Chapter 2: The Trial Begins.
The dim stars and black sky lit up. The stars grew bright again, and the sky turned a royal blue. Then just as fast as it turned day, it was night again. Again, a second later, it was day, then night, then day, then night. Hundreds of times the sky switched from day to night, then thousands, then tens of thousands, then a hundred thousand.
The sky wasn't the only thing that changed. The dead landscape grew more lively. Small insects roamed the land, followed by small animals, then larger ones, and still larger ones. Trees seemed to grow from nothing; hills and rivers formed and disappeared.
Time seemed to be moving backwards. No… It was. This was not the Void; however, it was a recreation. Time was moving backwards, to the time when Starlight's Trial would take place—a recreation by the Darkness Hex to give him a chance for supremacy, to become a Diver.
Then time stopped, the stars remained still, and so was the sky. Space seemed to close, and the rest of the world disappeared, leaving only a massive forest, a human city, and a giant mountain.
Surrounded by darkness, a lump of black mist appeared.
The dark mist dispersed, revealing a person lying on the ground, his face deathly pale and his body trembling. It was Starlight!
"He… help… me!"
Immediately, he regained a slight piece of consciousness, his heart beating up and down, and his lungs breathing heavily. Before he could think about anything, he instinctively grabbed at his head, but as he started to awake, his hand slowly fell to his eyes, rubbing them, then to his lap. Before lying down again, halfway from his back to the ground, he stopped.
"Gasp!"
Cold, it was freezing cold… unnaturally cold.
He stayed frozen in the air, shivering before sitting back up, his hands moved to clutch at his clothes, and his lungs and heart worked in quick bursts. For a few moments, he stayed that way, frozen in panic, until the rhythm of his heart beating began to slow.
The darkness faded from his vision, but only slightly. When he regained his sight, it was still dark.
"What… what happened?" Starlight blinked his eyes repeatedly.
When he finally gained the courage to look around, there was only darkness. Starlight pressed his hands against the ground, then swiftly jerked them away. The surface was ice-cold.
Hesitantly, he slowly lowered them again, brushing his fingertips against the foreign substance. Soon, he placed his palm and started to feel around.
"Stone." Starlight gasped.
The ground beneath him was cold, rough stone. He gently lowered his other hand, hovering it against the ground, stubbing it against rocks from time to time.
"Where… This isn't the processed stone of a city, this is… Natural. Am I in a cave?" He questioned, raising his head, but nothing: he was only met with darkness.
He felt his suspicions confirmed when a drop of water hit his forehead, it ran down his face and ended at his chin, where it again fell to his chest, absorbed by his cloak.
"And… this… is my Trial!" Starlight said, his voice full a fear, and his body shaking.
"Humans weren't supposed to have their Trial until sixteen. Fourteen is too young for my Trial… they told me they'd teach me when I'm older. I'm not ready, I can't die here. I've only watched fights between Divers and monsters before. How am I supposed to slay a monster to complete the Trial? For a month at that, Trials last over a month!" Starlight cried out, gripping his fingers and feeling increasingly lightheaded.
"And I don't even have a Relic."
Relics were gained by Divers after their Trial; they were the main power source for battles. They gave Divers unique abilities, and by having Runes, their strength overall would increase too. They are, in a sense, buffs to Relics and Divers as a whole; some Runes could make the potency of fire attack abilities more powerful, or even rarer, and could give unique abilities on their own.
Starlight's gaze was dark as he brought himself back to reality and started to evaluate his situation.
He stared at the ground; in his gaze, he had a shimmer of hope in the fact that he could be dreaming. 'Maybe this is just another test by the scientists, or even better, a nightmare. '
But no matter how much he wished it not to be true, he couldn't change reality.
He wasn't dreaming; this was real.
Starlight glanced around repeatedly, hoping for a different scene to appear, but everything was still the same, dark and gloomy. Drops of water could be occasionally heard; they splashed against the cave floor, some landing on his hair and pants legs.
He sighed, half his heart accepted defeat, but the other was still resilient; he wanted to survive, to keep fighting. Until, maybe one day, when he would finally leave the Void and go to the paradise called Earth. Venturing in peaceful green forests and hiking mountains, lying down on sand, feeling the waves of cold water hit his feet.
But this was wishful thinking; he needed to get stronger. Only high-ranking Divers could venture out of the Rift; he wasn't even a Descender yet. Although the Void had many places like that, and some even more magical, how could it compare to the safety of the Overworld?
And more importantly, he was stuck in a Trial, left to die in a dark, damp cave.
Luckily, Starlight had some sort of protection, the only thing his mother had left for him, an artifact. It was of the Legendary rank, a powerful and priceless artifact.
Artifacts ranged in rank, starting with Spiritual, Great, Rare, Sacred, Legendary, Holy, Divine, and finally Mythic — although the latter two were just theoretical, they still had names. Ever since the Dream Oracle had received his first dream about the Hex, the names of things in the Void had been known to the Humans. Artifacts could be a sword or spear, a set of mystical armor, and even a small charm or amulet that could boost your speed when you were in the shade. The higher the rank, the stronger and more magical the ability.
The Artifact Starlight had was named "Shroud of Ivory." It was a pure white cloak made from the hide of a powerful monster his mother and friends had slain. It could blend into nearby environments; the ability was very useful for hiding from monsters and other Divers. But if studied closely enough, you could spot some discrepancies. Weirdly enough, it also had secret pockets, which Starlight used to store stuff he stole from the government, because of the nature of Artifacts and how they interact with their owners, no one could prove he had stolen stuff, as they couldn't access his pockets.
"Although you don't have the essence which is required to use the Artifact's abilities, one day, when you become a Diver like me, it will save you. Like it did for me."
Starlight recalled his mother's words; it was one of the only things he remembered about her.
