Siton felt the rush of adrenaline and EX within his body slowly die down as he lay on the ground. Breathing hard, exhausted by his mad dash, he just laid still for a while. Eventually, feeling and pain started to return to his body, rewarding him with an extremely sore body. And an even worse off forehead.

‘No pain no gain,’ he thought, ‘at least I’m alive. I did it.’ A proud smile appeared on his face as he stared at the ceiling.

Unwilling to get moving yet, he decided to lay a bit longer. When the pain in his body had reached a manageable level, he sat up and checked on his makeshift pack. Rummaging through it he quickly established that nothing had been lost, however, one of the water bags had opened. Although it was bothersome, it didn’t ruin anything within the pack as it all was wrapped in plastic. But that meant he only had very little water left until he got out of there and found some more.

Feeling quite thirsty he decided to drink half of his remaining water now and save the rest for later. Now partially satisfied he stood up with a groan of pain and checked his surroundings. It looked like the tunnel he was in led further into the darkness. On the other side was the bottomless chasm he had leaped over, with an angry rat staring at him from the other side. Next to him was his trusty hatch/shield, it had luckily managed to land within the tunnel after he had let go of it when his head hit the ceiling.

But before he got moving again, there was one thing he wanted to do. That was, testing his abilities following the EX rush. He quickly got down and started doing push-ups, it soon became evident he was far stronger than before when he broke past the 50 marks. That seemed to roughly be his limits, but it felt permanent, it was part of him. Although it was nothing special, it was incredible to him. However, that was quite peculiar considering his previous leap seemed to be getting close to an Olympic level. The difference between the two was quite large. He theorized that maybe the rush boosted his power beyond what he would retain afterward. He wasn’t about to complain though, this is more than he ever could have asked for.

Now ready to continue on his trip to find a way out of this cave, Siton grabbed his shield and made his way down the dark tunnel. Unfortunately, he soon enough discovered that the temporary boost to his abilities also applied to his sense. This meant that although he could see in the dark a little better than before, it was still nowhere near what he had experienced during his rush. Thus, he was reduced to fumbling around in the dark as he made his way deeper.

After an undetermined amount of time slowly following the left wall of the cave with an arm forward, he finally caught a glimpse of light. It was dim but it was light. He carefully made his way towards it in order to avoid tripping on rocks in his excitement.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Siton had managed to reduce the distance between himself and light by a significant amount. Yet, strangely, it did not increase in intensity as would be expected. Instead, more lights slowly came into view. Each of these was attached to the ceiling of the small tunnel he was in. They ranged from the size of a small glue stick to that of a large one and glowed a dim blue light. Upon closer inspection, Siton spotted thin tendrils hanging from them which also glowed. This triggered a ‘Eureka!’ moment in his mind, he knew what they were!

All of these were worms! He had previously done a school report on similar ones back in high school. The harmless worms glowed when they were hungry in order to attract bugs. Those captivated would then get stuck on the sticky tendrils and be promptly eaten by the worms. It also seemed to work on humans too as the ones he knew were a widely known tourist attraction found in some caves within his home country, New-Zealand. Visiting the caves gave the impression of being under a starry night sky due to hundreds upon hundreds of worms inhabiting them. He had been to one of these once, the whole experience was surreal. This was slightly different though; the ceiling was too low and the worms too large to create such an impression. Although it was still quite pretty.

In other news, the worms provided enough light for him to be able to see again! With a renewed vigor in his step, Siton made his way down the tunnel, carefully avoiding the tendrils lest they get stuck to him.

After a while making progress through these new tunnels and multiple intersections, Siton decided to take a break. He found a clear spot, sat down and took his remaining water out for a drink. While enjoying his refreshment, he briefly wondered why there were no insects within this cave and how its ecosystem worked.

‘If there are no bugs here, what do they eat then?’ he wondered, ‘The only thing I can think of is some other creature that occasionally goes through here.’ That’s when the realization slowly dawned on him.

‘Oh no… They don’t eat bugs, they eat meat.’ His face paled when he was in yet another natural trap.

‘I need to get out of this area.’ In his hurry, he had failed to notice one of the worms above him lowering one of its tendrils. And so, when he stood up, he touched it. Causing its owner to detach from the ceiling and land on his right shoulder.

“AAAAAHHH!” he yelled in fear and surprise as he felt tiny barbed hooks go through his shirt. Which was quickly followed by a numbing feeling that slowly spread through his shoulder. He instantly responded by grabbing it with his right hand and threw it away. Causing it to trigger multiple other worms who also detached from their spot.

“Shit I need to get out of here really quick!” he exclaimed as he lunged for his shield with his right arm. Only to drop it instantly afterward as his fingers on his hand failed to respond.

