Silence.

Pure normality.

Complete calmness.

Utter perfection.

I woke up with a start. I could feel the sweat pouring off my forehead, but strangely, I was slightly cold.

Exact stillness.

A world of darkness.

I slowly opened my heavy eyelids. The world had gone pitch black. I couldn't see anything. Nill. Zero. It was as if the sun had disappeared completely, forever.

Natural easyness.

An unforgiving universe.

Realizing that I was sitting in a chair, I tried to get up. That's when I felt the ropes wrapped around my arms and legs. It was strange how, one by one, I started recovering my five senses. "Now what?" I thought. "I'm tied to a chair, in complete darkness, I'm cold and there's a horrible smell in the air."

The stench went right up my nostrils and seemed to penetrate my brain. It smelt like a hundred dead bodies, left to rot right in front of me.

Total precision.

That's all I'm asking for.

And then there was the voice. All it was saying was really just random words, but it gave me an uneasy feeling. And the weirdest thing was that something told me that I wasn't hearing it with my ears, no, I think I was somehow hearing it with my brain, almost like... telepathy.

"Hello?" I called out, but I sort of already knew I wasn't going to get an awnser. The sound of my voice echoed through the walls of my "prison". Maybe I was in an underground cave.

I waited for a couple of minutes, as the mysterious voice kept on saying strange words that didn't make much sense, but my eyes did not get one little bit adjusted to the darkness. I still couldn't see a thing.

I finally couldn't take it anymore, so I decided I had to try something, anything that would get me out of there, so I started rocking, back and forward in my chair, at a steady pace. Soon I was coggling so violently I was sure to lose my balance and fall. And I did. I toppled over backwards and hit the floor with a loud bump, chair and all. The back of my head started to throb with pain, for I could have almost knocked myself unconsious with the landing. But it was still worth the try.

I now was supposedly facing up, towards the ceiling. I then pulled at the ropes one more time... and my arms came free! Yipee, I had made it! Now excited, I untied the ropes on my feet, and rolled off the chair, onto the cold, hard stone floor. What a relief! The thing I had to do now was get out of there.

I got up slowly, steadily, as I rubbed my wrists and ankles, and then took one step to the right. I inmediately bumbed into a stone wall. It was cold and smooth, and so by now I was pretty sure I was in a cave.

I was about to start walking forward when I suddenly noticed something: The mysterious voice had stopped talking. The was an intense silence, as my ears started ringing.

Move forward

"Ah! There you are!" I said "I thought you had left me!" I started walking slowly, my hand running along the wall to keep my balance and slight sense of direction. Then a sudden idea ocurred to me. "Let's have a bit of fun" I thought, and then I stopped walking.

After a few seconds, the voice repeated Move forward.

"And what if I don't want to?" I called out, the words echoeing throughout the cave.

There was an awkward silence before the voice responded.

You die

I raised my eyebrows. The words had come out so naturally, fluently, that I almost laughed at him, but that probably wouldn't have been a good idea.

"And how do I know I can trust you?" I asked.

After a few seconds of silence, there was an enormous BOOM that filled the air, and then the ground started to shake. I yelped out with fear, and fell to the ground, curling into a little ball. I could now hear rocks falling and splitting open. But then everything suddenly stopped. I got up cautiously, dusting my trousers off.

"Oh" I managed slowly "so I have no choice".

The voice didn't even respond to that, so I sighed and started walking once more, slightly faster this time. I was now starting to feel a little... freaked out.

No-one said anything else for the next while, though time started to drag on. Minutes felt like hours, walking and walking in complete darkness, not knowing where I was going, why I was doing it and how I had even got into this situation. I ocasionally called out to Mr. Creepy Voice, persuading him to talk to me, but no awnser came.

As the time passed, I started to hear a noise, getting louder by the minute. It took me a while to finally understand that it was the sound of rushing water. There must have been a waterfall up ahead. The noise got louder and louder, until it was practically deafening my ears. That was when the voice suddenly spoke once more.

Jump forward.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "Why?"

Just do it.

"And if I don't?" I asked "Let me guess. I die." There now was a growing, unsettling feeling in my stomach.

There was no awnser.

"Yeah. I thought so." I said, and jumped. And then screamed.

I was falling, falling dozens of metres through the air, my arms flailing around me like a lunatic, trying to grasp onto something. Anything. The adrenaline really was pumping through my body now.

The water broke my fall. I landed with an enourmous splash, with barely any time to suck in the last bit of air into my lungs, before being buried, metres under the surface. The water was icy cold. I suddenly felt a current dragging me forward at a very fast rate. Too fast. I started trying to swim upwards, for my air supply was already falling pretty low, but it was impossible. The current was pushing me down with an inmense force, the opposite way. I tried and tried without success to reach the surface. My muscles started to ache, filled with exhaustion.

"I can't...let it...end like this" I kept on thinking over and over again, but by now I was barely even thinking straight.

"I...will not...die!" Black spots started to appear in my eyesight, making everything even worse.

That was when I let go. I just...stopped, letting my body be carried along the current. I gave up, letting a great sense of despair go through my body, losing all hope of surviving. I closed my eyes, as my brain slowly seeped into black uncounciousness.

To be continued...