and heart clenching, bringing my heart to sink deep, my eyes quickly looked up and seeing that I was going to land I braced myself and landed roughly, skidding a bit while trying to find balance.

My foot successfully gripped the ground, my core stabilised itself, I turned my neck to look back and twisted my spine to see the beast coming closer to the fall, my body turned fully to focus my eyes on the beast perfectly.

The beast cub, now, looked clear enough, for reasons I couldn’t understand, making it a mystery: ‘Why can I see in this darkness and why my vision appears to be flickering and tinted?’

The beast had a heavy layer of fur over its body perhaps… the fur looked reflective from what the unique form of vision allows me to decipher from the movement of the fur with each stroke of its legs… the fur appeared to be glossy like glass fibres.. wait!? Are those sparks on its fur!?

My body turned around to find any rock ,my eyes noticed a weird turtleback stone sticking out mostly in the air, it was stuck to the ground by an angle its base made with the ground, nearly the size of my head, my legs quickly moved towards it, knees bending, my body stood lower with my spine bent forward to check if it can be lifted.

The ground with which the rock was attached, was solid, I pushed the rock to push it out of the grip of the ground, first attempt, was sheer failure, second attempt showed signs of movement of the rock by a tiny fraction, third attempt, the rock moved enough that it fell to the ground allowing me to lift it.

As my body stood upright after I lifted the rock while mentally exclaiming about its heaviness, the beast had reached the ditch growling
“Grrr..Grh!”, it moved away from the ditch and turned to face me, its hind leg kicked the ground backwards a few times before heading for an explosive start.

With the rock in my arms, I walked closer to the ditch. As the beast blasted and jumped, I threw the rock as fast as I could at it… the rock flew as it struck the beast halfway through its jump, disrupting its horizontal speed as it fell down into the chasm…

My eyes were focused at the beast as it got hit by the rock, my focus didn’t break away as I saw it fall deeper till it disappeared from tinted vision..

Suddenly, a tissue rupturing sound “Ssshhk” echoed from the chasm. My heart felt hollow after seeing it fall down slowly, the sound of the tissue tearing apart made this feeling worse.
‘This hollowness is confusing, why not remorse or guilt?’

Few distances away, the echoes are heard by a large beast hidden in a black silhouette, with its body laying on the ground, curled over, the ears of the beast heard the echoes, the beast’s body recognises the unusual presence, it lifts its torso upwards and the neck rose up, its head lifted, its eyes opened with a blue tinted pulse that penetrated the material obstructions, and scanned the area.

The pulse struck any particle in its way and reflected a tiny bit of collision energy back to the host, happening on a very large scale allowing the large beast to scan through the environment.

My mind suddenly noticed a sudden chill wave washing over my body, the wave was peaceful yet intrusive…it seemed to map my body and the surroundings! To my eyes, this pulse seemed to be like an extremely large ripple expanding through the cavern without a care for the terrain regardless…

Similar to how the beast cub had the sparks on its fur, this beast must be much more experienced to scan the area with this precision… and much more dangerous, and harder to escape from..

‘Oh great power that graces the world, is being free from stress only for the privileged and the dead only?’

A heavy exhale blew through my mouth upon understanding that I wouldn’t be stress free here, walking to the side, near the walls, using it as a guide to walk further, after a while my pace halted, my eyes fell entirely on the scenery of a limestone area with the stalagmites and the stalactites in abundance, slippery ground by the edges.

These stalagmites were so thick that they must have existed for several thousand years…

My legs moved while taking time on gripping the ground, to reach the closest stalagmite and my right hand moved forward, forefinger extended to graze the outline of its wet surface… rather, I pulled my fingertips close to my lips as I licked the water, not realising the minerals present in it…

The taste was horrible, the precipitate and those minerals made it very bitter for my tongue…if only I could scrape the taste off my taste buds.