‘God damn it! Why did I have to grab it!’ He began to panic ‘I need to get out of here! Now!’ Instantly grabbing his shield with his left hand, he held it above his head and made a run for it.

As he bulldozed his way through the tendrils, he could hear the thuds of the worms dropping on his shield. He didn’t care. He continued running. His heartbeat increased to deal with the increased oxygen demand. Blood pumped faster through his body as he made a mad dash for it. Causing a significant increase in speed in the numbing agent’s spread. As a result, the cold numb feeling in his right hand and shoulder spread to envelop his entire right arm, rendering it completely useless.

His arm flopping in the wind, Siton began to feel it spread further from his shoulder, slowly encroaching on his neck. His head slowly started tilting to the side against his will. Making it significantly harder to co-ordinate his limbs. He began to slow down as he started fumbling around, slowly losing control of his neck. There was no end to the worms in sight. He needed to keep running. He didn’t want to die.

If he had stopped to think rationally for a second, he would have realized that there was no immediate threat to his life. The worms only dropped if their tendrils were touched, as long as he laid low, he wouldn’t have been in any danger. In fact, laying low would have been to his advantage as it would have slowed the spread of the toxin.

Siton generally was a very logically driven person who was quite proud of the fact that he was smarter than your average person. Not by a huge amount but definitely by a noticeable one. Due to his inherent curiosity, he also had the knowledge to match it from following multiple scientific channels on the internet on top of scientific journals tailored for teenagers. Therefore, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to assume he would have deduced these things.

That, however, wasn’t taking into account what he considered his biggest flaw. How prone he was to panic. Having been raised and sheltered in a very caring family, Siton has had very little opportunities to act independently or unsupervised. Though he recognized there might be more to it, this was his reasoning. And thus, when faced with what he recognizes as high stakes situations alone, his brain tended to enter panic mode. In which his only concern to escape, avoid or completely get rid of the situation sometimes making less than wise decisions. And once it found a solution, it didn’t let go. Focussing all of his brainpower on it.

Which is exactly what happened here. The realization that these worms were flesh eaters combined with a very sudden ‘worm attack’ in close succession was enough to jump-start panic mode. Making him quickly come to the conclusion that running away was the best decision. Causing him to run away with all his might.

And so, his mind slowly began to sink deeper into panic as he slowly began to lose control of the right side of his body. Only thinking of what would happen if he got swarmed by to demonic worms. Thoughts of him being eaten alive by hundreds of worms without being able to move a muscle filled his mind. Causing him to sink even deeper. Especially considering he could not see an end to them even after five whole minutes of running.

‘I’m not going to die!’ he thought, strangely resolute. ‘Maybe I can use that energy again!’

‘Come on. Come on! Energy do your thing, get rid of the poison!’ He could feel it, it was raging, like the previous time. Although far fewer in quantity, he could feel its presence behind the distant gates. Yet it wouldn’t leave like it previously had. But he needed it. So, he pulled on it with all his might as veins popped on his forehead. And the gates opened, just a little, allowing a trickle of EX to flow through. But that was enough.

He could feel it slowly spread into his body starting from his brain. The energy this time was significantly different from his previous experience. This one was cool and frigid, slowly seeping throughout his head towards his body, apparently doing nothing.

If Siton’s guess was right, this energy would counter the toxin. So, he pulled on it once more and dragged it towards the right side of his body. Slowly bringing it into contact with the numb area. And when they did touch… nothing. No explosive reaction or pain or anything. The crisp feeling of the energy replaced the numbness.

‘Wait. This is it! It’s slowly taking back control!’ he almost jumped in joy, but that would be stupid, with all the worms and stuff.

So, he kept pulling and pulling until nothing was left. Nothing, no toxin no EX, it looked like they destroyed each other.

‘Perhaps the EX formed into the anti-matter equivalent of the toxin…’ the rational part of Siton’s mind suggested now free of one of its main concerns.

Now that the immediate threat was gone, Siton began to calm down as he ran. Only to turn the corner and see some light. Some real sunlight at the end of it!

‘This is it!’ he picked up the pace again. A mistake. The tunnel ended on the side of a sheer cliff, many meters above the ground.

Except for this time, he stopped beforehand. Not because he had noticed but because it was too bright, and it hurt his eye. When they had finally adjusted enough, he looked once more. Only for his blood to run cold as he realized how close he had come to dying. Had he still been panicking he might have very well died right there and then.

Returning his attention to the view in order to admire it and find a path out he quickly received the shock of his life. There. About fifty kilometers away sat a humongous formation, with a huge trail of devastation stemming from it.

The ship. It was the colony ship.

It had survived.