Slipping away from trouble, or not

“Oliver! Oliver wake up!” The voice urged.

Oliver squinted his eyes at a bright blue sky. The mild breeze of the afternoon gently grazed his hair and moved the leaves of the trees as his hands caressed the soft cloth beneath.

“How are you sleepy?” Aria smiley peeked into Oliver’s gaze, blocking the blinding sunlight.

“Mmmm,” Oliver hummed, playing sleep, unwilling to leave the warmth of his mother’s lap.

“But all the other kids are playing,” Aria added, tenderly shaking Oliver’s chest. “Don’t you want to join them?”

Oliver complained and hugged his mother’s abdomen.

“Oh come on!” She said giggling. “You’re going to miss all the fun!”

Something kicked inside his mother’s belly, Oliver looked back at his mother, completely astonished.

“You see, your little sibling wants you to go too,” Aria said, carefully unfolding the end of Oliver’s shirt over his tummy.

Oliver stood up finally persuaded by his mother and sibling, rubbing a sleepy bud off his eye. He looked over at the group of kids playing catch. It didn’t look that bad but he didn’t want to leave his mother’s side.

“Just don’t go too far, okay,” His mother said as Oliver desperately tried to stop his body from walking away.

“Oliver! Oliver wake up!” TheKeyWee’s voice urged.

Oliver unenthusiastically opened his eyes to a sandy vault lit by the dim purple glow of the pool Oliver was floating in.

“What happened?” He asked in a hoarse voice, shifting from starfish position to treading water.

“You sank into quicksand and, luckily, fell here after,” KeyWee reported.

Oliver looked around at the circular pool filled with glowing purple liquid traced with pulsing veins and thick nerves. It oddly resembled a Rafflesia flower.

“And where are we at right now?” Oliver questioned, analyzing the pool to find the best way out.

“I don’t know,” KeyWee frustratedly replied.

“You don’t know!” Oliver jokingly teased, incapable of not smirking.

“There’s so much we don’t know about the zkwichs yet,” KeyWee complained. “After hunting them all that we can study is the surroundings of the nucleus, the rest of it usually disperses.”

“So you don’t know what I’m swimming in…” Oliver said as he dog paddled to the lowest edge of the pool.

“No idea! Are you feeling good?” KeyWee warriedly asked. “You swallowed a lot of it when you fell in. Ugh!”

Oliver pulled himself out of the pool and waited for the nausea to kick but it didn’t. He responded, “Actually I’m feeling good as new.”

“I’ll be checking your vitals regularly,” KeyWee said as Oliver shook off all the purple liquid he could from him.

Oliver found his pickaxe lying on the sand a few meters away. He walked over one of the pool’s petals and landed in the firm sand. He picked up the pickaxe and tied it to his back’s harness when a mass of compacted sand fell in front of him.

“Maybe it’s the pool that kept the ABs from locating you!” KeyWee said as Oliver ran to the safety of the glowing structure but the human-shaped sand bulk walked carelessly toward Oliver.

“Too late for that,” Oliver thought and darted to the nearest tunnel.

Oliver ran a few meters before another AB materialized from the ground. He had the incredible idea of ​​slicing it with his pickaxe but the blade just sank a couple of millimeters before the AB threw Oliver against a bifurcation.

“Which one?” Oliver urged.

“Left,” KeyWee said.

Oliver put the pickaxe back on his back as he gained speed.

A couple of meters ahead an AB materialized in quite a familiar position, the image of Kazu teaching him lifting techniques crossed his mind in a millisecond. Oliver dodged the AB’s blow, locked his arm around his leg, and lifted and threw it as far as he could. The nerve emerged from the ground, Oliver quickly swung the pick and cut it. The AB disintegrated on the ground.

“The picorium node, Oliver!” KeyWee exclaimed as Oliver prepared for the approaching AB.

“I didn’t forget it,” Oliver replied as he quickly picked the pod from the bunch of sand and tied it to his belt.

“Swoosh!” The AB lunged forward, but Oliver dodged it and sprang to the AB’s waist. Oliver locked his arms around and lifted the AB when the nerve behind tangled around his burned ankle. Oliver failed to untangle his foot, lost balance, and fell to the ground with the AB over him.

