Suta POV

Suta remained rooted to his heels, staring at the cavernous mouth above with various thoughts swirling around his mind. After a while of stomaching the eerie silence, now and again, the air was disturbed by the childish heckles from above. He scratched the side of his head, confident after finally deciding. He turned towards Gio, addressing Verdi as well, who was timidly perched on his shoulder.

"W-wait for me here, both of you," he said softly before slowly making his way up the winding narrow path. Trudging carefully over the thin, dusty floor, Suta had little time to gather his thoughts. If what Verdi had mentioned was true, then…

He steadily climbed the slightly steep ground nonetheless, needing both hands to crawl up the remainder of the ascending path. Upon reaching the upper floor, Suta cautiously approached the cave where he had seen that hand dangling. As he neared the iron bars, he heard faint noises inside the dark hole. Specifically, a chorus of childlike heckles fracturing through the tense frigid air. Two pairs of pale, bony fingers wrapped around the iron bars. Suta maintained his distance, waiting to see who or what lurked behind them.

"Hey-ey, why have you stopped? Is it something I've said? No? Kekeke- then why do I smell it from you?" Said the voice from the shadows within.

"Smell what?" Suta replied with furrowed brows

"Kekeke-that scent, it's my favourite scent. Why do I smell... fear, seeping from your very bones kekeke?" That almost cackling laughter grated his ears.

A ghoulish face pressed itself closer against the iron bars. The sadistic smile was broad, showing rows of perfectly white teeth. Despite the sunken cheekbones and grey rings beneath the stranger's slightly sickly, sallow skin, the stranger had a youthful face. He had short blonde and greenish strands of silky hair, with one side almost entirely grey and the other a transparent tint of forest green and yellow.

But what struck Suta as the most bizarre thing about this fellow was undoubtedly those strange swirling sequences within his eyes, almost hypnotic in colour and design.

'Never in my life have I seen anyone with more villainous eyes before,' he spoke inwardly, relatively certain letting this...boy? Out may give him more trouble than he wants.

"Kekeke, you look troubled. Dare I say I've...snatched the words away from your mouth," the sallow-skinned youth cackled loudly.

Suta grimaced slightly at that.

'Why is he saying it like that? And why do I feel he's not taking anything seriously?' Suta decided to keep his distance a little. His glass-red dagger wasn't too far away from his grip.

"I'm not troubled, ahem, just curious," he replied, trying to clear away the anxiety from his voice. If this boy were a human, he would likely help them understand where they were right now and, secondly, how to get out of here.

"Wh-who are you anyway? And how did you end up here?" Suta couldn't help but glance around this strange place. His eyes bounced from cave to cave, wondering how many others were inside. What was growing worrisome about this place was being reminded of what prisons were usually for, which opened an entire door for more doubt.

"Hm, well, I could tell ya-but I'd have to kill ya! Kekeke, I'm joking." The boy held up his two dirt-sained palms. " And the warden, that double-crossing liar, he set me up and caged me like an animal. Tsk! The nerve of him! But I guess it's not so bad, considering I get somewhere nice to sleep. Kekeke."

Suta cocked one of his brows up and peered around the fellow, taking a careful look at the accommodation the fellow referred to as 'somewhere nice.'

'Maybe he's been trapped here for too long and has gone completely mad, ' he told himself, which was a very reasonable possibility. He took a deep sigh and massaged his temples. Suta was growing tired of bumping into these crazies. But if he is a human, 'then he's just like me.'

"I... I see," he replied with a slight smile. He noticed the strange youth's countenance change and his gaze widened into two saucers.

"S-say, why don't we work together to find our way out of this place? What do you say?" Asked Suta with a slight smile. The boy looked completely smitten by the idea, bouncing his head up and down without restraint.

"Yes-yes, I understand now. This means...we're friends! Aren't we? Hahaha?" The boy blabbered

"Huh? F-friends? Where did you-"

Before Suta could express his thoughts, he felt a tremendous tremor pulsating against the cave. Pieces of stones and dust descended from above. Out of panic, he swiftly twisted on his heels and approached the edge. He leaned over and saw that both Gio and Verdi were unsure what to do. Verdi swiftly ascended to his side, his look of uneasiness glazed against its childlike features.

