[skillya_glowi]

C'mon. If my English teacher can stomach it, so can you.

Chapter Six

At last, Sami felt at home. He shot toward the bottom of the lake with as much speed as he could gather, then slowed and floated upward. Sami brushed aside the seaweed and looked down. The lake seemed endless. It was almost like an ocean. Shooing away fish with his hands, he started descending.
Gabbits were adapted to having immense amounts of pressure on them. It would be a long way down before Sami would feel any different, let alone uncomfortable. The lake, however, was growing darker as Sami moved down. To keep himself safe, he decided not to approach the abyss but stay near the surface. Instead of moving down, he started moving forward.
He transformed from the clumsy, slow creature on the ground into the graceful, swift animal in the water. He hind fin beat rhythmically ; his head tilted forward. In ten minutes, he could cover the distance which took him an hour to cover by land. Smiling to himself and performing random somersaults in the water, he moved along, occasionally surfacing to get a fresh breath of air and check his direction.
He was starting to notice something strange, however. The lake he saw above ground couldn’t be more than a few hundred feet wide; yet when he was in the water, the lake seemed to go on forever. Suddenly, as he swam, everything became dark. Sami could not see a thing. He floated upwards to check what was going on.
It turns out that he swam into an underground (and underwater) passage. The only light in there was the faint bioluminescence on the walls. Sami could even see it underwater if he swam closer to the wall of the tunnel.
It was present on the lake bottom, as well. Sami could see blobs of light under him. Unfortunately, that was the only thing he could see.
To be safer, he floated up to the surface. The glowing algae on the walls were in such numbers now that some things were starting to become visible. He could, with effort, make out the walls of the cave.
Soon he noticed a wall in front of him. It looked like a dead end. Sighing, Sami was about to turn back when he found that there was a dark spot on the wall. Swimming closer, he saw that it was a tunnel.
You don’t care if that’s a tunnel, he told himself. You’re turning back.
Sami fought hard the battle against curiosity, but he lost, unfortunately. Alert as ever, he stuck his head into the hole.
It was pitch dark. Sami could hear water dripping, but nothing else. His mind urged him to wriggle in, but his instinct told him to swim away as fast as possible. Finally, he balanced out by saying to himself, “I’ll just take a look”.
Gulping, he climbed into the hole.

Sami could see nothing but dark for a few minutes. Under his foot was rock and sparse puddles of water. Then he felt the tunnel floor getting steeper. Sami leaned backward to keep his balance, when suddenly, the tunnel ended.
Sami went through a strong déjà vu. The tunnel had an exit into a cave identical to the one he left but five minutes ago, with patches of glowing algae on the walls and murky dark water. Sami rubbed his eyes. This is really getting weird, he thought.
He was about to climb down when a rock slipped from under his foot. Sami yelped and fell into the water.
After a few futile attempts to reach to the hole, Sami gave up. Sighing, he thought it best to continue here. After all, what difference could it make?
Warily he swam forward, ready for anything. The glowing walls made it seem as though he was at outside at night. Gasping with delight, he was gaping around when his forehead bumped into solid rock.
“Ow!” He yelped. Rubbing his forehead, he refocused his eyes and found himself staring into a patch of glowing moss.
Something was amiss, though. Although his head was flat against the rock, he could swing his foot freely and not hit anything.
Bending down underwater, he found that the cave continued on, but it sloped so much that there was no room for air. Well, Sami thought to himself, there’s no way out.
Sighing, he shot straight down into the water. Now there was even no more room for the bioluminescent algae, and all Sami saw was darkness, darkness, and more darkness.
Sami was beginning to feel a sight uncomfortable. Anything could be lurking in these depths. Even the fish had left. His mind was half-set on turning back, when suddenly, he was blinded by sunlight.
For a moment, all he could see were stars. Then he started to make things out: the “lake” bottom, the fish, the seaweed, the beams of light… Quickly he surfaced.
Looking around him, he saw sparse pine trees and a rocky floor. Not only that, but gaping cave mouths surrounded him. There were even a few leading into the forest floor.
Sami was angry with himself. “I’ll just take a look,” he mimicked. Well, just see where your “look” has led you!
There was nothing he could do about that at the moment, however. To him, the most logical step seemed to be to enter the cave furthest south. As he approached it, he felt a strong foreboding. It looked dark and cold. And, as he stood there, mulling over its darkness and coldness, he had an idea.
Using the grayish rocks to hack and tear at the branches, Sami managed to separate a few limbs from their parent tree. The wood was green but brittle, and the branches tore off with horribly jagged edges.
Sami stood there, pondering what to do next. The forest was completely deserted, except for a few grey birds.
Sami’s eyes traveled down from the tree tops to the ground. Carefully bending over (the wounds in his back were still sore), he picked up a couple grey rocks. He sat down and laid his branches in front of him.
The quiet atmosphere made Sami uncomfortable. With frightened eyes, he looked above him, but saw nothing but a grey sky. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.
Laying one of the rocks on the ground and picking one up with his hand, he struck them together hard. Nothing happened except a deafening crack. Sami tried again and again, but all his attempts to start a fire were ended with failure.
After striking the rocks together with no effect for the millionth time, he had another idea. Sami was quite surprised that he didn’t think of it before. After all, the things that he was trying to avoid were darkness and uncertainty, and he was thinking of a way to enter them.
Now it was midday, and this field felt considerably more cheerful. The sunlight was bright and warm now, and the sky has cleared as the hours passed. Sami’s solitude was almost enjoyable to him.
Sami was still wondering why it didn’t appear to him that he could go around the cave when he was sent cowering to the ground by an earsplitting shriek.