The world spun in ink-black silence. Each bump and bruise painted another line of light across my vision. Why? I didn’t know. But I stared at it, fascinated.

  "Not this again!" a voice barked. "Swim up!"

  Up?

  A giant arrow appeared, blazing bright, dazzling my foggy mind. I blinked at it, stunned, as it started drifting away from me.

  "You'd better catch it before it gets away."

  That voice was right. I couldn’t let it leave. I had to reach it.

  I moved, chasing the light, and only then did I notice how cold everything was. It had been there the whole time, but I hadn’t felt it until now.

  Water pressed in from every side. My chest ached. My limbs were heavy.

  Was I swimming?

  The voice returned, buzzing in my skull.

  "The light is getting away."

  I looked up.

  There was a light. Beautiful. Pale and distant, like the moon. It glowed as it floated upward, slipping farther away. I didn’t want it to go.

  So I chased it.

  My limbs kicked and pushed, moving on instinct, drawn by some deep, urgent need.

  Then the surface broke.

  Air slammed into me like a punch. I gasped without thinking, coughing and choking as I dragged in the wet, freezing breath. Water streamed from my face. My body shook. Somewhere beside me, another splash. Kaylie surfaced, coughing.

  As I sucked in air, it was like waking from a dream. One moment, I was drowning in confusion. The next, everything sharpened, and I realized none of it had been real.

  "Thank you for bringing me through," I said to Rabbit. Without him, I would have drowned in my own mind.

  "You weren’t making it easy," Rabbit snapped. Then his tone softened. "But... I’m glad you survived. You had me worried for a second there."

  Worried? That was unlike him.

  Or maybe I was reading too much into it. My head still hurt, and my thoughts were swimming just as much as I had been.

  “I’m sorry… my light stick didn’t work,” I managed to say between heavy breaths, the words echoing slightly in the sparse cave.

  Kaylie looked at me, confusion etched on her face as she struggled to catch her breath. “What’s a light stick?” she asked, her voice raspy from the exertion.

  “It’s…something I picked up at the Black Rock Islands. They’re supposed to light up on command. Worked fine there, but here, nothing,” I explained, feeling a pang of frustration.

  She wiped water from her face and thought for a moment before responding. “Did you ever try it underwater before? Magic can be finicky, especially when elements mix.”

  “No.” I shook my head even though she couldn’t see it.

  Kaylie lifted her hand and muttered a spell, conjuring a tiny orb of light, no bigger than a fingernail. It wasn’t bright, but in the oppressive gloom, it felt like a beacon of hope. My hair clung to my face from the water, so I swept it back, shivering as the cold bit into my soaked clothes. Kaylie’s dim light barely illuminated our immediate surroundings, making her skin appear ghostly, her usually vibrant red hair a muted brown in the faint glow.

  “Why didn’t you do that earlier?” I asked, out of breath, but not exactly in a friendly tone.

  We were still treading water, Kaylie more so now that she used one hand to maintain the spell.

  “Because I can’t speak underwater,” she replied matter-of-factly, a reminder of the obvious that I hadn’t considered. I hadn’t even thought about it because my spells didn’t require words, yet this spell did because it was not an Alteration Spell. If I had to guess, it would be an Evocation Spell since it created real light that reflected off surfaces. “This light should keep going now that it’s started,” she added, dipping her hand into the water. The light followed, but dimmed significantly, barely casting any glow.

  “Why did it fade like that?”

  “Magic behaves differently with different elements. For instance, fire can’t survive in water. Some spells might be enhanced by water, others diminished or even nullified,” she explained with a scholarly tone.

  “But it’s just water,” I countered, puzzled by the interplay of elements and magic.

  “When I conjure fire, is that not just fire? If you conjure water, is that just not water? All elements carry a magical essence, and all magic is interconnected,” Kaylie said, her words echoing an old lesson rather than spontaneous knowledge.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Rabbit chimed in with his thoughts, his voice a whisper in my mind. “I wonder if all elements here are imbued with magical properties, or if it’s just the interaction of elements with magic that we see. Is the magic in the conjuring, or inherent in the elements themselves?” He posed the question rhetorically, knowing I had no answers. Still, it sparked a tantalizing possibility. If everything had a magical basis, then perhaps there was a way to harness it more effectively.

  I looked away from the faint, thumbnail-sized light to Kaylie. The dim glow barely illuminated her face, yet the moving water played with the light, casting rippling shadows across her features. She was looking back at me, her beautiful smile radiating warmth in the cold, cramped space. The cave of air wasn’t that big, so we were swimming very close together.

  Catching me staring, Kaylie’s smile widened, and I felt a warmth spread to my cheeks, tinged with a slight blush. To break the moment, I asked, “Do you ever stop smiling?”

  “You’ve asked me that before,” she replied softly, her voice carrying a hint of amusement. “Not when I’m having fun, even if it’s escaping from near-death experiences.” Her smile then wavered as a more somber thought crossed her mind. “But I’m not sure we’ll make it out of here.”

  I grasped the depth of her words. We still lacked a clear way out, trapped in this small pocket of air. While the air supply itself might not be a problem, given that air was flowing through the visible crack in the cave, the situation remained dire. We couldn’t simply tread water here indefinitely. Eventually, we would have to press on, uncertain of what lay ahead.

