Cliff arose shortly after drifting asleep. He winced as his eyes fluttered open and caught the iridescent light from the pond. He sat up and stared at the floating fish for a minute before realizing his situation again. And once he did so he reached for his book with heavy hands. Before his eyes glanced over the cover he felt that the texture was slightly off. As he glanced at the cover he saw that it had changed. It now had a rendition of a starshade embroidered on the back out of black thread, as well as something that resembled one of the floating fish hovering just above the flower. The words on the cover also changed, now reading "Cliff's Vegetation Diary."
"This is making my head spin..." Cliff tried to make heads-or-tails of the changes in the book but quickly realized that he wasn't going to be able to. As he opened that book and read what was under 'Day 2' it immediately made him want to close his eyes and fall back asleep.
'I can't tell what a lot of this means... A blessing? From the fish? Eyes of Adaptation...' Cliff thought about the empty blessing he received as he started to look around the cave again. He noticed right-away that he could see extremely well. 'Is this the fabled 20-20 vision? No... I can see well into the openings even though it gets dark...' As Cliff's mind was racing he felt his heart skip a beat as he finally noticed that the rocks on the ceiling of the cave were no longer lit up. The opening that he was in was bright enough for him not to notice as the rocks aligning the inside of the pond were still glowing. 'So the rocks are on a type of cycle...' Cliff thought.
Cliff has always been one to ponder and thoroughly think things through before acting... most would say 'overthink' but he hated those types of words. 'If you have time to register that you are "overthinking," just think some more until you like the conclusion.' was somewhat of a motto that had stuck in his head, albeit a convoluted motto. He disliked when people took complicated emotions and bundled them up into a buzzword like 'depression.' 'Not everyone has the time to go and get diagnosed with something they know they already have. Does flaunting your most vulnerable thoughts make you feel good about yourself? It's like you're saying no one else is allowed to feel down unless they go badger some fuck-ass doctor enough to give them a certificate. It's like you want a pity-party competition.' Were the thoughts that popped into his head whenever someone starts throwing those convenient phrases around. It made him feel like a grumpy old man, which he was slowly turning into.
As Cliff's mind started to wander in circles about some of his past acquaintances, he felt a wave of relief. It had finally sunk in that he would no longer see anyone that he known before. He was alone without any line to help him. It seemed that not even his old solace of alcohol would help distract him from the current matters at hand.
"I really and finally am alone..." He softly muttered with a wired look in his downcast eyes. Cliff had had the juvenile thought of wanting everyone on Earth to disappear many times before, but it seemed that he had been the one to vanish himself.
Without being able to move from the bright opening due to the ceiling rocks losing their light for the time being, Cliff studied and experimented with the surrounding plant life some more. He had first pondered over the contents of 'Day 2' but it seemed to give him a lot of incomplete information. A lot of names without any context. At least he new the name of where he was, "The Cave of Hidden Ordeals," not that he knew where an opening to the outside was yet.
One thing that he got started on doing was uprooting one of the starshade flowers. He still remembered the ominous message in the first days' entry but he was too bored to not try something out. He knew that there might have been risks involved with this procedure but his endless curiosity of these particular plants drove him to do it nonetheless.
Cliff took a mental note of how tall the flower was before carefully burrowed his hands into the ground around the base of the stem to get a grasp on how wide the roots have spread out. The flower was about 9 or 10 inches from the ground. He felt around until he found the first root closest to the surface and noticed that it grew about 12 or so inches away from the stem. 'Hmm, pretty wide for just one flower...' He thought as he kept burrowing deeper into the soil, feeling that it wasn't as damp as he was expecting from the environment. As he dug around some more he noticed that the roots were very tough. They could be bent slightly with enough force but they seemed nearly impossible to snap.
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He dug quite deep into the ground, having to take a few breaks as he was starting to feel light-headed from the strenuous work. 'Man, that desk work really hasn't helped my fitness. I haven't done something like this in a while and it definitely is biting me right now.' Cliff internally lamented before bringing his dirty hands back into the soil.
Eventually he was able to find the main root, but it seemed to be very deep into the soil. That combined with the toughness of the roots made it difficult to try and pull up. He took multiple more breaks, making sure to drink some of the awful tasting water, or "ancient water" as the book had described it.
As he was taking one of his numerous brakes he had the idea of watering one of the other flowers. 'The diary had dubbed the water as 'ancient water' so maybe it had some type of mysterious property.' He got a handful of water and hurriedly brought it over to a starshade before most of it fell from the cracks in his hands.
He poured the water onto the base of the stem and dripped the petals with the excess from his hands as they dried. It didn't seem to have any type of immediate reaction besides the petals drooping a bit. 'Hopefully I didn't kill it with over watering.' Cliff thought with a satisfied expression before bringing his attention back to the starshade that was half dug up.
Cliff continued to dig up the starshade until he had enough leverage to pull it up. Considering the root system was supporting a single flower with a couple leaves, the roots were huge. The main root was three times as long as the flower itself, and the branching roots were smaller in comparison to the main one, but they were still very large in contrast to what was above the soil.
He brought the plant to the water to rinse the roots off and get a better look. As the dirt came off of the roots it seemed to dissolve into the water until it looked crystal-clear again. Cliff obviously noticed this but was more drawn into looking into the starshade at the moment. Now that the roots no longer had any dirt on them he saw that they were dark maroon and brown. He really wanted to dry this plant and take it with him to... well, wherever he would end up going next.
As Cliff was thinking this he noticed that the maroon color was starting to spread up towards the petals, eating all of the green surface that was there before. It was spreading fast enough for the eye to see it move. The jet-black color of the petals started to change to a teal and white as the brown and maroon reach it. The smaller fish that were seemingly perturbed by the sudden exposer to the starshade were now curiously poking around the petals, whipping around it and dancing whenever they got close enough to touch. The changes in the starshade had seemed to stimulate the fish somewhat.
The changes in the flower and in the fishes behavior left Cliff stunned for a few moments. He played around with the fish by moving the flower from side-to-side, seeing if they would follow it or how that would react. They seemed stunned at the loss of the flower at first but were able to quickly find it again and resumed dancing and whirling around it as the larger ones did to the Marine Tree of Foreboding Light, albeit they did seem more expressive.
'Do these "wisps," as the book called them, actually have sentience? This flower seems to make them somewhat happy...' Cliff was thinking this as he noticed the dark shadow of miasma around the petals had turned into a bright sunlight. There seemed to be an impossibly translucent fog of light now surrounding the petals. It looked as if one took the ocean and comprised it of only light particles. To Cliff it looked like something that you shouldn't be able to see, like a color that didn't exist.
Cliff gawked at the fish and the flower for a while until he felt that he snapped out of a trance. This scenery was more beautiful than any piece of art he had ever seen... he had felt that a lot since coming here but it was true nonetheless. As he stood up again he noticed that the fish didn't seem to want to leave the area of the petals of the teal and white starshade. He brought it to as far as the opening would let him and still the fish didn't leave the flower. There were three that seemed overly attached to the flower and were almost glued to the petals. Not only this, but the flower let out enough light for him to use as a lantern until it died, and it didn't show any signs of stress or wilting yet. 'The strong roots probably help out a lot with that.' Cliff thought.
Cliff had newfound determination granted from the light. He started approaching the smaller opening to the left of where he entered this place, preparing to delve a little further into the unknown.