Laguna woke up with a heavy head and a cold body. His vision was blurry; only a stone wall was visible as far as the eye could see. The air around him was damp, and the smell of wet earth mixed with something like metal. He blinked several times before his vision returned to normal. The blue light from the strange symbols carved into the wall and ceiling illuminated it. The writings seemed alive, as if they were crawling across the stone surface.
"Where is this?" Laguna murmured, and his voice produced a faint echo.
He tried to remember what had happened last time. Wolves. Forest. Running like hell. And… magic traps. His memory stopped there. Trembling, he felt the walls for balance, then began to walk down the hallway.
His steps were slow, each step echoing as if challenging the silence of the hallway. After a few moments, the hallway opened up into a large room filled with objects he had never seen before.
In the center of the room, someone has scattered strange tools on the table and floor. There are sheets of yellow paper full of scribbles and diagrams. Some tubular objects, small wheels, and metal joints look like parts of a broken machine. What caught Laguna's attention most was a big glass tube in the center of the room. It contains a clear liquid with a blue color.
Inside the tube, an eyeball floated. The eyeball looked lively, with silvery-blue irises that released a soft light. Laguna approached it slowly. His breath felt heavy as he saw the details of the eyeball.
The eyeball moved and fixed its gaze on him.
"What?!" Laguna stepped back. His hand went to his waist. He realized he wasn't carrying a weapon.
But the eyeballs were still again, not moving at all. Laguna stood with his arms crossed, observing him with suspicion. "Maybe it's just my feeling," he thought..
Laguna grew curious. He walked around the glass tube, examining it. He tried to figure out how it worked. He found several buttons on the side of the tube, but when he pressed them, nothing happened. Finally, he found a small hole at the bottom of the tube, about the size of an index finger.
"What is this?" he said while looking closer into the hole.
He inserted his right index finger into the hole, hoping to find a hidden button. But when his index finger entered, he felt something sharp stab at his skin.
"Argh!" Laguna pulled his finger away quickly. Blood flowed from the wound. But before he could stop the bleeding, he saw something strange.
Laguna's blood was in the tube, floating in the water. It moved towards the eyeball at the tube's center. The eye began to glow brighter. Its irises whirled as it absorbed Laguna's blood.
"What's happening?" Laguna asked, his voice full of confusion.
The water in the tube started to go down. Then, with a hissing sound, the glass tube opened. Smoke poured out from all sides.
Laguna stared at the eyeball floating in the tube. He felt doubtful, but his interest was too great to ignore. With trembling hands, he picked up the eyeball.
The moment his fingers touched the eyeball, a great force pulled him into the eyeball.
"Arghhh!" Laguna screamed. The world around him changed. A blinding blue light filled his vision, and his body felt like it was being pulled into an endless vortex. Everything disappeared. He only felt the sensation of floating in endless darkness.
The eyeball devoured his awareness, dragging him into something much greater than himself.
Laguna found himself in a burning city. Smoke surged into the sky, and people screamed from all directions. His body felt light, but he found himself unable to move. It was as if he were a spectator, not part of this world.
He saw an old man who was struggling to run, his breath coming in heavy gasps. His shabby clothes appeared burned, and wounds covered his body.
"Albus!!!" a man's scream echoed from a distance. A group of troops armed with heavy weapons pursued the old man.
The old man kept trying to escape, but his body was getting weaker. One of the guards managed to catch him, throwing him roughly to the ground.
"Why did you do this, Romero!" the old man shouted in a voice full of despair. "Have you forgotten our friendship? We even grew up and were born in the same village!"
A sturdy man with eyes full of revenge approached. His helmet reflected the light of the fire around him.
"Friend, you say?" Romero said in a sarcastic tone. "Since childhood, everyone has only looked up to you, Albus. They admired your magical talent, your power, and your creations. And me? I was your shadow!"
Albus lowered his head, tears starting to fall. "I never meant it like that... I just wanted to help you..."
"Lies!" Romero snapped, his eyes burning with anger. "If you wanted to help me, why did you keep creating devices that surpassed even human reason? You never wanted to help; you wanted to prove that you were better than I!"
