Part 1

I regained consciousness after a series of piercing pains, in head, shoulder, and right side, stroke my mind awake. I opened my eyes but my vision was met with a sea of blue. The same neon blue that made up all the rivers and waterfalls of the ruined city. Panic began taking over my body, filling my veins with newfound energy, as I failed to see my brother.

In that state of panic, a breath escaped my lungs, filling them back up with heavy liquid. I felt my chest burning as I flailed around my arms, using every ounce of energy to reach the surface. With my arm limping on the side, I was slow in my swim and it was just with the last remnant of oxygen lingering in my lungs that I was able to finally get my head out of the water.

It took me a few more breaths and interminable seconds of panicked looks before I could find him, struggling in his own way to stay afloat. Shouting his name was the only way for me to gain his attention over the sound of the river. The look of relief as he saw me, alive, felt like a blessing. With shaky hands and an even more shaky voice, Lucas pointed me towards a piece of "land" about ten meters away from us.

Calling it a piece of land was a way too big compliment for what we saw. Spanning for about a kilometer and with a width of twenty meters, the beach of circular, black pebbles seemed to be a treasure trove for washed-up things. Yet, none of that mattered as we laid with our backs on the cold stone and laughed like maniacs between coughs and pukes of neon water.

It took us a while to settle and regain enough lucidity and energy to start working, under a tacit agreement, on finding ways to leave that place. We knew quite well how the labyrinth had the annoying quirk of throwing us dangers upon dangers. Both of us went our own ways, looking for a lever, a button of some sort or a passage in the cylindrical walls. Finding nothing of the sort we resigned to using a more straightforward method: a raft. With pieces of wood and strips of clothes or leather, we built a raft. Shaky and very much unstable, the raft seemed to be constantly on the verge of crashing yet it still sounded better than swimming. Needless to say how neither of us found the idea appealing.

Around half an hour after landing on the beach, we were sitting, each on a corner, on the raft. Doing our very best to balance it with our weights. Neither spoke. We simply sat there, enjoying the silence and monotone scenery of a neon blue river surrounded by a cave-like black stone tunnel. That silence and the rhythmic rustling of the river seemed to work a spell since, after a handful of minutes, I dozed off in a twilight sleep kind of status. Before Lucas opened his mouth, that is.

"Raph...-" He said. His eyes completely focused on a fairway point down the stream of the river "- That battle we had. It was just...wow! I still can't believe we pulled off something like that! I mean, how many others could say to have survived against an entire army of undead?"

"Maybe the word you're searching for is 'deadly'?-" I asked sarcastically "- But yeah. It was something else!"

"I bet they'll write songs about our bravery for the sake of the powerless...just like heroes! We may even be called heroes Raph!"

"Haha, tone down your excitement-" A chuckle escaped my lips as I spoke, still feeling that unfamiliar calmness of the river's lullaby "- How could they write a song about us if no one knows what happened?"

"...Oh-" Continued Lucas, baffled as he realized the impossibility of his remark, though without losing neither his confidence nor his bright smile "- Well, that's at least a story I can tell my children!"

"You? Children? I mean...we are talking about YOU!" My expression must've given away the sincerity of my question since Lucas frowned in return with a half-disappointed look in his eyes.

"Listen, just because I've been...having fun, doesn't mean I haven't thought about settling down. It's just not time yet and neither I have found someone I really want to spend my days with...unlike someone else" The mischievous look in his eyes and the thin grin curling up on his lips suggested that he was about to do something that would make me angry. As he always did before purposely pissing me off.

"*sigh* Get to the point, Lucas" The exasperation in my tone was palpable.

"Nothing, nothing, don't worry about it... All I'm saying is, Sora must be pretty worried about you now that news of the earthquake probably reached her"

"I'm sure she's worried about you too, and our family with us" I corrected.

"Sure, sure. Fact is, you come first. Doesn't that tell you something, uh?" Impatience was swelling up in his tone.

"I don't get it. Are you jealous that she's thinking of me first?" The look of pure confusion must've triggered him because he suddenly hit the raft in a fit of rage, making it shake dangerously.

