It's been a while since I've eaten food so ravenously. The moment the smell wafted under my nose my stomach clamped and churned and was not satiated until every last morsel was happily sitting in my belly. I don't think I've ever been so hungry in all my existence. In fact, when Zelo first mentioned lunch to me I had to pretend I hadn't heard for fear I would dwell too much on it and expire.

All this time I'd been sat below the window, neatly out of sight. Zelo wouldn't let me anywhere else. He said he didn't want to risk anything.

Zelo had watched me, open-mouthed for the most part. He spent most of his time with chop-sticks half way to his lips as I practically shovelled mine from bowl to mouth. I could hardly dwell on his dumbfounded state, however- I was far too hungry to remember table manners.

I must have drunk gallons. My parched throat wouldn't allow me to stop once I'd started. When my thirst was quenched I felt I might burst. I actually had to lie down on the floor after I was done, hands cradling my tummy.

While I was lying down, Zelo told me I should rest, that it would help me heal faster. I suppose the full stomach aided me in my drowsiness, because I ended up fast asleep.

Although I was in the clutches of unconsciousness, I couldn't help but... feel. It was strange; as if I hadn't quite fallen asleep at all, but I was falling, out of my body and down an endless shaft with no end in sight. I could feel my physical body sinking into the floor, as if the weight of the world was pressing down on me, paralysing me. As I fell, my eyelids became so heavy and my chest so constricted a feeling of numbness consumed me, and as my eyes just wouldn't open, my mind began to produce its own image around me, and I was the most aware that I was dreaming that I had ever been in my life. Usually when I knew, I would snap straight out of it, but my dream persisted and progressively became more vivid.

I was still sinking, and at such a heart-stopping pace I could feel myself start to gasp. Wooden panels of varying size and constitution blurred past me as I began to grapple for the air in front of me, unable to see where I was going as my back and shoulders lead the way down the tunnel, my speed only increasing as I began to panic, eyes watering as my dream became so real around me. I wanted to fight the experience my mind was giving me, but in my imaginary body it all felt so real, the wind created by my perpetual state starting to whistle between my ears and pull at my hair.

I had lost sight of the actual starting point of this ridiculous pit so reminiscent of a mine shaft, but I could tell there was something there, a presence. But it was so serene, and I felt as if it was just watching me go, as if it were simply curious, watching with some kind of expectancy or confidence in me. Even though I couldn't see the top at all, I came to realise the presence was with someone else. They seemed cold and stoic, yet there was something so much more to them. They reminded me of tales of the ocean I'd heard, mysterious and unseen by most in this God forsaken place; maybe it is by this that the Great Sea is so romanticised, talked about with such passion and vigour I sometimes hardly believe what the storytellers are telling me. They were both watching me go, silently and intently, and I slowly realised I had stopped panicking once I'd focussed on them.

My body slowly started to turn in the air, and when I was facing downwards, shoulders dipping and feet trailing above my head, my eyes widened. The mine was slowly losing the wooden border, turning to a terracotta coloured solid soil and widening, the lumpy and deformed tunnel taking a sharp L-shaped turn. My heart leapt into my throat as the floor came crashing towards me, but the suction of the tunnel seemed to pull me right on course and I flew into a huge underground palace.

Palace was the only way to describe the place; the strange clay cavern had four rows of columns to prevent it from collapsing, and was absolutely huge. Geometric and strangely embossed patterns were carved into the two walls at my sides. It was poorly lit, even though huge basins of fire hung from each pillar, presumably filled with oil. The opposite wall was flat to view, but I could tell even at a distance that it was intricately patterned. In the centre, there was a deep indent, framed by what appeared to be sandstone. The alcove was home to an impressively big, extremely rectangular throne of stone.

Even though I knew I was travelling at the same speed, time slowed, and I was hyper aware of the forces being exerted upon me, the slowness of the flickering flames, and the hooded figures who stood either side of the intermittent basins who never batted an eyelid as I sped past them at impossible velocity.

As I looked up, following the direction I was flying in, I saw to my horror that I was headed straight for the throne, and there was definitely no stopping me this time. But now I focussed on the place, I saw there was someone sitting in it.

He sat with his legs crossed, one hand clasped to the end of the throne arm, the other pressing a finger to his chin, elbow resting on the other stone arm. He had a slanted smile to his lips, his dark complexion and smouldering amber-hazel eyes piercing right into my own. He could see me if no-one else could, and he seemed to have been waiting for me. He was dressed almost all in black, attire comprised of extremely expensive beaten leather and tightly woven cloth, shoulders covered by a coarse vermilion fur robe. As I drew closer to him, locked into his blazing eyes, my focus zoned onto him and him alone, all my surroundings blearing around the focal point. He didn't bat an eyelid as I continued hurtling towards him, the way his gaze seemed so hungry and passionate compared to his unmoving body unnerving me.

He appeared to get larger and larger as I got closer, his eyes displaying a strange impatience and something behind which I couldn't quite see, and although I knew we would collide nose-to-nose at this rate our locked eye contact seemed to fog the idea until the very last second. I shrieked in panic but I went straight through him, into the fires of his eyes, and found myself somewhere completely different but gallingly familiar.