When Logan opened his eyes, he didn’t find himself drowning at the bottom of an ocean like he expected. He wasn’t even floating on the surface, treading water for dear life as boulders and trees rained down upon him. Instead, he was lying on the stone floor of a medieval prison.

“I’m alive,” Logan muttered, gingerly sitting up as everything began to ache. “I’m actually alive…”

He thought he would be upset about such an outcome. After all, it was the opposite of what he had set out to do earlier today, and yet he couldn’t stop smiling as a wave of endorphins overwhelmed his brain. He had actually survived a kilometres-long fall into an underground ocean. For a second, he cackled like a madman until the pain in his ribs forced him to stop.

His entire upper body was a mixture of purple and yellow bruises. There was almost no damage to his legs since they had been spared the brunt of the impact, but it seemed that his feet were somehow scratched and bleeding. Strangely enough, all the damage was on the top of his toes. Perhaps he had kicked something on the sea floor while coming up from his dive?

No, that can’t be right. Logan thought, his mind catching up with the odd scene before him.

He had no recollection of anything between slamming into the water and waking up in this grey stone prison, meaning he couldn’t have tried to swim back up. The most likely scenario was that he passed out from the impact and was pulled out of the water by someone before he drowned.

Besides their identity, it was a mystery why they hadn’t left him to sleep on the shore. Their intent was obviously hostile. Other than invading their territory, Logan couldn’t think of a reason as to why they had thrown him in a cell and locked the door behind him.

Of course, that was under the assumption that his captor was human.

Torches lined the walls outside his cell, each one layered in cobwebs. Logan should’ve been happy to see a source of light in a dark, cold dungeon, but the flames resting in the torches were neither warm nor the usual orange colour. Instead, they were bright blue and let off waves of cold air, making him feel like he was standing in front of an air conditioner.

Then he noticed the collection of books. There were a bunch of paintings and bookshelves full of scrolls in Logan’s cell, almost as if they had been locked away to protect them. He could see many more random objects in the other cells, but no people or corpses resided within them. Furniture, scrolls, and even chests full of gold were haphazardly spread around.

Sadly, Logan’s cell had no couches or beds, leaving him to sleep on the floor once he got tired enough. Sighing, he tried to think of a way to make a bed with what he had available and only came up with layering the paper of the unfurled scrolls. That way, he wouldn’t have to sleep on the cold stone bricks.

For now though, he was wide awake and full of energy. That was why he began to shout for help. When that didn’t work, Logan took his time to explore his new home. It went pretty fast since there were only scrolls and paintings scattered around him, none of which were in English.

The scroll handles were made out of ornately carved materials. Crystal and stone were the most common, reminding him of the enormous crystals around the underground ocean when he fell in. The paper also appeared to be made out of transparent crystal that was somehow both soft and flexible, the realisation making him throw his bed idea out the window.

As far as he knew, crystalline substances couldn’t be made into something that behaved like paper. Or maybe it wasn’t real crystal and just looked that way? Either way, he just put it in the same category as the weird ice torches and moved on.

Logan opened a scroll. The letters were shaped like runes that had somehow been fused into the crystal paper. He tried to figure out where the words had come from, but he soon realised that the square symbols were nothing like any language he had ever seen before. Each one appeared to have some kind of inherent meaning. The longer he stared at a soft-looking rune, the more he felt a warm and pleasant feeling in his chest.

It was incredibly strange. Sadly, he learned nothing of real value in the end. Not that he expected to. The point was to keep himself distracted from his bleak new reality. Logan had been suicidal just a day ago from some family drama, and now he was stuck in a mystical prison and likely going to starve to death.

His current issues weren’t even on the same scale as his previous ones. Still, Logan didn’t allow himself to succumb to the hopelessness of it all. If he was going to die, it would be on his own terms. The only problem was that he had no choice in the matter. Maybe a professional thief or a soldier could escape this prison cell, but Logan had no idea how to pick a lock or beat up his captors, whoever they may be.

That left him to search through what few possessions he had. Logan also tried anything that came to mind, but none of his ideas helped him escape. After looking over the scrolls and even trying to use one to smash the lock, he began to examine the paintings. They were in crystal frames that could potentially be made into weapons, but that all depended on whether they could be disassembled or smashed apart.