"You seriously don't get it, do you?-" He said, almost shouting, as he pointed his index to my face "- Then let me be straight. She likes you. Whatever anyone tells you, it's clear she likes you. Even though she probably doesn't realize that"

"No, no, you must be mistaken-" I began explaining, as usual, having had this conversation with Lucas multiple times "- Our engagement is just a mean for our families to get even closer ties. We are friends, good friends at that, but I'm sure there are no romantic feelings. The 'dates' and everything else was just to keep the image strong"

"Raphael-" My brother said, his playful and slightly angry expression making space for a mask of seriousness "- Do you truly believe the words you just said?-" Seeing my silence he continued "- Do you truly think I wouldn't notice? All those years, ever since our parents took me in, do you think I didn't get to know you? To read you? I know just how much you try to keep everyone at arm's length. I know how you hide your feelings under that stoic mask of yours, and I know your character well. You are not one to kneel in front of anyone. I still remember you struggling to keep your head low as mother scolded us or even say 'I love you' when we left for the academy. Yet you were ready to fall on your knees, and stay, whenever Sora scolded you. Like that time with the fiend... You can lie to everyone else, brother, but I will always see the truth in you, and I'm sure you know that what you just said are nothing but the lies you created to escape your feelings"

His words hit me, harder and deeper than I had accounted for, uncomfortably so. So much that I felt my insides twist, eating at my composure. I conjured up words in my head but they all died as soon as they reached my throat. I couldn't talk. I couldn't rebuke my brother's statement. I didn't understand why but I just couldn't.

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"... I-" I tried to say, before getting rudely interrupted by my brother's panicked shouts.

"Raphael, look!" He shouted, pointing at something behind my back.

Waking from the state of haze that the twirling of thoughts led me into, I noticed how several minutes had passed and the raft was now being carried dangerously fast by the stream of the river. Chunks of wood were falling as the straps of cloth snapped. I turned around, fear creeping its way to my neck. I gaped as I gazed, with fear coursing through my veins, at the spectacle in front of me.

Like a stalking feline, a waterfall was awaiting us.

Part 2

It was only a matter of seconds before the river turned from horizontal to vertical. We were already preparing to deal with the situation, preparing spells and putting our rucksacks back on. The vertigo effect was already creeping on us just by imagining the fall. Yet, it never came. There was no extreme speed, no gravity pushing us, no screams, no shouts...nothing. The raft simply...rode the river vertically, with us sitting as easily as before.

Nothing seemed to change, just the river flowing irregularly and gravity with it. Even the chunks of wood that previously fell off were now flowing together with the river in that crazy, dream-like way. Curiously, testing whether the theory I had in mind was true, I let go of my grip on a plank of wood, expecting to fall off the raft. Nothing happened. I looked towards my brother and showed my free hands to his baffled expression.

"W-what's the meaning of this?" He asked. His eyes wide opened and his mouth gaped, unable to fully understand how we were able to defy the common knowledge.

"The river changed...orientation, I guess?"

"You guess?-" He asked again, exasperation and uncertainty in his voice "- No smart explanation or magic-induced deduction, uh? Only a guess? What are we supposed to do? Wait and see?!"

"Yeah...-" I replied uncomfortably "- Wait and see"

An uncertain calm seemed to settle in his mind as he simply replied with an unwilling "ok". But I knew that he was on edge just as much as I was. He was the first one to head straight on into danger but not foolishly without knowing anything about it. Lacking an explanation of what was happening and not knowing where we were heading was a sure way to throw him off.

By the time ten, interminable minutes full of anxiety, had passed, the river we were riding on had widened as so did the tunnel, until we were met with a sudden flash of blinding light. It took our eyes several seconds before we could get used to the light, yet I seemed to not believe in what my eyes were seeing. I rubbed them not once, but twice, making sure that what was in front of me was truly real.

Below us, a cave opened, big enough to fit an entire royal castle. The tunnel with the river we were riding dropped on the furthest end of the cave from a ruined building. After a height of what seemed like a whole kilometer, the river hit the grassy ground, creating a web of smaller rivers throughout the whole cave. What truly surprised me, though, were the countless rivers webbing from a huge column of water in the center of the cave. Some were carving their little paths in the ground, others on the ceiling, defying the very laws of gravity but none were as breathtaking and inexplicable as those streams that flowed in the air.

