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tears in her eyes, I didn’t give it another thought.  It was no big deal.  I’d find a way around it by the time I was eighteen. When you’re twelve, eighteen is a lifetime away.  I told myself it didn’t matter.  And I was right, it didn’t.  Until she came back.  Until I looked into those unsettling blue eyes and glimpsed her soul. The day on the beach when she became real, was the day that everything changed. 
                  The roar of the water rushing above me soothed my anxiety, while my inner clock fought to calculate what day of the week it was.  If my math was right, I’d been down here for five days.  I’d spent almost a week in the bowels of the Underworld, as the world above continued to move forward as if I’d never existed.  At the onset of each darkness, I would willingly slip away into catatonic episodes of extreme isolation and pain.  My mind would do its best to convince me that no one would be searching for me.  I told myself everyone had given up, moved on with their lives, and my body had been disposed of in the vast meadows of the sea floor.  Or maybe they would bury it on the Isle with a nice headstone that read:  Here lies Finn Morrison. The worst Prime who ever lived.   My mother would weep with shame, and Stasia would turn her back; unable to bear the evidence of my obvious failure.  She had risked everything for me, only to be repaid with utter defeat. 
                  I had been a fool to think I would protect her by keeping her in the dark; sacrificing my own destiny.  The only thing I had sacrificed was my relationship with the one person that ever mattered to me; my reason for breathing.  I should have known it was never me who was meant to be the hero.  The sand and the sea bowed to her glory; reveling in her presence and soaking up her beauty.  She was destined to surpass all who came before her and touch all those who came after.  I could only hope to stand by and watch as she changed the world.  I would never again underestimate her again.  I would spend the rest of my life proving my love to her.  She was my anything.  She was my everything.  And I’d almost thrown it all away. 
                  When the soft light of each new morning once again filtered through the raging river and down into my cave, my head would clear and I was able to think rationally again.  But the constant back and forth was driving me mad.  I knew my father would not give up until I was found.  The Sons Order would comb the edges of the Earth to find me.  Unfortunately, only a select few could search the Underworld;  and even fewer still would know where to look.  Nadia’s handmade cavern wasn’t represented on any maps, and there were no doors or windows to announce its presence.  I was a dull needle in an underground haystack.
                  A sharp pain ran down my arm and I looked down at the gashes in my skin. Wrapping around my wrists and ankles, I could do nothing against the power of the white vines that were standing in as my chains.  My body wasn’t healing at its normal rapid pace, which meant Nadia had somehow created a vacuum where none of my abilities worked.  I was nothing more than a sitting duck waiting for someone to find me.  Fury shot through my veins and I fought against the vines; twisting and yelling out.  I was angry at myself for getting into this situation.  I was angry at myself for letting Stasia down.  I was angry at the suffocating hollow feeling that my helplessness elicited.
                  With my insufficient reserve of energy depleted, I collapsed back onto the floor in exhaustion. I lay there wallowing in my own despair, and allowed the new and re-opened cuts on my arms and legs to bleed out.  Pain had become a welcome companion.  It was the only thing that reminded me I was still alive.  It was simply an extension of the overwhelming agony I harbored within -- an