Prologue
His eyes widen in a panic. He can feel the throbbing of his heartbeat in his head. His limbs are sore and bloodied. The light from the eerie blue sky pierces his retinas and makes seeing clearly a difficult chore. He fixates on his legs, bruised and posed in an awkward and painful fashion. Quickly readjusting to a more relaxed sitting position, he rubs his eyes vigorously until his vision restores, but the harsh light of the skies keep him in an impractical squint. He takes the time to curse to himself about the pain, wondering why he is in this condition. He didn't think the accident had been that severe, perhaps barely enough to knock him off of his feet. Before he can further reflect, he instead becomes attentive to his returning vision.
He vigorously blinks to ensure he can see properly, and then pushes off of the ground with his left arm to help reach a standing position. With a clumsy stagger towards his left side, he feels a sharp pain in his leg. It hurts for him to keep weight on it, but he is stubborn to continue standing and manages to maintain it. Finally able to focus on what he can see, he observes the view that lie before him, still panting from the ordeal.
What he sees is incredible. The very earth of this land is incomprehensible for him. The word "Earth" is not a suitable word to describe the spectacle that he gazes upon. This place is different. This place is special.
The land, it seems, is made of solid, uniform cubes. It amazes him that something so gorgeous can come from something so simple. He laughs heartily in disbelief at the awe-inspiring cubes that form the verdant, rolling hills ahead of him. The sky is that of a clear azure. A few transparent, rectangular clouds leisurely slink across the vast expanse. An intense yellow-white block he assumes to be the sun stares down at him from its heavenly throne at the top of the sky. Wherever he is, it is the middle of the day and the weather is perfect.
He makes a complete circle to scope the other surroundings, but he has already made the decision to traverse the outlandish, cubed hills that rest ahead of him. An arid green pasture is all that he can see to his left. A similar pasture is to his right but is broken up by what appears to be sand. Behind him, however, is a menacing tower of what he assumes to be stone, topped with a grassy dirt cap. He finds himself very tempted to alter his venturing plans, but decides to keep to his original course and heads onward towards the hills.
They approach very rapidly. Every footstep makes a vociferous crunch; the grass he treads upon seems to be a very hardy and stiff variety. He passes well-spaced trees on either side that have very expansive leaf clusters and branches. Their trunks are a perfect tower of cubes upward, but the leaves give them the vitality and vigor that makes this place so miraculous. He eventually approaches what he perceives to be an incline; this cubic landscape is on the rise as the hills approach. He awkwardly bounds up one level of the cubes. As he clears the large step upward, his leg gives out and he falls quickly to the ground. Determined to reach the top of the hill, he pulls himself off of the ground and continues to stride forward. Shortly thereafter, however, he finds himself having to leap up another cube level. This exertion is excruciating for him, to say the least. He continues upward until his rasping gasps for air convince him to take a break. A quick glance backwards confirms that he is very far up the hill, and a confident stare forward convinces him that there is very little hill left to scale. With one final stride, he reaches the peak of the hill, the pinnacle of his efforts. With the trees nonexistent up here, he finds himself looking down upon another spectacular vista. A small mass of rock blocks most of his view to the front. To either side, he can see the familiar, arid grasslands, but this new vantage point exhibits a rich, blue river running from his right to his left. He is amazed with what this world has shown him thus far, but still is curious as to what hides behind the rock ahead of him.
Still winded from his ascent, he lumbers toward the stone mass. Eventually he is forced to climb over it, this time using his arms to pull him atop the sun-baked rock. He lies down once he successfully clambers upon the rock. Eyes shut and clothes soaked through with sweat, he takes a stretching roll towards the world he has yet to explore. He continues rolling until he feels a sharp pain run perfectly straight across his back. His body jolts in agony; he has rolled off of the corner of a cube.
His eyes shoot open just in time to break the fall with his arms. It is a mere two-cube fall for him, something he is convinced he can now easily climb, but the pain of the landing is still unbearable. He feels himself beginning to roll again as to continue from his fall, but stops himself immediately. His eyes dart over his right shoulder to realize why he had made it just in time.
The final cube of this isolated ledge is the beginning of a tremendous cliff, and as he realizes this, he watches as his leg dangles off of it. Terrified, he pulls his leg back up to fully cover it by the cube. Slowly pushing himself up to a sitting position and careful not to plummet over the edge, he inches his head over the cube to gaze downward at the extraordinary view that had almost killed him.
A mini-lake of the pure-blue water sits agitated at the bottom of this cliff. What amazes him more than the majesty of this pool is the mystical torrent from the waterfall that feeds it. What seems to be four cubes across and a few cubes below him is the waterfall that surges out of the face of the cliff. He concludes that this must be an outlet that the expansive river behind him uses to dump its contents.
Surrounding the lake is a dominion of immense trees, trees that in his world would be found only in the depths of a rainforest. These completely cover an area at least three kilometers across ahead of him. Nothing but the verdant canopies can be seen.
With a sight as inconceivable as this, he almost forgets that he is only inches away from death. With a quick shake, he re-awakens from his trance and climbs back up the rock that had nearly shattered his back. Still, he remains in awe at the green sea of life that seems to be beckoning him. He glances back before deciding to take a moment to fully study the cliff face. A small, treacherous staircase of stone cubes seems to snake its way down the side of the cliff, perfidiously ending a few cubes before the ground is met. However, he makes mental note that should he ever wish to revisit this lost world, there is provided an at least survivable passageway into it.
Elated by the wonder of this new land, he climbs to the highest cube on the cliff and curiously scans the horizons. The bright cube that is the sun to this world has moved but a slight amount from its original position at the utmost peak of the heavens.
Unsure of what needs to be done, he looks to the clouds. They travel together as one and never change course. He is not sure how the clouds behaved in his world, but he is sure that knowing these clouds' direction would be of much benefit for navigation. The sun appears to be crawling across the sky in a perfectly straight direction as well. He curses himself for not remembering its behavior in his world.
Even with sharp back pain, a throbbing headache, a partially crippled leg, and numerous cuts and bruises, there is still just one thing he wishes for: water. In a small fit of frustration, he wishes he had chosen to dive off of the cliff into the pool of water, but he realizes that he couldn't trust he would survive the fall.
He remembers the river. It is of decent size and he is almost positive that the water would be safe to drink. His safest option is to double back down the hill side and follow the pastures down.
There, he will find the river.