Like branches of a giant tree, those countless rivers made turns, went up or down, over one another and even whirled around themselves, creating a spectacle that belonged to a different reality. A separate realm, detached from the very laws of physic. And to enhance further that otherworldy image, a lake of neon-blue light took up most of the space of the ceiling. The crystalline water reflected whatever was below it, like a giant mirror, turning us into nothing but black dots over a greenish glade.

The only building in the cave was a huge temple made of white stone that seemed to have greyed a bit with time. It was several houses tall and large enough to fit a small village. A set of stairs, like an Aztec temple, led to the second floor while several human-sized doors led inside the dark hallways of the lower floor. The third floor, the very top of the temple, seemed inaccessible from the outside. That third floor was the most astonishing one in the building. Being higher than the two others, the third floor seemed to house many smaller floors in it, culminating in a long antenna-like column with a winged, black snake convulsed around it. It's head touched, just slightly, the surface of the lake, creating this sensation of reflected fakeness that threw me off.

The shape of the whole temple was strange, squarish in some places while rounding in others. Columns adorned both the temple and the path leading to it. The gothic style seemed to meet the ancient greek, giving birth to a structure giving off both fear and awe. The fact that walls and columns crumbled here and there, together with vines infesting the place, added even more depth to the feeling of antique. With nothing else around, we silently decided to head for the temple.

The cave was filled with grass that reached up to the ankle and bushes of bluish leaves littered it. Trees with pale white trunks, pinkish leaves and blue weird-shaped fruits filled the cave with colors straight from an imaginary painting. Resisting the impulse of trying one, we walked along the path delimited by the columns made of one single chunk of pale stone.

"This place gives me the creeps" Said Lucas as we trekked all the way to the base of the stairs.

"It just feels...unreal-" I added, not sure how to describe my feelings any other way "-Where to now?"

Without giving me the hint of an answer, Lucas unsheathed his sword and took the stairs. I was too busy ogling the temple to see how his expression had turned into the mask of concentration he always wore in battle. I blindly followed his example and grabbed the dagger strapped to my belt.

Up until the middle of the stairs, I didn't feel anything unusual. At least not more unusual than the cave. It was only later that I began hearing something and instinctively searched through the net of natural mana. With dumbfounded surprise, I noticed how I wasn't able to sense anything. The natural mana was too chaotic for me to make out anything.

"Lucas, I can't-" I tried to warn my brother but got interrupted by his free hand over my mouth.

"Shh-" He said, lowing his voice "- There are people up there, be quiet"

The stairs ended with a wide circular open space with a low rail guard of stone. In the middle, a circular room, around a hundred meters in diameter, opened with four entrances announced by arched tunnels. We hid, rapidly and silently, on the side of one and spied on whoever stood inside.

The voices inside suddenly stopped as Lucas leaned too heavily on the arch and bricks of stone crumbled, revealing the contents of the room. Two men, one younger and one older, stood in the middle of the room close to a broken-down portal-shaped structure made of black stone with golden runes glowing dimly.

The younger man was tall, with straw blonde hair and dark blue eyes. He had a sheathed sword in his hands and wore detailed and rich metal armor. His air and demeanor seemed very noble-like. The other man was more unkempt. Long brown hair flowed over his blackish armor while tired, green eyes analyzed us. His longsword was already unsheathed and ready in his hands.

The clangor of metal rang in my ears as Lucas's sword clashed with the blonde man's after the latter dashed towards my brother. Anger and bloodlust rose in me as I watched my brother back from the sudden hit. My dagger already pointing towards the blonde man's side.

"No, my lord! Stop!-" Shouted the bearded man, panic shining in his eyes "- They are not someone you-"

His words got cut up by the sudden screech of a creature coming from beyond the temple. Higher than the temple. I looked around, conscious of my inability to track a possible enemy without the help of natural mana. So did the others.

The bout between Lucas and the blonde had stopped as looks of confusion darted between one another. Then, a loud "thud" resounded from the front of the temple, where the grassy glade stood. Whatever it was, was now behind us.