  I raised my hand so she could see the damage clearly. My fingers were grotesquely distorted, resembling the aftermath of repeatedly striking a concrete wall. Blood smeared across the swelling skin, punctuated by raw patches where flesh had been torn away. Each finger was gruesomely misaligned, bones clearly broken, and joints bent at unnatural angles.

  “You’re going to have to straighten them so they can heal properly. It will hurt, but it’s necessary. Let me grab a health potion,” Kaylie said.

  “Use the one that’s mostly used up,” I suggested. Kaylie moved in closer, pressing against me for support since we were no longer wearing our armor. With the light in one arm wrapped around me to avoid bumping heads, she reached into my bag with her other hand and retrieved the potion Jack had been using. It was nearly empty. That would be a dreadful situation if someone needed a full dose in an emergency.

  After acquiring the potion, she pushed herself back and said, “After you straighten them out, do you need me to feed you the potion, or can you manage?”

  “Take a sip first,” I replied. “I know I cut you when taking off your armor, and it’s not going to stop bleeding since we’re still in the water.”

  Kaylie, unlike Jack, didn’t argue. She took a sip of the potion, then added, “Thanks for losing my armor, by the way.”

  “It was either that or sinking together. Anyway, I’ll heal eventually. I don’t need the potion now.” As I spoke, I began straightening my fingers one by one. The first wasn’t broken, just badly jammed. The pain was intense, but I managed not to scream, just winced. One down, six to go. The venom’s effects were fading, and ironically, I wished they hadn’t.

  I took another finger, pulling it straight. Kaylie, watching grimly, said, “You don’t have long before they stiffen and swell. If we straighten them now and use the rest of the potion, it might stabilize them enough for a natural recovery. Otherwise, they could take all day to heal.”

  That was a valid point. My injuries often varied in healing time. For instance, a cracked skull would knock me out for hours. I’d never broken a finger before, but constant movement would likely prolong the healing process, especially given the severity of the injury.

  “We’re running low on vials. Using this potion leaves us with only two left. That’s not enough for everyone,” I remarked.

  “If we don’t find the others, or if you slow us down and I have to cover for you, it could be fatal. Plus, let’s be honest. You haven’t healed at all since we got here. Your magic is probably fighting the venom,” Kaylie said.

  While she was talking, I straightened two more fingers on the other hand. I could barely feel the pain in this hand compared to the sharp pain in the other. It’s probably because I was bitten on this side rather than the other. I wasn’t healing as well as I’d hoped, and Kaylie’s theory about the venom seemed increasingly likely.

  “Has my health improved at all?” I silently asked Rabbit.

  “No, but I saw where it stopped. It was when you were knitting the bones in your foot back together. In my opinion, I think she is right. I have seen a big reduction in the numbness in your hands,” Rabbit replied, but it was hard to tell how much. The absence of feeling was a degree and not a direct line in the sand that someone like me could easily measure.

  I had finally gotten all of the fingers straight and took the advice from Kaylie. I grabbed the potion from her hands and downed the rest of it in one sip. I kept my fingers as straight as possible and let the healing process take its course. It didn’t seem to affect the venom running through my body, but I could feel my hands flood with warmth. Within seconds, my hands weren’t perfect, but they were significantly improved and correctly knitted back into place. Strangely, this minor healing caused my broken foot to flare up painfully.

  Internally, I groaned, “What the heck? Now my foot hurts,” wincing from the discomfort.

  “Your foot is a delicate thing,” Rabbit observed. “It seems the pain was previously dulled, but the healing might have realigned some misaligned bone fragments. It’s likely to hurt for a few more minutes, but the flaring should subside soon.”

  Doing my best to ignore the throbbing in my foot, I asked Kaylie. “Okay, I think we’re ready to move out. My hands aren’t perfect yet, but they’re functional. How long can you sustain that spell?” I asked, referring to her Light Spell.

  “Oh, this? I can maintain it indefinitely. My mana regeneration outpaces anything you can imagine,” Kaylie replied with a confident smile before diving under the water to lead the way. I took a deep breath and followed. The light she cast wasn’t very bright, and our progress was slow because she was swimming with one hand.

  Underwater, we explored various paths. All but two routes led to dead ends, compelling us to repeatedly return to our air pocket sanctuary to catch our breath. One of the two remaining paths circled back to the spiders, and we wanted to avoid that. The other path stretched into an unexplored darkness. Its length and destination unknown. With our air supply limited, venturing down this path without assurance of another air pocket was far too dangerous.

  When we resurfaced, Kaylie asked, “What do you want to do?”

  “Well, I definitely don’t want to head back toward those spiders. I doubt we could take them on without one of us getting seriously hurt. My best plan is for me to try swimming out alone. If I find an air pocket, I’ll come back for you. If not,” I paused, gathering the courage for what I might have to say next, “then you might have to decide whether to try your luck or go back to the spiders.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good option,” Kaylie replied, her voice tinged with concern.

  “I agree, but it’s the only one we have. Keep the light on,” I said, my voice firm with resolve. Pausing, I placed my hand gently on her shoulder, a silent promise of return. Then, without giving her a chance to argue or plead with me, I dove back into the water.