I breathe out heavily. What the hell is it again? I think to myself angrily. This anger triggers my power automatically without saying Focus.

Or maybe a thought flashed through my mind as I got angry; I’m not sure. But from my core, a muscle mass moves, and I warm myself unintentionally.

Wildlife disrupting my sleep is bad enough, but the presence of that humongous hole and the occasional echoes from falling rocks are more than haunting. Compared to the sleep near any of the fire bowls, this is terrible.

Heck, I consider sleeping near those my best sleep ever. It was like being sedated.

But wait. These aren’t animal noises. Are these sounds coming from Mike? Moaning is getting louder and louder, and I think I hear Astrid there too.

Are they? What the fu— No, I can hear some mumbling from Harald too, and a grunt.

You fucking creep, what did you imagine?

I try to identify what they are doing for a few more seconds, but I conclude these are the sounds of pain.

I quickly get up and turn towards the camp—and that damn hole. It’s dark, and the only light source is the fireplace Harald made in the distance. Twigs crack under my feet as I approach them, my eyes wet and sticky.

I can only make out silhouettes and hear the moaning. Maybe moving so far away wasn’t a good idea after all. But that damn hole.

“Come quickly,” says the old man with a worried tone. He signals me to come closer.

Astrid is kneeling over Mike’s right arm, pinning him down. He screams and thrashes around. Harald quickly changes his position, kneels by his legs, and grabs both ankles to hold him.

Astrid tries to comfort him but with no success.

I am now fully awake and ready to help. Mike’s left hand is glued to his face, covering his eye. What in the damn hell happened? I ask myself.

It’s complete chaos. Astrid starts yelling at him. The pain seems to be getting worse, and he starts screaming loudly.

“Speak to me, Mikey!” I doubt he even hears her; the pain must be excruciating. Harald yells at me, and Mike continues to scream. If this won’t attract wildlife, I don’t know what will.

The only thing I can do is kneel down and help hold him too. I open my right palm wide and press it against his chest. Pushing as hard as I can, I feel something hard on his chest—maybe a piece of metal under his clothes. It must be a pendant he’s wearing. It could kill him if I use my true force.

He’s too uncontrollable, and even three people can’t hold him still. I slide my hand to the side to avoid pushing the pendant against his body. If I use my strength, I could not only leave marks on his skin but push the pendant through his sternum.

Time to accumulate the power. I ignore my surroundings and focus only on my core energy. Astrid would never forgive me if I accidentally kill him here. But on the other hand, I can take away his pain.

The muscle mass slowly moves from my stomach, radiating to my right hand. My palm swells, and like a hydraulic press, I push him to the ground. He does everything but refuses to remove the left arm from his eye.

I push a little more; he coughs, exhales a lot of air, and faints.

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Fuck. That didn’t kill him, right? Maybe he used all his energy? I withdraw my power instantly and back away. My arm deflates like a balloon, returning to its original state.

“What have you done, Mark?!” the old man asks angrily. “Check his pulse, for god’s sake!”

“He’s breathing,” Astrid says, leaning close to his face. “He fainted.” As I calm down, I see he’s breathing from his chest movements. Astrid holds his hand with her left and rolls his jacket under his head for support.

Then his hand finally slides off his face. Astrid backs away with a frightened sob, and Harald leans over, his gaze a mix of surprise and unease.

Mike’s eye is open and dark brown, almost black, with no visible whites. It’s entirely dark and noticeably smaller than his other eye.

I frown and back away after seeing his whole complexion. If the eye weren’t reflecting the bonfire, I’d say he’s missing it completely.

Now both eyes are open—one is a normal light gray, but the other makes his appearance unsettling. From afar, it might seem he just lost an eye and has only a blank socket left. But up close, it’s clear there’s a tiny eyeball.

Gross. I think to myself. Well, I hope I didn’t say that out loud. Did I?

We’re all disgusted and shocked, but everyone tries to be discreet. Mike is quietly sleeping.

What else can we do? Astrid closes his eyes with a hint of disgust.

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We agree to stay through the night and wait until he wakes up. Astrid stays by his side.

I decide to stay on watch with Harald and switch later. The commotion could attract anything but good forces.

I see Harald checking on poor Astrid. She seems fed up with the situation, uncomfortable. She keeps turning away, especially from Mike’s face. His sudden disfigurement must make her uneasy.

Not just his eye has changed, but his face and eyelid are all wrinkled and have different skin too.

“Here, bandage his eye and face. We don’t know how it might react to the open air,” says the old man, handing her a piece of cloth long enough to use as a bandage.

I know exactly why he did it.

We sit silently through the night, gazing at the starry sky. Being close to friendly, living beings gives me enough of a sense of safety that I almost forget the gargantuan sinkhole is just a few dozen meters away.

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The sun starts to reveal its edge on the horizon of distant trees. It must still be very early morning. The caring girl is sleeping next to Mike, holding his hand.

The first rays of sunlight shine through the trees, illuminating the behemoth sinkhole. The light wakes the couple.

Mike slowly twitches, and his healthy eye opens. The red-haired girl wakes up with him, quickly remembering what happened. She starts to care for and question him.

“Boy, do you remember anything from yesterday?” the old man asks.

He seems confused. “Nah, nothing special.” He thinks for a bit and checks our expressions. “No. You three were all above me yelling. That’s all.” He tells us confidently, sits up, and starts to unwind the cloth from his face. A few more unrolls, and when his eye is revealed, we all freeze for a moment.

“Aargh. My head. It’s getting darker, I will… Ugh.” Astrid reacts quickly, catching him. She holds him from falling back.

“Come on, don’t stare like that, help me!”

I jump near her and cover Mike’s face again. “Hold tight, Mikey.” She says.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he assures us.

“When I opened my other eye, everything started to glitch.” He begins to unwind the bandage again.

“Stop it!” Astrid grabs his hand.

“How am I supposed to figure out what’s going on?” He continues unwinding.

His small eye is now closed. He covers his healthy eye with his right hand and opens the tiny black eye. It gives me chills again.

He looks around carefully with the small eye. He closes the tiny eyelid over the shiny eyeball, switches his hand to cover the small eye, and looks around with the healthy one.

“So?” Astrid asks impatiently.

“Wait.” He switches again and looks around, confused.

“Fuck!” Astrid jerks as he yells and almost falls back again.

“Mikey!”

He tries looking through both eyes again. “It’s like I can’t comprehend reality. My brain is trying to shut it off.”

“Aren’t the images matching?” the old man asks.

“Great, now I need a fucking eyepatch and have to relearn coordination?” He shakes off Astrid’s hand. Clearly, he’s mad at his condition, but yelling at her won’t help either.

“No, they don’t match at all—color, shape, distance, everything is different. It’s all messed up,” he says with frustration.

“Think. Why did this happen?” she suggests. He gives her a look that makes her stand up and leave. Harald has no idea what’s going on, but I have a clue.

Mike took the golden bracelet from the monkey’s tail, despite Astrid telling him not to.

I’ve seen this eye before—the eye of the monkey as life slowly left it when I pierced its neck and let the blood flow out.

“We could seek answers at the temple, but it’s a long way back, and it disappeared,” I say, turning to Harald.

“No. I’ll manage. Let’s continue the quest—entering the cave on the edge of the desert,” the tall boy orders as he starts packing up.

“And that small favor Harald asked me,” I mutter under my breath.