Alex Sullivan

I always thought life had a meaning, that no matter what, everything had a small part in the gigantic ocean of coincidences that made up fate. I guess me not drowning was for that reason as well; I had to save Yukio. But what was the point of living a few more days? Was Yukio even "saved"? The past few days now seemed meaningless to me as I floated between life and death, darkness gradually getting closer; I felt it calling me, the strange sense of familiarity arousing in me as I looked into the never-ending void of pitch dark. I thought I heard something whisper in the dark; it felt like someone, or rather something, was calling me, easing my pain and giving me strength.

"What are you?" Suddenly, a voice echoed from the dark, sparking my curiosity even more as I tried to make out anything in this pitch-dark void.

Suddenly, golden light emerged from my heart, filling me with familiar, comforting warmth and relaxing me even more. Looking up, I noticed the darkness was fading away, as I was now surrounded with multiple colors, floating all around me.

confused I looked down at my chest as I felt my energy replenish.

"Look at you, giving up so easily; couldn't be me." A familiar sarcastic voice was spoken on my right side as I looked over, smiling with a tear rolling down my cheek as I looked at Ellie standing there.

"I'm not giving up on El; it's just... sometimes I get lost," I replied with a sad tone, holding my tears back.

"Well, try to get less lost; you're in the amazing place, you know? I mean a freaking mana sounds awesome! You know I'm going to beat your ass if you get to us before time!" my sister declared smugly

"I... I know," I smiled brightly, "looks like I got a mission to find as many interesting things and live the best life as I can."

"At least you know it; it's time to go now. Wake up!

By the way, Yukio seems nice; I wish we knew her before..." Ellie smiled one last time before slowly disappearing.

"Me too... I'm sure you two would be friends for life, El. I smiled, closing my eyes and sensing energy around me.

I woke up with my body hurting all over; slowly opening my eyes, I saw Yukio sleeping next to me, as fire cracked burning branches of a tree.

I slowly sat up, struggling to maintain balance as I looked at my bandaged hands; they hurt like hell, but I was able to move them, even my fingers on my arm. which was unbelievable. I looked at my bandaged legs; Yukio must have found pieces of cloth because I was covered in pieces of different clothing. Only then did I notice satchels surrounding me; there were a lot. She must have found them somewhere...or even gotten them from dead bodies we saw. I struggled to lift the closest satchel there was as I drank whatever was left inside.

A familiar sweet taste filled my mouth as I drank the miracle water as the realization hit me.

"She went back...all the way...for my sake," I whispered to myself, impressed and even flustered at the thought that someone I hardly knew did this for me.

"Mmgh." Yukio shifted as she slowly opened her eyes, looking around dazed.

"What's up?" I smiled at her.

She looked at me dazed with a confused face, then tilted her head, trying to grasp the situation.

Her eyes went wide as the realization hit her.

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" She suddenly jumped me, knocking me on my back.

"ARGHH, god, I wanna die," I half joked as my body screamed at me from sudden contact.

"I'M SO SORRY!" Yukio panicked, getting up swiftly.

"Are you okay?" She stared at me with guilt.

"I've been better, but I guess..." I sat up once more.

"I... I thought... I'm glad you're alive." Yukio struggled to find words as she turned around, hiding her face.

"Well, under normal circumstances I don't think I'd be, but this water does wonders." I spoke, grabbing another satchel next to me and taking a couple of gulps.

"Yeah... we should have gone back for it when we found bodies; it was pretty close once I knew where to go," Yukio declared proudly.

"That was reckless," I glared at her.

"I had nowhere else to go; besides, I don't want to be left here stranded in a weird half swamp surrounded by lizards all alone."

"Thank you," I cut her off.

"I... you're welcome," she replied with embarrassment.

"Besides, I owe you at least one more, you know?" She joked as she sat down next to me.

"Keeping tabs, are we?" I joked

"Shut up," Yukio replied, laughing.

A couple of hours passed by as Yukio and I talked once more about our situations, mainly discussing healing water and how effective it was. She also told me about goblins and how they killed their own, even pointed at the wooden raft I had missed when I woke up.

