Victor and the Seven Circles of Darkness

Chapter 30 - Saving their Visions

"I'm tired, but I don't want to sleep. I don't want to wake up and find myself lying in one of those wooden beds?" whispered Trobit to Victor. "It's horrible."

"I don't want to sleep either," answered Victor, and he meant it although he's exhausted and sleepy.

He walked near the lavafall and watched it flowing gracefully down the well. It was beautiful, bright and colorful, glimmering like a forest fire, but dangerous. His body would liquefy in a minute if he fell into it.

He pushed the wall little by little, one side step at a time from left to right. Who knows, there might be a secret door elsewhere. Unexpectedly, a certain part of the wall gradually disappearing and a series of stairs going down began to form. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he's not hallucinating.

"Stairs!" He called the companions, who were also busy searching some secret doors on the wall. "Invisible stairs!" he shouted. "It just showed up!"

"Let's go down before it will disappear again," said Master Tyrus. "The same rule as in other circles, it will only appear at a certain period of time."

They plodded down the stairs briskly, Victor went first and Rower being the last.

Bogle was flying around, checking them once in a while. The companions had reached the middle part of the stairway when he started panicking. "Watch out!" he shouted. "The wall is closing! The stairs are disappearing!"

They all looked up and saw the wall slowly closing and the highest step began to dissolve in the air, one step getting invisible after another. They sped up.

Victor reached the base, Trobit coming next, Master Tyrus would surely make it, but it was quite impossible for Rower as space already tailing him behind.

"Jump, Rower, jump!" shouted Victor.

Master Tyrus touched the ground in good time. Rower fell and lost control as space had reached him that fast without warning. He landed on one foot and a terrible pain hit his ankle.

"You made it!" said Victor.

"Yeah, but I think I broke my left ankle." He stretched out his leg and examined the damaged part. "What a luck, huh! I broke my leg in the circle of wrath, and now, I broke my ankle in the circle of envy."

"Better your ankle than your eyes," butted Trobit with a blatant expression on his face.

Rower grinned. "Yeah, better my ankle than my eyes," he repeated. 

Master Tyrus brought out a bottle of water and poured a little at Rower's ankle, then wrapped it with a bandage. "Hope for a miracle, Rower," he said. He stood up and looked around the area. "It seems the place is safe."

"I've searched the cave, sir. It's safe," said Bogle. "A few meters from here, the cave branched out into three tunnels."

"Good work, Bogle. Will you check the tunnels? We need to make sure we're safe and heading to the right direction—we have a casualty here."

"Yes, sir," said Bogle and flew away. After a few minutes, he came back. "The tunnel to the right leads us to the recuperating dungeon, while the other two ... I don't know. I didn't pursue much, it's dark out there and I couldn't see anything."

Victor glanced at Master Tyrus. "A tunnel to the recuperating dungeon? Does it mean we're going to sleep there? Are we trapped in this circle?"

"Maybe that's the only way to get out of here, but it doesn't mean we're trapped," said Master Tyrus. "I have a strong feeling we'll be spared in this circle. Pray my intuition is right." He turned to Rower, "Can you walk?"