31/11/21

The flickering subway lights splayed sinister shadows against the tiled walls as hollow breezes rattled their chain hangings. Haunting the ticket barrier lay strewn papers, tickets and long abandoned homes of arachnids, ever gradually decaying. The time above the ticket box read 03:04.

Arthur's feet trickled down the long metal flight of stairs from the murky Australian dawn, after tapping the railing with his beech wood, phoenix core wand and pocketing it again from the entrance above. Eyes closed behind heavily tinted sunglasses, using his new sense (through a previously summoned short-range omni-sense hex) to find the way, he strutted in false confidence to the already pitch-black railway and stepped onto the Tracks. He pulled back his electric viridian hood and placed both hands on one rail.

To the average observer, the adolescent melted into the cast iron; his arms extended as if the cobbles underneath were nothingness, and in an attempt of survival, he clutched the rope and it pulled, stretching his arms and head to be tightly one with the rail. Arthur – even though this was his first time – knew that when he performed this ritual, a silver gossamer thread would spread across the empty line and speed off into the endless tunnel to his left.

Arthur really did not want to be caught in the crowd that was sure to come at around 9am. From what he heard, you did not want to be rushed on your first time.

The boy tried to clear his head of thoughts. He'd also heard that, alike the Flu Network, the Tracks needed clear attention.

Head now empty, and arms begging him to let go, he muttered the short incantation as clearly as manageable, and felt all sensations shoot away in an instant: it was just him and the universe. The feeling was like when you fall on a roller-coaster, causing your bowels to fill with air and making your stomach drop, but magnified throughout your body.

Arthur was now a strand in the wind, propelled down the tracks rapidly a little faster than sound could keep up with.

The silver string was spat out several hundred kilometres later, through a behemoth black sinkhole in the centre of a large cavity of black marble, ashen granite and Stygian copper; the ceiling rose to a point like a chocolate kiss. A circular skylight with the diameter of a generic kitchen plate was barely visible at its peak, illuminating the dust particles in the air as it shot through the dark space.

The boy skidded to a halt face first on the course floor as though he had slid all the way there. Arthur needed some time to distinguish his new body... Wait, what does this do again...? He thought. Oh. Right... holy shit!

In the darkness, he eventually – shakily, and with several curses under his breath – found his legs, dusted off the new addition of bruises and grazes and looked around the deep cave through grim light. As he stood, the boy looked up. Then down. He could not see the bottom of the colossal hole in which his soul had just evaded.

The gravity change was quite trippy. Arthur had after all been pulled down, then after muttering the incantation fell to his left as he lost all sensation, though in the glance that he still had some sense of movement, he had been falling to his left towards the tunnel. Now, feeling rather discombobulated, Arthur felt gravity was pulling him down to where his right used to be...

The boy decided to close his eyes again and think deeply. Opened his eyes. Closed them. Jumped three times. Opened them again.

Okay, everything feels a bit better now. He thought, trying to convince himself.

Arthur looked around, feeling a fair bit more coordinated, and saw the branching caves coming from the stout sides of the teardrop shaped cavern as far as the eye could see.

This isn't Stagheart... I may be Deagon though... It's bloody cold wherever I am anyway...

Arthur shivered as the chill uninvitedly creeped into his bones. He grasped his wand and illuminated the tip. "Lumos."

Then he set off in exploration, breath as white as snow, occasionally marking the floor of the labyrinth with a Flagrate Charm.

The passages wavered in size and features: on his sixth branch, Arthur found himself in another cave of quite a large magnitude. Massive pools of lava boiled and spluttered from the corners of the room, gradually overflowing; the heat was so incredible, Arthur could feel his skin start to fry. Such a major change to the killing cold that he thought his fingers might fall off.

After a few minutes' defrosting, he decided to turn back. If that pathway led to a cul-de-sac, there would be no return with the growing amounts of magma.

Arthur looked at the time; if he didn't hurry up, he could be here for days... or weeks! Setting off at a run, the boy was blasting the floor with flagrate! as fast as he could chant.Go, go, go... dead end. Turn around. Repeat.