The beginning

A cloud of sunset orange dust swirls hypnotically across an arid land. As it begins to slowly drift back upon the ground the areas visibility slowly returns, remnants of a recent battle are strewn around. Lifeless body's lying scattered randomly like a child had been feeding them to the birds. Vultures screech overhead as they circle round their newly found feeding ground. The red sandstone stained with the blood of the fallen. Spears, wooden shield and primitive guns lie abandoned with no owners the scorching heat beating down. Wildlife slowly returning to the scene, the battle must have ceased at least a day before whatever today's date is.

An averaged sized young man clicks his pen nib back away and closes the book he was writing in before slipping it back into a pocket. He stands up and brushes the dust off his tattered knee length beige shorts and bloodstained white t-shirt outfit. He runs his hand through his messed mid length black hair become sliding it down his mask. The feeling of cold yet hard flesh. His mask was plain white, the face bearing no expression, yet somehow giving of the impression of apathy. A red serpent curls around the right cheek and finished between the ear and the jaw. A slight crack can be seen beneath what looks somehow like hollowed eye sockets.

Sneezing violently, the young boy sat bolt upright and blinked his eyes furiously. He scrubbed his hazel eyes with the back of a pale hand, white lacy cuffs tickling his nose. He sneezed again.

The view was astounding. Shattered weaponry, blood-lusting birds and a misty cloud of the desert sand engulfed the area in a surreal and artful magnificence. It was like a scene from some epic poem. The apparent devastation and the eerie silence held a majesty quality; fear-invoking and unimaginably horrifying but majestic nonetheless. In the midst of this scene, a young boy sat.

His vision cleared. The boy stood slowly, his legs shaky beneath him. With a distasteful tut, the boy brushed the sand from his grey-striped trousers buckled at the waist and his polished, black shoes. He frowned at the deep red stain running down the inside of his right leg and the rip in his left. They would not be easy to remove. He shook the sand out of his white, ruffled shirt untucked at one side and completed his task with a final sneeze. The boy raised a hand to his nose and withdrew it in horror. He had no nostrils. In fact, the mask convering his face had no holes save for two small eye slits. It held a sorrowful expression and was a deep brown colour, accentuating his long golden curls. He felt his legs gave way and made no attempt to regain balance. He fell to the ground where he remained, running his hands across the slick surface of the mask.

*across the war torn land not to far from the other survivors, a young female lays surrounded by the corpses of soldiers with their blades and other weaponry laid out beside her. Pools of blood slowly seep into the ground around her with it mixes with the earth causing the orange hue to turn a even deeper scarlet. She is dressed in
a flowing skirt that rests below her knees, the colour origanally being a jet black similar to the colours of the forces around her, she also has a shirt buttoned to the top with a similar coloured tie, unknown to her however she also has a fragment of a mask resting at the left side of her forehead, it's colour a faded yellow with it's
impressions yet to appear.

She awakes with a gasp as her eyes snap open, her body shakes violently and a scream is heard echoing though her mind and heart. She rolls over onto her side as she curls into a ball, her nails grasp at her arms so tightly one by one they begin
to puncture the skin, her voice appears frail with it breaking between her tears*

I..I couldn't save them..

*suddenly her right hand releases it's grasp on her arm, it forms a fist shut so tight her knuckles lose shades of it's colour, she throws her fist to the ground in anger, she does it again, over and over her hand falls upon the broken earth it's cracks and splintered surface causing minor cuts and bruising to her delicate hand. She exhales, through her frustration she try's to control herself, she rolls onto her knees and slowly starts to rise to her feet, She appears to be of sound body but as she brushes the dirt off her body her hands move up and run through her hair. she freezes as she feels a rough object covering her brow across the top left side of her face. It barely covers the left side of her face but she now begins to notice it more running her hands over
the surface, she attempts to remove it pulling on the open part of the mask but all it does is cause a sharp searing pain in her head. unsure on what it is for the moment with it not harming her she leaves it. As she panics slightly she makes sure to check the rest of her body for any other odd changes, her small frame hiding a uncommon force to which she was unaware of herself.

