Steam and evaporated liquids rose up into the air from hot, boiling pools of water and acid. The stone scape with various holes throughout it was slowly being eaten away by the acidic contents of the earthen-scape—past the set of acrid plains were flats, as mentioned before, that were comprised of salts, mostly made by the base element of sodium and, with it, other chemicals. The air seemed to be polluted by the amount of steam that was produced, but it was not; the clouds that were formed by the gases released from the ground were completely natural, and some time down in the cycle of nature they would be disposed of by some sort of natural process.

With the wind blowing up his cape that waved behind him like a tapestry, Isaack descended into the steamy, warm plains that stood in front of him.

He slid down a side slope that was made up of piles upon piles of salts; below the loose salt clusters that made up the top of the slope was salts that were so finely compact that it would take some sort of tool that was meant for mining—possibly a tool like a pickax or shovel—to break it up into debris. His feet almost came out from underneath him while he went down it—though, he finally got to the ending just after he had just about stumbled and fallen down. The ground below him now was tough and sturdy, for it was no longer the loose, fine particles of salt. Isaack stomped the ground once with his foot, making sure that it would not slip out from underneath him. Though the turf was now sturdy, that did not mean that Isaack would not slip; the constant production of steam from the acid pools caused the stone floor to become wet, meaning that he could easily slip and fall and possibly even severely hurt himself. Using his staff, Isaack carefully traveled over this new terrain and not once did he fall—one might think that the reason as to why he did not trip was because of the staff that he held in his hand, making him a lot more stable than he normally would have been.

The acrid plains were a different environment than any place he had been in on Earth; they were humid and his vision was confined to only a few feet in front of him. Unlike being out during the night, he could still feel light, and he could still see where he was going, but only for a confined area from where he stood—though his vision was obscured, he still could see shadows of hills or what he believed to be hills in front of him. A few times he did come into the circumstance wherein he almost fell into one of the viciously acrid pools of acidic liquid that were surplus in the plain. Now, because of this, Isaack was extra careful—he did not want to die a terrible death of being eaten away by any sort of corrosive material. If he did die, nobody would ever find his body, which absolutely horrified him; although he knew this, because he had lived with this fact for the past year, he still was terrified of no one ever knowing that he was deceased.

The stones underneath him were hot, though he could not feel it because of his protection from the rubber barrier that was between the ground and his foot. He continued onward, sometimes coming across a warm salt flat with heat rising from it, as it quivered up and down like it was breathing, for the heat and steam that was generated underneath it pushed it upward and then brought it gently back down. The compact salt made for sturdy footing, yet there was still salt-rubble that was atop it, making a sort of sand-like turf. Like when he was on the beach, he could taste the salinity in the air on his tongue with each breath that he took; the air was stifling, and it warmed his chest with the heat that it contained. It seemed like he was retaining a lot of moisture because of his breathing and the excess of it in the air.

After walking for what seemed like an eternity, Isaack finally came to an area where the steam began to clear and he could see ahead of him. He had finished crossing the acrid flat along with its salt flats, and now what was in front of him was a stone desert. The ground, much like how it was in the last area, was smooth rock, presumably made that way by the acid that he had just passed by. Before he started his journey he sat down on the warm stone—he needed rest, and he had not taken a break from traveling since his time sleeping in the morning. Around him on the ground were pebbles, perfectly smooth like the terrain that he sat on. This was obviously also because of the acid and the corrosion that all of the rock and stone that was around him had also undergone.

His feet hurt; he had been on them for so long without stopping at all. Isaack laid down on the ground on his back, relaxing all of his muscles and parts of his body—they were tense, and he had not been ready to go that far and travel for that long. When he sat back up after laying down for at least five minutes his hair had a few pebbles from the ground in it, so he picked them out and threw them back down to where they came from. He felt his face with his hand; it was warm. The cape that he was wearing was sprawled out underneath him, acting as a blanket that he laid on. The sky above was calm—the Sun was not harsh like it always had been, though it still glared in his eyes and he protected them with his hand.

He stood up once again, preparing himself for his venture across the stoney desert. The wind picked up a bit, rolling the tiny stones across the floor; it lifted up his cape, making it flow behind him. Its dark red coloration could have been seen if anyone was above him—the color was harsh and bright against the gray, monochrome landscape.

Isaack started to walk. It was odd—the sound of his footsteps were loud across the vast and empty scape, and they seemed to almost echo throughout the entire desert, bouncing up and down throughout the air and off of the hard ground. Each sound that came from him—whether it be the sound of his feet, his breath, or the sound of his articles of clothing rubbing up against each other—seemed to echo, and the deeper he went into the stoney desert the louder and more profound the echo became. Fog appeared around him; the temperature of the air became lower and lower, and he could tell that the ground was getting colder and colder. He was still warm—the clothing that he was wearing kept all of his body heat inside of him. The fog got denser, until he could not see what was ahead of him or behind him, or even what was above him. It was like how it was when he was near the acidic pools, but it lacked the pungent scent of salt and the burning sensation that the acid gave him in his eyes.

There was a sound that—similarly to the fog—encompassed him almost fully. The noise set an almost ambience to the entire area. It sounded like breathing. He knew that it was not breathing, but it sounded a lot like it.

He pressed on, while the temperatures got more frigid. The wind continued to stay calm, and it was almost like it did not blow any of the fog away at all. Eventually, though, he was so deep in the stoney desert that the wind stopped blowing. The direct light of the Sun vanished, but there was still enough light for him to be able to see. His pace slowed while all of the land around him came to look the same to him. His mind could not wrap around the fact that he did not know where he was.

He was lost, but he did not want to admit to it.

The distant “breathing” sound grew quieter, leaving him to be sitting in complete silence.

He felt like he was blind.

He felt like he was deaf.

He felt like he was lost.

Isaack opened his mouth to call out to something that was not there, but he realized quickly that no one would be able to hear him and so he had no voice. No one would be able to respond.

He felt despair—he felt the despair that he felt when the dead girl showed up; when he sat next to her in the cockpit. His mind attempted to bring him back to that moment, but it did not work. The fog continued to surround him.

He tried to have his mind bring him back to when he was in the jungle, or the beach, or even when he was out in space; when he was in the massive, dark, and distant void that he used to know so well. Isaack wished that he was not lost; but he was not lost, he was in the place that he wanted to be—or, was that his mind just telling himself that.

The feeling of despair and the feeling of being so distant from reality grew even larger; now, that feeling seemed to stifle his breaths. He felt crushed under the unbearable weight of that feeling; that emotion. He despised it—no, he hated it. He hated the feeling of being choked out by himself.

Then it started to creep in: the insanity. The distance. The lost grip on reality. He now had a headache. His legs became weak. He admitted that he was lost.

He saw someone off in the distance. It was a silhouette. He could not tell who it was, but he felt the impulse to go towards them. Isaack stumbled over to them, and when he went to grasp them their dark shadow faded into the fog. He saw them again, now to the right of him. Once again, he stumbled over to them, attempting to grasp any part of them. His hand almost touched them, but they disappeared. They appeared a third time behind him, and like before he attempted to grasp the person, but once again they disappeared, fading out of existence.

His despair grew more and more, and he felt more and more lost and disconnected from the world that he once knew. He now felt numb and tired. The person kept appearing at random around him, and each time he kept trying to grab them, but to no avail.

Then, his mind went dark.