Elkon's breathing slightly increased after seeing an odd light enter his eyes. The confusion he felt grew as a warm sensation wrapped around him. Despite this warm feeling, he felt incredible pain all over his body. He tried to move his finger yet only that caused excruciating pain to course through his hand. The after-chill of the pain swept down his sides and back.

He tried his best to calm his breathing. He noticed from the pain that by expanding his chest too much from breathing would cause his pain to increase. Not only this, but every time he exhaled, his head pounded with pain. He tried his best to think of anything else but his mind was still too muddled to fully comprehend the situation or location he was in. He failed to notice that his new reality was being trapped inside an underground cave.

After about one minute, Elkon blacked out once again. Fortunately for him, his body healed slightly faster when he was unconsciousness. The more relaxed his body the easier it was for it to healed. The only other bad thing in his situation was the oddly preserved dead bodies of other villagers near him. Of course, Elkon didn't even notice them. Yet there was still an eerie silence that permeated through the cave. One alive, the rest dead. All of them were motionless for a long time.

Another unknown period of time passed before Elkon woke up. This time he was able to slightly move his body. His eyes' ability to focus dramatically improved, allowing to him to make out the area around him. Although his mind was still slightly muddled he was able to understand that he was not somewhere he knew. For sure, he had to be in a place no one else had been to before. As far as he knows, he was just in a deserted cave. Little did he know that he technically wasn't alone.

Elkon greatly struggled to move his head. He saw to his right the bodies of other villagers. Elkon was slightly confused as to why their bodies hadn't started to rot, so he guessed that they might still be alive. His knowledge of the world was very limited, so he did not know anything about the light that had been continuously absorbed by his body. The dead bodies of the villagers also did the same, even though they were dead. Elkon hoped they were in the same situation he was but he wouldn't know for sure until his mind cleared. He wasn't panicking mostly because he was too confused about his situation to even panic. It was either that or he didn't care enough to panic.

The only thing Elkon heard was the soft splashing of water. He still felt pain through his entire body. He was able to slightly move his limbs but his movement was limited. Really, the only thing he could do was look around with his eyes. For now he wouldn't unwillingly drop into unconsciousness so he decided to survey his surroundings as best he could.

In his sight, the cave was almost perfectly smooth. The creators of light, which he just discovered were actually large crystal-like structures, were spread out evenly within the cave. They also did not look naturally grown but intelligently controlled. There weren't crystals growing out in random directions, they seemed to be perfectly cylindrical in shape. The light they emitted was pure white and had no color. Though due to Elkon's vision still not being completely focused, he imagined there was a colorful spectrum of light flickering through the air.

Elkon tried to move his arm but the pain was too intense for him to do so. He felt the light flowing through his skin and disappearing inside his body. Despite it only being a healing light, it seemed to be changing Elkon's body on the atomic level. Obviously he didn't notice it himself. Instead of it strengthening his body, it was changing it instead. The process was slow, however.

Feeling the warm light, Elkon decided to slip into dreamland.

___

Elkon slowly opened his eyes to the same scene he saw before. This time though he didn't feel pain. He sat up and bent his knees. To his surprise, his joints didn't ache. He did not know how long he had been in the cave for, but it was definitely a long time. The clothes on his body had a small layer of dust on them, which lightly moved when he sat up.

He looked up at the hole in the wall and noticed that the water seemed to be flowing through more calmly. He saw the pond and the small stream that connected to another hole about forty feet away. The water passing through seemed to have been put there purposefully, though with the passage of time the water had gradually wore down the ground it flowed against.

He noticed the bodies strewn about near him. In total, there were four. He guessed another had appeared while he was unconscious. As for the few others that were hit by the wave, Elkon had no idea. The four bodies on the ground seemed to be perfectly preserved with no hints of injuries. He recognized their faces but as for their names, he did not know. Elkon felt nothing as he looked at their bodies, probably because they still looked like they were alive.

He didn't know the true state of their bodies or brain. Seeing as how he was completely fine after who knows how long he slept, Elkon was curious about the condition their bodies were in. He thought the light had something to do with the healing process his body went through but he doubted that it would bring a person back to life. Perhaps healing the brain could correct damage to it, but to completely revive a person is more complex than just healing.

Elkon didn't know what to do so he tore his eyes away from the bodies. He looked toward the far back of the cave and saw a strange structure there. It resembled a large table with various shapes around it. Some of the shapes looked like arms that were connected to the back wall and stretched out above the table. The structure had smaller crystals surrounding it, giving light to everything in the area.

The sight of it caused Elkon to freeze. He had never seen anything such as that before in his life. He started to walk toward it completely intrigued. As he got closer, he noticed a chair in front of the table. After about a minute of continuous walking, he got close enough to see a vague shape sitting on the chair. A peculiar smell entered Elkon's nose.

He walked to the other side of the chair and let out a small yelp of surprise before he took a couple steps away. Sitting in the chair was a skeleton. No skin, no flesh, no hair, just a skeleton. Elkon was most surprised that it was a skeleton and nothing else. The bones themselves seemed clean but Elkon noticed that there were signs of them breaking down.