Orange stone, now stained red, lives once living now lie un-breathing. A pile of same clothed bodies are heaped upon one and other where they all fell to the orange-red dirt, the way they now rest looks as if they were protecting something. A hand emerges through the corpses, slowly but surely the mountain crumbles and breaks way, in the middle emerges a lady, more of a girl then a lady, also covered in the same clothing. Except her green combat style shorts are shorter then her companions, the black vest like t-shirt a uniform look on all yet hers shows their skirmishes, slashed and torn. As she stands she winces, and looks down to her olive skin to see red, dry red but a wound none the less. Memories, memories are what she seems to be lacking, what happened to her friends she can’t piece together at the moment, but for now she knows she must remember them.

Her green eyes look to what was on her, protecting her, realisation becomes visible only to be replaced by a respectful, mature, and hard look grieving her fallen friends. Pushing the brown bang out of her vision that had suddenly appeared in her range of vision and retuning it to the rest of her short head of hair, her hand comes across something cold to the touch. Something that was once not where it now is. To anyone left with the gift of sight, her mask has the appearance of royal blue colouring with a red rose wilting on one half of it, the rose head next to an eye hole where her emerald eyes are visible.

As the stench of blood somehow forced it's way though the mask and reached him nose he felt his stomach churn and a slight dizzy spell forcing him to return to the rock he previously was mounted upon. The smell was utterly revolting yet somehow familiar, he tries hard to remember any brief moment before what ever event has just happened yet his attempt ends up in nothing more that a thumping headache.

He begins to stand up, swaying slightly at first his legs feeling rather weak. He scans the area around him once attempting to find anything that could give away the slightest hint to the horrors that had occurred. After a while of getting no where he slumps back down upon his rock. The only thing he currently has any familiarity with since his waking up strewn across it.

As he sits there pondering about his awkward predicament a thought enters his mind. Surely if he somehow survived this massacre then there is a slight chance another may have. He straightens up, re cleans himself off after yet another sit in the dirt.

He slowly wanders around the seemingly endless ocean of lifeless body's repeating the same few phrases over and open desperately awaiting a response.

Man - Hello!
Is anyone else alive?
Anyone at all?

As he continues to struggle through this graveyard he stumbles over a semi buried water canister in the sand. He slowly kneels down picking up before realising it was attached to a even more buried man. He jumps back in shock, coincidently snapping the cord attaching it to life body. He brushes off the bulk of the remaining sand. No name could be seen anywhere on it. He shook it slightly and to his surprise a healthy amount of water was in there. He opened to the top and went to take a sip forgetting amount the mask a just knocking them together. Although the splashing water only connecting with the mask a cool refreshed feeling ran through him. Using the remaining part of the cord he tied it the a belt loop and continued his search, repeating his set phrases.

*she glanes around the battleground with the golden sunshine hitting her eyes in full force, she shields her eyes catching what she thinks is a person walking slowly through the battle ground. Her thoughts still hazy and beginning to lose what was once there. she had forgotten why she was angry now, instead there was only confusion. She began to move towards the figure that she believed she saw. Her foot steps were heavy, they dragged across the floor kicking up small dust clouds, he arm raises to her side and rubs her arm, as she continues the image she was chasing dissappears and she falls back down to her knees. She stare out to the distance again looking for a new landmark, one with shade and a water source nearby

Realisation that a lot has changed in a few seconds makes the soldier wary of her surroundings, and the only decision that comes to mind is to scavenge for the essentials. Mumbling an apology to each body she frisks to find desired objects she adds to her belt what she can finds. In the end she is clad in a uniform but with a belt with a first aid kit attached to it, a short bladed dagger sheathed, maps with a note book and pen in a pouch on the back of the belt, a compass and an empty hip flask. The girl stands away from the bodies now feeling more special ops then Lara Croft, the thought of which makes her smile, though hidden behind a blue veil a small glimmer of said smile reaches her eyes for all but a second.

The next thing her training has taught her to decide upon is bury the dead or search for survivors. Looking round she sees the vultures circling closer over head and knows that the bodies once vacated of life will be torn up, yet her vision also picks up on movement among the reddened earth. She calculates that nothing more can be done for her friends and burial would be a waste of valuable energy but something can be done for those that like her are still breathing.

