Red watched the insectoids. However, none of them moved, all meeting his gaze silently. The boy stored the stone back into his pouch and began to move forward, one slow step at a time.

None of the creatures walked ahead to stop him and a few seconds later he was past them. The youth was able to feel their eyes staring at him as he moved away, but he didn't look back.

He walked.

And walked.

And soon he could not feel their presence anymore.

As he wandered through the empty tunnel following the stream, Red's thoughts began to wander.

The boy remembered when he had taken the first step of this adventure. The real difficulty of the journey hadn't become clear to him until he was halfway through it.

He remembered Viran's advice, to not let himself be distracted by dreams, but he didn't listen, and hopelessness threatened to consume him at every new obstacle. However, the boy persevered, no matter the difficulty. He made peace with his own death at several points, but he never gave up regardless of his chances of success. Even when Red knew he would almost surely fail, it didn't deter him from pushing forward.

All for a simple dream and nothing else.

At first, he wanted to prove to himself he could do it with his own strength. Now he knew, though, that his skills would never have been enough to make it through the underground in the first place. Would he have made it past the spider's nest with his own power? Would he have made it through the enormous expanse after that?

It was a silly thought, and maybe Viran had always known it, but not once did the man look any less motivated about escaping the underground. In that sense, Red could only recognize his own inferiority. And yet, here he was, while the old soldier had died without even having the opportunity to put his escape plan into motion.

It was unfair, but nothing about their situation had ever been fair in the first place. Red was forced to accept there were certain differences in strength that no amount of cleverness or cunning could make up for.

It was why the boy didn't feel disappointed his strength had proven insufficient for the journey. It was why he had accepted the lucky chances he had been provided. The youth felt he had done the best he could have in each troublesome situation, so perhaps fate had decided to reward him. Or perhaps this had all been preordained in the first place.

The blob's figure flashed in his mind.

It didn't matter. Now he was through it all, and he achieved what he was after. Now he could seek a fair beginning, where he would explore the entire world by himself and not have to rely on luck anymore. This was all he could ever ask for.

A few hours later Red began to sense it. A cold breeze striking his face. He had only felt this before when he would approach the exchange point with the guards.

The air of the surface.

He was near.

He was going to make it.

With his luck, though, the youth expected something to pop up at any second and bar his way forward.

Yet nothing appeared.

His mind began to wander, thinking back to the very first day he awakened in these caves. Covered in weird clothing, alone, with nothing but a moonstone by his side illuminating the dark room. The first thing he remembered wasn't feeling fear. It wasn't feeling anger. It wasn't feeling joy either.

It was feeling emptiness. Like something had been taken from him, and now he had an enormous vacuum back to fill but nothing on hand to do it. His memories of those earlier days were fuzzy. He didn't remember how he had survived, how he had met with the other slaves, how he had lost the original clothes that he had on him.

Red often thought his lack of recollection from those initial days was a side effect of suddenly awakening in this place. For all he knew, that was indeed still the case, but as he approached the surface certain things began to come back to his mind. Not complete memories, but flickers here and there, images showing what happened during that time.

There was a man. An old man. He took care of him when the boy couldn't do it himself. Red could not remember his name or face, but he knew this individual was important to him. The youth recalled a conversation back then when that dying slave asked him for his name and he didn't have anything to respond with.

"We'll call you-"

Red looked up, startled. He examined his surroundings, looking for the source of the voice, but there was nothing. He continued walking, but other memories proceeded to return to him.

This time it was in another place - a small chamber with soft purple light. The old man was still there and he was showing something to the boy. The slave pointed at a spot in the wall and Red saw it. A small dark blob, pulsing like a beating heart. The man smiled at Red.

"There's our salvation."

And then he walked towards the strange being.

It was the last time the boy ever saw him.

...

‘Huh?’

Something flashed past his eyes. Not in his memory, but in the real world.