"I'm sorry, Romero... I'm sorry... I didn't know it would turn out like this," Albus's voice trembled, full of regret.
However, Romero showed no mercy. He signaled to the guards. Someone pulled the old man with great strength, tied him up, and took him to the city center.
Laguna tried to move to help the old man, but his body felt locked. He could do nothing but watch.
The scene changed in an instant. Laguna now stood in the middle of a large crowd. Bonfires were burning in the corners of the city, illuminating the angry crowd.
On a simple wooden stage, Albus stood with a lack of energy. Someone tied his hands and locked his neck to a wooden board. An executioner stood behind him with a large axe already raised.
A royal official stepped onto the stage. He spoke with a booming voice. "The devil has influenced Albus de Caprio, a great wizard. He created a device that could destroy this kingdom."
Cheers and jeers filled the air. The people threw garbage at Albus. His face was blank, without resistance, as if he had accepted his fate.
The executioner prepared. Laguna wanted to scream, wanted to stop all this, but his voice did not come out. He could only watch as the large axe came down.
As Albus's head separated from his body, Laguna felt a tight pull on his body. The world around him turned dark.
Laguna woke up, gasping. He held his head. It felt as if someone had struck it many times with a hammer. His vision was blurry, but one thing he realized: the eyeball in the glass tube had disappeared. A pain spread from his head to his neck. It was as if thousands of pieces of information were trying to invade his mind.
"AARGHHH!!" Laguna screamed while gripping his hair; he rolled around like a wounded animal. In despair, Laguna struck his head against the floor. He heard a loud thud as his forehead hit. Blood began to drip, but the pain overwhelmed him.
After a few minutes that felt like a lifetime, the pain began to ease. Laguna is lying down and relaxing. Blood covered his head, his breath coming in short gasps. He touched his bleeding forehead with a trembling hand. He stared at the ceiling with a vacant expression.
The writing on the ceiling that he had not understood before now seemed clear. The words had meaning, like someone recalling a long-forgotten language in an instant.
"This… I can read this?" he murmured, as Laguna approached a desk. It had sheets covered in scribbles and diagrams. The writing on the paper now made sense to him. He began to read, allowing his curiosity to guide him. The scribbles on the sheets explained the strange devices in the room. Although he did not completely understand how they worked, he believed he had a reason to try.
Laguna gathered the scattered sheets of paper and began to put them together. The sheets described a device called the Subspatial Inventory. It was a storage mechanism that used spatial magic to store objects in another dimension.
Laguna began to pick up the devices from the desk and try to match them to the diagrams on the paper. He worked with precision, following the instructions on the paper that he could now read. Sometimes, he would pause to check if he had understood correctly. Frustration appeared when things didn't go according to plan. However, each mistake only increased his curiosity.
He immersed himself in his work. He read page after page, jotting down important things in his memory. The tools that once felt strange were now part of his experiments. He began to assemble the tools using the components available in the room. His hands were shaking, but his mind was working with incredible focus. Every symbol, diagram, and instruction on the paper was now visible to him.
Hours passed without him realizing it. He was completely focused on the research. His eyes showed passion and determination.
After some time, Laguna made a simple waist bag. He used a rare magic crystal—the Subspatial Crystal—and materials from the room. The bag looked ordinary. But it could store many objects in a compressed space of another dimension.
He put his hand into the device, and a vast, dark space opened up in his mind.
However, in the middle of his happiness, something crossed his mind. A face of Julia.
"Julia…" he muttered in a low voice. Laguna looked up, his expression blank for a moment before he regained his senses.
He felt shocked. His mind was too preoccupied with research that he forgot the most important thing. Julia was waiting for him outside. He rushed to grab useful items in the room. These were research papers, all the books, small tools, and magic crystals. He put them into the Subspatial Inventory. They all disappeared. Then, they stored themselves in another dimension.
"Sorry, Julia. I got too carried away…" he said as he ran toward the hallway he had entered. Even though he rushed, he couldn't ignore his curiosity about what he would create with his new items.
The room was silent again. It held secrets, partly revealed, but others were hidden in the mists of time.