But her mind suddenly rings an alarm, though she is running on adrenaline, before she meets others she must look after her self. Pulling the first aid kit off the belt, and her top up, she examines the damage done. The now bare skin shows a wound roughly a centimetre deep and an inch long, rummaging through the kit she finds antiseptic wipes which to her wound stings, sterile strips to pull the wound closed, a small moan escapes her concealed lips as the pain surges though out the 5’7 body. Once stripped up she places a pad over the wound and tapes it to herself. Once the wound is attended to she looks at a fellow uniformed lady and mutters an apology. Her next motions are of stripping one fallen, as well as her self of their tops and exchanging her top for her comrades. But doesn’t redress the fallen seeing it as a waste of time as the vermin above would only ruin it. Finally sounds return to the earth for her and the wavelengths that reach her highly tuned instruments pick up on yelling, a desire to know that one is not alone and her head turns in the direction from which the wavelengths come from.

(OOC: Sorry sorry sorry sorry! Taken me so long! Sorry sorry sorry sorry!)

The boy looks around at the sound of a man's voice, calling out across the battlefield.
'I do still have ears then.' He thinks and strokes the side of his head, breathing a small sigh. At least, he would have if it weren't for the seamless mask covering his mouth.
'Should I be scared? Why can't I feel anything?' He flexes his arms and bends his legs, trying to relieve the aches in his joints. The boy jumps up, crouches down and cartwheels. He soon stops. Finding he still has control of his body, he returns to studying his mask. The edges of the mask were smooth and he could find no gap between them and his skin. It was if the mask had been designed specifically for him. It extended from his chin to the top of his forehead and from one cheek to the other. No other part of his body seemed to be effected.
He hears the voice call out once more and tries to reply.

Boy - I'm here!

Instead, a barely audio-able, completely indiscernible mumble escaped. The boy tried again and still he could not make a sound. No matter the pitch or the volume he used, the words could not escape through the completeness of the mask.
'Well, this is annoying.'
With a slow and steady pace, he made his way towards the voice. As he walked, he took in his surroundings. The sheer devastation, the carnage and ferocity of war lay around him in every direction. He remembered the stories he'd been told at his father's fireplace. The stories of great battles, victories and defeats, the conquering heroes and the eternal glory that awaited them at the end of their trials. He remembered hearing of the dances and feasts that followed a victory. He remembered loving those stories and the images they wrought in his mind.

Those stories were wrong.

The dead battlefield was not a sight for stories, dances and feasts. This was not some poetic fairytale of love and hate. The boy looked around in stunned awe. A chill flushed down his spine.

I should be scared. I should be terrified.
I don't feel anything. Am I broken?

Not hearing any reply a sinking feeling begins to crush what little of his spirit remained. The feeling of complete solitude seemed very familiar to him. Was I always alone? Why do I feel like this is the norm? He snapped back to reality sharply wake up, who cares why! Just as that thought left his mind a distorted deafening screech echoed around. This is odd, there is nothing, well very little for sound the vibrate off The screech erupted again as he span around attempting to find the source yet there was nothing around him. Deep almost empty black slashes in what can only be described as air seemed to be appearing in several places around the battlefield. Large clawed white hands began to reach out, bleached white arms follow. They begin clasping around the many dead as the man watched with horror.

The teen's instruments were right in picking up a noise, but other then that of a depserate yell for being noticed, something else was audible. Something that didn't sound friendly. Looking around she saw knarled white claws earring from no where and grasping out at those who were passed. Seeing them move closer to her comrades she had a choice to make, help any that still moved, or fight for what was already lost. Her training kicked in and she knew what to do. The moved at a fast pace away fom the arms and jumping over any that got in her path and heading towards anyone else that was still concious.

As she ran she attempted to work out how this had happened. It was weird that she couldn't remember anything before this war happened, or at least what looked like the out come of a war. She tripped up over a hand due to being distracted, and landed hard, scratching up her hand and arm. She jumped up and brushed her self off before setting off at a jog.

*the girl moved through the site of all the bodies in a effort to find any landmarks. Still after all the walking that she had done nothing was to be found, Only the bodies of the dead that still seemed to reach to the horizon. She began to hear a strange sound distant at first but it soon began to fill the area around her untill all she could focus on was this sounds emanating from nowhere.
She began to see different scratchs across the sky all apearing closer and closer towards, she backed away watcing all of these figures reaching out from them unable to see what it was they were doing.
Something trips her up, she falls over, one of the bodies near her had tripped her and she fell to the floor and head hit the floor seeming to daze her. as she looked up a scar seemed to appear meters from her, She froze watching as a pure white hand reached out from the darkness, she looked for anything that it could be attached to but failed to see anything, instead it became apparent that it was picking up the bodies ear her, she saw it grab the same body that she fell over and next it began to reach out for her.
She scrambled backwards as the hand drew closer. She suddenly crys out in anger and fear screaming*

Neranei - Get away from me you freak!!