Logan picked up one of the most detailed paintings he had ever seen and held it up to the light. It was of a much higher quality than the others, looking like a masterpiece among finger paintings. A woman who could only be described as a goddess was sitting atop a hill. She wore a rippling white gown among an ocean of flowers, her head tilted up to watch a ghostly meteor shower as it rained down from the heavens.

It was easily good enough to be the main exhibit in an art museum. Although he didn’t know much about the technical aspects of painting, Logan could tell that it was a masterpiece. The quality was just that obvious. A simple glance was all he needed to confirm this fact. Still, the longer he stared at it - his eyes flicking over every minor detail - the more he realised that it could only be described as transcendent.

Logan was utterly entranced by the beauty and depth hidden within each brush stroke. He started with the rolling hills, each flower speaking of a different aspect of nature. It was almost as if the painting could make a direct impression on his mind. For instance, the sunflowers warmed his skin and the blue daisies felt like a gentle breeze washing over him. It was so real that he stopped to confirm that there was no breeze, to which he found absolutely no hint of.

Logan felt like he could stare at them forever until his eyes brushed past the Goddess. Every line on her face spoke of a different emotion. The anguish in her eyes made his heart ache, but the slight smile touching her lips made him feel calm, almost as if everything would be okay.

That was also when he noticed the contrast between the Goddess and the flowers she was surrounded by. Life and death, the two concepts flipping every time his eyes moved. One moment, the Goddess looked like an incarnation of vitality and youth, but the second he looked back at the flowers, it was as if her existence was fleeting and shallow compared to the full and endless breadth of nature.

Eventually, Logan managed to pull his eyes up to see what mysteries the sky held. The meteor shower felt even more complete than the field of flowers. Lifeless and rigid compared to the ever-changing qualities of nature, sure, but full of no less mystery and depth.

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It would take him a long time to figure out what a single falling star could be trying to share with him, let alone the field of flowers or the Goddess herself. Logan could’ve examined the painting for hours if he chose to, but he was soon interrupted by footsteps echoing up the stone staircase.

His head snapped up at the sound, causing him to toss the painting behind him and run to the door. He pushed his face between the iron bars to see what could possibly be making such odd noises, but he couldn’t see down the staircase at the end of the hall. That left his imagination to run wild. After a few seconds of careful listening, he imagined a man in armour made of bones dragging a sack of potatoes behind him.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t far from the truth. A skeleton in rotting leather armour was carrying Amelia on its back. She was sopping wet and unconscious, her arms and head covered in bruises that were similar to his own. Luckily, she must have copied his technique and survived the fall.

The sight of her also answered why his toes were scratched. Logan stared at Amelia’s legs, her feet scraping along the stone as the skeleton dragged her along. The speed at which they crashed into the sea must have been shocking. After all, they had both been wearing proper walking shoes, which were now gone along with their socks.

Logan sighed in relief that she was still alive. He opened his mouth to speak to her, but as the skeleton pushed open the bars opposite his cell and dropped her onto the floor, he saw that her face was blue.

She had drowned.

It took a moment to understand what he was seeing, but when he did, it felt like something was stuck in his throat. Then he came back to reality. Logan shouted at the skeleton to do something, his voice quickly growing hoarse. He called for help, asked it what was going on, and even begged to be let out so that he could try to resuscitate her.

The skeleton didn’t move after placing her body on the cold stone floor.

It just stood beside her corpse. Logan didn’t even stop to think that the skeleton may be deaf on the count of it having no ears. All he cared about was sparing Amelia from a terrible fate that he himself had almost succumbed to. When his voice was nearly gone from screaming for help, Logan stopped shouting and moved away from the bars.

She was dead. If he wasn’t so afraid of dying and just told her to go away, she might’ve survived the collapse. Her friends had even asked her to leave an hour earlier, but she refused so that they could keep chatting. Logan didn’t want to put the blame on himself when it was her choice to stay. At the same time, he just couldn’t stop thinking that she would be alive if he wasn’t such a coward.

