Derek slowly began to lose consciousness, his body weakening from excessive blood loss.
'Shit… am I going to die like this?' he thought bitterly. 'Maybe I shouldn't have come here. Maybe I should've been a little selfish for once. What will happen when the demons invade Earth in the future…?'
Those thoughts echoed in his fading mind until everything went dark.
_______
Time passed — he didn't know how long it had been. Muffled voices reached his ears, distant and unclear at first, then slowly growing more distinct.
As his eyebrows twitched and his eyelids fluttered open, the first thing he saw was the rough interior of a cave.
The walls were uneven and covered in moss, the stone surfaces jagged and damp. Sharp stalactites hung from the ceiling like fangs, and not a single ray of sunlight reached this place. Instead, faint flickering flames from torches mounted on the walls gave off a dim orange glow. The ceiling stretched high above, vanishing into the darkness.