*Suddenly as her hand wildly flew across in front of her a golden light was released from her hand This light stopped the hand in it's tracks, she didn't question the effect of what the light was or the light itself, She used the time she gained to climb to her feet and run.*

A young man was bent over a body, it his hands digging through the pockets of the fallen solder. He then turned the body over examining the shirt he was wearing. Finding it in better condition then the rest he'd examined, he turns the body over, undoes the buttens and starts to undress the man. In the back ground other bodies lay turned over and appartently searched, one was missing his pants, anothers torso was exposed to the elements, others were not so ovious exploted but had an air of something missing.

He looks up trying to decide where to go next. His vissable eye is an aqua blue color. His other eye is by a blood red masked, with a black mark for where his eye should be. There was blood next to where the mask and skin met, now dried. His hair a light brown was shaggy and just hanged around is face. He stood up slipping a bag over his head and setting it to the ground. It had some food, a cantean, a few other items, and his own clothing. He examined his new find, before slipping it on over his white blood stained shirt and over a sword he carried on his back. His wrists were red and soar from being bound up tightly. He wore deep green cargo pants, that mostly seemed unharmed. Around his waist he had a belt full of items he felt would be useful sometime in the future. He had no shoes as of yet.

He walked through the scorching sand to another body. He started by examining the mans shoes, they were black just like the rest. He sighed and started to untie the laces, when white hands began to raise out and take hold of the bodies around them taking them down. One hand grabbed the body he was at. "HEY!" he shouted, as he struggled to keep the body above ground but failing desporatly. Letting go and falling backwards, he watched the shoes vanish with the body.

He stood up, withdrawing the sword from his back. In the sunlight it glittered a beautiful silver. He stood prepared to fight any of the hands who'd attack him.

The boy jumped as pale, ghastly hands shot from thin air and latched onto the dead bodies strewn across the battlefield. He observed in a mixture of horror and awe as the corpses were gathered and taken by the otherworldly manifestations. They didn't appear selective. Any and all bodies were taken by the... things.

Moving evasively, he continued towards the shouts he heard before. He thought his ears caught the sound of another voice, carried on the wind but whether it existed or not he could not say.
Is this real? Am I asleep in a bed somewhere?

Whilst the young boy speculated on the metaphysical ramifications of the scene, the hands continued in their desperate game of snatch and grab. He stepped over one and ducked beneath another. They didn't appear as interested in him as the dead bodies but that may have been wishful thinking. He avoided them all the same. As a white hand shot in front of him, he leaped to the side and skidded across the sand. With a quick snap of his head, he turned to look at the hand and did a double-take. The hand lay dormant, twitching slightly, buried under a sizeable mound of sand. The boy stood up slowly in shock and stared at the sand.
How?...Did I?...

The sand began to shift as the hand broke free of its burial. With a muffled squeal, the boy quickly turned and continued at a run towards the voices.

As they hand slowly clasped around the ankle of the man the eyes of the mask began to emit a twisted red glow. The very air around the man began to heat up before a spark erupted on the hand, the spark quickly morphed into a flame. A twisted scream that somehow sounded distant yet at the same time close echoed through the tears. The flames shot up the arm swirling around. As another arm began to reach towards him it burst straight into flames the heat. The arm began to bubble under the immense heat and what would be skin on a human began to melt and drip off. As the hand retreated the man flinched in pain the mask began to creep slowly back around his head.

The fire? The pain? The mask? What the hell is going on here?

Man - This is not going to be a good day....

He continued to move about dodging the hands and arms on top of swerving through the bodies.

The girl in what could be an army cadets uniform continued to jog on until something caught her attention. She stopped and looked over at the red glowing thing. She watched if for a while before deciding that yeah something glowing red was never good and took cover so as to avoid more danger then the white arms.
Whilst ducking behind a bunch of oddly piled up bodies she glanced around noting that there were a few others moving, that or arms were now playing with actual bodies. It wasn't long until her attention was drawn back by an arm clawing at the ground in front of her. She stood and headed in another direction not paying attention to anything but the white clawing death-like hands.

