Frozen Tears (OC x Stardew Valley Sebastian)

8- The Mines

As soon as my feet hit the floor of the first level, I look around me. Lanterns light the walls and there's rocks everywhere. No monsters to be seen. I sigh a breath of relief and get to work.

I use my pickaxe to break rocks which starts to tire me out easily. The action of heaving the pickaxe over my shoulder and then down onto the rock is exhausting, and so I don't know how far down I'll be able to go today.

I'm surprised to find that as of right now, on level one, I'm not feeling too claustrophobic. I've never really had the opportunity to spend a lot of time underground- or any time at all, really- and I'm reacting better than I'd ever expect. Even not underground, small spaces scare me. When I was young, I accidentally locked myself in the closet of my dad and I's apartment. I had to wait for my dad to get home to be let out— that was 4 hours after I got stuck. Since then, just the thought of being in such a small space gives me shivers.

As I break the rocks, they fly into my backpack as though they were magnets. This is the type of thing I would definitely find weird under any other circumstance, but seeing as it means I don't need to pick up each rock individually, I'll let it slide. I can always freak out about it later.

Eventually, after I've broken almost every rock on this floor, a ladder is exposed from underneath a rock. Excitedly, I slip my pickaxe into my backpack and climb down.

This time, I'm not so lucky with the amount of monsters in the cave.

I see some type of giant bug fly from one edge of the cave to the other side, in a straight line. It doesn't seem to notice me. Farther down, I see a bouncing green slime thing, and it doesn't seem to notice me either. It has eyes. My heart starts to pound hard as I carefully slide my sword out of my backpack.

It feels awkward in my hands at first, so I practice swinging it a few times. It swooshes through the air and I feel... powerful. Like my life is, for the first time, in my own hands, and mine alone. No pun intended, but pun accepted.

I smile and force my dry throat to swallow. I take a deep breath, and position myself to hit the big bug. As I exhale, I swing.

It makes a gross splurty sound and moves back, but doesn't come to attack me. I swing once more, and once again there's a splurty sound, but this time it disappears. The only evidence that it was ever even here is a little pile of pink bug meat. Yuck.

The meat, too, flies into my backpack. I guess that's just how it works.

Filled with a new confidence, I break some more rocks. I collect a few copper ores and a few pieces of coal. Another ladder appears.

Should I kill the slime first or just go straight down? I'm sure I'll have to kill a slime eventually, but they're a little scarier than the bugs...

I decide to go straight down.

Welp, so much for not killing a slime yet.

A green slime stands right by the ladder and I am surrounded by rocks so I can't escape.

Without any time to think, I frantically swing my sword at it. But I miss.

It jumps into me, causing me to slam against the wall behind me. Ouch!

I swing again, and this time I hit it. Before being hit again, I keep swinging, hearing the nasty squishy sound it makes. Scared, I close my eyes and keep swinging.

Finally, there's a loud squish sound, and I open my eyes. It, too, has vanished, and leaves only a pile of slime. I collect it.

I let out a shaky breath. I can't believe I just did that. Suddenly, the back of my arm starts stinging. I turn my arm to look at the back of it and realize it is bleeding. It looks to have been bleeding for a little while, but I guess I was too full of adrenaline to notice. It doesn't hurt too bad and the scrape isn't too large, so I suppose it's just best to ignore it.

I pull my pickaxe back out and break the rocks around me. I see a stone full of copper and break it to gather more.

I repeat this process over and over. I kill slimes and flying bugs and weird little larvae that, I learned if I don't kill fast enough, mutate into flies within seconds. If I'm really serious about heading into the mines, I am going to need a sharper sword. I wonder if there's armor I could get...?

At level five, I heard a ding. To my right, the elevator doors opened with a little vshoom. This is definitely more convenient.

Even though I'm slowly getting used to swinging my sword and killing monsters, I do sometimes get hit first. I've got scrapes on the back of my arms and I'm bleeding somewhere near my ear. My shin has a big bruise forming and it's sore to touch. I may be dealing out plenty of beatings, but I'd be lying to say I wasn't getting beaten up more. I don't know how much more of this I can take before it'll just be best to head home. At least now I've got the elevator and don't have to climb up a million layers of ladders. Well, as of right now, it would only be about eleven layers of ladders, but with all of my injuries, it would hurt like hell and feel nothing short of a million layers.

Checking my watch, I see it's about 10pm. I probably should head back soon. Maybe I could try to get to floor fifteen before heading back up so I can take the elevator.

In my backpack, I've got a good amount of coal, iron ore, and stones. This is an accomplishment. Hooray.

Yawning, I pull my pickaxe back out and heave it over my shoulder. It comes flying down with a crash, and lucky enough, the ladder appears from beneath it.

On floor twelve, I kill three slimes and two little duggies that pop up from beneath my feet. They are not fun. Once I kill a fourth slime, a ladder in the ground appears on the place where I killed it. Yet again, it's something that I will freak out about later.

I climb down the ladder despite my shoulders aching. This floor, however, is different, and as I figure it out, I feel my heart drop into my stomach.

This floor is infested with slimes.

The walls are all covered in a thick green goo, and while I don't see any slimes just yet, I'm certain that when I turn the corner there will be plenty waiting for me. I believe in my ability to defend myself, but I'm already hurt. Climbing up all the ladders would only hurt me more and once I activate the level fifteen elevator, it would be permanently activated and I wouldn't need to come to this floor again.

Despite my body practically begging for me to stop, I decide it's best to keep moving forward. Or, rather, down, I guess.

Slowly with my shaky hands gripping my sword, I tread forward. My feet slosh in the slime and I hold back a gag. In front of me, there's a path that goes straight down, and to my right, another path. I can't see any slimes, but I hear their sloshing coming from both directions.

With a hesitation and a quick brushing of my sweaty palms on my pants, I head to the path on the right.

Bad choice.

Immediately, before I can even think about turning around, I'm absolutely surrounded from all angles by green gooey slimes. Frantically, I swing my sword at them.

I hit one and it bounces back, but as I'm recovering, another slime slams me into the wall. A sharp pain comes from the back of my head.

Without hesitation or aim, I swing blindly. I feel some sort of pressure on the blade, meaning I hit at least one. But one hits me back and my sword flies out of my hands.

Quickly I pull my sword back up to hit another slime, but it springs towards me. Again, I am slammed into the wall. My body forcefully shoves through any goo behind me and I'm slammed into the rocks. My left ear starts ringing. At this point, I can't help it— my eyes start filling up with tears. I'm not sure if it's from pain or fear.

Before I'm even able to swing again, two slimes crash into me and I'm thrown off balance. My feet trip over each other and I'm face down into the slime on the floor. I gag.

I try to sit up and am struck down. My head aches, my back and arms and legs burn and my ears ring. They pelt me over and over until I can only see fuzz in my eyes.

I think they're still hitting me, but I can't tell any more. I'm just so dizzy... and tired...

Everything fades into black.