The man opened his eyes, but all around him was nothing but darkness. His bare skin shivered in the humid air. The soothing sound of an underground river echoed against the rocky walls, and for a few seconds, he remained still, trying to understand where he was. The man, in his fifties, was trying to gather his memories, but all that came back to him was the dull thud of a bullet slicing through the air, then... complete darkness.
He slowly straightened up, his muscles aching and his joints stiff as if he had just woken from a long sleep. The soft tinkling of water drew him towards the source of the sound, an underground river winding through the cave. His reflection in the water was blurry, distorted by the waves, but he could make out his face marked by the years: short white hair, a thick beard of the same hue, his crimson eyes fixed on the troubled image. A pale scar discreetly crossed her right eye, a reminder of a bygone era.
His body, despite his age, remained robust, forged by decades of military training. Scars dotted his back, evidence of the many battles he had survived. But today, he was no longer a soldier. He was a lost man, alone, in a cave where everything felt foreign.
He straightened up and looked around him. The cave was vast, its walls covered with translucent stalactites that shimmered faintly under the rare glimmers emitted by scattered red, blue, green, and purple crystals. The ground was damp and slippery, and each step he took echoed in the vastness of the underground cavity.
He walked, following the current of the river. The light from the crystals seemed almost organic, vibrating slightly, but that did not reassure him in the slightest. He had never seen anything like it. As he moved forward, his thoughts were swirling: What is this place? And especially why am I naked?**
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He remembered the mission. A base of mercenaries. Everything had gone as planned, until that bullet. Then... the black hole.
After several hours of walking, he arrived in front of a narrow crevice. Inside, slimy creatures, small green slimes, lazily undulated on the rocky ground. They seemed harmless, but his empty stomach protested loudly. He hadn't eaten anything since he woke up and had no other choice.
Without thinking too much, he crushed a slime under his foot. It burst into a gelatinous substance, exhaling a pungent odor. He picked up a piece and swallowed it without emotion. He had eaten much worse in the past.
While walking, he eventually discovered an old abandoned mine, partially collapsed. As he was searching the area, his foot struck an old pickaxe, rusty and broken at one end. The cold metal against his skin gave him a slight shiver. He took it, telling himself that it might be useful later.
Not far from there, he picked up a few branches scattered on the ground. Using stones, he managed to start a fire. The flames danced, casting shadows on the walls of the cave. With the pickaxe beside him, he cooked a piece of slime on an improvised skewer.
While he was waiting for the meat to cook, he noticed a small blackish lizard slowly approaching him, inch by inch. Her skin was marked with purple spots on her head and back, almost forming a strange emblem. At times, the lizard spat tiny purple flames, as brief as they were strange. The mercenary remained silent, his scarlet eyes closely following the creature. Then, without warning, with a quick and instinctive gesture like a reflex, he brought the point of the pickaxe down on the lizard's head, crushing it with a sharp blow.
Without a word, he withdrew the pickaxe and wiped it on the ground, his face impassive.
When the piece of slime was cooked, he ate it without a grimace or comment. It wasn't good, but he had seen worse. One last time, he fixed his gaze on the dancing flames, his tired eyes getting lost in the flickering glows. "Maybe I died that night ." he thought. He sighed deeply before murmuring in a breath: "Oh Leila...It seems that it's still not the right time to join you."
Then, twenty days passed.