Key To My Heart || Slugterra

02| The Discovery of Slugterra

"Alessia!"

A faint familiar voice rang in my ear as I struggled to come back to my senses.

"Alessia, wake up! Please! I need you! Don't bail on me now!"

My eyelids were gradually ascending, and were welcomed by an unfamiliar scene. "Oh thank goodness I thought you were dead!" Mia exclaimed, her head suddenly popped into my view as she pulled me up to a sitting position and gave me a bone-crushing hug.

"Am I now?" I asked as dizziness started to kick in. It took me a few minutes to regain my strength and observe my surroundings.

"Where are we?" I asked, dumbfounded. Under the rocky ceilings, we were surrounded by towering mushrooms that were emitting some sort of cyan radiation. Not a good sign. Animals and plants develop certain colours to warn potential predators, definitely not to attract them. It was very dark, with only the mushrooms and vegetation dimming the land we were on. None of the plants here was known to science. Well, at least not according to our knowledge.

"Are we in a cave?" I wondered, noticing the absence of the sky and light, which adds to the unfamiliarity and eeriness.

"No idea," Mia said as she pulled me up to stand. "But no matter where we are, Hero saved us, again! It transformed into something huge, like an eagle or something, directed the wind of this mysterious place and landed us here gently. Or else we would have fall straight to the ground and die!"

Hero hopped onto my shoulder as I stared at her blankly from her explanation. "What? You're telling me a slug can transform into an eagle and is wise enough to save us?" I asked, giving her an 'are you serious' expression.

"I'm serious!" she exclaimed. "Yeah, and I have a boyfriend," I said, putting on a sarcastic smile. Mia pouted at me, her gaze diverted to Hero.

"Do it again, Hero! Prove to her that I wasn't making up stories!" she said. I looked at Hero and it shrugged cutely, before it started to chirp. Failing to understand what it was trying to say, we moved on from the topic and tried to figure out where on Earth we were.

"This is a great discovery, Alessia! Imagine how rich we can be for discovering this secret cave with all these new species!" Mia exclaimed as dollar signs appeared in her eyes. "We won't have to worry about food and rent every again!"

"That is, if we make it out of here alive," I said, as that thought haunted me.

What if we never make it out of here?

"Well, any ideas on how to go back then?" Mia asked, clearly frightened by the idea of us being stuck here forever.

I took another quick glance around the area. "Enormous bioluminescence mushrooms, rocky ceilings, slugs that apparently can transform into eagles... I reckon we might have travelled back in time, as crazy as it sounds, where everything was much larger? Another theory may be that we travelled to a new dimension...?" I thought aloud as I started to question reality. "What do you think, Mia?"

"No idea. We are biology students, not some astronomy professors," Mia said, not contributing to the discussion at all.

I sighed as I squeezed my mind in search for answers. It was then I noticed the weird empty feeling around my neck. I reached for the necklace, but it wasn't there.

"Wait, my necklace!"

My jaws dropped to the ground. I quickly glanced around the muddy ground, and thankfully, I spotted the metal shining just beside a nearby funny-looking bush. I rushed towards it and dropped to my knees, gently grabbed the necklace off of the ground. Mia let out a huff behind me.