The fall should have hurt. But it didn't.
One moment we were tumbling through darkness, the next, we were lying on grass. Soft, warm grass. The kind you'd find in spring fields under a gentle sun. No stone walls, no eerie glow, no scent of mold or blood. Just… the open air.
I blinked hard, squinting at the sky above me. It was blue. Pure, cloudless, perfect blue. I sat up, trying to process what had just happened. Kael groaned beside me, rubbing his back like an old man, and Rina had already scrambled to her feet, brushing her skirt off with wide, suspicious eyes.
"What… is this?" she whispered, voice low.
No one answered. Because we were all thinking the same thing.
This couldn't be the dungeon.
The plains stretched for miles, rolling hills dotted with small wildflowers, the occasional tree casting cool shade, and a soft breeze that danced through the grass like it had nothing better to do. There were birds chirping in the distance. Real birds, not some grotesque magic creature mimicking them. The air smelled of clover and sunlight.
It was too perfect.
"This has to be a trap," Kael muttered, his flame-colored hair catching in the wind. "There's no way a dungeon has a… picnic area."
I stood slowly, stretching out limbs that had been tense for hours. "I don't feel any mana disturbance," I said, quietly. "No monsters. No curse residue. Nothing."
Rina turned in a slow circle. "It's like… we fell out of the dungeon," she said. "But that's impossible, right?"
It was impossible. We knew that. No exit portals, no recorded dungeons that simply turned into peaceful meadows mid-way through. And yet, here we were. Our nerves, already frayed from the chaos on the last floor, didn't know how to handle the sudden calm. It felt like sitting in the eye of a storm.
We walked for a bit, cautiously, sticking close, Kael with a flicker of flame in his hand, Rina ready with a water spell. But nothing attacked. Nothing moved. Just that same slow wind brushing through the grass.
Eventually, we found a small stream. The water was crystal clear, running over smooth stones that glinted in the sun like little shards of glass. I dipped a finger in. It was cold. Real.
Kael sniffed the air and then looked at us. "Should we… rest?"
I didn't want to. Not really. My body screamed for it, yes, but my mind was on edge. Still, the idea of lying on soft grass instead of cracked stone was tempting beyond belief. After checking the area thoroughly, we finally sat. The sun was warm. The breeze was gentle. Our weapons lay beside us, untouched. Slowly, almost painfully, our bodies began to relax.
For a while, we just… rested.
I don't know how long we sat there. Minutes? An hour? We didn't speak much, just let the quiet settle. Rina plucked a flower absentmindedly, twirling it between her fingers. Kael chewed a blade of grass like a bored farm boy. I laid back and watched the sky.
And then… the light shifted.
It happened slowly at first. The sun dipped a little too fast behind the hills. The wind stopped. The warmth bled out of the air like someone had pulled a curtain over the world.
Rina was the first to sit up. "Did it just… get darker?"
Kael stood immediately, looking around. "No clouds. No sunset glow. Just—" he pointed. "Look."
The blue sky faded into a sickly violet, then deep indigo, and then, as if someone snapped their fingers, it became night.
Pitch black night.
Stars blinked into existence, too many, too fast. The moon, massive and low, hovered just above the horizon, pale and watching. And in that moment, I felt something. Not mana. Not danger. Something deeper. Primal.
Fear.
My body knew it before my mind did. A chill crawled down my spine. My heart began to race, thudding against my ribs like it wanted out. I looked to Kael and Rina. They felt it too. Kael's flame sparked to life in his palm, shaky. Rina held her staff tighter than usual.
Something was wrong.
The birds were gone. The wind had died. The water in the stream stood still, not frozen, just unmoving, like time had stopped.
We didn't speak. We didn't need to.
This place had changed.
I turned slowly in a circle, eyes scanning for anything — any shift in the grass, any unnatural movement. But there was nothing. Just the overwhelming pressure of something unseen watching us. A presence that didn't belong.
Then I heard it.
A sound that didn't belong in a place like this.
Not a roar.
Not a screech.
Laughter.
Faint. Distant. But it was there.
Kael's flame pulsed brighter. "We need to move. Now."
No one argued.
We didn't run, not yet. But we walked fast, through the field that now felt like it was holding its breath. I looked over my shoulder repeatedly, expecting shadows to stretch toward us, for the stars to blink out, for the moon to open an eye and speak. The fear wasn't loud, but it was constant, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts like invisible teeth.
"I don't get it," Rina whispered, voice barely audible. "There's nothing here. But I feel it. Something is watching."
I nodded. "Same."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then let it come."
But even he didn't believe his own bravado.
Because sometimes, the scariest monsters aren't the ones you see.
They're the ones you know are there but can't.
Then something appeared, not 1 but 2.