The Cave

Leon had been aimlessly wandering through a misty forest for what seemed like hours when he noticed something glowing behind some shrubbery. He was in the midst of a dense forest that was well known for its unique, and sometimes dangerous creatures, so his immediate reaction was to hide. He quickly dove for cover behind some bushes, and peeped through them towards where he saw the odd light.

What he saw was a strange creature. It resembled a rabbit, but its size said otherwise. The creature was half the size of an adult human, and on top of that a pair of glistening white antlers rested atop its head reaching towards the sky. Its fur was so dark it seemed as if it was absorbing all of the light that came into contact with it. The eerily dark fur, and the glowing white antlers were in stark contrast to one another. Startled by the rustling bushes the creature turned its head toward where Leon was hiding revealing a pair of golden irises.

As their eyes locked onto each other Leon couldn't help but marvel at the strange, alluring beauty of this creature. He had no doubt that the creature was likely dangerous, just like most things that could be found in this forest, and yet he couldn't bring himself to look away. After gazing at each other for a few long moments the creature suddenly looked away towards something in the distance, then began scampering off in the opposite direction.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, and had the effect of making Leon snap out of his trance. As he watched the rabbit like creature take off at an impressive speed, Leon felt the ground start to shake. When he glanced in the direction that the rabbit seemed to be fleeing from, he involuntarily let out a startled grunt, the result of a scream getting stuck in his throat.

What he saw was a massive stone boulder, no less than 5 meters in width, that had 4 thick legs attached to it, and a rhino like head equipped with a singular massive, shiny, metallic horn on the end of its nose. Regardless of the size of the beast it was rapidly approaching much faster than a boulder of that size should have been able to run... not that a bolder should have been running at all.

Coming to his senses Leon hopped up to his feet, and started running in the same direction that the rabbit left, its glistening antlers giving away its position even through the dense forest. As Leon ran he felt the ground shake beneath him as he hopped over small logs, and roots that were sticking up through the soil. Having no where else to go he kept chasing after the rabbit, drawn by its bright antlers. By some miracle Leon managed to keep up with the rabbit for more than 10 minutes fueled by his adrenaline, but seeing as the giant boulder showed no signs of stopping Leon began to doubt his ability to keep this up for much longer.

Distracted by his thoughts, Leon failed to notice a singular unassuming root protruding through the ground just enough to disrupt his balance when he landed on it. Stumbling forward Leon had to slow down in order to keep his feet underneath him. Having been running as hard as he could for 10 or more minutes at this point, the loss of momentum was quite unwelcome as far as Leon was concerned. He was starting to run low on energy at this point, and it took a lot of willpower to begin running again.

As Leon pushed himself to keep running, he grasped his stomach where he felt a sharp pain starting to form, the tell tale sign of a cramp. Realizing that sooner rather than later he would no longer be able to continue running he looked around frantically for anything that might offer safety from the rampaging bolder thundering after him.

He thought about climbing a tree, but quickly dismissed that idea as the creature had already knocked over plenty of trees during its wild pursuit. Dismissing several other ideas that briefly came to mind, his eyes fell upon what seemed to be the opening of a cave. Having no better course of action, Leon adjusted his course and picked up speed as he approached the cave. He felt as if his feet got mysteriously lighter, as adrenaline pumped through his veins, causing him to think of nothing, other than how to reach the entrance to the cavern as fast as possible.

*BOOM*

He dove head first into the cave in the nick of time, as the over sized body of the rhino crashed against the entrance of the cave causing Leon to go flying forwards, landing hard against a wall, as an avalanche of rocks formed an impassable blockade at the entrance of the cave.

---

An unknown amount of time later, Leon slowly opened his eyes, his head was throbbing from being bashed against the wall, when the creature sent him flying, along with a bunch of rubble. As his eyes slowly got used to the dark, panic started to set in as he realized started think about what just happened.

"SHIT!" he felt the sudden urge to swear as he slammed his fists into the cold, hard ground.

"How did this even happen?" he asked himself out loud in a dejected voice, as he thought back the the events that landed him in the middle of this god forsaken forest with no ideas of how to get out.