"Oops, looks like it's woken up," He heard the strange boy's voice crack through the tension-laden air. Suta moved his gaze across, growing uneasy as the seconds ticked on and the cave continued its frightening tremor. 'Is this place shaking?' it was hard to put into clear words the uneasiness of the cave's sudden movements. Sense told him if that wasn't natural, then whatever it was causing the cave to shake that way was something far larger than all of them. He observed the gaping hole in the ground again. 'What in the world lives down there then?' His ponders were cut short, this time by an outstretched and almost ghostly-looking arm poking through the iron bars. Catching the loose ends of his dirty shirt.

"Come quick, lest you want that thing to devour you-although...that might be quite an adventure. Kekekeke."

Suta felt a natural reluctance to comply, but he felt an even bigger reluctance to stick around and find out what kind of monster that was. He swiftly spun on his heels again and bellowed toward the blue-shelled carp dwelling on the lower floor.

"HEY! You need to hide somewhere...Quick! Something dangerous is coming." And with those words said, he gestured for Verdi to perch itself on his shoulder, slightly behind his ears.

'Ok, here goes nothing.' Suta crawled towards the iron bars and inspected the sizeable gap between them. Strangely, the space looked big enough for him to squeeze through at an angle.

'Why would they make a prison with bars this wide apart? What could they have been trying to keep out?'

Whilst he tried to work out whether or not the boy preferred sleeping in such a damp place, there was a rapturous cry bellowing from an unknown creature below. Suta wasted no more time and angled himself sideways, cautiously squeezing himself between the iron bars. With almost most of his body through, he felt a sudden tug against his arm. A pair of rather cold, white hands swiftly gripped him inside, with a chorus of soft laughter hanging in the air. He stumbled into the partially dark little cave, tripping over his muddled feet and falling over, where he felt his fall being broken by a bony frame awaiting to catch him below.

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Verdi's natural bright essence quickly whipped around them, shedding away the shadows from Suta's view.

"Kekeke-oopsie daisy- that was close-that was close," said the boy beneath him. Suta used his two arms to hold himself upright to avoid their faces from embarrassingly touching. With Verdi's light now shining against this stranger's face, Suta could see very clearly now the youthful face behind those slightly manic heckles.

The boy was young, perhaps no older than he was, with pale and slightly sallow sickly skin. His face was still youthful despite the grey rings and the weird scars Suta noticed around his hands.

But he still couldn't shake away the uneasiness he felt staring into those spiralling irises.

"Say...you're human, right?" Suta couldn't help but ask the nagging question on the tip of his tongue, to which he merely received a strange chortle, followed by the stranger placing a single finger between them before slowly lowering it to his chapped lips.

"Shh...it's coming." he smiled before gesturing towards the outside. Suta climbed off the strange boy and nestled on his knees.

He took a quick glance around with Verdi, who, too, seemed a little wary but more curious about what was going on. As the boy crawled towards the iron bars, he stopped by the glowing green-haired fairy; his eyes sparkled with intrigue.

"Auaa-oh-oh, is that a fairy! How in the world did you manage to sire a fairy? Oh-oh, can I touch it?

Say, is it filled with mana like the stories say?

Or is it mischievous and a hoarder of gold? Oh, are those wings detachable? Mind if I-"

Before his fingers made it halfway, Verdi swatted the youth's attempt before beelining right behind Suta.

"K-k-keep your hands to-to yourself...Verdi only trusts S-s-s-s-uta." Suta sat a little surprised hearing that; it usually called him mister. The entire cave quaked again, drawing their focus toward the area on the other side of the iron bars.

"Kekekeke, my apologies, but look...the titan has awoken from its sleep. Shan't we take a look at it..."

Suta also drew a rather inquisitive wonder about this so-called titan, and he still hadn't gotten the answers as to who this warden figure was. With how quickly things seemed to be moving, he wasn't spared a moment of rest. That theme seemed to continue again as he saw a giant shadow cast against the lower walls.