I also tried meditating to heal my body, which took me back once more; the last time I had tried meditating, the energy coming from me was on the same level as most things around me, including Yukio. but this time it was different. I was clearly standing out; Yukio's energy was growing as well, but compared to mine, it was not that drastic.

"I wonder if this means I can become stronger?" I thought to myself.

After some time, my body felt mostly healed as Yukio helped me to unwrap bandages around my body.

My legs were completely healed, my shoulder had a scar in the place where the lizard bit me, my left hand was still covered in scarred burn marks from time to time, but other than that I was fine. What was even more funny was that my skin was as smooth as a baby's in some places, but there were islands of hair sticking out.

"You look like you had a barber accident, but on your whole body," Yukio laughed her ass off teasing me.

"Yeah, let's just level it out. Where's some of that green stuff?" I joked around as well.

Grabbing our supplies and putting on the weird red outfit Yukio had brought from one of the dead bodies, we were ready to depart. I walked up to the green corpse of the goblin. Inspecting it, it definitely was a goblin; even the stench from it was enough to hurl. It had disgusting yellow teeth and ridiculously long nails. I grabbed the club next to it just in case before departing.

Our walking in the water was pretty easy, especially considering we were carrying our bags on the raft, which was ridiculously light. It was not strong enough to hold us, but bags were fine.

After walking for an hour or so, we finally reached solid land. This place actually started to look like a normal cave now: no weird crystals, no huge swamps, no trees, just a wet tunnel with formations.

We decided to rest for a bit under the light of crystals as we sat down, grabbing some of them for our bags and warming ourselves.

After resting for a couple of minutes, we were snapped out of our usual talk after seeing a dark figure emerge from the cave.

"Look out!" I spoke, standing up and grabbing the goblin's club.

"What is that? It looks like a big... dog? Yukio asked curiously.

Standing a couple of meters away from us was a pitch-black wolf-like creature with blue glowing teeth; its size was definitely larger than a dog.

"We were lucky we didn't go forward; I don't think we would have seen it in the dark." I cheered Yukio up as she readied her bow.

"Yeah, I know," she spoke, drawing her bow and aiming at the creature.

"grr," the creature started walking around us, staring us down.

"Let's hope these things are not in a pack like wolves, on my mark." I stood before the creature shielding Yukio from it.

"NOW!" I yelled as Yukio shot her bow, striking the creature in the neck.

"YOWL!" the creature squealed, trying to grab the arrow with its mouth before I rushed to it.

"Sorry, buddy!" I swung the wooden club at its snout, shattering both the club and most likely its skull in the process as the creature fell on the ground dead.

"what—" I looked at the shattered club and at my hand; confused, I grabbed the creature by its leg with my right arm, lifting it in the air like it was nothing. surprising both me and Yukio.

I was extremely strong, beyond what was possible, and water was likely the cause of it.

"Huh, that's cool, not as cool as my aim though. Did you see that?" Yukio joked with excitement.

Once again we were on our way.

After passing 2 lizards surprisingly easily as they ran as soon as I threw a big rock at them, and walking for 30 minutes, we finally saw something we were longing for. light at the end of the tunnel.

"FINALLY!" Yukio yelled as we rushed to the light.

After reaching the entrance, we were hesitant to actually leave this cave; besides everything it had caused us, we knew what was in here, at least some of it. but we were going outside in a possibly different world; only God knew what was out there.

reading ourselves with weapons, we slowly went into the light as the sun hurt my eyes for the first time in what felt like weeks.

"Ugh, it's so bright," I complained, looking down and trying to adjust my vision.

"God, I hope nothing snatches me until I'm unable to see," Yukio complained, with me covering her eyes, trying to adjust.

After almost covering our eyes, we were able to see the ground just fine; it was sandstone mixed with normal rocks, giving it a bright yellow look, reflecting the light from the sun.

"No wonder our eyes struggled," I thought to myself as I finally looked around for the first time.

We were on a mountain, or rather a cliff on the side of a mountain; we slowly approached the edge, looking down, only to see a massive river roaring below, and beside the river there were countless trees on the horizon as all kinds of sounds were coming from them.

"Well then, stranded in the cave: CHECK. now it's time for phase 2: stranded in a forest, I guess.

I joked

"God...I don't know what I was expecting" Yukio exclaimed.