Clouds River Valley

Chapter 7. The Fluorite

Back in the tunnel, Albert and Maggie stopped walking and just standing in the front of the group, they seemed to notice something, Mia was behind Albert, behind her was Leo and Sophia.

Mia tapped Albert's shoulder and asked till Albert turned around, "What happened?"

Albert pointed to his eyes and then pointed to his feet.

Mia looked at his feet but couldn't see anything strange. She did notice there were less fluorites than earlier, but she could see the ground with the light from the fluorites. She passed Albert and was about to walk further to see, Albert grabbed her abruptly and almost made her fall. Leo and Sophia saw this and ran to them immediately.

Albert didn't say anything, he just bended over and picked up a small fluorite rock and threw it to the front gently, soon, all three other kids almost said "Wow" spontaneously.

As they heard the rock landed, what they heard sounded like the rock fell into water, and the ground started to wave just like a swung blanket. They felt dizzy just watching it but the ground they were standing on was steady. Then a moment later, the whole tunnel was lighted, then they realized they were standing in front of a huge lake inside the cave, the water was so clear that they could see thousands of fluorites on the bottom of the rock, then they realized it must be the rock Albert threw that fell on the bottom of the lake and woke up these fluorites. The bright green light illuminated the whole cave, the light was so bright they felt even the sunshine during daytime couldn't be this strong. Maggie started to bark at the lake, Albert and other kids couldn't help but covered their eyes from the sudden brightness.

A few seconds later, they could open their eyes again, and then they could see the whole lake clearly. The top of the cave was so high that the roof was at least a hundred feet, they didn't even realize they had walked so deep to the ground, and then under the lake, the water was as clear as air, the surface was like a huge piece of glass, the bottom of the lake was paved with countless fluorites, they seemed even bigger and brighter than the ones they saw on the walls in the tunnel, plenty of vines rooted from the bottom of the lake, their long and soft branches swayed slowly, numerous colorful fish were swimming between the branches and leaves, these fish were like fluorites that could glow different color, some of the fish were as small as the kids' hands, but some of them were as big as Maggie, even bigger, some fish shaped like a ball, while some were as skinny as a snake, some had a giant mouth but unnoticeable eyes, and some have eyes as big as balloon but mouth as small as a cherry. All the kids were stunned by what they saw, none of them said anything, they just stared at everything just like time had frozen.

Leo just stood there, he felt like having trouble to breath just by what he was looking at, the water looked so clear that it felt like the lake and the world above the lake had no boundary, he could feel the suffocation under the water but at the same time, he couldn't help but wanted to walk closely to the lake, just like something at the bottom of the lake was calling him. He stared straight at the lake while he was breathing faster and faster. Sophia seemed to notice it, she pulled his clothes and asked, "Leo, are you ok?" Leo didn't answer, his hands were sweaty, his head was dizzy, the whole lake surface was getting closer and closer to him like a giant net that was trying to capture him.

At this moment, the lake surface rippled in the slightest way, soon the center of the lake started bubbling, the bubbles were getting bigger and bigger. The fish under water started to swim around and hide between the seaweeds, like they were running away from something. The kids saw this and backed up a few steps instinctively, even Maggie's tale was between her legs.

The bubbles were getting less and then they could see a giant blue water ball emerged from the lake surface, the water ball was still enlarging, till the top of the ball almost reached to the ceiling of the cave. It didn't only just expand, but also span fast, however, it didn't splash on them at all. Slowly, there were some thin water strings growing out from the water ball, they looked like the tentacles of the water ball. And then, two of the water strings slowly reached out to the middle surface of the water ball and started to pull from opposite directions, and almost unnoticeably, the center of the water ball cracked, and the crack got wider and wider, deeper and deeper, it looked like a humongous mouth of the water ball.