Crystal Shards: Malady

Chapter 6: The Bygone

 Elliot's body jolts as he shoots to his knees, awakening from his drop. He finds himself washed up onto some decaying stone, Aeris next to him. He feels a sharp pain in his back as he moves. The events of before begin to come back to him. He looks to Aeris who still has her lower body in the water. He pulls her up as he falls to a sitting position, her head resting on his lap. She stirs and her eyes start to open.

"Are you okay?" Elliot asks, looking down to her.

"...Physically I suppose," She responds as she gazes up to him. "I can't believe... I mean... I feared his sanity was going, but he tried to strike me," She closes her eyes. "Are you alright? You took that hit and we fell quite a long way,"

"Back feels like hell, but I'll be alright," Elliot says. "We should figure out where we are and how to get out of here. Seeing as there is a constant flow of water down here and it isn't completely flooded this water has to be going somewhere. There's a way out," She opens her eyes slowly once again before sitting up. However, she doesn't stand. "Aeris?"

"You go ahead," She says. She then turns to face the flooded area they washed up in. "I think I'm going to remain here,"

"What are you saying?" Elliot comes over to her and kneels down next to her. "Look... shit got bad up there but that doesn't mean you should give up on everything,"

"I have nothing. I have no family left. I have no close friends. I can't go elsewhere because I'm a vampire," She rambles before she pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them. "Honestly, sitting down here in peace is going to be the best thing for me," Elliot draws a blank on what to tell her. Instead, he removes his overcoat and carefully places it over her shoulders.

"I'm going on ahead. I'll come back for you when I find a way out of this place, wherever this place is, okay?" He says in a strangely tender whisper to her. "For what its worth, I trust you," He pats her on the shoulder and as he says this, her head picks up for a moment as he turns and walks ahead. He illuminates his hand with a radiant light energy to get some vision and takes a look around at their gloomy surroundings. The room is a large open space, mostly flooded by water by now except for the small portion of stone floor that they washed up on. There appear to be several openings in the wall below the water, tunnels almost. One tunnel goes west, one goes north and then two small openings appear to head east. The stone floor leads east towards a walkway that narrows out. The walls are made of decaying mud and stone and have long since been covered by wild growing vines. He tries to look up above where they might have fallen in but can only see a single stream of water flowing in through a small opening. "Those waterfalls must converge at some point and we must have landed there and ended up down here. Who knows how far that current goes," He thinks to himself. He then makes for hallway to the east. The vines begin to thicken as he forces his way through.

Upon coming out the other side, he steps into a massive chamber over a large body of water, the twin openings from the previous room pouring water into this one. The ceiling is only about two feet above Elliot to his surprise so he takes a look down at the water. Rock formations rise up from below to form an interconnected series of walkways across the room. The walkways are mostly narrow, only about a foot to a foot and a half wide and they go on for a bit until reaching some more spacious islands with torches resting on them. The flames of the torches appear to somehow be lit. Several walkways appear almost like staircases going down into the flooded area below, implying that the true floor is far below and the area was just flooded over time. The area seems to go on far beyond what Elliot can see from the light energy emanating off his hand. "With the ceiling this low, I can't rely on my wings," He thinks to himself as steps back. "Maybe I should check where one of those tunnels leads in that first room,"