This time, the youth noticed it. Right in front of him, the image of a person. A weathered old man, with the same sincere smile that persisted in his expression no matter how tough or painful the situation was. A good person.

He extended a hand towards Red as if offering his help.

The boy stopped and closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again, the figure was still there, but he didn't hesitate any longer. The youth kept walking forward, straight towards him.

He did not slow down even as they were about to clash.

The image of the old man dissipated into mist and the path forward was revealed to Red once more.

"Pretend that they aren't there. Pretend that they aren't there. Pretend that they aren't there." He repeated the same old piece of wisdom that Viran had told him over and over again under his breath.

However, other things also started to appear.

He saw Viran, covered in blood, sitting against the cave wall. He was smiling at Red, mocking him. He knew something that the boy didn't, and it had always bothered him. It wasn't just about the curse. It was about his origin. He felt compelled to stop and ask his dying figure what it was hiding.

But instead, the youth just walked past it, and it too dissolved into mist.

Then there was Gruff's disembodied head, his eyes full of hatred as they gazed at Red. He remembered how the giant had given him food during the first year he was down here. How he, Gruff, and the elder had talked to each other sharing tales about the surface. Then the boy also remembered what his expression looked like when he learned the old man had died. It resembled the one the head had on right now. The youth felt compelled to ask for forgiveness, to tell him it was not his fault.

However, he kept walking and the head disappeared.

The blob was there too, smiling at him with its naturally smug air. Red remembered when they had made a deal. He didn't know why he had returned there after the old man's death, but he did it either way. He felt angry. Angry at being tricked. He wanted to punch the dark monster.

Yet he kept walking. The blob's figure didn't dissipate into mist, but Red moved past it either way.

Then he saw other things that he didn't understand.

An azure tower from which shining threads

extended into the horizon.

A crimson wolf drowning in a river of blood.

A burning black heart that threatened to consume everything in its path.

A golden star that held the firmament together.

A silver sword that aimlessly flew through the sky for eternity.

A green sphere that depicted the true face of a nightmare.

A purple light that led to another world.

Red felt these things calling to him. But he didn't answer.

Voices whispered to him. Telling him about how he was cursed, about how he would never amount to anything in life, how all his efforts were in vain. But the boy knew they were lying.

He had made it this far already.

These illusions kept trying to drag him back, tempting him, threatening him. But Red knew they couldn't stop him.

Because they were not real.

Ahead, a soft light illuminated the tunnel that began to open up. The stream started to widen even further, its surface becoming brighter with a white reflection that allowed the boy to see the bottom. Small green plants he had never seen before started to come to his view, growing on the walls, and the ground beneath his bare feet began changing into brownish moist clumps. Fresh air he had never breathed before entered his lungs.

At first, he thought they were more illusions, but as he walked through them they didn't dissipate. The boy gradually felt as if all the exhaustion and pain of his body ceased to exist, and his steps began to hasten.

Ahead, Red saw the large opening blocked by growing vines, but glimpses of the world beyond could be seen through the gaps. The youth chose to forego the support of the cave wall and moved on his own. Before he knew it, he was shoving the plants to the side and opening a way forward.

Then, he saw it.

A body of water that extended well beyond anything he had ever witnessed before, flowing into a single direction downstream. The stream was merely a small arm of a vast river containing so much clear water that the boy thought his knowledge of true size seemed to be laughable.

However, when the boy looked closely, he saw something floating on the undisturbed surface of the river. No, it wasn't floating. It was reflecting it. Light dots, more than Red could count, and then a bigger circle in the middle of it all.

He looked up.

A dark endless sky appeared before his eyes. But it wasn't all darkness.

Countless stars of various colors painted the firmament, swimming amidst a blue nebula strip that split the heavens in half.

But there was something brighter.

A white disc larger than everything else in the night sky.

Red recognized it instinctively.

The moon.

His hand reached up, trying to touch it, but it was too far.

The illusions had long since dissipated and at that point, the boy knew.

He was finally free.