A gasp tore from his throat as his eyes flew open. His heart pounded against his chest and his temples. Where...? A memory flashed into his mind. It's of him leaping off a cliff just as a spear of white-hot magic slammed into his back. His skin prickled, the pain feeling so real that it jarred him awake. And now that he was, remnants of the magic still pinched his limbs and gripped his spine.

Why had he needed to leap, in the first place? Moreover...didn't he bring someone with him over the edge? His breath hitched. Did he kill someone? Why..? He groaned as he pushed himself up, his bones cracking and whining like rusty joints. He gritted his teeth against the pain and scratched his eyes.

A quick look around told him that he was inside some kind of cavern with a domed ceiling painted blue. No, not painted. Just water being reflected into it. Water...

Where was this cave? How did he end up here after falling into the ocean? Who was the female voice that spoke to him sometime ago? Where was she?

He winced as pain shot from his ankle to his thighs the moment he edged off the raised platform he had been lying on. It's... a stone whose top part was smoothed clean. A thin layer of itchy straw crowned it. His nose wrinkled at the prospect of those scratchy things touching his skin. Then again...why?

Panic rose to his throat that made his heartbeat rush against his ears. He clenched his jaw in an attempt to drown it out. Calm down. Calm down. He blew a breath out. Once. Twice.

His eyes shot open. When had he even closed them? Everything...everything was in better quality than when he first woke up. His mind registered that the cavern he was in as spacious enough for ten people, complete with a workstation resembling a kitchen.

Shelves lined the walls from his far-right, into the end of the cavern. Kegs, chests, and a veiled hole as large as a man decorated the end to his left.

Then, his gaze traveled down his arms when he felt a strange, binding sensation around them. Bandages snaked tight around his wrist, climbing all the way to his shoulders. Even in his dazed state, he felt that there were splints in his wrists and his elbows. Huh, perhaps that tight feeling in his chest was the result of bandages, too. What in Umazure happened?

A sigh tore out of his lips as he tried standing up. As soon as his legs stretched, they quivered before throwing him to the ground. His world spun as his chin hit the cold stone. Gods of Calaris, even his ankles have splints too?

Fabric swished somewhere to his right and the female voice graced his ear again. "Ceris, what are you doing? You are in no position to start moving!"

Nyxis frowned and continued doing so as strong hands hauled him off the ground and helped him back to his rock. He raised his head to meet dark orange ones. His chest heaved, partly because he was catching his breath and because he had never seen such stark eyes in all his life.

Or had he? He couldn't remember anyway.

The girl clicked her tongue, catching Nyxis's attention once more. She was barely his age but it's impossible to tell with fairies. Blue hair cropped to her chin crowned her head, tied with what looked like seaweed. Nyxis blinked out a disturbing image of seaweed eating people's heads. It's just seaweed. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Tan skin peeked out of strips of cloth tied around the girl's chest and hips. The rest of her was...bare. Blood rose to Nyxis's face as the girl strode to join him on his rock. "How are you feeling?" the girl asked.

Nyxis averted his eyes under the girl's stare. "Like crap," his fingers brushed the straw underneath his legs."Who are you?"

"I am no one," the girl waved her hand in dismissal and crossed her arms. "The real question is—why can you not remember who you are, Ceris?"

Nyxis shook his head, jarring some pain at the back of his head. "I am not...him," he clasped his eye with his palm as it started going in and out of focus. "I could not remember anything else but I am certain that I am not who you say I am."

The girl raised an eyebrow divided by a thin line of a scar. What could have the girl done to get a scar like that? "Then ought you explain what you are doing to end up in such a pitiful state I found you in?" the girl was saying.

Nyxis picked at the bandages on his arm. "I could not remember."

"Even if you try?" the girl inclined her head to one side.

He blew a weary breath that echoed along the cave's walls. "There is nothing. I am sorry."

The girl blew a stray lock off her face. "Such a shame," she tucked it behind her ear. "Looks like I would not get any news from the world above from you."

Nyxis looked at his feet to find them, at least, free from injury that needed to be bandaged. "You should not have saved me."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," his voice dropped low. "You should not have saved me. I am better off dead. I was not supposed to be alive. You ruined everything."

The girl drew back with a hand to her chest. "Now it is my fault? Say that to the number of potions I spent on you," she seethed. "Is this how I would get repaid?"

"I did not promise payment," Nyxis clutched his chest that was beginning to throb. The strain at the back of his neck was intensifying too. "You should have just let me die. Would have saved you your precious potions."

"Perhaps," the girl's voice was as cold as the rock Nyxis was sitting on. She turned to the veiled hole for a second before jabbing a finger in his direction. "Heal faster and get out of my cave. I do not want to see you again, ever."

"Same to you," Nyxis said.

The girl harrumphed as she trudged away from him, muttering under her breath along the way. Nyxis watched her yank at the curtain separating this cavern and the next. She disappeared into the room beyond this cavern without further noises. Nyxis groaned and clutched his already pounding head. Why did he have to be a jerk and say that? She didn't deserve that treatment, not when she clearly helped him.

Still, that didn't erase the feeling in his gut telling him he shouldn't be able to breathe and live. Guilt, pride, shame, and probably some ill will screamed at him to just die and enter Pidmena's embrace. The memory of him slamming into the water resurfaced in his mind. He had been begging the goddess, herself, to take his soul quickly. Well, Pidmena answered by letting him live. In a cave somewhere. With an insufferable girl with great curves.

