Okay, maybe climbing here with no gear wasn't the smartest idea I've ever had. He reflected as he struggled to find another handhold, searching the rock face for anything that could relieve the pressure that was building as his other hand struggled to hold his weight. He finally found such a handhold and breathed a sigh of relief as split the weight on his arms. He glanced down and whistled as he beheld the distance he had made up the rock face. Well, I know why no one has climbed this before. He said fairly before continuing his climb up the cliff.
The climb was not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination, but soon enough he managed to pull himself up over the cliff's edge and lay exhausted on the highest point of the island. "Whew," He said, glad for the lack of tension in his aching arms and legs. "That was harder than I thought."
He sat up and looked down the stretch he had just climbed and grinned confidently. He turned his attention back to the small plateau he had climbed up to and frowned at the hole he saw in the stone. He crawled over to the hole and peered inside, frowning when he realized that the hole went much further down then he had expected. Shrugging off his backpack he withdrew a long length of rope from the depths of his bag along with a climbing axe. He crawled back to the edge of the rock face and tied the rope to the climbing axe, tossing it down the side of the rock whence he came. He began drawing on the rope slowly until it grew taut as the climbing axe caught against the rock face. He tested the hold several times before tossing the rest of the rope down the hole.
"Come on Marcus," The man muttered to himself, peering down the hole as he gathered the rope in his hands. "This can't be a smart thing to do."
But he nonetheless began the descent down the rope, working hand-under-hand until he reached the bottom of the cavern, reveling in its quiet beauty. He swung himself to the edge of the cavern, almost slipping into the pool that gently lapped against the side of the stone. "Wow." He murmured, crouching down and examining the pool. He looked up and realized that this pool was exactly below the hole in the rock ceiling. "This place is pretty cool."
Marcus began to search around the small cave for an entrance other than the hole at the top of the cliff, but his inspection yielded nothing other than a small piece of some sort of broken metal. He dipped one hand in the pool and immediately withdrew it, wincing as the water seemed to shock him. Curiously, he dipped his hand in the pool again, and the same result happened. In fact, his hand felt as though it had fallen asleep the instant it had hit the water and was now protesting its movement. He flexed his fingers several times until the feeling returned to his digits. Sighing he began the trek back up the rope, his sigh turning into a groan as his arms protested the renewed strain being placed on them. He had just managed to reach the lip of the rocks when the climbing axe gave way. Momentarily weightless, Marcus managed to grab onto the edge of the hole with his fingers already aching from their sudden burden. Heart hammering in his chest, Marcus desperately tried to pull himself up but his fingers began to scrape against the stone, betraying his wishes. The rope continued to fall as it dragged the climbing axe over the lip of the hole in the rock, knocking loose Marcus's fingers as both it and the young man began to fall backward.
Marcus opened his mouth in a soundless scream, his arms pin-wheeling desperately in a fruitless attempt to slow his descent. The water felt like a cement floor when he finally crashed into the pool, back first, driving the remainder of air from his lungs. The same feeling that had attacked his hands now racked his entire body. Marcus thrashed in the water kicking, or at least he hoped he was kicking, his legs for the open air of the pool. He scrambled for the edge of the pool, hoping to feel his way to the top of the pool at the very least, but he quickly found that the call for air in his lungs was far too strong. He gasped in a breath and felt cold seawater fill his lungs. He felt his chest spasm as it struggled to handle the sudden influx of an unwelcome substance. His thrashing grew weaker and weaker until Marcus could no longer fight against the darkness that seemed to spread throughout his body. Curiously though, it wasn't as terrifying as he thought it should be. In fact, the water seemed to be more liberating than imprisoning. Marcus's eyes closed involuntarily as the last of his strength left his limbs. He felt his body gently fall against the floor of the pool and the shocking sensation that coursed through his frame seemed to be amplifying but it wasn't particularly painful.
I guess it's a lot like falling asleep. Marcus thought as he drifted off to nothingness.
He meant to sit up with a sudden gasp, but the water that surrounded him prevented him from completing such an action. He ended up drawing a breath halfway through sitting up, which was far less dramatic than he had unintentionally planned. He knew right away that something was amiss, though not necessarily wrong. He knew he had just breathed in seawater, the taste on his tongue was unmistakable, and that he should have been dead but for some reason he wasn't. His legs kicked instinctively, and he pushed to the surface of the water. His head broke the surface and he drew in a ragged breath, the warm midday air filling lungs that had been filled with seawater only moments before. He looked around to get his bearings and Marcus saw the Mako Island sandy shores only a hundred feet away from him. He quickly kicked for the shore, eager to get out of the water and back onto solid land. When he finally dragged himself onto the shore he breathed a sigh of relief as he ran a quick look over his person and found that everything seemed to be more or less operational.
"What, in the hell, was that?" Marcus demanded, looking back to the cliffs he had climbed. "What is up with this island?" And he would get an answer, far sooner than he would have liked, and that answer would truly shake what he knew of the world to its core.
