Lahnthean Aria

6

Kiran bit her lip and leaned over to the second step to continue her search for another rock to hold.

She found one and quickly grabbed hold of it, transferring most of her weight to the second stone step. She continued to move down from one step to another in a seated position; her limbs painfully growing numb with every desperate hold it made on the cliff wall crevices, and her body trembling against the cruel gusts of cold wind. She slipped and almost fell multiple times, but luckily survived by the skin of her teeth.

Kiran counted each step she successfully covered inside her head.

She was at the tenth step when she realized that the cliff wall beside the eleventh step didn't have any crevices. It instead had a massive hollow space: the roof of a cave entrance. It made sliding down to the eleventh step trickier than the previous ones, but it also gave her a bit more hope.

If Mr. Kidnapper took the stairs, he could be in the cave. And even if he wasn't there, the cave could offer her a place to rest.

Her limbs were losing the strength to support her descent, and her exhausted lungs needed a chance to properly breathe. Her throbbing heart also needed a rest from being constantly plagued by her fear of heights.

Kiran slowly slid herself to the eleventh step, her sore hands clinging to any rock it felt along the side of the hollow entrance of the cave. She then gingerly crawled inside, warily eyeing the pitch black cavern swallowing her whole.

The place was cold, but slightly warmer than outside it. It allowed her freezing limbs to recover a little. It also fogged her glasses which she realized thankfully hadn't fallen off during her trek down the cliff wall.

Kiran took her glasses off with her trembling fingers, rubbed its lenses against her muddy shirt, and wore them again. She then leaned her back against a nearby wall and stretched her aching legs across the cold dusty ground with a sigh.

Once her breathing steadied, she stretched her arms up and straightened her back; releasing another sigh of relief. Her racing heartbeat slowed slightly as the anxiety in her veins eased.

Leaning back against the cave wall gave her an opportunity to reflect on what had happened to her.

It all felt so unreal. It started like any normal day. It was supposed to end the way it usually did when the earthquake hit and opened the earth right in front of her. She saved Alessa but fell into the sink hole in return. She woke up in a place that didn't seem to belong anywhere on Earth - or at least on its surface.

Could everything be a dream? Could killing herself wake her up from the nightmare? Should she continue to risk her life along the cliff wall? Or should she just wait in that cave for help to come?

Kiran found her fingers fumbling at an interesting texture on the ground as she mused on her choices. She scratched and peeled off a thick flaky surface while her mind wandered and tried to make sense of what was happening to her.

Another gust of ice-cold wind blew against her left cheek and made her flinch. She raised her hands to warm her face noticed an odd scent emanating from her throbbing palms. It had a soft whiff of something rotten mixed with the scent of dirt.

Kiran froze as a thought hit her.

The cave was spacious enough to house a giant creature. What were the odds that the cavern was actually some monster's dwelling place? Wasn’t that usually how things worked in fantasy isekai stories: colossal dragons dwelling in caves of isolated mountains?

Kiran shook her head.

Surely things were different from the real world. And would she really be that unlucky that she would end up in the dwelling place of a giant serpent?

She cast her eyes on the ground. Her vision, which had slowly grown accustomed to the dim light of the evening, revealed an odd pattern under her legs. It was as if parts of the rocky ground were laced with a translucent sheet, flaking away in large patches. The sheet also seemed to have geometric patterns that oddly reminded Kiran of snake skin.

Her heart began to pound painfully inside her chest. Surely, she was overthinking things?

Kiran surveyed the ground next to her thighs and noticed the same patterned sheet stretching up to her back. She cringed, the odds dawning on her.

A large gust of wind blew her way, but it didn't come from the edge of the cliff. It instead came from her right side, which led to the depths of the pitch black cave. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip from whimpering as panic coursed throughout her aching body.

She slowly opened her eyes and glanced beside her at the direction where the wind blew from.

In the shadows were two glowing pair of amber eyes as big as her head. It was staring curiously at her with big black circles in its center, which slowly collapsed into sharp slits that reminded her of reptile eyes.