He dived to one side as another of the ghastly hands launched its bleach-white fingers at his head, narrowly avoiding their searching claws. With a small front-roll and quick backward glance, he continued running away from the gruesome things. The sand seemed to stir around his feet as he ran. This chilled him more than the hands.
There was no wind.

What is going on?
The boy stopped dead as a shadow moved in the distance ahead. It didn't seem to have the transparent ghoulishness of the hands; in fact, it seemed almost human. He picked up the pace and ran faster, his little legs managing to find footing in the uneven terrain.

As he caught up, he found that he was right; it was another person! A woman. Running in the opposite direction. She was coming up fast. Running straight towards him! The boy slammed on the brakes.

* The woman darts around the corpses in her bid to escape, her footwork being more the enough to move through the torn earth disfigured earth, She felt the smooth unknown fragments on her head grow slightly from earlier, She couldn't figure out how or why it had happened much less what it was, at least now she ruled out shrapnel from ordinary cannon shells.
She ground to a halt and glanced all around her, for all the running that she had just done away from the apperations she appeared to still be in the middle of it all. She began to have her feelings of fear change, they began turning towards anger and frustration, she could not stand to be stuck and rooted in this one area and only run.
All that was in her mind now was simple thoughts and the idea that this could be all that there is everywhere else in her world, this soon made her hate these white things clawing the dead away and made her hate the situation more.
the item on her head began to slowly glow as she looked around at more of the hands appearing, her glow became so bright it was visible for miles around.*

As one of the creepy white hands moved closer to the man, he eligently moved the blade cutting into the hand. The hand shrunk back leaving drops behind it. He felt a cold shiver run down as a shadow appeared behind him. He turned around and jumped just as a hand came down where he was standing. He quickly shifted moving away from the hands.

what is going on here?

The last thing he could remember was being starved by the bodies that lay about a mile behind him, although they were probably gone now. Another the hands started to gather around him. He ducked under two hands as they tried jumping him. He quickly moved as far away from the hands as he could, but all he could find was moving farther way from one the closer he got to another. Getthing irritated and annoyed with the hands. He kicked the sand, and yelled in frustration, "Gahhh! What is going on?!"

He kicked at a hand before stabing at it. He turned around cutting into another, noticing a red glow and what looked like a star shining from the ground. Distracted by the lights a hand was able to grab his leg from behind. A shiving vibe shot up his back and is heart pounded. For the first time sense he was young the surge to run over came him.

He turned and sliced at the hand. A strange squal of pain rang out of his ears and he mindlessly ran away.

Sand flew in every which way as the boy skidded headlong into the women approaching from the other direction. Their legs entangled and the boy ducked as the frightened lady flew head-first over his scrunched up body.

Boy - Sorry!

He tried to shout but the words would not reach beyond his mask. He frown at the muffle attempted mumble, not visibly but underneath the mask, he cringed and blushed a crimson red. The thump of her flailing body hitting the deck resounded noisily in the immediate area, temporarily obscuring the whizzing sounds overhead.
'Whizzing sounds?' He looked up to see shiny silver specks flying through the air and landing in almost strategic positions around the battlefield. The hands seemed to quiver and ebb away as the silver specks began to emit a pale cloud.
'Not clouds.. Gas!' The smoky vapours moved lithely, seeking out creatures to strangle. In a panic, he stood and ran in the opposite direction of the nearest canister and began to sob as another landed two feet in front of him.
'Oh blast...' he thought as darkness clouded his eyes and he descended into unconsciousness.

The smoke covers the battlefiled, engulfing everyone in the fumes. With each breath, their eyes begin to fill heavy and one-by-one, they all succumb to a deep, dreamless sleep.

*The girl wakes startled, she can feel that her head is still disorientated and she can feel how heavy every movement she makes is, more importantly she can feel her heart pulsing as she trys sitting up, after trying and failing to move she rests on her back, she has to shield her eyes from a light that is beaming down upon her, she turns her head to the side in a effort to glance more around her and try and identifies where she is. All she makes out at first is what appears to be another person laying on the ground. Soon however her vision returns, she slowly regains her movements and as she moves and sits up, so does the figure before her. Suddenly she begins to panic farther then she was before, she now knows that she is in fact looking at herself and that all of the other people that she thought were others were in fact herself, looking behind her she sees more reflections, She stumbles to a corner quickly feeling very trapped and alone, her breathing quickens once again as she begins to have a panic attack, she curls into a ball shutting her eyes tightly, The room she is now trapped inside being what feels like her nightmare made real*

The man eyes slowly creep open, whoever hidden under the mask.After the usual disorientation of waking up combined with the unexplained headache subside he a able to slowly visualise the room. His brain immediately begins to act
.... only one light.....one door.....a tiny ventilation shaft...... judging by the shine and level of cleanliness this place was obviously in constant use.

