“Cade…”

  Mom?

  “Poor child, you have to wake up.”

  Cade dreamed a gentle touch was bringing him back to consciousness, but the moment his eyes opened, he nearly cried out in horror. Only by biting hard on his tongue did he turn the budding cry into a quiet mumble.

  He was lying near the edge of a round metal platform, a large disc about thirty feet in diameter. Above him, the sky was filled with galloping dark clouds stretching to the horizon. The platform appeared to be flying forward at great speed, while tumultuous winds tore at it from all angles.

  Unfortunately, Cade couldn’t focus on anything, as he suffered from the worst headache of his life. He wanted to throw up, but forced himself to swallow the gulp rising in his throat by repeating his father’s calming mantra. He eventually managed to throttle down the nausea, though the splitting headache remained.

  After regaining some composure, he looked around to assess his situation. An invisible barrier protected the disc from the powerful wind currents. Other than Cade, two other rope-bound people lay near the edge of the magical craft: Gerard and his wife Maria, recently wed and only a little older than Cade. Both were in the second stage of Qi Condensation and appeared unconscious, wearing only their underclothing.

  Cade then realized his own arms were tightly bound. In the center of the platform stood one of the dark-robed raiders, his back turned towards him. The man appeared completely focused on steering the disc through some unknown means, keeping it mostly stable despite the storm brewing outside. He was sweating profusely, as if undergoing a great effort.

  Gazing upon the man, Cade immediately recalled everything that had happened. He wanted to cry, to scream in rage, but most of all, he desired to tear the man in front of him into pieces. Instead, he continued to clench his teeth, repeating his father’s mantra as he gradually forced the anguish to the back of his mind.

  Just as Cade regained focus, the disc shook once again, struck by a powerful gust of wind. The dark-robed man shouted angrily into the air. “Gris, I told you we should have taken a detour! But no, you are always the smartest. Now we’re all going to die!”

  A furious voice came from a small black gem embedded in the center of the disc. “A little bit of wind and you’re already bitching! Besides, who’s paying who? I’m in charge, and you will do what I say. Now shut your mouth and fly straight!”

  Cade immediately recognized the second voice as belonging to the pockmarked man, and his whole body tensed in fury. He swallowed a few times and forced himself to repeat the calming mantra, finally regaining his composure.

  Gris. So this is your name. You fucking bastard, I’ll kill you even if it’s the last thing I do in this life.

  Lifting his chin off the metal surface, Cade took another look around. A flash of lightning on the horizon revealed three more silhouettes flying shakily less than two hundred feet ahead. All three guided the same type of craft, each seeming to carry tied-up people. The group was flying fairly low through a broad valley, the discs separated by less than ten feet from the crowns of the tallest trees. Judging from the thick foliage below, the valley's surface was covered with soil rather than bare rock.

  I have to escape right now.

  He knew that nothing good awaited them if the disc reached its destination. He had overheard his parents once discussing the possibility that kidnapped youngsters were used as cultivation furnaces. While Cade wasn’t exactly sure what a cultivation furnace was, he knew becoming one was a very bad thing.

  All he could do now was gamble with his life and the lives of the unconscious villagers. A calmer state of mind might have led to hesitation, to weighing their safety against his own. But not today. Today, his heart had no more misconceptions about the nature of this world. His whole body trembled, but despite the terror threatening to seize his mind, he forced himself to move.

  Lying on his back, Cade used his feet to turn around, his body now positioned directly behind the man in the center of the disc. He gradually pushed himself closer to the raider, knowing the time to act was now. With all his muscles shaking from fear, Cade took a deep breath and kicked with full force at the spot right behind the man’s knees.

  The bandit, fully focused on guiding the craft, was taken by complete surprise. Releasing a girlish yelp, he collapsed backwards right onto Cade, who felt as if someone had stomped on his ribcage. Driven by terror and a will to live, Cade ignored the pain, wrapping his legs around the stunned man’s torso while his tied-up hands quickly found their way under the man’s jaw. The raider was only in the early third stage of Qi Condensation, and his strength, while notably higher than average, was not enough to unwrap himself from Cade’s entangling limbs. With his legs wrapped around the stunned man's torso. He pushed his hips upwards to improve his leverage, roaring from effort and releasing his pent-up fury.

  At the same time, the uncontrolled flying disc began tilting to the side, its protective sphere flickering dangerously. The unconscious bodies of Gerard and Maria shuffled across its surface, bumping into the struggle. As all four of them clumped at the edge of the craft, the barrier finally disappeared. The storming wind hit them with terrible force, pushing everyone off.

  Cade immediately released his hold on the bandit, who had been desperately clawing at his forearms, his dirty nails carving deep furrows into Cade’s skin. Just as the raider regained his freedom, they all crashed loudly into the treeline.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Whether by a grant from the heavens or just a lucky happenstance, the bandit acted as a cushion, smashing into a massive branch first, just before Cade’s body crashed into him. The air filled with the sounds of cracking bones, snapping branches, and rustling leaves. Cade wanted to scream from the pain in his fractured ribcage, but even breathing felt like torture. Instead, he coughed out a mouthful of blood as he fell, bouncing off several thick branches on his way down.

  Everything happened so quickly, leaving him no time to react. Desperate for air, he accepted bruise after bruise until his body finally struck the ground, a spike of pure agony drilling into his brain and nearly causing him to black out.

  Finding himself on a steep slope, the impact turned into a downhill tumble. Cade wrapped his arms around his head, curling into a fetal position to protect his body. Unable to tell up from down, he closed his eyes, accepted the pain, and prayed as every impact added to the wounds on his already battered body.

