Mel

When I tried to open my eyes, cold shards of aparun cut at them the second they got past my eyelids.

Inside the blue sea, I could feel my temperature dropping, so I started moving around to warm myself up. Even so, it was to little effect, as I was fully covered in the ore that made me feel like I was underwater.

Surprisingly, the aparun wasn't too bad at absorbing oxygen—something that wasn't mentioned in the book. I realized that when I got tired from swinging my arms and mistakenly took a deep breath. While the pain was unlike anything I had ever felt before, I couldn't deny that it felt different from having your head underwater. It wasn't the best feeling, but it was something that could keep me alive were I not to get torn apart from the inside every time the aparun went up my nose. I probably had around three more breaths before the shards would reach spots from which I could never blow them out.

Maybe it was the silence from being buried in aparun, but besides a small tremor that came about for the third time, my thoughts were uninterrupted.

"So this is how I die…" I told myself.

In my mind, images of my family in Main Chamber Four started resurfacing. They say that's something that happens because the brain is desperately trying to find a way to survive within your memories, but I knew not what it could possibly find related to a sea of aparun. I had seldom been forced to submerge in water, let alone this strange mineral.

The one thing that my memories got stuck on was something akin to a shadow. It was the shadow of something so large that it could fill up the whole of Main Chamber Four, and it did just that.

It was a memory I myself had chosen to hide. I wanted to keep it safe, but never again be forced to look at it, for it was the very last image I had of my parents.

"Reach the surface, Coln!"

Those were words of encouragement coming from my father.

"Take this book, and beat The Warren. If it's you, I know you can do it!"

Those soft words came from my mother as she put the book into my arms and pushed me off into a hole that opened on the other side into a flooded chamber.

"Why? Of all times, why am I remembering this now?"

I couldn't tell why I had gotten stuck on the most painful memory of all. Maybe it had something to do with the pain I felt physically as my body lost heat and got cut up.

That must have been it, for even the images running through my mind had deviated from reality, and unlike what had happened back then, that giant beast who had been the cause of my loss now followed me into the hole.

Finally, I got to see what I couldn't back then as his giant mouth opened wide, ready to take me to my parents' side.

That's when I opened my eyes suddenly, and instead of intense pain, I could see someone's shadow. The person in front of me had done what my panicking mind couldn't think of and pulled down from my forehead over my eyes my goggles—the only things that had a sealed space with no aparun.

With only a couple of small shards managing to get through, I could see into the shining aparun. As deadly as it was, the small crystals reflected light from one another, and what lay in front of me was a gorgeous sea of azure blue akin to what the book described as "stars."

I used to sit in bed and dream about such scenery, but now, when it was right before me, what my eyes got stuck on was not the aparun, but the person who had won me another chance.

The same idiot who'd pulled me into this mess was for once reliable—a rare event I've never seen more than twice in a year.

Never had I been happier to see Mel in front of my eyes, and although I could only see his silhouette slightly, I got the sign he made with his head. We were about to start swimming.

Swimming was also something I had learned from that book, and while I managed to barely get out of the water when Main Chamber Four fell, doing the same thing in aparun was a whole other challenge.

I struggled and flapped my arms downwards, but the more I did so, the more it felt like I was sinking. All the while Mel was graciously leaving me behind. That's when I felt something pull on my hip, and it pulled at the same speed at which Mel was going.

Trying my best not to drag him down, I grabbed on to the rope he had tied around me, steadied my freezing breath and moved my body through the pain, feeling as the aparun sucked the heat out of my trembling bones.

"Finally!" I shouted the second I reached the top, the ceiling already close enough that I could touch it with my hand.

"Are we out yet?" Mel asked a dumb question in turn.

"Of course we are!" I shouted while turning my head towards him. "Can you not tell as much—"

When I saw Mel, my legs started trembling more so than they already were, and my voice followed suit. My heart felt like it would sink into my chest as I reached for the man facing away from me.

