After what felt like half a day, Brian realized that he had somehow transformed into a small octopus.
Eat an octopus, become an octopus?
He began to suspect that he might be in the deep sea.
His current state was very odd.
Aside from his vision, he had no other senses; everything looked as though he was dreaming.
"No, it seems I was already dreaming, probably because I ate that little octopus..."
Full of doubt,
Brian imitated the swimming style of octopuses he had seen before and moved toward the place emanating red light below.
Since there were no other sources of light around, he could only judge the distance to it by the changing size of the red-lit area.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
When the red-lit area expanded to seven or eight times its size, about the size of a soccer field, Brian finally saw more: the surface of the red light was connected by dark protrusions resembling chains, as if they were locking up a giant red gemstone.
Just then,
