Oh my godness! Has it been days? Or weeks? Months? Years?! I can´t remember anymore!

Well it definitely has been a long time, and just like many times before, it is my time to apologise. It seems that I lack the time and proper motivation to keep sharing a new chapter with you every week. I am sorry... it´s not your fault, it´s mine... You´ve been beautiful, amazing, shmexy, patient and well behaving readers. In other words everything what I could possibly ask from a reader. No, I´m not just licking your asses before I vanish and stop writing... the show must go on and it shall go on. I´m just trying to make you know that you are appreciated.

Okay, today I´m going to introduce you to my new friend; dot, dot, dot. I´m pretty sure you can see him even from up here, and if you don´t, just scroll down a little and you´ll see him. I´m going to use DDD whenever I want to travel in time a little bit further or sometimes I might even use him to switch between characters. You probably have seen this kind of usage of DDD before, the lovely little fanfic-fans you are, but I just wanted to explain this new horrifying creature before you run away and see it chasing you in your worst nightmares. Please don´t be afraid of him... he probably just wants a hug.

Ps. Someone asked me what´s my mother tongue, so the answer to your question is: (dundundundundun) Finnish! ^^

Yep, I´m a Finn. So my love for Santa and Frost is very real, indeed. It is known that Santa has his home somewhere around the Korvatunturi... buuuut I think the North Pole fits him just fine as well. Okay, nevermind that. Back to the business!

And as always: Enjoy. ;)

Like Pitch had promised, I didn´t see any nightmares that night. Actually, I didn´t see any kind of dreams at all. All I saw was a blank endless space.

It seemed strange, like something would have been missing... There was just nothing to fill the white horizon.

I opened my eyes and raised up from the bed. I had been sleeping my shoes on and the blanket had wrapped tightly around me, making it feel like straitjacket. I wiggled myself free from it and stood up. The coldness of the stone floor didn´t get to my feet through my shoes, they still had the same cloudy feeling as they had had yesterday. My muscles didn´t hurt anymore, now there was only a slight ache which people normally would have a day after workout, and I knew that it would probably pass as soon as I´d just start moving. I turned, my eyes searching for Pitch, but I didn´t see him anywhere around.

I didn´t feel disappointed, if he had still been here it would just seemed strange.

He probably had gone to do something while I had slept.

Come to think of it, why wouldn´t he have much better things to do than creeping alongside my bed and watching me sleep…?

As I walked towards the long stairs leading to the next floor, I tried to decide between two plans that had formed in my mind; Either to go to look for Pitch and ask him what to do... or to wander around a little and see what kind of secrets this place had to offer. I knew that the first option was much more rational choice, but I was curious, I wanted to know more about this place. If I´d go to see Pitch right away he would probably take me somewhere he wanted me to go… but there must be some places that he wouldn´t let me go...

And those were the ones I especially wanted to see.

So I made a compromise, I could look for Pitch as I wandered around the lair.

For some reason I nodded to myself, like to confirm my own decision, and with that, I started to walk up the stairs and approached one of the countless doorways carved on the walls.

. . .

"Oh crap...", I muttered when I saw a familiar group of stalactites before me.

I had stopped to view them for a while when I saw them for the first time since I had never been in a dripstone cave before, but after the third and fourth time, I had to admit that the look of them was getting quite… old. I groaned with irritation and sat on the ground. The room, or more specifically a round wide space somewhere deep underground, had multiple doors all around it, and they all led in different directions. Or so I had thought...

It turned out that at least four of them were linked to each other, and I assumed that they weren´t the only paths that would lead me back here. I wished that I would have a ball of wool, like Theseus on his way to slay the Minotauros... Even a marker would have been nice, not as poetic, but it would have worked too.

But since I had neither of those, I just sat there, before of the stalagmites that rose from the ground, and tried to remember which doorways I had already used. I was pretty sure about two of the paths I had already been to, but the other two could have been any of them. I sighed and rose up. Sitting here doing nothing wouldn´t help me in any way, and The helpless princess in a dripstone cave didn´t really sound like a grand fairytale.

Plus, I didn´t want Pitch to find me here and make me admit that all this could have been completely avoided if I only had said something to him.

I let myself forget the doorways for a second and looked for some kind of rocks so I could mark the paths I had already used. I found three reasonable sized stones that were noticeable enough to be any help, but the other ones had been either so small that they would have been classified as sand rather than stones, or so big that I needed to be a bodybuilder to move them around.

Once again I sighed and stopped to think. I looked at the three flat stones on my hand and hid them then inside my palm. I hadn´t noticed it before but now I saw that my hand was slightly shaking. Was it fear? Was I really so afraid? I hadn´t even seen it coming. The fear of being left here, alone, forever... It had just creeped in my mind and made its home inside. And I was indeed afraid... very afraid.

I had left this room four times already and on each time I had come back. I knew nothing about this place and I had to admit that leaving without Pitch had been foolish.

My feet felt weak but I didn´t really want to sit down. It would have been the same thing as I would have given up and said that I couldn´t go on anymore. And I wasn´t sure if I could rise up if did that.

So instead, I just grinded my teeth in frustration and kicked blindly something I had just spotted from the ground. It didn´t fly very far but to my surprise it let out a quiet clink as it hit one of the stalagmites. It couldn´t be a stone that´s for sure.

Filled with sudden curiosity I walked to see what the object was. I took a couple steps and bent over to take the object from the ground, and I frowned when I saw what it was.