Elkon's surprise quickly became confusion. The bodies of the villagers were perfectly preserved yet this skeleton was here? Elkon thought that maybe the light from the crystals wasn't all-powerful. If enough time passed, eventually everything breaks down. The same can be said for the skeleton sitting in the chair. But for how long was it down there? How long did it take for it to whittle away to only bones?

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Elkon didn't know. It definitely had to be a very long time, though. He guessed the strange odor had to do with the bones. The smell wasn't the smell of death that Elkon was familiar with. It was a kind of smell that combined a rusty metal with a trace of dry blood.

Instead of trying to touch the skeleton Elkon moved the chair, which had small wheels on the bottom, a little further away from the table. Getting back, he started to look over the table.

There were several different objects placed on it. The objects were entirely foreign to Elkon, as the most advanced object he had seen was probably one of the huts he lived in. There was no dust on the table nor any of the objects which seemed peculiar. The strange arms that stretched out from the wall were silently hanging over Elkon as if they were trapped in time.

In the middle of the table, placed nearest the edge, was a strange board. There were numerous small squares placed on it and a few were different in size. Strange symbols marked each one. Elkon had never seen such symbols before, so his curiosity only grew. Completely intrigued, Elkon reached out and tapped the biggest square he saw.

The board faintly pulsed with light from the square Elkon pressed. The arms that were so silently hanging suddenly moved to form four points above the table. A blue light appeared between them all, resembling a square. The blue light illuminated the area around the table with a gentle light.

Symbols appeared within the light screen along with a long white square, a rectangle, below them. Elkon had no idea what it said, obviously, but he had guesses as to what it was. He remembered playing make-believe games with other children. These games included tag, how fast can they run, and game that required them to guess a word to obtain a piece of food or honey.

Of those games, the word guessing game stood out the most. In order to obtain the right to pass through the white rectangle was to guess a word, Elkon thought. However, how lucky would he have to be in order to correctly guess a word in a language he had never seen before?

Elkon decided to give it a try regardless. He randomly pressed a few squares and the same symbols he touched appeared in the blue light. After four symbols appeared, the light changed to a different symbol. However, it suddenly went back to the same screen with the white rectangle.

Wrong, I'm guessing.

Elkon thought as he tried again.

The same result appeared. It seemed like it would only ever take four symbols. No more, no less. However, guessing the correct symbol pattern out of all the options still seemed like an impossibility. So, instead of trying to continue guessing, Elkon decided to look around.

Any symbol Elkon discovered he would try on the board. Unfortunately, none of them worked. He looked almost everywhere on the table but still found nothing pertaining to the symbol pattern. However, there was still one place he didn't look. The skeleton.

Elkon turned toward the chair and walked to it. Facing the skeleton once again, he examined it more closely than last time. He couldn't find anything on or under the skeleton, from what he could see, so he almost gave up. When he looked in-between the skeleton's knees, he noticed a few markings on the chair itself.

The markings were quite vague but the general shape were still there. However, those marking didn't look like the symbols on the board. It was if there were flipped.

Flipped...?

Elkon looked at the skeleton then down at the markings.

Ah, the skeleton carved them from his side but I'm looking at them on the other side.

Elkon moved behind the skeleton to look over its shoulder down at the markings. However, the symbols still didn't match anything he saw on the board. There were similarities but the differences made it confusing. For Elkon, he didn't really understand. So, he just guessed at which ones looked closest to the markings.

His first attempt was a failure. Elkon didn't expect much when he continued his attempts. He went back and forth between the markings and the board a couple times to make sure he got his choices correct. Because the markings were so old, they were quite vague. After several attempts Elkon decided to stop and rest.

Being alive and well is good, but finding a way out is even better. Elkon didn't know of any other way out of the cave other than the water. He looked around but it still all looked the same. the cave was completely empty except for the water, bodies, and table.

Elkon wondered why the skeleton, whoever it was, decided to stay inside the cave until he or she died. If they knew everything about the strange objects on the table, then why did they trap themselves? Or, strangely, how did they trap themselves? Why did they decide to die underground within a room by themselves? Where did they come from?

Elkon sighed and he looked down at the ground. He was only a kid yet he had to end up trapped in a place like that. Not only that, but he was being kept alive by the crystals' light. He didn't even have to eat food or drink water because of it.

He thought of his two friends Sati and Luid. He saved them from killing themselves...

But...

Elkon slightly gasped. If he was somehow swiped off his feet by something in the water, then Sati and Luid could have met the same fate. Elkon sighed once again before he sat down on the ground. He hadn't known Sati and Luid for long. The only reason why they first became friends was because all three of them were the outcasts of the children. They had their differences but they still helped each other out. The other children didn't bully them, they just had their own groups. The village was a very "help each other out" kind of village, mostly because by helping each other they could become stronger.

Regardless of that, Elkon still felt depressed. He was all alone and he didn't know if his only real friends were alive or not. He didn't know how long the light would keep him alive. The skeleton was proof that his survival was not indefinite and that the light was not all-powerful. It had its own limit but it was still powerful.

However, that didn't bring Elkon much relief. He already understood that if there's no way out and if he couldn't somehow get passed the security on the blue light, he would stay inside the cave for a very long time before he dies. Just the thought of it made chills run down his back.