Nyxis gritted his teeth, trying to erase the amber-eyed girl from his thoughts. She saved him because she wanted news from the world above, wherever that might be. When he couldn't remember anything, he'd be of no use to her. That sure stabbed a white-hot spear into his pride.

He snorted. Was he always a prideful person?

Why shouldn't he be alive? He needed to remember that. And fast. His gaze landed on the curtained doorway by the kegs. Perhaps...

He braced the rock as he pushed himself off it. His muscles protested but he dragged his body towards the doorway. He got about half the distance between the rock and the hole when his knees shook and his legs betrayed him again. An audible gasp left his lips when his chest slammed into the ground, waking up the great phantom of pain that gripped his senses and limbs. He pushed against the ground to lay sideways, curled into a ball, and tried to steady his breathing. Focus. Just...focus.

When the pain cleared just a fraction, he dragged himself up and staggered towards the doorway. It led somewhere. Let him hope it's straight to the violent waters. He had to end it for real this time. No potions would be wasted on him, ever again.

He tore through the doorway and ended up in some sort of garden. Plants glowing in the darkness of the cave should have taken the breath out of him but he paid them no mind. He pushed off the wall he had been leaning on and took one step after the other.

The waves crashing against the rocks turned louder as he walked to nowhere. Perhaps if he went back to where it started he could remember something. Better yet, he could let himself be torn apart by the waters and be done with it.

He reached the lip of the cave without tripping, by some miracle. His legs burned; his chest laboring just to catch up with his breath but he's here. Don't stop. If he dropped dead from exhaustion and pain, would it make the girl happy? Hooray for saving potions!

His toes touched the water. Cold. His teeth chattered inside his mouth against the walls of sea breeze slapping his thin frame and ruffling his hair off his face. He took one step into the water. Then another. Before he knew it, the water reached his shoulders and the waves were becoming more violent. Good. Let one current sweep him off his feet and all would be over.

As it should have been from the start.

He waded in further, the water devouring him up to his neck. Now was a really good time to remember. His body flared with the sharp memory of slamming into the sea. Nothing else. Come on, try harder. He squeezed his eyes shut, keeping his toes rooted into the carpet of sand lining the sea bed. Right before he leaped...what happened?

A face. A woman with brown hair and dark, bottomless eyes. He knew that woman. She's the one who he fell with. She's...

Heiress. The name sped across his mind, eliciting another gasp. His eyes flew open and gray skies greeted him. He was meters away from the cave's entrance. There's no use in looking back now, was there?

The cliff. Where he had leaped off was somewhere around here. That's how he ended up in the cave. Somehow, the current washed him inside. Who was the Heiress? Why did he haul her off the edge with him? Nyxis took a deep, shaky breath and closed his eyes again. Picture it...the Heiress and him, tumbling off into the violent depths.

Falling into the water will not kill me. A voice said that. The Heiress said that. Then, Nyxis slammed into the water, alone. He sucked in another heavy breath. More. He needed to remember more.

Before the leap...the lights. Think about the lights. What was that about?

Someone had screamed back then. Maybe it was him. The Heiress had been standing by the edge, a spell forming in front of her. He remembered running towards it. The light speared into his back, a phantom of it making his limbs twitch. His eyes snapped open again. He was still neck-deep in the water. Alive. He shouldn't be. Why? Remember. Why shouldn't he be alive?

A face slowly formed in his mind. A girl with warm eyes and a beautiful smile. A girl with k—

A current slammed into his legs. He didn't have the time to breathe as his head went under. Water stung his eyes and purged down his throat. The waves roared his name, or at least that's how it came to him. He didn't bother fighting as the sea whisked him here and there with enough violence to break his neck. Good. It would all be over soon.

His body knocked into something hard. Pain exploded in his system, turning his limbs heavy and useless. That's when the panic settled in him. By instinct, he started flailing, clutching his throat as water filled his lungs. A wave struck him hard enough to send him crashing into a tower of rocks. He cried out but the ocean's roar did its best to muffle it. He badly wanted to die so why was he trying to live now?

The ocean roared his name again. Let it take him. Why was he fighting? What was he fighting for? His eyes shut on their own, plunging his world into a darkness even greater than the depths. It's so easy to give up, right?

A face ripped through his consciousness. The insufferable cave girl. What was she doing here? She was screaming a name that wasn't his, battling nature with her own meager force. Someone was...

The water spat him out. He crashed into hard ground, his head hitting concrete once more. Something went back out his throat. It tasted like rust. What...

The wind licked his skin, making him shiver. The clothes he barely noticed before now clung to his limbs like a lumpy mass of kelp. His chest heaved as more of that rusty liquid scratched his throat and stained blue with red.

"Why did you do that?" A voice full of distress and worry speared through his head. With his fading vision and consciousness, it was impossible to tell who it was. Just the mere pity in the voice's tone made his heart cry bitter tears. Why would someone care for him at this point in his life?

No matter. He was going to die, anyway. Any moment now...

A song wrapped around his head, derailing his thoughts. It sounded far away. He could hear it, at least. Calm and smooth. It was calm. The words flowed in a steady rhythm that kissed his aching form and his tired heart. It was his only companion as he descended into an exhausted, uneasy sleep.