"Just a little more, Bird, it's not even that much further."
Bird had started to talk to himself; he was just past halfway to the desert cube. The heat was violently assaulting him on top of the fact that he was starved and dehydrated. It made sense that he was going a little crazy.
Bird started to speak again, slurring his words.
"What is the cube? I can't wait for the cool air. Maybe I will meet someone who can help Leonis, patch him up nice and good."
Leonis was still unconscious from a mixture of blood loss and exhaustion. Bird had tried to use some of the cloth from his clothes to wrap the deeper wounds in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He even gave Leonis a makeshift eye patch to cover the eye that got hit with the shadow shards.
A couple of minutes had passed since passing halfway, Bird was still talking to himself about the luxuries that could await in the cube, when he suddenly noticed a small lip in the sand. As he got closer, he saw a small opening in the lip leading to darkness. Bird stared at the opening for a moment, then looked at the cube and back at the opening.
The closer Bird got to the cube, the more he felt he was forgetting something important. It was like he had heard of the cube, but he couldn't remember. The massive amount of exhaustion was like a cloud shrouding his mind.
'Did Leonis talk about this? Wait people? Living on layers this low, that makes no sense. Scribed! Oh Crap!'
Luckily, stopping for a moment to ponder the cube and the strange opening had brought Bird back to his senses. He had finally realised he was headed toward prospect territory while dragging a Thrakeen behind him. Bird swiftly approached the opening.
'Am I as stupid as Leonis? What was I thinking?'
Bird hid behind the lip, not wanting to be spotted if they hadn't been already. He stared into the opening, which was now revealed to be the entrance of a cave. Bird could feel a cold breath coming from within the cave. It felt heavenly after being in the desert for so long. Without anywhere else to go, and the seduction of the cold wind coming from the cave, Bird got down and crawled through the opening, pulling Leonis in after him.
Upon entering, they found themselves in a small, open pocket of space, just enough to lay Leonis flat. Bird walked over to one of the walls and climbed onto a small ledge a couple of feet off the ground. Bird made the decision not to go further in due to the lack of light, and the opening leading deeper was very small. Currently, the only light in the cave came from the small opening, shining just enough to distinguish the shape of the room.
After a long time resting against the wall, he started to feel the cold breeze that he had felt from the entrance of the cave. The cold was oddly comforting as it enveloped his body. Bird's blinking was starting to slow down. The exhaustion had finally caught up to him. He was starting to doze off. But, how could he not?
'The cold is so welcoming, it would be a waste not to get some well-deserved rest. Right?'
With that final thought, Bird slowly drifted into a deep slumber, and silence filled the cave.
". . ."
Bird sat on an edge, looking into the mist below, just staring. He could feel something spectral constantly stabbing his right shoulder blade, aching. Reaching around to feel what was causing the pain, he was shocked to find nothing. Nothing was stabbing him, but instead, it felt like something was missing, a part of him was gone or absent. He felt a strange sense of longing and responsibility heavily weighing on his shoulders, but through it all, he felt strangely confident, like he could strangle the sun, like he could take on anything.
Looking into the mist, he couldn't help but want to run his hand through the mist. He imagined soaring just above it, skimming his hand along its surface. This thought only made his back ache more and caused the longing within him to grow. After what felt like years of staring, Bird simply jumped. Hoping to soar, touch the mist, complete his longing, but that is not what happened.
He started to hopelessly plummet, eventually falling through the mist to be greeted by a large expanse of sky and a misty floor. He kept falling until breaking through the next layer of mist, and then the next layer, and the next, falling. He flailed around trying to grab control of his situation, but what was there to grab control over? He was free-falling thousands of feet through the sky. What was he to do?
Bird counted 23 layers of mist before deciding that it was pointless. He figured he would die after hitting the floor, so what was the point? Instead of counting, he chose to observe the strange layers of mist. Some of the misty layers were cold, others were hot, and some would warp his perspective or make him feel sluggish. Sometimes he could feel other presences in the mist. These terrors would almost always bring an atmosphere that suffocated him. Bird had breached through a legion of different layers before finally seeing the ground. It was a small patch of land made up entirely of rock and was surrounded by a fierce ocean that assaulted its shores.
Not catching much other than the rocky landscape, Bird braced for the impact. Right at the moment he hit the ground, Bird awoke drenched in a cold sweat. He was dreaming.
'What the hell? What kind of dream was that? All I did was fall through a layer of mist and die.'
Bird could only remember the end of his strange nightmare. He shrugged the dream off rather quickly, not paying it any attention. This was because Leonis was awake, now sitting a good distance away from him, shining a bright white orb just above his finger, illuminating the cave's interior.
Leonis looked as if he had also just woken up, slowly observing his surroundings, trying to figure out where they were. Bird also sat observing the room with a muddled look spread across his face.
'Did the room grow while I was sleeping? No, that's ridiculous, caves don't just grow. Then what is happening here?'
Bird started to study the cave's interior with laser focus.
'What is it? What happened after I dozed off?'
Leonis stared at Bird before groggily saying.
"Where are we?"
Bird completely ignored him; his head started to swivel again, trying to catch every detail of the cave.
"Hello Bird?"
'The entrance! Wait, but that's not the entrance. It was nowhere near that big of an opening. Where are we?'
Panic started to settle in Bird after realising they had been moved during their sleep.
"Cone to Bird, Cone to Bird, are you even awake? Where are we?"
Bird's head stopped swivelling and locked onto Leonis. His eyes were wide open. There were only two possibilities that Bird could think of. The first and safest possibility was that Leonis had dragged him down further after worrying about creatures close to the surface. The second possibility was that something else had pulled them further into the cave. This possibility sent shivers down Bird's spine.
"Leonis, did you drag us further down the cave after waking up?"
'Please say yes, please say yes.'
Leonis stared at Bird blankly and said.
"What are you talking about? I just woke up?"
Bird slowly grew pale, thinking about what kind of creature would let them live just to pull them further into a cave.
"Damn it"