I hadn’t had time to look at her earlier, but when I did, I realized that she was a sight to behold. Her dark, wavy blue hair contrasted with her deep, dark crimson eyes. She had cuts and scars probably from all the abuse and beatings she had suffered, but for some reason, I was captivated by her. I didn’t know exactly why, but I was certainly fascinated to see someone else that was my age in the hell of a mine this was. She probably found people like Rosa and Nor who took care of her during the time she was down here - there was no other way to survive.

“I-Is…”

“Hmm?”

*quietly and worriedly* “D-Does your arm not need to be… treated?”

Because I was too worried trying to figure her out or because my mind was simply distracted, I had failed to realize the arm that had been cleanly cut earlier. The pain quickly set in and took over my mind. I acted instinctually and tried to grab what was no longer there with my left arm.

“ARGHHH, FUCKING SHIT, ARGHHH, FUCK FUCK FUUUUUCK”

“Sol? When did you get here?... Sol, what happened to you!?”

While I was screaming uncontrollably, Rosa had noticed me and immediately ran over after treating her patient. The girl next to me looked worryingly at me, but I didn't understand why. Why would she worry for someone she didn’t know? I couldn’t dwell on this thought for too long because the pain came and receded in waves, and each wave of pain was worse than the previous ones. I collapsed on the ground and I felt Rosa trying to relieve the pain in any way possible, but the pain got to be too much and I eventually blacked out.

I dreamt once again about the same girl who I had blackened out next to. But unlike the previous times, she did not run away or hide from me - she simply came towards and embraced me. I saw myself being embraced by the darkness, but I was not afraid, instead, it felt strangely comforting and peaceful. Without realizing, I had fallen asleep in the ethereal and woken up back into the real world.

* * *

The pain was still agonizing but was strangely bearable. It stung as if thousands of sharp objects were pricking the right arm, that was gone, at once; there was also an itching sensation where my arm had been cut off. Even with all that, I felt strangely comfortable and peaceful with the situation. I figured that Rosa had treated it in some way to lessen the pain. I woke up to the strange girl caressing my head; it seemed that Rosa had fallen asleep from exhaustion. The sound outside had not lessened any more than when I had passed out, so a lot of time had probably not passed. I tilted my head up a little, only to directly stare into that girl’s eyes again. Although she had comforted me in my dreams, I was rather unsettled by the look of her eyes. It was uncomfortable to look at them for too long, and I turned my head away to avoid doing that.

*faint and whispering* “A-Are you scared of me too?”

She had asked a question that I had no precise answer to. Even though it is uncomforting to look at her, it was a fact that she had gone out of her way to save me. I would not have been able to do that for a complete stranger and would have instead run away in the opposite direction. Of course, I had already returned the favor by bringing her to Rosa and the others - although, I never figured out what Nor was up to and what had led up to this event. This seemed to be a rebellion of sorts that was planned out from the start. I wanted to wake Rosa up, but she had to be tired from treating everyone and I wanted her to at least get a little bit of sleep.

Leaving Rosa alone, I became curious about this strange girl who had kept on following me without question.

“No… I’m not scared”

She beamed up immediately as if to say that she cared how I viewed her. I was pretty sure that she did not even know me, unless she also remembers those dreams like I did, which there was a chance. The pain still came in waves, just not as intense as before, which allowed me to have some ability to think rationally. She was clearly not a normal person looking at all the pain she has suffered through so far and survived. Weirdly enough, she was still caressing my head as we simply looked at each other without a word.

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“Do you remember the dreams we had together? What was that? Why did you save me back there? Who are you? What are you?!”

I don’t know if it was because of the blood getting to my head or the discomfort that came with being around her, but I unconsciously lashed out against her. As I spit out these words without even thinking about it, her beaming expression quickly turned into one that was overwhelmed and sullen. She stopped caressing my hair and got up head towards the outside.

“Where are you going?! Don’t tell me you’re going to try to go out there!?”

She looked back at me confused as to why I had stopped her. My main motivations were because I didn’t want to see myself be responsible for another death. Sending her away now and getting her killed would be entirely my fault and I was sure that Rosa wouldn’t want me to do something so idiotic.

“You… You can stay by me until this ordeal is over. Then, you can go wherever you want"

“R-Really?!”