“Thud!” Oliver got sandwiched between the sand mass and the floor. The AB moved uneasily, trying to find its objective, letting the nerve peek from its right leg. Oliver rolled on the ground and immobilized the leg with his two legs and right arm wrapped around it as the AB fought to break free. Oliver managed to grab the pickaxe with his left hand and, “Slash!” sliced the nerve, and the sand spread over him.

“Woo!” Oliver celebrated as he tied the second pod to his belt.

“It seems that you’re getting the hang of it!” KeyWee complimented. “But do you feel confident enough to handle them?”

Oliver turned to find four ABs more running in his direction, he added, “Not yet!”

He sprinted in the opposite direction and ducked as another AB tried to impact him from the ceiling. The firm sand started becoming sparser being replaced by a slippery, tepid, and soft floor.

“Swish!” An AB slid next to Oliver, incapable of steading itself, it impacted a wall and dispersed into thousands of sand grains.

“Which way?” Oliver short-breathily asked when he stumbled upon a three-way bifurcation.

A few seconds went by, feeling the footsteps of the approaching ABs, Oliver insisted, “KeyWee?!”

But the only responses were the nearing stomps, Oliver decided for the tunnel on the left.

The tunnel started narrowing, the air got more humid and warm, and the sand that once covered it all was absent from the purple-glowing jelly tunnel.

A jelly AB shaped up between Oliver and his escape route. Oliver, incapable of stopping, lunged with a full-on head tackle and impacted the AB’s chest, which was so soft that his head sank as the AB fell on its back.

Bouncing back and forth, Oliver analyzed his upside-down situation, placed his hands next to his neck, and with a “Slurp!” pulled his head out of the AB.

“Hah!” Oliver gasped for air, looked back, and ran as the ABs slid over the floor and piled up on a rounded end of the tunnel.

Oliver’s relief didn’t last much when he encountered eleven possible bifurcations, he looked back and found more.

“Okay, I’m lost,” Oliver voiced, taking his hands to his hair.

“Up…left…fourth,” Replied KeyWee’s distorted voice, and a visual indicator flickered over the selected tunnel.

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked skeptically.

“Up…left…fourth,” KeyWee repeated.

“If you say so,” Oliver shrugged and climbed up the tunnel.

He crawled for five meters before the tunnel divided in three.

“Do…down…most,” KeyWee indicated.

Oliver squeezed inside the conduct and dragged his body for nine meters. His breathing turned into panting as the walls narrowed.

“You…can…keep going…Breathe…in…out,” KeyWee said.

Oliver took a deep broken breath and kept crawling. He followed another two meters and stopped when something caught his attention in the corner of his left eye. It was a pearl.

“Keep…moving,” KeyWee commanded.

Oliver put the pearl inside a zippered pocket of his suit and continued crawling until the conduct’s roof was high enough for him to walk and sand gradually covered the walls. He kept walking without paying attention to his surroundings until he fell to the floor exhausted.

“Haa!” He sighed, glad to be back in the sandy zone.

“Let’s keep moving!” KeyWee energetically motivated.

“It’s nice to have you back,” Oliver said.

“What do you mean?” KeyWee replied.

“Swisssshhh.”

“You again!” Oliver complained as he rapidly stood to face the giant trilobite rising before him. “No!”

Oliver’s efforts to escape the trilobite turned unsuccessful when he reached a dead end.

The trilobite seemed to enjoy Oliver’s final moments when a shadow fell to its shell from a nearby ledge.

The giant trilobite desperately tried to shake the attacker off its shell, but the woman who called Oliver a sloth when he arrived at the Windstail firmly grabbed her pickaxe piercing the sand shell.

He looked amazed at the agility of her movements, which seemed discordant with her white hair.

“Hurry, I won’t be able to hold it for long!” The woman urged, gesturing Oliver to join her.

Oliver jumped on the shell of the unhappy trilobite and joined the woman who serenely shook his hand saying, “Nice to meet you, I’m Mabel.”