Walking along the Ending Bridge, I found myself thinking about the people behind me. The ones pushing me further down this road than I had ever wanted to travel. The waters churned below me, a gaping maw into the darkness of the sea. Maybe I would sink. Maybe, after all this belief, and all their faith, I would just...drown. Like a human who thought he was something more. My hands clenched beside me, gripping onto anything they could reach to stop the tremble that started to overcome them. In this case, it was the small book at my side. A gift from my father for when I start to learn magic. The lock is still securely fastened, and it will probably stay like that for a while, since only mana will open it. Do these people really think that I'm special? Am I special? 

Finding myself at the end of the plank, I have no choice but to step off. Either that, or be crushed by the weight of their expectations, regardless of if they're true or not. Here I go. I take a step forward, focussing on that small seed inside me that doesn't want to grow. As my feet touch the air, I close my eyes, filling my lungs with a cautious hope. My legs are shaking and I can't stop it. I can feel the air rushing around me like some sort of invisfible wrapping. As I fall lower in the air, I can feel the mist from the surface of the water slowly condensing on my skin. It actually feels quite nice. 

My feet touch the water. Sinking in like it's some sort of membrane that doesn't want to let me through. I can hear cheers from the deck of the boat I was thrown off. Does that mean I passed? I'm not sure. All I can focus on is the water as it gets colder against my feet. It's starting to feel unpleasant now. Creeping up my legs like frost on a metal pole. 

With a sudden pop, I'm lurching down. Whatever membrane I had formed over the water is gone now, and I'm fully immersed. I fight the urge to gasp for breath. Instantly, the water has soaked under my roughly made clothes, weighing me down even further. So this is what it's like to feel water. I never knew it before. Not while I was living with my parents, out in the desert plains of the East. 

I try to make my way to the surface, but I realise travelling around in this is harder than I thought. I never learned to swim, and the water is making me feel so heavy. It's nice, in a way. I can feel the currents moving around me, taking me to hidden places that only the water itself knows of. I'm letting myself sink now. There's no reason to fighting this. Not when it's so overpoweringly strong. Those cheers I heard earlier have turned to muffled yells. Or, at least, I guess so. It's hard to hear when you're so deep underwater, even though they're normally so loud.

I don't know where I am now, but I see a cave under the water. There's some sort of luminous moss, spreading its way from the entrance all the way through the cave. Looking at it from the outside, it seems unfathomably deep. But I'm excited to explore. Something about this place has gripped me in its hand and I don't want to leave. It's odd that I haven't seen any fish, though. 

The cave is slick with that luminous moss. It's making it hard to walk across, because it's even grown across the floor of the cave. I've come out of the water now. It seems like there's a pocket of air here that I can take advantage of. I'm trailing my hand across the walls of the cave. Partly for balance but also because the more I touch this moss, the better I seem to feel. If I remember correctly, it was called soul calming moss. I guess it's a pretty apt name.

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Walking further in, the moss has stopped growing and all of a sudden I'm walking in darkness. The walls and floor are still slippery, and small drops of water are dripping from the ceiling. Maybe if I had a light I would see some crystal shards. Unfortunately, I haven't got a lamp, and I don't have any tinder on me. I've already forgotten the reason for my visit here. I've forgotten my outside goals at all, and I'm sure they didn't matter that much anyway. 

This looks like the end of the cave. There's not much here, except this orb. It looks beautiful. Almost without thinking about it, I find myself running my hand across the polished surface. How did it get here? And where did that pedestal that it was resting on come from? It looks like captured starlight, lighting up with a soft glow when I touch it. Should I keep it? It looks precious, after all. 

Step. Step. 

Hmm. Someone's coming. I'd better start getting back to my original goal. But actually, I've forgotten what that was. Ah, I guess I could just wait here a while. It's beautiful, after all.

Something seems to flicker in my subconcious, but it quickly gets overwhelmed by my other thoughts. Is this dangerous? I don't think so. There's air, there's water. There isn't food, but I can just get some when I'm hungry, right? Sure. But in the meantime, let me sit down and wait for this person to come closer.

Holding the orb in my hand feels relaxing. Or maybe its the soul calming moss. Either way, I'm not going to let this opportunity go to waste. Focussing my mind inwards, I look at my mana seed, still refusing to sprout. Maybe this is all the encouragement it needs to finally start sprouting. 

Step. Step. 

Those steps are getting annoying now. I don't think I took that long to get to the end of the cave, and I was about as slow as you can get. Standing up, I saw that the person had finally reached the final stretch of the path. To them, I would be hidden by the darkness, but for me, they were illuminated by the backdrop of the glowing moss. 

This person looks dangerous. Even the way they walk seems to radiate the image of a predator. As though if I were to be seen, I would be devoured before I could even say a word. Laying the orb back where I found it, I edge myself around a pillar, hiding from the threat of the man in front of me. 

Step. Step.

After waiting for a period of time that felt far too long, the man finally reached the orb. At least, I'm assuming that that's what he's after. There isn't really much other reason to come to a cave like this, unless you're lost or wandering. Something told me that he was neither of those things. 

My breaths have become shallow, and  I've come to feel stifled. Just his presence makes me feel as though a scythe was hanging behind my neck, ready to decapitate me if I were to move an inch. The feeling is unpleasant, to say the least. Yeah, the man is after the orb. My orb. He's touching it, making those lights appear over the cave in a much brighter display of power than I had managed. When I touched it, the orb had released less than a candle's worth of light, but this man, he released a supernova. All I can do is hope he doesn't see me in this newly brightened cave...