I nodded my head and told her that I would be going to get some rest. She followed me to where I laid down and I fell asleep to her staring at me. I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want to find her gone when I woke up - that would be heavy on my conscience. Although I didn’t have the weirdly comforting dream this time, I still felt safe as I slept.

* * *

“SOL! SOL ARE YOU HERE?!”

I was woken up to the unpleasant sound of screaming. I reluctantly got up and saw that she had fallen asleep. Apparently, Rosa still had not gotten up if Nor was screaming that loudly. It took longer than usual to get up from bed with only one hand. It was also hard to stabilize myself without swaying all over the place. After a few moments, I walked towards Nor’s voice. I saw him from a distance and realized something was wrong with him. He was being supported from both sides and looked like he couldn’t stand up by himself. As I got closer, I realized - he had lost a leg.

I was utterly shocked at this. Was Nor not the strongest? Was he not able to defeat anyone who declared a fight against him? I was in utter denial that someone could have bested Nor. He had lost the leg up to his knee and he was painted in blood - some that were still flowing and some that had dried up. At the same time, Sol had noticed what had happened to me and he seemed to be infuriated.

“WHO!? Who did that to your goddamn arm!? This shouldn’t have happened! You should’ve been safe!!”

Nor was getting extremely angry at the current state of events unfolding before him, and I felt that there was not much I could do to quench his anger. I simply came up to him in an attempt to hug him. As Nor watched this, tears welled up in his eyes and flowed out like honey. This was my first time seeing Nor cry as he collapsed to the ground. The people around him had to hold him back from completely flattening me onto the ground. Rosa also came out after hearing the commotion and her knees gave out all too quickly. I quickly went over to Rosa to help her up and she embraced Nor as soon as she got close enough. I also joined them and that moment lasted for some time. Then, Nor broke the silence.

“We’re breaking out of here”

* * *

Nor’s POV

This all started with a weird dream that I just took as me having a stressful time. Dreams were just random thoughts after all… right? But these dreams constantly came back and each time, they asked for help. I would have helped, but I did not know who the girl talking was and what exactly they were asking help for. So, I began to ask others if they had the same dreams as I did over the past weeks and days. To my utter disbelief, we all had the same dreams of a girl asking for help. This continued to happen, but no one bothered to do anything about it because we were all on edge and afraid of what could happen to us if we chose to step out of line.

But as days, weeks, and months continued to go by, people continued to die with no end in sight. There was no way to stop it or prevent it… until Nao came to us and told us something we didn’t know. Naturally, I was skeptical at what he was about to say because none of us could figure out who the dream was given by or why it was given in the first place.

*fanatically* “This dream is a gift from the Goddess of Beasts! She is telling every one of us to help her take back her dignity! We have been enslaved for much too long and forced to do nothing but work. It is time to rise, brothers and sisters, to take control of our own lives once again! I know that…”

Nao continued to talk like a religious fanatic, which I had never seen him do before. It was clear to many of us that what he was speaking was nonsense, and perhaps just his own twisted interpretation of the dream, but there was a vocal minority that threatened harm to their own brethren if they didn’t follow what this goddess told us. And so, to prevent violence from erupting between each other, I decided that I would listen to what they had to say and many others followed in my decision. I found it funny how we had turned each other into enemies when we still shared a common enemy.

Even though Nao had told me that he had a plan before, I thought this was more of a desperate attempt at trying to escape. Although Nao didn’t say it himself, I was more than confident that he was a member of the beastmen; unfortunately, I did not know what tribe or race he hailed from. I just hoped that he wouldn’t resort to the power that had been cursed upon us beastmen - that would truly be a horrific sight to behold.

This continued to go on until we had managed to reach all the other cave groups. This had first started when I covered for Sol in the daily reports. I went and acquainted myself with several of the other group leaders and told them about the plan briefly after the guard had taken his leave. There was also this one girl who never talked but I didn’t mind it too much because she looked to be a child around Sol’s age. I didn’t want her getting caught up in this mess that we had created so I made the call to not tell her.

I also decided against telling Sol because of how much mental stress he had already considering how young he is. The worst thing I could do was push even more responsibilities onto him. I told Rosa to distract him in any way possible to at least allow him a chance at survival if we were to lose this rebellion. We were talking about the more detailed parts of the plan when I sensed that Sol was walking towards us. I told them to quickly disperse and although a few gave a questioning look, they nodded and went separate ways. Afterward, Sol and I talked for a few moments, like father and son. Shortly afterward, the plan was put into action.