Izuku's body lies on the tiled ground face down, motionless. His bag lies on the ground nearby, its contents spilled out with empty cans, books, and a small leather pouch strewn across the floor.
"GAHHHH!!!!"
Izuku's eyes suddenly open and he gasps for air. He pushed himself upright, coughing repeatedly as he struggled to take deep gulps of the stale air trap within the room. He grips his chest as he breathes frantically. His eyes dart around the room, his sight is blurry with spots dancing across his sight.
He begins to cough hoarsely as his body begins to flare up in pain. He feels his muscles burn and bones ache. His stomach begins to hurt, causing him to raise an arm over it instinctively. Izuku fell to his knees, coughing heavily as something rapidly rose from his stomach up his throat.
And with a final cough, Izuku vomits out a thick blackish-green sludge onto the ground. He coughs again and empties his stomach of some nasty content.
But after a long moment of breathing heavily, Izuku slowly collects himself. He stops coughing, his breathing becomes much more collected, and his eyes become cleared of spots, adjusted to the room's darkness.
Izuku breathes heavily as his eyes dart around the room, eventually glancing at the books and cans on the ground, with a tiny bit of residue from his vomit slowly slithering towards it.
Izuku quickly picks up the empty cans and the books before shoving them into his backpack and stepping away from the mess.
The disgusting pile was a thick dark sludge with chucks that pulsated slightly, causing Izuku to be disgusted by it.
Izuku looks away from the pile of sludge and spots the small pouch lying on the ground. He quickly picks it up. With shaky fingers, Izuku opens it slightly and peeks into it, seeing a single pill sitting at the bottom of the pouch.
Izuku let out a sigh, the pills had gotten him into deep trouble that should have been fatal, twice. He didn't know what they were made of as he had simply found them in a crate buried in the ground. Maybe there was a chance he could find more of these pills around the area, but until then he'll have to be more careful to avoid situations where he'll need the last pill.
Suddenly, a growl came from his stomach. Only then did Izuku realize he felt hungry, well he felt much more dehydrated as his throat was dry, and a stronger desire for water over food. Plus, there wasn't anything much to eat other than the glowberries.
Izuku reached into his bag and took out a can. He took the lid off to examine the inside by sliding a finger in.
'It's dry, meaning I might have been out for a long time.' he frowned slightly. 'This place should be humid considering I'm underground and there's lots of moss around me. Plus I was in this room so air circulation is a bare minimum. For the can and the ground to be completely dry, I must have been out for quite some time.'
'But for how long have I been out for?'
Izuku's stomach let out another growl and churn, causing him to flinch slightly as the pain slowly subsided.
'Okay, I think I should get something to fill my stomach,' thought Izuku, before he raised a hand to touch his throat, 'or maybe some water first to rehydrate.'
With that in mind, Izuku placed the bag on his back and raised a hand to push open the metal door to wander into the deep dark without turning back.
The metal remains shut.
Izuku tries pushing the metal again with both hands, but the door remains tightly closed.
'Wait,' a sudden realization came upon Izuku, 'didn't I need a lever to open the door again?
And the lever is on the other side of the door.
So I'm stuck here.
...
Damn it.'
After realizing he was stuck in the room, Izuku begins exploring the room. Besides the bed that sat against the wall, the room was barren. However, Izuku managed to find a chest that was underneath the bed and was surprisingly in good condition.
Inside the chest was a convenient lever rod, several leather cloths, a brand new gas mask, and a golden orb.
'The lever is just what need.' Izuku says, 'probably placed in case whoever lives here got stuck.
The cloths could be useful, as Izuku immediately used one of the cloths to wrap the vomit he excreated onto the ground.
He also put on the gas mask as his old one was broken with no way to repair it.
But the golden orb was something he had no idea of its true purpose. It was roughly the size of his palm with a golden color and gave off a weird shiny hue off its surface in the dark.
'Maybe I can use this to distract the Wardens?'
Wearing the gas mask, placing his new findings alongside the books and empty cans nicely into his backpack, picking up the cloth with his vomit, and finally sticking the lever into the contraption on the wall, and pulling it down.
The metal door swings wide open, as Izuku pulls the lever out from the contraption, and steps out into the ruins.
A shriek echoes throughout the dark from afar as Izuku steps onto the wool-covered ground and the metal door shuts close on its own.
Izuku looks around before walking to his right.
'I need to head towards the stalagmite area first to rehydrate and maybe clean myself up.
After that, I'll need to collect some glowberries and place them in the room. And maybe check up on the shack.'
Izuku eventually enters a small tower room with a ladder that he climbs down from.
