Micheal?

Slowly roused back into consciousness, Micheal lay there, confused. What.... what had happened to him?

He took some time to organize his thoughts, and started laughing.

"AAHAHAHAHA! What a realistic dream!

But... where was he, now? His body hurt...

The ground was soft... the grass so... peaceful...

Exhaustion threatened to overtake him, his eyes wavering, before his eyes shot open in shock.

WHERE WAS HE?!

Micheal quickly shifted his arms, ready to take him off the ground-

Crack.

"AAHH! Damn it!" Micheal froze in pain as his muscles spasmed and his bones cracked. "God damn it...." He couldn't help but whisper under his breath. What had even happened to him? Why did he wake up on the ground? Did he faint? A seizure or something? Did he do drugs and this was the result? But he didn't do drugs!

"Get.... UP!" He groaned to himself, forcing himself onto his knees, and slowly rising up from there. 

A strange sense of satisfaction filled him for being able to rise up, despite the pain and weakness overwhelming his body. He could finally pay attention to the world around him- see where he was.

In his vision, a patchy field of grassland surrounded him. He had woken up on the healthiest and fluffiest grass, for the area around had dryer and deader grass. The air was strangely still. 

And the skies... 

Micheal looked up, unable to comprehend why the skies gave him just a strange, eerie feeling. It was just dawn... or dusk. He didn't really know how to tell the difference. Yes, it was a normal time of day, a beautiful blue-orange sky that looked so, so wonderful. A few faint stars twinkled...

He sighed, and looked back down to the rest of the land around him. He wasn't quite sure why, but he didn't particularly feel scared or worried. He understood quite clearly how potentially deadly this situation was, but he didn't quite have any intense emotion inside him.

"I don't know..." Micheal softly whispered under his breath, and be began to slowly take steps around. He didn't know how he got here. Where he was. And there was no sign of civilization nearby. But he figured if he walked in the same direction long enough, he would get somewhere eventually.

Step

Step

Step

Every step was slow, a testament to his injured body. This slow, seemingly endless track in this barren plain gave him time to think. Just what happened... he was starting to remember. He fell... he fell through the floor!?

But how was that possible? He was... he was.... no. He experienced a supernatural event. That was the only possible explanation.

Unless he got knocked unconscious in the middle of the day, kidnapped, had his memories altered, and then dropped in the middle of nowhere, the only reasonable explanation was a supernatural event occurred. 

And if that was the case, it meant that the supernatural was real. Which means that it may actually be possible for him to gain magic or some other type of superpowers. Maybe. He wasn't sure. But it gave him a bit of hope that he wasn't going to die miserably in the middle of nowhere.

Which is when a bit of unevenness in the terrain caught his attention. There was a drop up ahead, and it was completely grassless. Micheal supposed there was probably nothing of import there, but given that it was the singular thing different from the rest of the flat terrain in his vision, he might as well wobble there.

Five minutes later, Micheal looked down at the drop with a contemplative frown. It sloped down into a small patch that lead to a cave entrance. He wasn't exactly sure how caves occurred in nature, but something about this didn't seem natural to him.

It was a drop that lead to a cave. But the drop only lead there- nowhere else. As if someone dug into the ground, then dug out a cave in the side of the wall afterwards. He wasn't sure if his guess was correct, but that's what he was thinking. 

Micheal stood there, deep in thought as he looked down at the cave. There could be a bear inside...

Or a tiger. Or a leopard.

Or maybe even a demon, if he got transported to a different world like he suspected might have happened. One supernatural event leads to more supernatural events.

At the same time... 

Micheal rose his head, to look at the area around him. Apart from this cave in the ground, it was just... barren. A plain of dying grass. Some patches were more lively, some didn't even have grass. he didn't know why there was such a disparity, but he supposed it didn't matter. Point was, what the hell was he to do? Walk until he died? 

And this cave... what was he expecting? A portal to civilization? There's probably nothing inside. And if there is something, it's probably an animal. He wasn't sure it was a smart idea to check it out, but he started taking steps down the slope in the terrain regardless.

He just had a hunch that this wasn't natural. And if it was made by a human, maybe, just maybe, he could find something that could help him. Even if the chances were low, he figured it was better than walking around until he died.

When he made his way down though, he stared at the cave, and realized...

"I can't see anything." Micheal groaned under his breath. Of course! Light wasn't at an angle to hit this cave properly, he could only barely see a bit of the entrance. He took a few steps forwards though, just to take a better look around since he was already there.

A quick look around revealing nothing but plain stone and dirt- until a small shine in the corner of his eye caught his distance. Is that... metal? And metal meant something manmade...

Micheal rest his gaze upon the little sparkle, analyzing the details a bit more and more as his pupils dilated. A curve and... connected to something... 

He got closer, step by step, his figure encroaching into the darkness as he approached the object. Scanning around, there didn't seem to be much else other than this object. Unless he went into the darkness, but he couldn't see in there. 

Now that his pupils had dilated a bit more, he could make out the object. A pickaxe. He reached over and picked it up.

The handle was cool to the touch, and felt smoothed by time and use, but it was solid. This object meant people had been here—maybe not recently, but at some point. It was probably a mine, if he went deeper in.

He couldn't help but feel a small bit of relief. The discovery of something man-made in this seemingly endless expanse meant he wasn't entirely alone, at least not on a planetary scale.

"Hmm..." Micheal looked around. He couldn't particularly see any further, and he wasn't keen on going any further. He'd only gone this far to try his luck, and because he could see. But further in he saw nothing! What if there was a sudden fall further in? Or some animals?

He tightened his grip on the pickaxe. If nothing else, it was a weapon of sorts. At least he wouldn't be entirely defenseless if something did come out of the cave. He really did want to explore- maybe he could find a backpack, rations, a lantern, who knows! But the fact remains that it was pitch dark deeper in.

He stepped back from the entrance, feeling a pang of frustration. Here he was, potentially standing at the edge of a discovery—maybe even the key to his survival—and yet he was paralyzed by the darkness "Damn it," he muttered under his breath, glancing once more at the mouth of the cave. He wasn't a coward, damn it! But nothing would change the fact that pitch darkness was pitch darkness. He can't do anything further in. But he knew he couldn't just leave without at least marking the spot. If he ever found a torch or anything that could serve as a light source, he would return.

But when he turned back-

Step.

That wasn't his own footsteps.

Step. Step. Step.

Footsteps, or at least something similar to it, from inside the cave. And getting closer to him.

'NOPE!' Micheals thought saved as he immediately ran back up the steep terrain, away from the cave and the creature inside. Human, animal, monster, he had no idea!

Upon reaching the top, he clenched his pickaxe and looked back to see. 

"Ah!" Micheal couldn't help but exclaim in shock. He had thought it. He had expected it. But nothing could prepare him for the shock of actually seeing a supernatural being in person! 

Chasing after him was a creature covered in blue crystals- and where the crystals didn't cover revealed bony, pitch black skin. 

Micheal almost instinctively turned to run- after all, escaping was always a valid response to a fight, but he stopped. He was tired. He was hurt. And this thing was moving fast. He wouldn't escape if this thing wanted him dead.

And he had something this thing didn't- a weapon. He gripped his pickaxe tight, raised it, and awaited it to approach.