After some time, Starlight crawled onto his hands and knees, moved across the rocky floor. During some "tests", the scientists found that he had a faint form of night vision, just enough to see a few meters ahead, preventing him from smashing his head into the walls of the cave.
After reaching a stone wall, he helped himself up and stood there, peering into the expanse of darkness.
He stared endlessly at the dark, his mind running through all the different events that could happen to him, most leading to his death. He couldn't even imagine what was out there, what unsightly beings were waiting for him as their prey to walk right into them.
Still, he continued forward, his body pressed against the jagged stone wall. The Shroud of Ivory blocked the sharp rocks from tearing through his clothes and digging into his flesh.
…
Starlight lost track of time. Maybe he'd been walking for an hour, maybe a day. He didn't know. His stomach growled, and his throat burned; Starlight was hungry and thirsty. He hadn't eaten a proper meal since leaving the previous stronghold, which was at least a couple of hours before he entered the Trial.
Multiple times during his walk, he stopped dead in his tracks, scanning his eyes through the endless dark. A faint, slimy sound would occasionally find its way into his ears. At first, it scared him, but as it happened again and again, he got so used to it that it wouldn't even faze him — or at least that's what he was telling himself.
Every time it happened, he would stop moving, even holding his breath, praying in his mind that whatever it was out there wouldn't find him.
The sound became more frequent and louder. Starlight was in trouble; he had never fought anything before. Being raised in the safety of the government's control, surrounded by multiple guards that always took care of anything or anyone that threatened him. No one had ever taught him how to fight or even how to run away from a monster.
Skeeeee!
An ear-piercing screech echoed throughout the cave. Dropping Starlight to a knee as he cupped his ears in his palms. When the echo faded into silence, Starlight had made up his mind, deciding he could not waste any more time in this stupid cave.
Starlight grabbed a hold of the wall, pulled himself up, and ran. He had no time to spare; he had to go now. Starlight couldn't just wait for whatever was hunting him to catch up.
He ran through the empty cave, his footsteps and breath echoed in the silence. A faint light glowed in his eyes, pushing away the endless dark, lighting his way.
Eventually, he reached a problem; in front of him was a crossroad. There were two paths, left and right.
The former, from what Starlight could see, had smooth rock walls and was wide and spacious; there was the faint sound of water running, possibly a stream or small river. The perfect place to go to quench his thirst. The left also had a faint blue glow permeating deep within the path; it looked like stars scattered across the night sky.
The latter was the opposite; the rock was jagged with spiked, pointed rocks and quickly narrowed. There was no sound coming from within the path, unnaturally quiet at that. But, because of how tight the walls became, it would be the perfect place to escape from a monster, if he himself could fit with it and get past, and it wouldn't be a dead end.
He chose the right and walked further within the path. At first, the path was bearable, sure, it was more cramped than previously, but it came with a sense of security, a familiar feeling.
Soon, though, Starlight started to struggle as the walls closed in on him; the only things stopping the rocks from piercing him was his coat.
Bump!
"Ugh?"
Starlight looked up, unknowingly, and he had bumped straight into a rock wall.
Unlike the other walls, it was smooth with only small indents and other impurities.
The cavern was tight around Starlight; he couldn't even turn his body the other way to look at where he came from.
Rumble!
A loud sound erupted as Starlight felt the entire cave shake. The ground underneath him started to crack.
Boom!
The entire ground under him gave way, dropping Starlight into an endless abyss of darkness.
"Wha- What?" Starlight cried out as he fell.
Thud!
He hit the ground hard. He landed back first, against the ground, which again seemed to be stone.
A sharp sting spread through his arms.
Starlight whimpered in pain. He held back tears as crying would not magically heal his arm and rescue him from the cave and the Trial.
Although he only fell a couple of meters, he managed to scrape his elbows, but luckily, it wasn't enough to cause any lasting harm; he could only imagine how that would affect his Trial.
His cloak had saved him again.
Starlight glanced around; aside from the darkness, he could see large and small chunks of stone scattered across the ground, and even more surprisingly, he couldn't see any walls around. That would mean the cave had a decently large lower floor.
Starlight looked up, expecting not to be able to see the roof or where he had fallen from. But he actually could; previously, the upper level was too high for him to see. The roof had small pointed stalagmites extending down from it, with the occasional drop of water.
The place where he had fallen was like an upside-down ravine, but way smaller. It was only a couple of meters long and two wide.
Starlight had expected the entire floor to fall because of how crazed the cave shook and the debris lying across the ground, but only a small portion had.
"At least the monsters or whatever chasing me didn't fall too." Starlight thought to himself as he got to his feet.
Starlight began to walk around, this time being more cautious of his surroundings than ever. His eyes darted between the ground, debris, and the darkness ahead.
A few minutes went by, but nothing happened. He began to become more familiar with the new level of the cave.
A faint blue glow reached to side of Starlight's eye, it immediately pulled all of his attention.
Squish!
Starlight was just about to run into something, but he quickly came to a halt. He looked over, there in front of him was a creature. It was glowing a faint blue. Starlight's eyes widened. Right in front of him was a monster. He was face-to-face with a monster.
It loomed above him. A horrific cross between a slug and a worm. A long neck protruded from its body, red dots popped out from its face as eyes. The monster's body was long and plump; the body seemed to be a giant blob of translucent slime. The slime slowly flickered blue from all over its body, like stars in the night sky, as it illuminated the surrounding area.
Tentacles stretched out its body, each of which dripped profusely with blue star slime, they ended in a pointed, fingerless tip.
Starlight looked at it in shock. It was the first time he'd seen a live monster so close before. He couldn't help but tremble at the sight. Paired with its deep blood red eyes, staring right into his soul, he felt like he was about to collapse.
"Please don't..."