It’s been about fifteen days since I registered for InterG Class, leaving me with exactly seventeen days left before I go to my first lesson. Oh well. It might be one of the first-ever classes I’ve had in my whole life that I’m excited about.

It might be because that class trains my future career.

I got out of bed, finishing contemplating my overall stupidity, and grabbed my HoloPad. Made by Apple. It was really expensive. You wanna know how much it cost? Hahahaha, no. Just kidding, it was $1,499.99. By the way, I have no clue why they still do that .99 thing, I feel that by now they would have removed pennies or something.

I decide to spend the first hour or so of my day playing Geometry Dash. Good game. After my thousandth attempt that day of beating my first insane demon, my stomach growled, essentially saying “HEY MAX! GIMME FOOD NOW OR I WILL DIE OF HUNGER IN EXACTLY FORTY-TWO DAYS! YA HEAR ME?”

So I get some breakfast.

Today I decide I want to have cereal, so I pour myself some Frosted Flakes, so I can get my sugar level up and go crazy. I love going crazy, because you do crazy things, like explore where you are forbidden to explore. Or pass out of a sugar crash. It’s not really my choice, so I hope I don’t pass out. It’s kinda a hard thing to hope for, I get lots of those sugar crashes. Maybe I should exercise more?

Good idea.

I finish up my cereal in about five minutes flat and rinse my bowl out and put it in the sink, trying not to let it meet the same fate that five other bowls did. Every single time a bowl breaks, my mom gets really mad at me, but I know she’s mad at me only because she needs to clean up the mess that I made. Yep, I’m a helpless human being.

Don’t judge please, I was kidding.

I go outside and decide to explore where I’m forbidden to go. I’ll take my bike and ride around outside the border. I know, that’s a bad idea, but no one ever does anything about it, the reason you’re forbidden from it is because of a landscape phenomenon where the mountains just appear, almost a straight-up cliff. There are a bunch of holes in the cliff too, making a bunch of caverns that last for approximately fifteen miles. Why does that oddly remind me of Minecraft?

However, before then, there’s a lot of crappy terrain out there that can easily get you injured if you misstep.

On second thought, I don’t think I want to bring my bike.

__________________

Alright, I’m at this strange area I mentioned a while back, where the landscape is all trippy. Remember that? Yeah, I thought so.

Of course, I’ve never seen this place before. So strangely enough, I didn’t know what to expect, even though I’ve been researching this crap for a long time. I even lost track of how many damn books I read.

It was… strangely beautiful. The ground became slowly more and more rugged, and eventually formed huge pits that I would have to avoid. I jumped the fence and walked the mile that it would be until I reached the strange caverns. Essentially, I’m way beyond the border.

Again, strangely beautiful. There was this odd stone that only occurs in these natural phenomenons called Luminite. As suggested by its name, it glowed. It was the sole source of light in this place, save for the sun seeping through the cavern entrances.

I get a feeling of collecting it and selling it to fellow students, but two things are keeping me from doing that.

The first thing: we aren’t fellow students anymore.

The second thing, it’s a natural phenomenon I should probably keep in its place.

I lied about it being two things. I don’t want the officials to find out I was collecting luminite. That could get me arrested, as I’m not allowed to cross the border.

It’s strange how they care if I mine luminite, but not if I just cross the border.

I walk farther within the cavern and pick up a piece of loose luminite that fell off of the ceiling. Holding it in my hand, I venture farther into the cavern. Honestly, it’s even more beautiful the farther in you go.

The farther in you go, the more the luminite shines. It’s like it feeds off the darkness. Suddenly I get an ominous feeling from the luminite in my hand.

Nothing too strange should really be happening anyway, but the luminite just seems… unnatural. I know, It’s a completely natural mineral that just happens to emit light. What’s strange, though, is that it just appeared out of nowhere about a decade ago.

When I was nine years old, I remember hearing stories about strange stones that made light just appeared in the forbidden lands. Even at nine, I had enough cognitive ability to infer that that just wasn’t right. I tried to tell my friends, but they didn’t concur to the idea. I’m not friends with them anymore.

For the longest time, I wanted to inspect these strange rocks. Heck, even once, when I was twelve, I tried (and almost succeeded) to escape through the border when my mother found me.

“MAXIMILLIAN ORION RUSSEL! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!”

I was grounded for a month after that.

Now it’s almost six years after that conflict, and now I’m out of school. So now, I have all the free time I would ever need to explore this cave.

Just before I thought it couldn’t get any darker in the cave (except the luminite,) I sat down on my feet and inspected the piece of luminite I was holding in my hand. It had a… pulsing sensation. I had just noticed that it was warm to the touch, too. Like a light bulb.

Speaking of a pulsing sensation, the light it was emitting was most powerful in the straight center of the rock and pulsed as if it were alive.

“GAH!” I screamed, realizing my thoughts.

It’s not a mineral! It’s a freaking living creature!

“Uhhhh… can you move around?” You ask the luminite creature, now feeling insane that you are talking to a rock.

The Luminite wiggled.

Holy crap! It’s an actual living thing!

“Erm… sorry about holding you so long.” I think I’ll go back now. I bring you back there as well.”

So I’m now carrying a sentient being in my hand walking back down the forbidden lands. Well, now I know the second reason why the forbidden lands are forbidden. The moment I got home, I went back on my HoloPad and texted my friend;

“Dude, you’ll never guess what I just found out.”

I wait a minute. Eventually, I see her response pop up. “What is it, man? I’ll believe ya, even if it’s crazy.”

“I think luminite is a sentient being.”

It was another solid 15 minutes before your best friend responded.

“The hell?”

“Come over to the hangout we made. ASAP. I need to show you.”