'I should also be more cautious since that monster is probably still around.'
Izuku jumps across a collapsed area on a bridge he was walking on.
'If I remembered correctly, it fell from the ceiling, and it had eyes that allowed it to see in the dark. I wonder where it came from.'
Izuku comes to a stop and looks to his left. A small section nearing the large area of moss of the ruins was in ruins. The brick structures had collapsed and the wooled tile was shredded and littered across the area. A collapsed watchtower lays on the ground, its tiles and shattered wood scattered nearby. He could even see part of the cave's floor, a dark-colored stone without any of the moss covering it.
Izuku knew that he was living in a sort of historical ruin area, so such sections of the old structural collapse should not be uncommon to come across. But that section of the ruin, Izuku knew hadn't just collapsed a long time ago, it was recent. And it hadn't collapsed due to the weakened structure.
Something had deliberately destroyed it.
And Izuku knew what that something was.
'The monster, it was searching for me.'
The moss was slowly growing into the collapsed section of the ruins.
'Without those weird blueish flames, the moss will begin to grow into the ruins.' Izuku thinks as he coughs hoarsely for a moment.
'I think I'll pay that place a visit and look around, who knows what I might find there.' As he thinks, before continuing his journey.
As Izuku walks, he begins to think of some, quality of life changes he notice.
'It feels like the air is fresher, it's much easier and nicer to breathe the air. Is it because of the new mask? Maybe it could be the difference in how it was conserved. the first one was kept underground outside in a crate, while this one was kept indoors. It also might be helping me see better in the dark.'
As Izuku looks around his surroundings, the ruin seems to be more vibrant. He could see the bricks that formed the wall much clearer.
'Maybe the lenses are much clearer and maybe better preserved and is helping me see much better.'
After a long walk, Izuku eventually reaches the stalagmite cave area, the looming stalactites hanging down from the ceiling dripping water droplets slowly from their tips. Stalagmites loomed over the small Izuku, while others were much smaller than him.
Izuku walks over to the smooth ledge that he left a can to collect the water that drips down from a stalactite. And much to his surprise, the can was now full, and overflowing with water.
'Was I unconscientious for that long?' Izuku thought as he watched a single droplet fall onto the surface of the water in the can, causing ripples to form over the surface of water that threatened to spill with a single nudge.
Izuku grabs onto the can, causing some of the water to spill, before gulping the whole thing down. The cold water rushes down his throat, and a cool sensation runs down his back like something within him is content. His throat freed from its previous dryness and the hunger in his stomach slightly cleared.
'Well that's one thing done,' he thinks as he places the can back in its previous position. Izuku waits for a moment, staring at the stalactite hanging from above the can. After a few minutes, a single droplet of water begins to slowly appear, and it begins to grow slowly, but Izuku only turns away before it gets any bigger.
'I have been out for a long time and that just proves it.' He was watching the water droplet form on the stalactite and drop into the can to maybe guess how long he was out for. But how long it took for the water droplet to appear, and more time for it to grow to a considerable size for it to fall into the can only signifies how long he was unconscious for.
'I thought at first I was out for days, maybe weeks. But for the can to be full, I must have been out for months! How have I been asleep for months without any help keeping me alive with food and water?! HELL! I could been asleep for a full year and not know it! Something is just wrong here! I have to find a way out of here as soon as possible! And then...'
Izuku stops his internal monologue as he now stares into the small pond that he passed earlier. Staring into it, his reflection stares back, shocking him.
What stares back is blood, his dried blood. Smudges of dark-colored marks have stained his eyes like tears, his nose slightly blackish with signs of nose-bleeding down towards the mouth. His eyes with dark bags hanging down them and his hair curled into a massive messy darkish green unattended bush of hair.
But none of that was what shocked him. It was his face.
His appearance seems much, much older like he had just recently hit puberty. It looked like he grew older and more mature while unconscious. Not only was his facial appearance much older, but some parts of his face had changed too, changed that shouldn't have been possible.
Gone were the wide emerald green eyes he knew he had, as his eyes seemed to shrink, despite him staring at his reflection with wide eyes. His eye color had also changed from a bright emerald green to a darker shade of green. His hair color had also darkened, to a colour he felt creeply reassembled those of the moss.
Izuku knees down to stare at his reflection in disbelief.
How? How could this have happened?
He scoops some water from the pound and splashes it against his face. He washes the smudges of dried blood on his face and stares at it again.
He grown.
'Well that settles it,
I was nine years old when I fell into this place.
Now, I think I look about eleven to early twelve years old.
What the hell is going on here?'
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