Gasping in desperate bursts before falling to the ground, Mathew struggled for a few moments to breathe. He hunched over and clutched at his chest. Like an echo, he picked up a faint sound over his wheezing. He looked back and realized that behind him, the wall shook violently and thundered like the sound of a lone drum. On the other side, the slithering, scaled monstrosity slammed its frame against the wall, desperately trying to reach its prey.
The sound of the impacts echoed, then reverberated through the stone and into him. But he honestly couldn't care less. His vision had started to blur and spin, and the struggle for air utterly consumed what was left of his focus.
The beast, meanwhile, let out a series of bone-shaking roars in what was a final bit of rage. It slammed harder and faster against the wall, its desperation more than obvious. Over and over and over again, Mathew's ears were assaulted by the thunderous echoes. But after a long while, the persistent beast finally relented and lumbered off, its guttural growls fading into the distance.
The sound grew quieter as the young cynic barely registered the sound. Sprawled motionlessly on the ground and still struggling to catch his breath, while the adrenaline that flooded his body drained from his system, Mathew breathed a final sigh of relief. And within moments of realizing he had achieved his goal of safety, his body felt like that of a marionette with its strings cut. Exhausted and overwhelmed, he slowly shut his eyes, and the world suddenly seemed muffled and distant as he drifted off into the realms of unconsciousness.
***
Time seemed to fly by for Mathew. His exhausted body lay on the floor for hours, and stranded within the boundaries of unconsciousness and oblivion, his body felt weightless as he drifted from pleasant dream to pleasant dream with a wide grin plastered across his face. If he could, he would choose to remain in this tranquil state forever. But what human beings want and what reality places in front of them seldom, if ever, overlap. A stream of cold sweat ran down Mathew's temple while he remained sprawled on the floor, twisting and turning relentlessly.
Suddenly, he awoke gasping for air. He shot his hand out as if reaching for something, but found that there was nothing to take hold of. The world around him remained blurred =and out of focus as he took a few moments to collect himself. And once he had, he began faintly making out the outlines of walls which were illuminated by a soft, ethereal glow coming from some sort of light.
As his senses returned, he felt something soft and supple in his outstretched hand.
'What the? What is this?'
Confused, he blinked and followed the object in his hands to its source, which sat at his side. His eyes opened wide as in front of him now sat the proud beauty he had saved was crouched over him. But something was off. She didn't have her previous arrogant and prideful expression plastered across her face. Instead, her cheeks were flushed, and she seemed to be holding back tears.
He squeezed his hand harder reflexively and raised a brow. As he did, the woman's expression went from looking slightly embarrassed and shocked to one of abject anger.
"What's wrong with you?"
He had no idea what he was holding at first, but with time came realization, and with that came the understanding of the implications of what he had done would cause. Only to realize in the next moment the heinous crime he had committed. The sight sent a jolt of realization to his brain. Immediately, a sense of dread and panic surged through Mathew, and he jerked his hand away and scrambled backward.
"Wha—what the...?" he stammered, his voice a mix of disbelief and embarrassment.
The woman stirred as her cheeks flushed an even deeper crimson. The young cynic opened his mouth to speak, but before he could utter another word, her hand shot up and in that same instant came crashing down onto his face. The sound echoed in his ears, leaving Mathew stunned. Though only for a moment. He blinked furiously as his mind raced to catch up with the increasingly fast pace of events. However, the sting on his cheek was a painfully stark reminder of every single second. He could hardly believe the situation he found himself in.
Rubbing his cheek, he scrambled to his feet and asked in a demanding tone.
"Wha—what was that for?"
"Are you actually some crazy pervert? What do you think you're doing?"
The woman glared as before, she could go any further, Matthew opened his mouth to defend himself. He had been so startled by the memory of her... umm.. mountain peak in his hand that he lost all train of thought for a moment, the reality though finally settled in and he took a deep breath, and shrugged. Hot air practically shot out of the beauties ears, but soon she calmed down after thinking it over and realizing there was no point in continuing to argue with Mathew. The woman crossed her arms and rolled her eyes in annoyance as she shifted her gaze.
Mathew sneered and shifted his gaze to himself as he looked his body over. After realizing there was nothing wrong with his body, Mathew looked around and found that behind the girl was what looked to be a door, or what was left of it. The floor around it was littered with wooden splinters, and the frame was covered in cracks that spiderwebbed.
Confused, he pointed to it and asked.
"Did you do that?"
The woman glanced behind her, then at him.
"What? Are you stupid on top of being a pervert? How could I do that?."
Mathew gave her a suspicious look.
"What kind bullshit are you spouting?"
"Believe me or not, that's your problem."
Confusion washed over him. Where did it come from?
"But the only way in here is the path behind-"
Looking back, he found nothing but a pristine but dusty cobblestone wall. His eyes darted frantically between the woman, the remnants of the door behind her, and the wall behind him.
Mathew stared for a few moments, trying to collect his thoughts. He clearly remembered running through the wall, but if there was no opening, or even the narrowest of gaps how did he get through. Did he somehow get teleported into this place? No. He remembered the beast slamming its body against the wall and trying to reach him, if he really was teleported, the chances of him being moved somewhere he could still hear that sound and so clearly at that were slim.
His eyes suddenly widened and he hurriedly summoned the runes found the cluster describing his relics.
[Relics: Lantern of avarice.]
Mathew breathed a sigh of relief.
'Phew! I thought I hallucinated all that for a second.' He thought as he dismissed the runes.
The thought that everything he had just gone through was a hallucination crossed his mind and he quickly checked the runes. After seeing that the relic was still there he began to wonder.
'So if it wasn't a hallucination, I wasn't dreaming and I wasn't teleported to some strange location, what in the world just happened to me?'
His thoughts raced as various possibilities were filtered based on likelihood and plausibility, but his boundaries of both concepts had been skewered by the existence of the codex and ygdrassil. As they were filtered through, his memories were suddenly sparked the memory of the strange feeling he had when he originally looked at the wall surfaced. Concentrating on the wall once more, he felt a foreign aura coming from it, focusing further on it he realized something.
'They are the same... no... they aren't, but they are?'
Mathew was comply dumbfounded by what he had discovered as although the sensation he got at the time he encountered the Gila scavenger's embryo and this were similar, they had a contrasting difference. This feeling was utterly devoid of any form of presence, almost as if something non-existent had pulled his attention there. After pondering for a while, he had come up with nothing that he could attribute to that strange sensation, but that wasn't important, not right now at least.
Brushing those thoughts to the side, he analysed his surroundings further, the walls, the floor, and ceiling all looked exactly the same as any of the other paths he had explored in this unending cobblestone maze, but the gems producing light here were, different. The further down the paths he went, the dimmer they became. Eventually, he couldn't see what lay at the end. It was as if something was swallowing the light.