Chapter 28: [XXVIII] - Compressive Black
The darkness surrounding me was sucking my thoughts in like a void.
Once again, I was drifting into nothingness, being free from any mind weighing worries and sharp things that wanted to hurt me.
There is this intriguing thing that comes from the abyss. It's this energy lifting up your spirits, despite being in a place where nothing material exists. You don't worry about it. You don't bother your mind with the fact you're here. You forget about the things that happened, and led you to the point where you are. It's so serene.
I want to stay here forever.
But as always, after time you don't measure, the calming darkness turns into an unbearable light. There is no escape from it at all.
The light of the time carrying the life onwards.
…
My eyeballs were rapidly moving left and right, as if wanting to catch the last moments of darkness melting in the white surrounding.
But it wasn't the same reverse void I have been in the last time. No one has appeared to call out my name.
There wouldn't be any more hints.
Feeling as if the world around me was spinning, I woke up directly in a bright room, with its snow-white walls screaming to me. The very same I found myself in the last time. But when I expected to feel only fear and anxiety from being here again, I felt an emptiness growing from my heart. Weirdly exhausted… It seemed as if I cut off all the feelings I was gathering up in my head.
I felt nothing.
Being weirdly empty, I wanted to wonder why, but there was this blockade keeping my questions away from the center of wondering. But surprisingly, I would rather not bother guessing why was it like that.
Looking at the fixed lamp, which was in the place of the old one, I destroyed with my mind. I felt nothing. Noticing all the details of the room once again, I felt nothing. Detaching the cords being hooked up to my pale body, I felt nothing. Suspiciously serene, as I would never, yet without my emotions, I felt weak and naked.
In the corners of my awareness, the idea flashed. Did someone drug me?
Feeling dizzy, I barely got up from the hard bed I was put on.
My dry throat called for something cold and liquid to ease its pain, and around, there was nothing in here that could help me.
Standing on my shaking legs, I slowly went out of the bright and hollow room, into the dark corridor I once had gone into. It turned right or left, and I went right the last time. Something told me in my mind that I should go the other way. What would I get from escaping here? There isn't anywhere to go anyways…
I couldn't feel sad. There was a hollow hole inside my chest. There was no anger, fear, nor happiness from finally being in a safe too. How peculiar.
Supporting the walls, I marched into the dark space and went forwards, touching the soft walls with my sensitive fingers.
What am I even counting for? Deep inside of me… what is there to expect in here? Won't all of these people be the ones to use me, like everyone else? What fate will meet me here anyways? Can I…
And the wall in my mind still stood tall and firmly. The nausea getting from the overwhelming hollowness started to show on the outside.
My skin got sweaty, its drops were gradually coming down my warm forehead. I felt this bitterness burning up from my lungs, coming all the way up to my tongue, making my already stiff face grimace from its taste. Like drinking booze, except it lasted a while.
Walking deeper into the maze of corridors, I didn't know which one led where. I randomly took turns, just to find out that the entirety of this place is covered in subtle darkness. The faint contours melting with each other, most door I came upon being closed, there was nothing to be found here.
Weirdly Exhausted, dehydrated, hungry and feeling like crumbled from the inside, I wandered forwards like a zombie.
But I didn't have to wait long to stumble upon someone.
Looking down at the floor, I didn't notice that from behind a corner, a tall and dark person has just walked. And not to anyone's surprise, we both crushed just into each other. However my reflexes were oddly slow too. The world around me seemed like if in a slow-motion movie.
Trying not to fall to the ground by that impact, I supported against the wall with my hands, but struggled greatly as they weren't as controllable as before. The wall felt so far away, despite me touching it, I couldn't feel it at all. It was like if it was made from sand that was crumbling from my touch, escaping my fingers. Feeling nauseous, my knees started to wobble and turn into cotton.
I could feel the gravity making me fall to the floor, but in the last moment, this very person grabbed me and stopped that. The moment he embraced me, I felt a sharp scent of spicy perfumes swirling up in my nose, making me sick. Yet, the feeling of another person, it was surprisingly warm and soft, such a calming presence. I wouldn't feel that in any other situation, if there wasn't something wrong with me.
I just let out a muffled sigh out of my collapsed lungs, and tried to see the one that I have just bumped into.
