The temple was the same as before up to a certain point. From that point onwards there was a vast plateau with a small river and some grass. Above there came a strong light through what seemed a hole.

His first instinct was to reach toward the light and exit this damn place but the wall was too steep for him and he quickly discovered how inefficient he was with his body. Not knowing what to do, he stayed there and examined the place. There were a few plants that produced leaves and wood, the river sometimes brought wood and strings, the place had a great number of small plants. All in all that didn’t look like a bad place, especially considered that it was deep into the underground. There was just a problem: food. There wasn’t any. Not a single plant produced fruit and even if it did it would amount to some minuscule portion barely enough to keep him alive one day.

Time passed and he was even more confused than before. He had passed the previous...hours wandering through the hall, habituating himself to his strange vision and examining better the situation. If all was fine in two days time the inquisition would notice his absence and send a team to search for him. Even better it would be if a patrol came controlling the black egg or if those black machines came back and brought me out of here.

…

But if they found him he would be sent immediately to prison or worse. And not as a normal resident there. Traitors had special treatment in those places. He had to get out of there as soon as possible and, more importantly, without the inquisition.

He looked at the wall leading to the light. There was a route but it was near impossible, the wall was full of strange angles, steep stones and cutting plants. He needed tools and many of them. When he tried to climb again the wall he fell flat on its head but felt no pain. He had nothing broken. Now that he noticed it he wasn’t thirsty or hungry, he needn’t need to go to the bathroom, he felt no physical need. It was strange.

The second striking revelation that he had that day was technology made things easier. A lot easier. Organic strings and materials were much harder to use than their artificial counterparts, especially without any kind of tools. The first rope disintegrated after a few seconds, the second hold for some minutes, the third worked but couldn’t bear his weight.

The same went for the other tools. Stone wasn’t a good material to make tools, especially climbing pickaxes. Wood pieces were small, slim and more importantly: fragile. Everything that he had had some critical fault in a way or another. It was at that moment that he realized the biggest problem that he was to face there: solitude. There was no one to talk to, there was nothing to do. He looked up to the light, a raw estimate, hoping that his theories about physical needs were right, see him out of there in two weeks. Two weeks of complete isolation and solitude. “Yes, this is hell.”

He was taught since the early times of childhood that solitude, especially complete and utter solitude for long periods of time, were extremely dangerous and might lead a person to go insane. He was also taught that boredom had the same effects, albeit in a minor way.

It was in that moment that a phrase from a book that he read, a very old book that he was in his archivist list popped up in his mind: “6000 feet beyond man and time.” only that in his case became “6000 bellow man and time.”