Damu just fell face-first into a pool of blood because of the loud vibrations shaking the entirety of the space around him.
He plopped down onto is butt and pulled his hands out. Staring at his hands, confused as he was, the sensation was downright disgusting.
How did he know it was blood if he couldn't see? For starters, there was a thick scent of iron. Plus it was almost guaranteed with the disturbing, slimy sensation on his skin right now.
Taking a moment to compose himself once more, he got up, trying to ignore the extreme irk he felt. His mind being occupied by the sound he got shook by in the first place.
No plausible idea other than the existence of another monstrosity could surface up to his mind. The idea extremely depressing, yet most likely considering what he'd already faced.
-"Well, lets just get on with it."
He placed his palm against the the skin once more, and continued onwards. His thoughts still plagued by the horror he'd faced already.
He continued to walk as the sound of the splashing blood reverberated for as far he could sense. He walked on for a while, focused intensely as he made his way.
Eventually, he felt something make contact with his fingertips that felt different from the surface he had touched so far. Slimy, and significantly much more gelatinous tissue.
-"Probably the eyes."
Now that he'd taken a good -not really-, enjoyable -Obviously not- and resourceful walk, he'd still not been able to grasp what happened. It was too bizarre.
-'Thank God it's dead though.'
Getting eaten by a humongous water dweller, and then waking up in a wide dark tunnel to find the corpse of what ate him (still not confirmed if it is the same one). It wasn't something that could be explained normally. If he wanted to get out of here, he needed clues. If he wanted to answer all his questions, he needed clues. If he wanted to live, he needed clues. In short, he needed clues to take informed steps. He desperately wanted and needed them. Still, he was completely empty handed with no actual groundwork for him work up from.
However, he did know something. It was certainly of copious importance. He was still in the same region. Meaning that right above him, there was a humongous lake.
This was only an obvious deduction resulting from the map in front of his eyes which would be of quite some significance.
The visualization of a 3 dimensional map was present. Different hues, almost ethereal, mixed about to bring a vibrantly detailed map. Displaying a wide map with layers entwined seamlessly. The top of the map composed the sky up until the edge of space. Then came the canopy of trees and the ground, or rather water, right below. Finally, beneath the deep depths were an expanse of wide tunnel networks. That's where he was. Not only that, he was directly under the humongous pit with the waterfall flowing.
He'd have to come up with a way to move up somehow, or maybe a pathway somewhere.
He was certain that moving was of utmost importance now, but he was in dilemma at the moment.
He was quite starved and parched.
-"Seems pretty ironic."
He was no stranger to hunger, but he'd gone for an unknown amount of time without food or water. Said unknown time being quite long. That was the one thing he was certain about.
He continued his train of thoughts as he slowly but surely used his muscles to lift the upper jaw of the leviathan.
-"Well. Well. Well. Look at that. Looks like thousands of tons of proteins to me."
-"Guess who's gonna be having a feast?"
He continued as a put his other foot into it's mouth,
-"ME!!"
-'Never thought I'd be happy to enter it's maw again. But look at what fate has in store for us.'
-"The tables have turned haven't they little cutie." He said as he stared at the indiscernible insides of the abomination.
.
.
.
Strips of flesh hung from between serrated bony protrusions, blood dripping. Inside the bloody mandibles of the hideous remains of a beast, sat a timid looking figure. Well, not so timid anymore, and not like anything was visible to begin with.
*Sssslurrp*
Licking his fingers clean, Damu straightened his back. He felt strangely invigorated for eating something that had the consistency of rubber.
-'It was good taste-wise though, especially considering I couldn't even find a driblet of a flame.'
This unexpected feast helped motivate Damu to move around. He didn't have to worry about food for as long as this corpse didn't go bad.
Plus he now had a lot more tools to work with.
-"AHHH!"
Injecting energy into his lower back and quads, he bent down, placing his chest against the back of the tooth, digging his fingers into the gigantic monster's gums and placed his palms under the base of a tooth. The joint still firmly stuck to it's root. He twisted it, pulled at it and tugged at it.
