"Ngh…" I woke up to a whole new unfamiliar surrounding around me.
Where am I? Did I fall down from who knows from how far it is up there?
Glancing up for a moment, I could not even see the bridge from where all four of us had fallen earlier; for everything my eyes saw when I looked up was nothing but pitch black.
The stranger thing however, was that the walls around me were colored in transparent yellow but nevertheless I knew for sure that the walls were the same permafrost ice. Thus, the yellow color must be coming from the sea just on the opposite side of the wall, suggesting that the transparent yellow color was made by the bioluminescent planktons.
Last but not least, the cave path both ahead and behind me. I had to admit that I did not have the slightest clue which one was the path leading further deeper into the cave, and which one would lead to the same direction back to where we had climbed down earlier.
The path itself was rather wider than the one we took before all of us fell down; like even when four people walk along together in a line they would still likely be able to go ahead without being too closely packed.
But wait something else also does not feel right here…
Where the hell is my armor set?! It is now gone and I only wore my gray undershirt!
Yet… I do not feel cold at all…
And my rifle is also gone! The only thing I can defend myself with right now is only the Tokarev TT-33 handgun with one spare magazine!
"Great. How much more messed up can this all get?!" I muttered to myself as I quickly got up on my feet again.
With no way to contact the rest of the others and let alone Nest, I knew right away that I was practically all by myself in the ice cave. I closed my eyes for a few seconds, shutting them hard as I assured myself that I would make it out and find then regroup with the others, before opening them again. To start, I decided to first acknowledge my new surroundings by relying especially on my sights.
I could first confirm right away that the way up was obviously not an option since there was no telling how far it might get to climb back to the spot where we had fallen earlier, if that too was a possible option at all. Then, the cave walls with yellow light source emitting from its other side was the next one to catch my attention.
Somehow, the light glow was apparently concentrated right in front of the spot where I was standing, and when I tried to move to my right side it seemed to be slowly following me, before stopping again right in front of me.
When I stepped further away from the wall, and stood right at the middle of the ground, it divided itself to two parts, and one of the parts slowly moved down and proceeded with the direction to the other side of the ground, before finally stopping again.
Huh, so this ground is also a see-through one…
At first, I thought that they would follow my movement no matter where I went, however they suddenly changed its movement; both the light glows at the wall and on the ground slowly moved along the path ahead of me.
What does that mean? Is it trying to communicate with me? But if so, what is its purpose?
There was no way to find out; I had to decide which way I should take and since I had just too much doubt on following something I barely knew about, I took the opposite way.
Strangely, the light did not seem to follow me and instead just stayed right at the same spots and was just idling.
Huh. So much for all those speculations earlier.
Following along the path, the way ahead of me seemed to just get narrower with every several steps I took. I did not want to believe it myself but it was not too long before I could be completely sure that it was gradually getting darker with the more I went further from the light sources like I was inside a room with a very dim yellow light bulb that could give out at any given moment.
Finally, I met the end of the line; a blocked way due to the ceiling caved in in. I was not sure at first though, but it was not until I could barely see but felt a strong presence of something blocking not too far away from me.
I stretched out my left hand in front, despite its mild shaking because I had to stand by my handgun holster before finally walking very slowly and carefully.
If I am right about this, I should be right-
My left hand palm touched something extremely and painfully cold; even more than a big block of refrigerator ice that I pulled it away the second my mind convinced me I had confirmed about what was at the end of the road. Turned out, it was blocks of ice rubbles blocking the rest of the path ahead due to ceiling caved in.
Blocked, huh? Well, well, well. looks like I have no choice but to follow those suspicious yellow lights after all…
It was the least of my expectation that those yellow lights were in fact, looked like they were waiting for me to come back to the same spot. Or rather, maybe they had already known from the start about the blocked path and therefore I would have no choice but to proceed alone.
Fine… I am curious to see what this is all about anyway…
Still full of doubts, yet I feel like I had to, I began to follow the guide that would lead me yet deeper into the mysterious cave….