As he continues to note things his attention come to the tiny, hardly visible camera in the corner of the room.

He stares at it.

Man - A perception filter around a highly expensive camera?

So how come I can see through it?

Man - I'll assume you must have a wallet and army to match your level of technological advancement?

He waits, not actually expecting a reply.

Man - Your not any countries army, this is way beyond them? So, you must be a private interest?

He vision remains fixated upon the camera

As the memory of a horrid screech reverberated through his ears, the young man shot up where he was laying, he blinked confusion easily expressed in his visible eye. His instinct told him to be ready to fight, his hand moved to where is weapon normally was. "What the Hell?" he yelled. He could not feeling the hilt or sheath of his blade.

He suddenly realized how uncomfortable he was. He adjusted his position, but it did not help. Great its gone...again he thought. He stretched his back. As he already knew, they blade along his back had been taken Who ever took it is a dead man!

He bothered to look around the room now, finding it to be eerily bland, there was a door... probably locked, a light fixture... Irritatingly bright, and at least half of the walls seemed to be mirrors... probably two-way, and some freak is watching me. He glanced around looking for anything long and hard, but wasn't successful. He groaned and stood up.

Great, I get way just to be caught by someone else. Feeling a bubbling desire he kick one of the walls.

The girl had blacked out when she's hit the floor. It was only when she woke did she feel the pain from a fall and a collision with something or someone. As she moved she felt the muscles and tissues tighten and ache, with each ache she remembered what little she could before blacking out, and from the headach she had... smashing her head on the floor.
White arms, dead bodies in a desert land, a boy running straight at her, colliding with said boy and then landing hard on the floor then nothing... Black. Only to wake here...

It was then then her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room she found herself in, just as the light seemed to be turned on blinding her once more. Her eyes readjusted and she took in more of her surroundings. A plain room, one lone light bulb hanging above her swaying slightly in an invisible breeze, a mirror on one wall which at her guess had to be a two-way mirror and that was it.
The girl stood and saw her reflection for the first time, her face consealed behind the royal blue mask with an intricate design of a rose on one side. It was amazing, beautiful but at the same time, slightly terrorfying. She knew not how the mask had got there, but what she did know was that the mask seemed to have an auror, something that suggested it wasn't a normal mask. Something she's have to play with to find out more about.

*as she still sits in the corner now mumbling to herself she begins
falling into a void that fills her head, all she feels and sees
completely hallow and empty, her eyes glazed over from the whole
situation and the emotions feeling like they were ripped from her.
she begins to lose herself and soon she has no control over herself,
Outside of her mind the tears stop and she becomes quiet, she
slowly stands up, her eyes giving a cold glare as she looks around
the room. she slowly walks round the room with her hand pressed
and running across the surface of the mirrors and the door.
she apply a small amount of force to several spots in the room
mainly passing the time until she can escape.
Suddenly a dull voice escapes the girls lips,despite being this way
it still commands presence*


Neranei - This is getting boring pretty fast guys...

Uhh, how long was I out?

He opens his eyes. Immediately he closes them again as the gentle light plays across his face. He takes a moment to let his eyes adjust and begins coercing his lids to rise. A small ringing sound fills his ears. Their captors, it seems, were not adverse to hitting small children.

The room was not at all as he expected. He'd imagined a dingy cell, little ventilation and filth best left unnamed smeared across the walls. Straw for a bed and a single reinforced door to prevent escape. Perhaps with a rat or three for company. He was mistaken.

He was led inside what appeared to be a tiny ventilation shaft.
He could barely breathe, let alone move! Is this some kind of sick joke?! Raising his head slightly, he looks for the source of light and spots a small grate in front of him. He looks down towards his feet and is just able to make out a similar grate just out of reach. Unable to move, he wiggles around hoping to make enough noise to be heard.