▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 20║▌║▌║█│▌

Even though her body was almost luminescent in the darkness, I still used my hands to feel my way around the long, dark corridor of mud and rock. As we were walking down the corridor, I could hear the steady dripping of the water falling from the ceiling. The steady droplets caused a constant noise, so I couldn’t hear small sounds like normally would. Small creatures crawling on the wall were now drowned out by the constant dripping noise. While we were walking down the corridor, I felt my hand suddenly touch a small slimy object. The object wiggled in my hand, and I felt a sharp pain shoot through my index finger. Did the creature just bite me?! I yanked my hand back from the wall, and I cradled it with the opposite hand. I could hear the frantic pitter patterof little feet mixed in with the water droplets falling down. I could feel my face turn pale and my blood run cold when I thought to myself, “What if the thing that bit me was poisonous? Am I going to die in here after all?”

The Lady of the Lake giggled at my reaction. She gazed her sky-blue eyes into mine, and she told me, “Don’t worry, you will be fine. I’m sorry for my neglect. I assumed that you would be able to see in the dark considering your deep power inside you. Here, this should help.”

She moved her hand towards my face, and before I could react, she touched her index finger on my forehead. All of a sudden, dozens of bright, vibrant colors flowed into my eyes. I looked around the cave, and while there was mud on the wall, it wasn’t the normal dirt brown color that I am used to seeing. Instead, the mud was a vibrant purple, and there were light green crystals making up the roof of the corridor. My jaw dropped in shock of this revelation, and I looked all around me to take in the scenery. Was the whole land around the lake like this, and I just couldn’t see it properly before because it was so dark and foggy? I looked back at The Lady of The Lake, and I asked her, “Is all the land around the lake this colorful? Whyis it this colorful?”

She didn’t answer me, and she turned around and continued to walk forward through the corridor. I jogged a little to catch back up to her since I was left behind a little looking at my surroundings, and I asked her, “Do you not talk a lot?”

“Sorry, I don’t really see other people enough to get into the habit of talking. I have gotten used to being alone, and I am just silent most of the time and observe things. It’s nothing personal.” She explained in a calm, tranquil voice.

Her comments brought me back to my life before I came to this world. She seems like she has the same social awkwardness I have because no one has really talked to her. “It’s fine,” I told her in an upbeat tone, “I don’t exactly have the most social experience either. I mostly just copy what John has done in the past, and I ask myself what he would do in certain social situations. It seems to have done pretty well in this world so far in keeping up conversations. Maybe not so well in the picking up friends category though.”

After the comment I made, an awkward silence swept over the colorful corridor as we traveled out of it. The corridor got smaller and smaller as we went further and further into it, and instead of travelling up towards the surface, we are travelling further into the earth instead. Eventually, we were both crawling on our hands and knees down through the earth. It was hard for me to stay focused on my goal to get out of the cave instead of what was what in front of me when we were like this. Even though the Lady of the Lake is probably ten times older than me, I’m still a guy, and my body was very much appreciating that big of an ass in front of me. It was really hard to keep track of my surroundings looking straight down, but I just followed her feet and hoped everything would be fine. “Is everything alright back there?” She asked me.

Did she sense what I was feeling? “N-no. I’m fine…Are we almost to the surface?”

I could hear a giggle ahead of me, and she said, “Relax…We are almost there. Just a few more hundred yards, and we will be free of this cave and off into the lake.”

“Wait…Intothe lake?” I asked, “is the end of this tunnel going intothe lake?”

She responded back with an enthusiastic, “Yeah! Hope you are good swimmer!”

“Yeah, for sure…”

I’m really not that great of a swimmer. I was never properly taught how to swim, but I learned enough from some people John and I hung out with back in middle school. I really don’t want to get wet anymore either. I’m already freezing enough as it is from all this mud and guck on me. As we crawled further on into the corridor though, water began to seep into the ground, and we were soon crawling in water. “Get ready for a drop into water!” She warned me.

Next thing I know, she went straight down into the water. I was barely able to hold my breath before I got sucked down into the water too. It was a super strong current, and I couldn’t do anything except flow with the current. It’s treating me like a rag doll. It’s not like I’m in open water either. I’m still in what looks like a corridor, but the current is just shooting me through it at high speeds. The vibrant colors of the walls and ceiling of the corridor started to hurt my head as I was tumbling through the current, and I eventually had to close my eyes to bear it. I only opened them when I had stopped moving from the current. I moved my arms and legs around, and I no longer felt any walls I opened my eyes again, and I saw that I was at the bottom of the lake. The bottom of the lake was just as vibrant in color as the inside of the corridor. The seaweed was a dark purple, and the grass was pink. The rocks on the lake bottom were a really dark brown. Strangely enough, I didn’t see any sea creatures down here. I feel like this is what tripping on drugs would feel like. I couldn’t take in the sight for long though because I started to run out of breath. I looked around for the Lady of the Lake, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I decided to swim up to the surface on my own. I started to swim as hard as I could. I flailed my arms and legs everywhere, and I wasn’t really going anywhere fast. I wasn’t going to make it. My lungs are already burning, and I’m not even close to halfway to the surface yet. I could feel myself start to lose my consciousness when I suddenly felt my body was being carried by a strong current again. My body was felt like it had been flung to the left at an amazing speed. I felt like I’m going to die in this lake, and the only solice I have in it is that I’m not tumbling around like I did the corridor. Now I’m just going straight across. I closed my eyes in acceptance of my fate, but just as I was about to lose consciousness, I could breathe again. I took a couple deep breaths to regain my oxygen supply in my lungs as I lay flat on my back staring up into the sky. What just happened? While I lay there, I could hear multiple voices talking around me. “Wait…Sasha?”

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