  Suddenly, he felt a sense of weightlessness. Quickly opening his eyes, he found himself flying through the darkness, the only source of light a rapidly diminishing opening above him. Realizing he had fallen through a crack into an underground cave, Cade didn't have enough time to consider his fate as his worn-out body splashed into something wet. For the second time that night, his mind drifted off towards the darkness.

  —

  The first sensation after his awakening was pain. He found himself lying in a shallow pool of cold water. The only light came from a crack in the cavern’s ceiling some fifty feet above, where a small amount of water dripped down, likely from a stream. It glittered in the sparse rays of sunlight, its reflections bouncing off the glistening rocky walls, lending the cave an unworldly aura.

  Everything in his body hurt. A massive bruise throbbed on his forehead, his skin was torn by branches, and several of his ribs were broken. Fortunately, the few piercing wounds weren't very deep, and his abdomen had escaped serious damage. All in all, Cade considered himself very lucky; the damage was mostly superficial. With chattering teeth and shaking hands, he cleaned himself under the tiny waterfall, then tore his linen tunic into long pieces to bandage the worst of his injuries.

  Cade knew he had to start moving, as he was rapidly losing body heat. Wincing from pain, he limped around the cave but found no way of climbing back up; the slippery rock wall led to a fifteen-foot overhang, an impossible feat in his condition. Other than a few skeletons of unlucky animals, there was nothing of use. He decided to grab a long piece of broken rib, sharpening it on a rock into a makeshift dagger. Having a weapon gave him a bit more assurance, and the physical activity finally stopped his shivering.

  Within one of the walls was a narrow, vertical crack, just wide enough for a thin person to pass through. Peeking inside, Cade realized it opened into a narrow tunnel, covered in a sparse blue light from a type of glowing moss he had never seen before.

  Having no other way out, Cade drank as much of the freshwater as he could. He then squeezed his body through the tight opening and proceeded down the tunnel, gathering the glowing moss along the way. He soaked a large clump of it in the fresh water dripping from the crack above, creating a makeshift waterskin. At least there didn't appear to be any dangerous creatures around. Just the thought of treading alone through absolute darkness, only to die of thirst or end up in the stomach of some wild beast, sent a deathly chill down his spine, and he involuntarily tightened his grip on the bone dagger.

  As he carefully made his way down the tunnel, he would occasionally tear off pieces of moss and leave them on the ground to mark his way back. Eventually, the narrow passage connected with another, dozens of feet wider and almost perfectly round. The new tunnel began leading upwards, and Cade trembled with excitement. Not soon after, however, it began leading down again, shattering his hopes. This pattern of ascents and descents continued, and he soon lost all sense of whether he was approaching the surface or heading deeper. Eventually, he grew tired of walking and decided to take a nap, using some dry moss as a pillow.

  Waking up an unknown amount of time later, he immediately checked the state of his body. Most of his wounds were closing, even his cracked ribs didn’t hurt as much. This was one of the advantages of stepping on a path of cultivation; even someone like Cade, who could be considered the bottom of the ladder, had improved healing thanks to the small amount of condensed qi he possessed.

  With his spirit lifted, he continued forward. The tunnel would occasionally branch off, and having no way to determine the correct course, he opted to trust his fate, choosing the path he felt better about. He had no idea how many forks he had passed, as he stopped counting after twenty. To combat thirst, he would occasionally squeeze a small amount of water from the moss ball, but only when it became truly unbearable.

  After some time, his existence narrowed down to walking and sleeping. He found a few puddles of water from condensation and used them to rest and refill his moss ball. During those days, Cade had plenty of time to think. He replayed the nightmarish scene of his mother’s last moments, and in doing so, went through another type of cultivation, one that steeled his mind. He simply couldn’t die in these tunnels. He now had a higher purpose: to turn the lives of the people who hurt his family into a living hell.

  Unfortunately, no amount of grim determination could outweigh the laws of nature. He was growing weaker. While he had just enough water, he had no food. Other than moss, no other plants grew in the damp darkness. Feelings of hopelessness began to take over his state of mind. At least the soles of his feet had hardened, a small win in an otherwise grim situation.

  Cade had no idea how many days had passed. His body had burned off all its fat, his muscles turning to strings. To cheat his stomach, he would chew on moss. He had to keep moving. He had to find the exit.

  Some time later, he fell for the first time, cutting his palms on jagged rock. His heart started beating abnormally fast as the gravity of his situation fell on him like a hammer. Clenching his teeth, he forced himself up and dragged his feet forward. He felt as if he had already crossed a hundred miles, with countless branches passed along the way. The chance he was going in the right direction was close to none.

  Eventually, his legs refused to support him. He tore his linen pants, wrapped them around his palms and knees, and continued to crawl. As long as remnants of life force still smoldered within his body, he planned on moving forward. Always forward.

  Another day passed, maybe more, and he started to accept the fact that he was going to die there. It was then that he noticed the faintest light bouncing off the tunnel’s walls in the distance. He blinked twice, rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. The faint light was still there, and as opposed to the cold luminescence of the moss, it had a warm, orange hue.

  Cade wept from joy. With newfound vigor, he continued to crawl, attracted to the light like a moth to the flame. He disregarded the scrapes and cuts he was accumulating, as his protective wrappings had worn off long ago. Soon his knees were torn to shreds, bleeding profusely. The palms of his hands became like two raw slices of meat. The barely visible light was the most important thing in his entire existence. Nothing else mattered.

  Grim determination settled on his face.

  “Gris, for what you did to my mother, I’ll make you live a life worse than death—or my name isn’t Ward!”

  Did Cade discover the exit?