"Mel… what happened to your eyes?"

Turning towards my arm and grabbing be my the palm, he who had decided goggles were not needed here smiled at me softly, apologizing with a deep exhale.

"It's more embarrassing to think that you can see me like this…"

Tears started falling down my cheeks the same way blood fell down Mel's, and looking at how he kept his eyes shut tight ate away at my heart, but even as I cried for him, the chamber refused to give us a break.

Of all times, it was now that the cause of the quakes came into view, and it came wearing the skin of a giant snake—the same snake that had gotten us into the aparun sea.

As if toying with us, it swum in circles around me and Mel, getting closer by the second until it would inevitably swallow us up.

Even were we to climb up into the hole above, there was nothing stopping the giant snake from coming up the tunnel after us.

Still, in that hopeless situation, for some reason my mind was not stuck on what we should do, nor had I fallen into despair. Instead, I felt like screaming, scolding the most ignorant person I had ever laid eyes upon.

"Why?! Was it that hard for you to bring your goggles with you? All you had to do was wear them on that dumb head of yours! Maybe if you wore them more often, you wouldn't have your smarts leaking out your ears!"

I shouted at Mel, for that was all that I felt like doing. In response, he just smiled at me, and with his trembling hand, he pulled out a stick of dynamite he had under his shirt.

"But of course you had to bring all that explosive! How else would you be able to annoy me to no end? What even is wrong with you, man?"

That second, right before the snake would get to us, Mel put his finger on my frozen lips that had long gone numb. He lit up a match he kept in his chest pocket for emergencies and took the flame to the dynamite.

My eyes opened wide when I saw what he was trying to do, but I didn't speak a word. Instead, I listened to Mel.

"I wonder what made you think Mel was a boy's name…" he she said right before diving underneath my feet.

Then, right before the snake reached me, a loud boom resounded within the chamber, and I was thrown up together with the aparun.

*****

"Reach the surface, Coln! If it's you, I know you can do it! XOXO"

Now that I think about it, it was probably thanks to moments like these, when she would leave a note on my face to motivate me the second I open my eyes.

She was selfish when it mattered most and plain unreliable at times. While she may share her food with you or treat you to a drink at that rundown wannabe pub in Main Chamber Six, she would laugh in your face and tell you with a palm on her chest that she hopes you'll never make it out of The Warren as long as she's around.

In hindsight, she's never gone back on those words. I couldn't leave The Warren with her around.

I took the piece of paper off of my face, refusing to question whether she had planned for it to land there or not.

"Judging by the temperature and the clear air, I must have flown pretty high up," I told myself, waiting in vain for somebody to call me a nerd for what I was saying.

To think that a little dynamite could shoot me so high up. It made sense if you knew anything about aparun and how it turned to steam when exposed to high temperatures, but how would Mel have known that?

I stood up and wiped the last bits of aparun off of my clothes, shoving a couple into my mouth to deal with my dry throat.

Suddenly, I heard some noise from above, and a rock fell right next to me. I looked up, since a lot of light poured in from above, but there was no luminite there, nor was the shade of blue that I was looking at similar to aparun.

I patted myself down quickly and shoved my hand into my clothes. From there, I pulled out an old book with the letters "The Warren" carved into its cover. Then I looked back at this ore called "sky" and sighed.

She wouldn't even think twice about leaving you behind if she ever had the chance of escaping The Warren. If anything, she was a despicable person, however you looked at it. That's what I thought about Mel, but looking at where she had taken me, I could only laugh and hold back the tears until my eyes started hurting.

"It turns out the ignorant one was me…" I sighed, right before slapping my face as both punishment and a way to encourage myself.

Finally, I climbed up that hole in the ceiling, shouting her name one last time so that we may climb out of The Warren together, and for whoever gets their hands on this book, I want you to shout at the top of your lungs the same thing I shouted that day:

"Thank you, Mel!"

THE END