When I woke up, I was greeted with a pair of red eyes glowing in the darkness.

“Took you long enough- wait, why are you crying?!”

“Huh?” I touched my cheek and felt a wet substance on my face. “I don’t know.” I had now completely forgotten the dream I just had.

“Ah!?” While I was standing up, a sharp pain shot through my left arm.

“Mana depletion. I warned you, didn't I?”

“Yeah yeah, sorry.”

Me and Akai just stood around, practicing magic. Every time I got low on mana I would stop and take a sip of the purple liquid, as Akai said it would help. It was able to keep my thirst at bay, but I was getting hungrier by the hour.

“We need to get out of here.” I said, rubbing my stomach. “I need food.”

“Oh yeah, forgot about that.”

I picked up the newly lit torch, the one I had lit earlier having gone out at this point, and picked a random corridor to walk down. The tunnels were cramped and damp. I was feeling slightly claustrophobic, but I got over it eventually. As I was walking, a light started becoming visible, it was an orange glow, coming from around a corner.

I turned the corner, seeing a pond of lava. The ceiling was cracked open, allowing more lava to pour into the pond. Before I knew it, the temperature was cranked up, causing me to start sweating. I took off the black sweatshirt I was wearing before I continued forward, after all, I didn’t want to dehydrate. I walked forward, inspecting the pond. I wanted to see if there was any way to cross it.

“Breeze.” A gust of wind shot out of my hand, which was aimed at my face. I felt a cool wind wash over me, making it easier to be next to all the magma. It was one of the few spells that Akai had taught me.

While looking over the lava I decided that it was too risky to cross. “Water can’t help with this much lava, I'm out of that potion anyways.”

Noticing my intention, Akai spoke. “What, you aren’t crossing?”

“No way, I don’t want to die.”

I began walking down one of the hallways behind me. It was by far the longest. I walked for around forty minutes before I was greeted with a generally open area. There was another path off to the side, but as I had been walking all day, I decided to rest for a few minutes.

However, as soon as I sat down, my drowsiness won and I fell asleep.

I woke up in a pitch black room, the only illumination being an unknown light source above me. I was laying on the ground, just like last time, I couldn’t move. I did notice, however, I could move my head. There was a slight fog enveloping everything, It looked like a cliche horror movie. I laid there for what felt like ages before I heard a noise.

*Tap Tap Tap*

The noise sounded like there was a centipede crawling around, It was unnerving. I tried to speak but nothing came out. After frantically looking around, I noticed something moving in the darkness.

“A spider?”

I watched it move over to me before climbing up my arm. I tried to get it off, but I still wouldn’t move.

*Tap*

I looked over to see thousands of spiders. They were all crawling towards me. I, again, tried to move but my efforts were in vain. The spiders covered me from head to toe, some even went into my mouth and ears. The sensation was horrifying, the feeling of being covered with an insect. I could also tell they were biting me, the strength left my body and I stopped resisting.

“AHhh!” I jolted awake, scaring Akai.

“What’s wrong with you?! I could have had a heart attack!”

“Sigh~ You’re already a ghost.” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Tch.”

Akai noticed the slight tremble in my voice. “Bad dream?”

“Hah, Yeah.”

“I know, you were practically having a seizure on the floor.”

“Let's go.” I said, slightly irked.

We walked down the tunnel, I began to notice cobwebs scattered around, but I blamed it on my paranoia.

*Tap Tap Tap*

“What the fuck is that?!”

There was a giant spider walking down the path towards me. It looked like a big tarantula, aside from the fact that there was the upper half of a human attached to the top of it. The human half almost looked like Akai, they had the same white hair and red eyes, but the spider had no horns or tail.

“Hey, uhh, could you put on some clothes?” I yelled out to the creature, after all, I was a healthy male. I heard Akai cackle next to me.

The spider turned to look at me.

“Hey, uhh,⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶ you ⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶⫶̊⫶ clothes?” The monster spoke, the creepy thing is that it used my voice.

“Ahhh! Run away.” It began speaking in other voices, one of which I recognized.

“Hey, that was that girl's voice.” Akai pointed out.

“Mhmm.” I unsheathed the dagger and placed my torch into the bag without putting it out. “HISS!”

The spider hissed at me before a web flew at me.

“Hey!!”

My vision went blue. Like when you open your eyes after having them closed in the sun, just more intense. Everything seemed to slow, and there was a silver light flowing with the web that was inches away from my head. While I was processing all of this, my body moved by itself, out of the webs path.

After the web flew past my face, I fell to the ground and my vision faded back, my legs were weak.

“Get Up!!”

“Right!” I got up and ran close to the spider. The human face had a scowl on it, as if it was looking at garbage. Taking the dagger, I plunged the blade into one of the ten eyes on the monster

“SCREECH!” It pulled away, taking my dagger with it. “WaterBall WaterBall WaterBall!” I used the water ball spell multiple times, this time the spheres shot almost as fast as a bullet. I'm not sure how, but they hit the human head, destroying it instantly.

“Uwahh, gross.”

“Man up.”