“Why wouldn’t you be able to survive?” Akai asked, not fully understanding my frustration.

“I don't know how this works for demons, but I'm human. I can't survive in that low of temperatures.” I answered, looking around for any other path up. Then I spotted it, a small hole in the wall. It was too small for me to walk through, so I would have to crawl in order to get through it.

Once I was around halfway through the cramped tunnel, I checked the open space ahead, making sure there was no immediate danger. After making sure it was safe, I finished crawling through, and picked myself up off the hard floor. The room ahead of me was dark, and not wanting to use my last torch, I decided to head back out. However, before I could leave, all of the hairs on my body stood on end, and my body, head to toe, became covered in goosebumps. My vision also faded to a deep blue. I could also feel a heat working its way throughout my body. Turning around, I saw a ball of fire aiming for my head. Due to the illumination of the fireball, I could see further into the area I was in.

There were four orange looking chimpanzees visible. My body quickly dodged out of the way, startling the monkeys.

“Quick, try to use a fireball!” Akai yelled. “What? You said I couldn’t use fire magic!” I yelled back, dodging another fireball. “Just Try!”

“Tch!” Lining myself up with one of the monkeys and throwing out my arm, I kissed my teeth and shouted. “Fireball!” While my hand was being thrown, It caught fire. The bright orange glow shot off of my hand, aiming straight for the monkey closest to me. The ball was the size of a tennis ball, and once it hit the chimps head, it blew up, killing it instantly.

“SKREE!” The other monkeys, seeing this, decided to run away through the only tunnel ahead. I decided to crawl back from where I came. Once I was back in the main area, I noticed it wasn’t as hot anymore. Brushing it off, I spoke to Akai. “I thought I couldn’t use fire magic. What happened back there?” Akai had a look of thought on her face, as if she wasn’t listening to me.

“Akai?”

“Huh? Oh, I think that you’re able to copy magic for some reason.”

Listening to what she said, I thought it made sense, after all, I was able to use all of the magic I’ve seen. I walked back to the stairs, and after skipping over the first step, I waited on the steps, channeling the mana in the air to my core, topping it off. Looking into my core, the color seemed to be a deeper blue than it once was. I focused, looking further into the mana. There were four colors in total, blue, which reminded me of the ocean, white, which made me think of an empty plains, purple, which just gave me the chills, and red, which felt like I was sitting next to a warm fireplace. Separating the particles, I forced all but the red mana to one half of my core, causing it to be half blue, half red.

“Wow.” Akai said, amazed. “What?”

“Your control over mana is incredible, even I would struggle to do what you just did.” She said, a genuine smile showing on her face. It was rare to see her wearing a smile, at least an innocent one. I just smiled back, not entirely sure how to respond to the compliment.

I ran up the rest of the steps, entering the ice zone. So far, there had been three ‘zones’, The beginning zone, with the lone spider monster, the fire zone, with the fire monkeys, and the ice zone, with unknown dangers, aside from the cold. The reason I separated the fire particles from the rest of my mana was so I could use it to warm my body while I was in this zone, and still fight without wasting any of the fire mana. I just couldn’t use fire magic while I was in this zone.

“Wow, this place looks awesome.” I thought, looking around at all the glowing crystals, illuminating my surroundings. However, my moment of peace didn’t last long.

“Why can’t I just catch a break?!” I yelled out, seeing what looked like a yeti. It had the iconic white fur and looked more humanoid than what a normal gorilla would look like. Hearing my frustration, the yeti turned and shot out a line of ice spikes. Allowing my auto dodge to kick in, I was able to avoid it, this time, I noticed that the dodge used up some of my mana. “If what Akai said is true, then this should work.” I thought, creating a replica of the dagger I lost earlier. It wasn’t as sharp, and looked like it would break if the wind hit it, but it was a good start to ice magic.

As another barrage of Ice spikes came at me, dodging before my Auto dodge could act, I avoided them and ran towards the Ape. Pushing my hand into its chest, the ice dagger shattered, leaving me weaponless. “Well, I expected it, but still.” Quickly hitting it in the head, I gave myself an opportunity to back away and use magic. “Wind Scythe.” A slash of condensed wind flew from my fingers, heading towards the Yeti. Just in time, the overgrown monkey created a wall of ice, blocking my attack.

“Dammit.” I was thinking of using fire magic, before one of my thoughts caused me to back away. “Just charge at it!” The thought seemed so out of character, it caught me off guard. In the end, I decided to retreat and live to see another day. Running into a hallway, I eventually lost the monster chasing me. I sat against one of the walls, creating more around me. After talking with Akai and training for a while, I fell asleep.

*CRASH*

I was back in the dream I had earlier, A crash had woken the body up. We were now sitting up, slight cold sweat running down our back. Then we heard it. “NOO-!” A sudden scream, which was cut off as fast as it came. We climbed out of bed, tiptoeing towards the door. The owner of the scream was obviously mom.

“Mom?” We slowly opened the door and peaked out. What we saw gave me chills. A person was standing over their mom's dead body, blood dripping from the perpetrators mouth and hands. When they turned around, we saw they had a pair of red horns, and glowing red eyes, which seemed to pierce the darkness.

“d-d-ddDEMON!” The girl yelled, quickly closing the door, and running to the still open window. Their body was trembling, their legs wanted to collapse, but they jumped out into the vast night. The once colorful sky was now a dark purple.

I lived the rest of their life, to the point they died, but for some reason, everything was a blur, as if I was moving at super speeds, making it hard to remember any useful information. However, when they died, I noticed something. I killed them, these were the memories of the girl I had found and put to rest.