"You"ve got to be kidding me."And as Ephraim said those words, the giant insect flew towards him, its wings flapping like a b.u.t.terfly. Ephraim started running away with a h.o.a.rd of insects following the giant one like younglings following their mother.
Ephraim winced. At every step he takes, the pressure on his rib was immense. He felt a sting in every time his feet would meet and step away from the ground. It was tolerable, though. Tolerable enough because the pain was nothing when one"s main concern was survival.
Ephraim gnashed his teeth as the insect started to dart its pointed legs around the ground, aiming for him. He dodged its attacks and was able to skillfully pierce through the leg of the insect. It roared loudly, but to Ephraim"s surprise, the leg regenerated once again.
He was running to a seemingly endless cave. And it seems like he was fortunate enough for the cave to be not withholding another set of the licorice-smelling blue orbs that harnessed these insects chasing him.
Ephraim panted. He was low on stamina. His stomach felt like an empty pit. At every moment"s notice, he slowed down. Knowing he wouldn"t be able to keep his momentum up, he stopped running to face the insects.
And luck as one would call it, Ephraim saw a light at the end of the cave. He ran as quickly as he could, dismissing the sting on his rib. As he bathed into the light—leaving the cave and the insects—he was able to lose his pursuers.
Looking back, Ephraim sighed in relief upon seeing that the insects not chasing after him anymore. He met the eyes of the large one as it retreated back to the cave. It was odd. How come the insects not attracted to light? Shouldn"t it be the opposite?
He turned to the light source he had seen.
Fire blazed in the ground emanating from different subsequent holes. Ephraim"s eye twitched upon seeing the fire sprouting from the ground, and then disappearing, and then sparking up again coming from the pit and then sprawling ablaze upwards. It was in a random sequence—like that of an arcade game—whack-mole.
"How the h.e.l.l can I cross this?" Ephraim mumbles to himself.
He then turned to his side, seeing a certain inscription at a podium, obviously meant for reading before sauntering to one"s certain death.
He blinks.
"This inscription . . ." Ephraim blinks. The podium had brush strokes Ephraim had never seen before. Ephraim was certain it was a language because of how it was written—systematically extolled, with some letters repeating themselves and the symbols dynamically engraved. But then again—how could he understand what it wants to convey when he himself couldn"t even recognize the alphabet alone?
"This is hopeless," Ephraim said to himself.
It was indeed hopeless. He was in the middle of nowhere, a.s.suming it was another simulation ground given the fact that the laboratory contained vicious monsters in itself. He wouldn"t be surprised if he sees those creatures here once more.
But oddly enough, this place was odd. Unlike the laboratory, it didn"t look . . . artificial. Ephraim thought how the edifices looked like they existed in Egypt at its ancient glory and other countries that had such infrastructures. From the beige walls and historical designs similar to MMORPGs, lakes with skulls and bones that flares upon contact, scattered swords and rusty weapons that symbolized hardship and death, caves with hideous monsters, and now, traps with a code to decipher . . . everything was something like a "dungeon," Ephraim says.
"Seriously, what is this? A dungeon?" He repeats as he squints his eyes to the podium once more.
"I can"t read this." He says. "Or . . . can I?"
Ephraim then started to scrutinize, trying to decipher the symbols as he writes them down to his journal.
And then he gives up shortly.
"No. What was I even thinking?" Ephraim utters as he closes the leather. He then turned to the cave. It wasn"t like he was being chased now.
Should he wait?
Ephraim"s stomach growled in protest. He positioned an arm to his stomach. He was low in stamina. If he goes right now, he might die. But the longer he standby, the longer he would have to be stuck here. And there is no telling that he was in a safe place. For now, he was alive. But when the light disappears, those insects could come crawling to him in no time.
Ephraim proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes trying to decipher the codes.
"As I thought, trying to learn a completely foreign language in thirty minutes is simply out of bounds," Ephraim said to himself. He walked closer to the fire and sees how the scorching flame sprawls out upwards randomly. Ephraim sighed as he went back to view the podium.
"Huh?" He frowns. "Was this here before?"
Ephraim glances at a certain switch at the side of the podium. He watched several movies about some adventuring antiquarians trapped in some Egyptian pyramid of some kind only to press some random switch or twist a lever, thereby unleashing evils of some kind, traps, or worse, a self-destruct timer.
Ephraim knew the formula for these kinds of things. If he would press this b.u.t.ton, he had to be equipped with the necessary means—
And so he pressed it.
Nothing.
He pressed it again.
Nothing.
"Hmm . . ." Ephraim exclaims, "I wonder what this does?"
He pressed it once more.
And to his surprise, the b.u.t.ton disappeared.
"What the?" Ephraim says.
And then he noticed. Something.
Licorice?
He slowly turned around, seeing orbs from the cave rolling to his direction. He sees more of them continuously rolling towards Ephraim, one after another. Soon more than ten orbs were rolling to his feet until one touched his leg.
Crack.
The b.u.t.ton he had clicked. Ephraim got the feeling that it is SOMEHOW connected to these eggs rolling to where he is now.
Soon, the eggs started to crack one by one as he started to step back.
The first insect unleashed its first cry as it meets Ephraim"s eye. And then the other eggs cracked, sprawling insects out like aliens leaving their ship. Ephraim turned to the firetraps.
"I guess I have no other choice." He says, and took a deep breath,
. . . before he led himself to a burning doom.