Off into the distance, Alex spotted something he never thought he'd see in this desolate land.
An oasis!
It seemed strange that there would be a random patch of forest with a small lake in the middle, but Alex was too desperate for any source of food to care about the why's and how's of the situation.
The moment he spotted the oasis, he didn't waste any time in making his way over there.
He utilised his full speed, ignoring any pains from his stomach or muscles from their lack of energy over the last few days.
All he could think about in his state was quenching his hunger that had been building up ever since he entered the Primordial Expanse this time.
After a few minutes straight of running, Alex was covered from head to toe in sweat and his breathing was heavy. That short burst of running had taken quite the toll on him.
If a beast were to come across him while he was in this state, he wouldn't be able to do much to defend himself.
But if he didn't go all out to reach the oasis, then he might as well be dead anyway from starvation.
One had to consider that awakened need a remarkably higher amount of energy intake than normal humans, which unfortunately meant that it was much easier to starve to death if you were an awakened.
But this was only a problem up until the Distinguished rank, as from that point onwards awakened didn't need to rely on food anymore and could perfectly sustain themselves just by absorbing the latent energy in the atmosphere.
But, Alex didn't have that luxury.
After just a few more seconds of running, Alex reached the periphery of the oasis and finally stopped to catch his breath.
Now that he was closer, he took a much better look at this saving grace and nearly felt tears fall from his eyes.
'Thank fuck! I would have been dead if it weren't for this place!'
Seizing the opportunity, Alex dived right into the small forested region.
'Ah I can just taste the vegetation already. It's time to dig in.'
It was a desperate situation, and Alex wasn't bothered about what he had to eat as long as it was edible and provided him with enough energy to keep going.
But as he literally jumped down into the oasis, he felt something weird.
'That doesn't make sense, I've been falling for 10 seconds already yet that drop was clearly only 15 metres in height…'
An ominous feeling started to take over as the realisation settled in that everything wasn't as it seemed.
And just as he thought, the real picture revealed itself shortly after he started falling.
Alex flipped himself over in mid air, turning to look at the scenery above him. But what he saw shocked him to his core.
'A hologram??'
Right where he should have originally made contact with the thick, green forest floor, there was just a flickering landscape of what was the oasis he had originally seen.
'No… No it can't be!'
His hunger had led him to be tricked.
He looked around himself in panic and noticed that the environment around him was rapidly being drained of it's light — like he was falling into a very, very deep hole.
Because he was.
He was surrounded by walls of rock and dirt, clearly signifying that he was now falling underground in some sort of weird, cylindrical tube that dug all the way into the earth.
There was a famous saying Alex remembered:
'If something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.'
That was the last thought Alex had as he plunged further into the deep hole, right before he fell unconscious.
***
Alex felt a little disoriented when he woke up, with a mixture of emotions washing over him when he came to.
'Shouldn't I be dead? Even a C rank wouldn't survive a fall from such a height…'
Alex didn't believe in anything like fate, but it was unquestionable that he was constantly getting fucked over in life like it was just another rule of nature. If this wasn't the perfect description of a shitty fate, then he wouldn't know what to think.
He hadn't measured the depth of the hole because, well you know the whole 'Oh shit I am about to die' thing he had going on, but from how he had been falling for at least 2 minutes before he passed out, it was pretty deep.
If his memory wasn't playing tricks on him, then he had fallen for some sort of trap by going for that oasis and now he was stuck here.
Wherever here was.
He looked around himself and all he could see was darkness — not a single source of light at all.
'This is probably what being blind feels like.'
The only thing that convinced him he wasn't dead was that he still had his other five senses.
Yes, that's right. Five, not four.
He still had all of his normal smell, touch etc.
But he also still had his spatial awareness, allowing him to create a general picture of his surroundings inside his mind, like some sort of 360 degree scan of the environment in a 10 metre radius.
All that he could 'see' around him was a wide open space. He only knew that there was a rocky floor beneath himself. 'This is clearly a cave, but why can't I see the light from the surface coming through?'
This was one thing that confused him,
If he was at the bottom of that deep hole, then why could he not see any light when he looked directly above himself?
The answer was obvious.
'I'm not in that hole anymore…'
This was the only answer that made sense.
He had most likely been teleported to another place before he hit the ground. How else could he explain the lack of light, and that he had survived the fall with no injuries at all?
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