He heard the sounds of something softly crying. But what Suta soon witnessed rising upwards did, by far, clear whatever thoughts he had previously held.

An oppressive silence moved through the small hollow pocket they huddled inside, and a looming grey figure slowly rose from beneath. The creature was as large as a whale, but it was flying. Its loose and overlapping skin consisted of a strange fatty grey matter; its helm was a black hood with two tiny golden antennae writhing around, Suta narrowed his gaze noticing soft electrical sparks dancing around the antennae. By all manners of the word, the creature looked horrific. Hidden between the thick folds of his skin, tiny writhing eyeballs poked out.

Its presence defiled all manner of understanding, almost as though it was...

"The very embodiment of death? Kekeke, I think you're just like me," the strange voice excitedly whispered beside his ears. Suta flinched a little, asking himself why the person was so close to him despite all the room they had.

"You can sense it too, can't you? That feeling, ohhhh-the gods! It's such a feeling, isn't it!" the wild-eyed boy swooned

Suta's gaze remained pressed on the floating mass of grey ascending slowly past his view, but his mouth moved in response to the strange boy's unstable voice again.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he made a poor attempt to whisper, only to find Verdi swiftly buzzing towards his mouth and desperately placing his two small hands over his lips. Suta was forced into swallowing harshly again; the large mass of grey suddenly halted midway.

Beads of sweat immediately began to dot his forehead soon enough. A soft shrill sound began softly escaping through the large creature. Suta held his breath; the creature almost turned its entire gigantic body towards them.

Fear, in its truest sense, consumed his entire self like no other. Instinctively, he traced his footsteps back, his heartbeat pounding like a ceremonial drum as the cold, silent voice of death crawled down his spine. At that very moment, Suta understood a straightforward thing.

'If that thing chooses to kill me? I can't avoid it? I will die instantly.'

A cruel smile creased against his face.

This world constantly reminded him of how small he was again, just how much about these strange worlds he knew nothing of.

Behind every corner was a danger like no other waiting to trouble him.

Just when he thought he had met a force to be reckoned with, another monster was at hand to rewrite what he thought he knew. What felt even more surreal about these random occurrences was the sense that Suta himself realized these overbearing creatures were a dime a dozen. Like the fleeting stars dazzled against a dense night, so were the countless mighty beings existing.

'Strange, it's somewhat...exciting.' He wryly smiled to himself beneath the chaotic thrums from his heartbeat. He was changing, truly, by every second.

Seconds gently passed, and eventually, the large creature resumed its descent again. Suta almost breathed a deep sigh of relief, seeing its horrific presence fall away. That suffocating cloak of heaviness gradually lifted away with its departure.

"My-my, that thing is just as scary as the first time I saw it," spoke the strange boy beside him. Suta followed his voice, staring into those slightly crazed eyes with a look of wonder again.

"How long have you been stuck in there?" he asked the boy curiously. The boy placed a single finger against his temple, tapping the side rhythmically in deep thought.

"A few years, give or take; time flies by when you're having fun! Hahaha! Say...we're the same, you and I."

That was a given, Suta thought, and why did he keep saying that? Despite the reservations he carried towards this strange boy's race, he believed he must also be human; only where he hailed from was another matter entirely.

"No-no, I think you misread me, dear friend. Hehehe. You're probably thinking about this benign cloak of flesh we both wear. But alas, I know something closer to home that ties us closer. Care to guess what that may be?"

Suta's brow furrowed deeper in response; this boy continued to become a stranger the longer he spent around him. And besides that, he couldn't shake away the familiarity around him. It was strange to him, almost as though he was...

"W-wait...cl-closer to home." A thought suddenly descended upon him, one with greater implications than what he could make sense out of.

The boy suddenly drew dangerously close to Suta, almost as though he heard his thoughts. Those spiralling irises filled with a wild light within them. Suta could feel the boy's warm breath against his nose each time he heckled between his breaths.

"Y-yes-y-yes, you know it too. We've both come from that same place, haven't we... that place...where the eastern islands proudly live."