Sitting with his head in his hands, Logan firmly closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the body or the skeleton. Its bones were discoloured and its leather armour was stained a dark red with aged blood. It didn’t smell like anything or he might’ve been sick, but that was about as positive as he could be in such a terrible situation.

Seconds passed by like minutes. Logan tried to think of anything that could help him escape, but he was no closer to finding a way than when he first woke up. He mostly agonised over the horror of what was going on. Until he starved to death, he would have to sit and watch as Amelia’s body slowly rotted.

Eventually, his mind landed back on the painting. There was nothing else he could think about to distract himself besides that. A shockingly detailed copy appeared in his head the moment he thought of it. Logan believed that his mind was just making up details to fill in the gaps, but after opening his eyes and examining the actual copy, he discovered that the canvas within the frame was completely blank.

The entire picture was gone, leaving a transparent crystal sheet with a frame around it. Logan initially thought he had grabbed the wrong painting, but after going through them all several times, he realised he was holding the correct piece.

Somehow, it had genuinely left the canvas and entered into his mind.

Between the crystal paper and ice torches, it was obvious that something strange was going on. The highly advanced materials could all be explained with some convoluted scenario about a hidden group of researchers. After all, Logan wasn’t a scientist and had no clue if crystal paper and cold fires were even possible.

This, however, was full-blown magic.

There was no conceivable explanation.

Logan began to study the frame for clues but found nothing to explain how it could leave the picture frame and enter his mind. He moved onto the picture in his mind when he found nothing of note. He spent what felt like hours studying the image before taking a break, but the only strange part was that he felt refreshed and unusually focused. He had put a lot of effort into deciphering the image without feeling any kind of exhaustion.

Perhaps it was a meditation technique to focus the mind?

Logan felt like that was close to the answer. It would certainly help if he could find some kind of guide, but even if there was such a thing in his cell, it would be in the weird runic language that all of the scrolls were penned in.

Preparing to study the image again, Logan paused as clinking footsteps came up the stairwell. He pushed his face against the icy metal of the bars and waited for the new creature to appear down the stairs. As the seconds passed, he tried to ignore the leather-armoured skeleton that was still hovering over Amelia’s body.

A minute later, a new skeleton appeared with a man on its back. He was from Amelia’s hiking group. Logan was glad to see him, but that changed when the skeleton walked past. The man’s face was blue and his chest wasn’t moving.

Logan took the chance to examine the skeleton in hopes of finding a clue on how to escape. There was no sword he could steal, but maybe he could pickpocket the keys to his cell? The skeleton wore a set of knight armour, the metal rusted and broken to pieces.

He could spot a few different claw marks that had sliced the metal into ribbons. The most obvious was its chestplate, a massive slash trailing from its left shoulder down to its right hip. Logan tried to imagine how large the beast had to be to do something like that, but he was forced to stop when the skeleton knight began to act strangely.

It brought the man into a cell beside Amelia’s. He expected it to stand over the body like the leather skeleton, only for it to walk out and into the hallway before entering Amelia’s cell. It approached her body and stood on the opposite side of her.

The leather skeleton crouched down and pushed down on her chin, causing Amelia’s mouth to open. The knight pulled out a vial of glowing orange liquid from a leather pouch attached to its belt. As Logan expected, it popped the cork and poured the liquid into Amelia’s mouth. The ambient temperature noticeably increased when it opened the lid.

As it flowed into her mouth, the liquid also burst into flames. He jumped back in shock from how bright it was despite being metres away. Logan expected her to burst into flames or be reduced to ashes. Instead, the corpse began to regain its colour.

The next thing he knew, steam began rising from Amelia’s mouth. The leather skeleton reached down and tilted her head to the side, water and steam draining out over the next few seconds. Then she began to cough, her entire body tensing up as she hacked up several mouthfuls of water.

Both skeletons walked out of the cell before she was done hacking up the black lake water, but Logan didn’t pay them any attention. He was staring at the rosy cheeks of the corpse. Amelia coughed a few more times before her lungs were empty of liquid, allowing her to calm down and peacefully fall asleep as if she hadn’t just been revived from the dead.