Eventually, after a long battle of attrition, it did give in and he managed to obtain his new tooth. It wasn't visible, but he could tell by touch that it was extremely sharp at it's tip. The serrated edges were just an addition to it's lethality. The fact that it was coming from such a large abomination, meant that the tooth was humongous. If he were to compare himself with it side-by-side, it would reach up to his shoulders. It's width about the same as his own. It was to be expected that such a large item wouldn't be easy to hold onto, considering it's mass, only made harder by the fact that it didn't have a handle.
-"Well, something's better than nothing." At least he had something he could call a tool now.
With something to rely on, he had newfound vigor to get out of this predicament he was stuck in. He would finger every nook and cranny of this place if need be!!
And so, he set off to work. Using his limited senses, he made use of touch to feel the walls to find any softer spot to start off from, eventually finding a recess in the irregular yet strangely flat wall. He couldn't just wildly swing at it, so he first hoisted it up and latched onto it from the root, holding it like a spear. Thrusting it forward, he felt the substance of the wall crumble, releasing a cloud of dust and flying stone. He repeated this motion, except he did so diagonally upwards, for as long as he could, turning out to be much longer than he expected himself to be capable of. Leaving a trail of dust, sweat and a surprising amount of blood from the palms of his hands and armpits. Even the roots of the tooth had quite an edge to it apparently. Enough to make cuts on his skin. Well, not like he was affected too much, asides from the annoying sting he felt constantly.
-"Hurts even after death. Not gonna let me use you so easily, now will you?"
Wearing a smirk,
-"You didn't get the last laugh though!"
You could tell he wasn't feeling right in the head at the time. Regardless, he continued his cycle of mining upwards and resting (while feasting on his meal) for a long... long while.
No changes appeared but this was the best he could think of, so he stuck to it consistently, with faith that it would lead him somewhere. And lead him somewhere it did.
His unrelenting struggle was rewarded by a droplet of water. Of course. Water.
The sound of water dripping on cold hard stone provided for quite a melodious but somewhat concerning effect.
-"Most likely the body of water which I was in before."
What it implied... he wasn't really sure, but now he felt a surge of adrenaline pumping through his blood and hurried his limbs. Moving faster and faster, the rock was being carved through much quicker, with the water streaming down increasing in volume.
He still kept himself vigilant just in case...
The droplets had turned into a constant stream now, and with a major crack that would allow him to get out soon.
*CRACK*
*THUMP*
A large piece of rock dropped onto the wet stone and water started flooding in along with it.
Damu held his breath and used all of his strength to move in the direction opposite to the uncharacteristically fast current.
Eventually making it on top of the gap despite the crushing weight of the water. It felt much more overwhelming compared to what he expected.
However, something else piqued his curiosity much more. A streak of light was visible from here originating from a weird angle. Holding onto the edge of the rocky gap he made, he compressed his thighs, and used all of his energy to propel himself in the direction of the light.
From this view, keeping himself afloat, something extremely mind boggling became visible to him.
-'How does this make sense?'
A large body of rock was suspended on top of the water he just got into. The bottom region where he had just come out of, and the rocky mass floating on top sandwiched a large volume of water.
-'That would explain the unbelievable amount of force the water was exerting on him.'
However, he had to hurry, he was running out of breath by now. He rhythmically thrust his arms and legs out, and proceeded towards the 'island'.
Getting nearer, the light shone more and more brilliantly. but something else became clear too. Muffled sounds. He moved upwards, eventually latching onto the edge of the land.
His palms felt a soft, wet and mushy sensation as he put force into his hands and gripped harder. The water here was falling down like a water fall, and resisting the force of the water falling onto his head, he pulled himself up and out of the water, and onto the land.
*GASP*
Breathing for air deeply, his thoughts slowly getting clearer as oxygen reached his lungs.
*Cough* *Cough* *Cough*
He wiped both his hands over his face with plenty force, to somewhat wake himself out of his stupor.
Something utterly unbelievable was revealed to him.
-"What the ----..?"