I had just picked up some kind of a golden tube... That was the only way I could describe it.

I turned it in my hands and heard a faint tinkle coming from inside it. I got the tube close to my ear and shook it. Something small, like a tiny stone, jingled inside it, and I wanted to open the object just to see what the thing was. The tube was flat from one side and it was decorated with a beautiful golden and crystal blue pattern. I wondered if I could open it from there, but when I tried, the tube remained persistently closed. I turned it in my hands many times but I couldn´t see any kind of handle, lock or lever on it... I even knocked the box few times on the ground, but just like before, nothing happened.

I was just about to toss it somewhere when I noticed a small picture on the side of the capsule. I saw a young girl, probably only my age, smiling cleverly at me from the both ends of the tube. She had raven black hair like me, cutted short in a quite old fashioned way and her eyes were green like the leafs of an aspen tree. Somehow she seemed like someone who could feed you lies from morning to noon without you even realising it. But I knew that she wouldn´t have done that... there was too much warmth in her smile... and... in an odd way, she resembled someone I knew. I just wasn´t sure who.

I looked around me even though I knew it was unnecessary. There was no-one besides me in the cave and this couldn´t possibly be considered as stealing... right?

The tube had probably been here for a long, long time and it was covered in dust.

So in the end, since there wasn´t anyone who could possibly have missed it... I took the box and put it in the pocket of my tunica. It wasn´t exactly the safest place for it, but gladly it fit there just fine.

I turned around and finally put the stones I had in front of the two paths I was sure about. Then I looked at the others.

"Here we go...", I murmured and chose randomly one of them, the golden box clinking quietly in my pocket.

. . .

It took me many other attempts to finally find the doorway leading away from the dripstone cave, and when I saw the narrow stairs leading up, instead of down, I wanted to kiss them and praise the whatever-got-me-out-of-there.

I didn´t do it though, I was still sane enough. Still, I had to fight back my tears so I wouldn´t cry from relief.

I ran up the stairs and on the other end of them opened the most beautiful view.

I stood on a cliff at the very top of the cave, almost so high that I could touch its ceiling, and looked down to the maze of long, short, narrow and wide stairs.

From here I could see that there was even some kind of bridges down below.

But the crisscross of stairs and bridges wasn´t what made the place beautiful…

It was the light.

Its shimmering touch made the dust look like little pieces of gold, flowing gently in the air, and from here everything looked somehow warmer.

The place where I slept had most likely been somewhere really down below, since the light had not reached it almost at all..., I thought.

The endless wandering in the tunnels had confused my sense of time and direction. I had thought that I was somewhere really far in the depths of the cave, but I had actually seen just a tiny bit of it.

From the edge of my vision I saw something shining and reflecting slightly the light, and when I turned my head... I couldn´t stop stearing.

Nothing had warned me about the sight before me.

In front of me I saw a black, hollow frame of a cage hanging from a long chain.

Its bars were thin and fragile-looking, but they were set so close to one another, that even the smallest bird couldn´t escape between them. It had four sharp ends, like thorns, and it made the cage look like one of those insect repeller lamps which some people had on their terrace to kill mosquitos and other poor insects. Its shape reminded more of a lantern though.

I stared at it for some time and soon, even to my own surprise, I noticed that I found the cage almost beautiful on its own cruel way... but even after that it still caused cold shivers run through me.

I walked a little closer to it, but I couldn´t reach it. There was at least two feat gap between me and the cage. I didn´t try to lean forward just to touch it, dying like that was not really in accordance with my plans…

Well... it wouldn´t have been in accordance with my plans if I´d had any.

I was going to walk away from the cage, but something caught my eye from a distance. I saw the same kind of faint shine from there, and when I turned my head to look at it, I almost forgot how to breath…

Now I knew why Pitch put my resting place so down below.

I stared at the enormous group of cages which were just like the one before me. Was there two hundred of them… or more? I couldn´t count them.

There was just too many…

Some of the cages had two or three floors, like little houses, very, very uncomfortable houses, and some of them were so huge that even I could fit inside them, even just the thought gave me goosebumps.

But they weren´t the only cages here, now I noticed that there was dozens of those same fragile-looking prisons, and the reason I hadn´t seen them before was that they all were on different levels. When I gave a closer look at the ceiling, I could spot the long chains holding steadily their own little cages up in the air.

In an insane way I was glad for Pitch, since seeing those as the first thing when I´d wake up could have been quite horrifying, but… what on earth was going on in here?!

A strange mixture of confusion, horror and anger started to storm in my mind.

Why are they here? Had Pitch made them? Why would he need so many of these?

No... why would he need these at all?!

I tried to understand and come up with a good reason for Pitch to have them here, but I gave up soon.

Cages had only one purpose, and that was to keep something from getting away.

I needed to see him. Right now.

I turned around and seeked for stairs that could lead me down. I walked back and forth near of the steep edge… but soon I noticed that there wasn´t a way down. I ran desperately across the ledge and tried to find a place where I could get to the bottom floors, but soon I was forced to admit the fact that there was only one way I could leave.

The same door I had come here.

I felt how the cold grip of anxiety slowly started to twist my insides.

I didn´t want to go back… I couldn´t. I had seen and felt what the tunnels had done to me…

But what other options did I have?

A little bit short I admit (or is it? I dunno...), but I have the next chapter already started and It will hopefully be here much sooner than this one.

Thank you for reading! ^^