The one that has caught me, was a very tall man, I could reach up to his neck at most. And it was very pale, almost white, almost glowing despite it being in dark surrounding. His diamond shaped face was decorated with wide, but low lips, turned in an upside-down smile. A narrow nose with a few black moles on it stuck out from the middle of his head. From under his short void black hair, with bangs like cascades of a waterfall, glared at me two inquisitive eyes in the color of the deepest ocean, dark blue, that you could barely see the color. The arched eye brown indicated that my presence here was unexpected. I could barely see any other features in the darkness. Other than the wonder and disorientation growing on this man's face.
"How the hell did you get in here?!" — A low and surprised voice just asked me, with his dark eyes being opened widely.
But the only sound that came out of my mouth sounded like bubbling in the pipes. I couldn't even let any words out of my body. I was truly devastated. What happened to me?
I looked at him with the hollow gaze of mine, trying to somehow get away from the grip that was growing stronger and stronger with every second. I couldn't feel fear for this man. The feeling that made me want to get away from him, was just a need to ease my numbness quickly.
"What a hell of a mess you are. Are you one of those experiments the Doc has been onto lately? Jeez, this man is crossing the line with taking human subjects…" — Frowning his eyebrows, he pushed me away, searching me with his gaze from the bottom to the top. I barely held my balance.
The man noticed that I was wearing a loose white shirt, similar to the ones you wear in the hospitals. With brown messy hair covering most of my face, pale skin which was unusual to my darker complexion, and some bloodstains here and there, coming from the cords I have forcefully detached. Having walked all the way barefoot, I really looked like a runaway case from a looney hospital.
"Damn, what if you have something contagious? I shouldn't touch you. But seeing that you've escaped from his hands, I bet you are something more…"
After researching me with his eyes, he finished:
"Should I put you to sleep, or will you return to him with your own will?"
He let out a quiet laugh and pierced me threateningly with his night sky eyes.
What was that? What did he say?
Something shook up in my insides.
"Y…ou… J-jer…k…" — I barely muttered these words out, as I returned the gaze to the man who turned out to be as hostile as everyone I've met on my way yet.
Supporting myself against the wall behind me, I tried to step back away from this unpleasant man.
"Oh!? You can talk? I thought he has turned you into a zombie, hahaha."
This wasn't funny.
These teasing eyes of his. I was sick of them. I've has enough of any games anyone wanted to play with me. A weak warmness inside of me just sparked up, as I watched the face of this man turn into a wide smirk full of disgust. This warmness was a new feeling. Contempt.
When I felt a faint but sudden comeback of the senses to me, I didn't hesitate to swing my hand at the face of the man above me.
I won't let anyone more humiliate me like that. It's them who made me be in a state like that.
But before my open palm could slap this man's face, he grabbed it robustly and violently pinched my whole body to the wall with his big one. I couldn't even react.
The dim pain passed through my body like an electric current, making me more sick. It all started to come back slowly.
"What was that now, huh?" — His angry face came dangerously close to mine, as he spoke these words lowly.
I could feel his harsh hair touching my forehead, itching me. His warmth was spread all over my face. My body started to shiver a bit. This was the least comfortable I have ever felt. I didn't dare to look him in the eyes. The unsound fright circulated in my mind.
Attempting to harm someone while I'm at my weakest, I never pass on doing before thinking, do I?
"You. Are. A. Lowly. Being. Don't ever dare to touch me in a way you wanted to." — Every word was being spoken louder and louder, coming closer to my ear, with at the end was itching, it being unbearable. It felt suffocating, being caged like I was, without any strength to be let out of it whatsoever. I tried to gasp for the air as I felt there wasn't anymore of it around, only thick abyss filling in my lungs.
His grip on my wrists was tightening, to the point where the pain pinched the bubble of insensibility I was in. It hurt to the point that taking it was unbearable anymore.
The quiet whining was turning into louder screaming, as it felt like my hands were about to fall off, still while this guy's face was just next to mine, sucking me in with his void glare of madness.
"Le-t me… go…" — I tried to talk while his presence still suffocated me.
What is this? Why am I feeling like drowning in the depths, despite being in a mere corridor? This aura surrounding me…
I was hopeless, in an inhuman state.
But just when I thought I wouldn't come out of this with my both hands still attached to my body, I faintly heard dull noises of someone coming fast, close to us. The gasps were really loud, when they finally approached.
"Noctis!!! Let him go right now!!!" — A breathless soft voice ordered somewhere in my quenching awareness. I wondered. Who was it to order someone to leave me…
Am I not an abundant element of this puzzle anyway…?
I wanted to drift away in the hollowness that was surrounding me, but the mysterious person who approached us seemed to have wanted otherwise.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone