I dug my fingers into the rough, uneven bricks and kept climbing.
Each movement scraped at my palms, but I didn't stop. The rope tied to the luminous stone hung from my mouth, swinging slightly as I pulled myself higher through the suffocating dark.
The faint light from the stone was the only thing keeping the shadows at bay—just a trembling halo of gold against an endless black void.
My breathing echoed harshly in the cramped silence.
What kind of ordeal is this, anyway?
No matter how strange this place was, one thing was certain—it wasn't reality.
If it were, my arms would have given out long ago. My legs should've been shaking, my lungs burning. Yet all I felt was a dull, hollow exhaustion—not of the body, but of the mind.
A dream.
This was someone's dream.
But whose?
And more importantly… what kind of dream was this supposed to be?
The thought circled my mind like a moth to flame as I climbed, hands and feet moving in rhythm.