---

7 hours earlier:

Leon was playing catch with some other kids his age in the Educational District. The Educational District was far nicer than anywhere else that most of the kids, Leon was playing with were allowed to go, him included. This is because it is one of the few places where the 'elites' of society could be seen sharing space with the common class. This particular park was their favorite go to place after school to hang out before going home, because of its proximity to the school, and the fact that no parks around where they lived could compare with this beautiful park.

The city of Vega was surrounded by nothing other than mountains, and expansive forests for miles in every direction. Despite this geographical dilemma it was still a quite prosperous city due to the fact that the only possible route that people could take to get from Barmwich, a large port town to the south of Vega, to anywhere else in the country of Eswaine passed straight through Vega. This caused a lot of traffic to pass through the city even though there was nothing much of note in the area. merchants would bring their money, and goods which boosted the Economy of Vega. Hunters could be found prowling around the surrounding forests, and they would sell furs to the merchants.

Anyway, given the nature of this park there were 'elites' and commoners strolling the park at the same time, though the elites wouldn't let themselves be seen mingling with the peasants even if their lives depended on it.

"GO LONG!" Leon shouted to one of the kids he was playing catch with as he wound up and launched the ball as far as he could.

He looked up smugly at first, but when he saw where the ball was headed his face visibly paled by a few shades. He watched in slow motion, unable to stop what was inevitably about to happen.

"WATCH OUT" someone screamed causing a young girl named Cecile, to turn towards the ball just in time for it to hit her square in the eye.

The ball, which was similar in both size and weight to a baseball, left a large bruise around the young girls eye. To her it was absolutely unacceptable for a young maiden such as herself to have a even a scratch, let alone a bruise on her beautiful face. To make matters worse tomorrow was her 15th birthday, which is a big deal for all kids, especially Cecile, who was going have a huge party for her family to show off how beautiful she was, and hopefully find her a potential candidate to be her husband.

Leon felt a chill run down his spine as Cecile, one of his 'popular,' elite classmates, glared at him. It appeared as if the pain didn't even register on her face, as she was much more worried about what he had done to her face just a day before her birthday.

Not missing a beat the young man who was walking beside her bent down to make sure that she was okay. Her previously ugly expression was immediately replaced with that of a poor young maiden, who was just brutishly maimed. Worry seemed to wash over the young man's face as he assured her that he would take care of everything.

The next thing that Leon knew he was being dragged out of the city by two freakishly strong men. All of his friends looked on with pity, but nobody dared to help him. The rest went by in a blur as the men lifted him onto the back of a horse, and hauled him deep into the forest turning regularly, to ensure that Leon would never be able to find his way back on his own. The rest was history.

---

Present time:

The sound of his stomach growling fiercely forced Leon back into the present. Realizing that he couldn't very well just stay in the cave for the rest of his life, Leon brushed some rocks off of his body, and decided to inspect the mountain of rocks that was blocking the entrance. He was quickly disappointed when he realized just how many rocks were between him and the outside world. When the rhino-esque creature slammed its body into the entrance of the cave it caused a landslide above the cave, trapping him inside.

Giving up on trying to leave that way for the moment, Leon started trying to see if there was any other passageways in the cave that just might lead to a separate exit. This task was made much more difficult due to the fact that there was no light source now that the entrance was blocked off.

As he slowly made his way around the walls of the cave looking for a passage, that would hopefully lead him out of the cave, he lost his footing due to a sudden change in elevation. He fell back on his butt, and began to slide down a very steep tunnel deep into the earth. He began to pick up speed at an alarming rate, and frantically tried to grab on to the cold wet rocks that he was sliding across to either stop, or at least slow his descent. Unfortunately, the rocks were strangely smooth, and try as he might he helplessly kept plummeting towards the center of the earth.

In his panic Leon failed to notice that his surroundings were gradually getting brighter. Suddenly, there was no more earth beneath him, and he was thrown into the air as the light became so bright that his dilated pupils temporarily stopped working, causing his momentary weightlessness to be that much more frightening. Leon's body frantically thrashed out, as Leon tried to find anything to stop his fall. As Leon began to lose hope...

*SPLASH*