Falling down a hill was a terribly unpleasant experience.

“Ow!”Aodhán groaned as his body hit the soft earth. Irritated, he ran his fingers through his dark hair to remove the dirt and weeds tangled up in it.

His joints creaked at the motion, and he let out another groan as he staggered to his feet. After taking a few seconds to regain his bearing, he snatched the camera he’d borrowed from where it lay, dusted it off, and with another tired groan picked a path that looked easiest to navigate.

Aodhán was an orphan, with dark brown skin and moderately handsome features. He had celebrated his 17th birthday about a month ago, which meant he only had a year left to spend in the monastery before he became a legal adult. He had been brought to the monastery at the age of six by a group of travelers whose faces he could barely remember. All he remembered was one of them saying. “It was very strange. We found him wandering the forest all alone and barely clothed. Brother Gyatso, it was very unnatural."

The monks had taken him in without hesitation, just like they took every male orphan who was brought to their doorstep, and they'd given him a name. He owed all he now was to them, and he intended to repay them as soon as he got a well-paying job.

Although he'd spent the past ten years within the monastery, Aodhán wasn't really interested in Buddhism or any religion at all. However, he did agree with Master Gyatso that surely someone up there must be running things.

Aodhán cursed again as he stumbled while trying to avoid a large thornweed bush. He’d come to the hills for his final project as he’d wanted to do something related to nature, but in this part of Calrin, nature was bland and ordinary. It made studying photography a hassle as there was barely anything noteworthy enough to immortalize with a picture. Sure, the leaves were green, and the flowers were in bloom, but it was lacking that awe factor that he craved. There was none of that wonder the portraits in the central hall usually inspired.

For this project, Aodhán wanted something different and extraordinary, a sight that would stand out in the stack of seascapes or landscapes that the other boys were sure to submit.

He'd always been competitive, preferring to stand out from the others. Master Gyatso had once called him a rose amidst a sea of ash. He liked that; it made him feel different; it made him feel seen.

When he finally reached a relatively steady path, he brought his camera to his eyes to look through the pictures he’d taken so far. They weren't terrible. they just weren't what he wanted.

They inspired nothing, nor was there anything about them that would make one stop and stare. In simple words, they were bland and uninteresting.

“These will not do. I need better pictures,” he muttered to himself, and with a frustrated sigh, he continued his trek.He curved past a stack of old, moss covered rocks, walking slowly to avoid falling down the slipping floor. He was so focused on not falling that it took him a few minutes to realize that his surroundings had changed. Gone were the muddy ferns, dead woods, and thornbushes. All that had been replaced by what seemed to be a wild garden.

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The signs of age as well as the lack of care were obvious. Green vines crawled everywhere, covering both the land and the hill, creating what seemed like an exquisite carpet of vines and leaves.

Blood-red roses peeked out from between the vines, their delicate petals almost strangled by the vines. It was wild, unkempt, and overgrown, yet something about it called to him.

Raising his camera once more, he took a couple of pictures, shifting gently to get the correct angle and lighting. A smile bloomed on his face as he continuously clicked his camera, the shutter clicking repeatedly.

This was what he'd been looking for. The garden exuded a mystical aura, and the pictures he'd taken had managed to capture it perfectly.

“These are beautiful," he whispered. Pictures captured, he was ready to make his way back to the monastery when an overgrown bush of black and white roses caught his attention.

“Odd." He muttered as he moved closer. He’d never heard of striped roses before, so this was a unique find. Tiny gray vines curled around the bush, crawling up the wall behind it in a sort of mesh.

He raised his camera to take a picture of the oddity, but soon frowned, as instead of striped roses, all he could see through the lens was a massive cave entrance as dark as night.

Confused, he slapped the camera gently against his knee before raising it to his eyes once more, yet instead of the flowers, all he could see was the foreboding entrance.

“What the hell?" he muttered before picking one of the thorned roses. He could feel the texture of the stem, even the thorns, yet it failed to appear on the camera.

Steeling himself against the expected pain, he pressed his thumb against a black thorn, and pain immediately assaulted him as it tore into his thumb with surprising ease.

With a yelp, he pulled his thumb back, scared of a gruesome injury, but he found no sign of blood, even as the thumb throbbed painfully. Trepidation lanced through him as he wondered if this was some sort of illusion or hallucination.

After a few more seconds of confusion, he raised the camera to his eyes once again, and this time when the cave’s entrance reappeared, he gathered his courage and walked into it, expecting to be rebuked or affected by some weird magical mumbo-jumbo. Instead, the cave brightened, and he found himself in a tunnel completely covered in dense glowing scripts, vaguely resembling runes or ancient texts.

Slowly, excitement replaced his fear, and he hurriedly raised his camera to the glowing symbols. He breathed a sigh of relief when the camera registered the runes, and without hesitation, he began taking pictures.

The scripts curled inward, and with eager steps, he followed them, his camera clicking continuously. He wondered if this was the remnants of an ancient civilization or an alien invasion. Before he could determine which was more likely, he reached the end of the tunnel where he found a small room covered in the same runic scripts.

The runes pulsed with his every step; their golden glow was enchanting, and Aodhán turned to look around the room in amazement.

A single black crystal, the size of his fist, floated above a wooden pulpit at the edge of the room. Its surface gleamed, and the energy within it rippled and undulated almost as if it were alive.

Entranced, Aodhán took shaky steps towards the crystal. His camera fell to the ground with a hollow thud, but he barely even registered it. With shaky fingers, he clasped the foreboding crystal, and a black light flashed before his eyes. A rumble of thunder echoed within the cave. Aodhán fell to the ground, unconscious.