The Dreams

Chapter Forty Four

Inside the pathway, Rina realized that she had not opened a direct route to Diyu, but rather a hallway. After a few seconds in a world of darkness and void, she felt her feet touch the floor. She looked around and realized she was in an actual place again. This was not at all what she had expected, even if she did not know what she expected to see.

She tentatively took a step forward. It seemed to be the only thing she could do. The void she had been in was nowhere to be found. There was no going back. She felt a bit guilty even stepping on the floor. The wood was polished to a high sheen and she was sure that she would scuff it and ruin everything.

The walls appeared to be gilded in gold. She felt her heart skip a beat. As afraid as she was to mess up the floor, she felt as though she had to keep to the center of the hallway to avoid brushing up against the walls and damaging it in some way.

The hall was filled with doors. Each one was unique but unlabeled. Her feet moved her forward of their own volition. She passed a door on one side and then on the other.

This was supposed to be Diyu and her gut told her this was not Diyu. The hallway stretched on endlessly as far as she could tell. Her heart skipped a beat. This unexpected hiccup in her plan made her feel trapped even in this vast space. She wished there was at least one other person in sight. She needed to know where she was and there was no sign to even give her a clue now. Nothing she had heard about Diyu sounded like a long, ornate hallway filled with a variety of doors as far as the eye could see.

Walking did not seem to be getting her anywhere. She felt a bit silly thinking like that as walking was usually a pretty good way to get somewhere, even if she did not have a direction in mind.

She stopped. Even if she was moving forward she was getting nowhere. The hallway did not appear to be getting any shorter. The only way out of this hall must be to pick a door.

There were just so many doors. She turned slowly in a circle to observe as many of the doors as she could. Each of the doors was ornate and unique. As far as she could tell there was no connecting theme in either design or color. There had to be a reason for each of them being different. There had to be a reason for this hall to exist at all.

One of these doors had to lead to Diyu. She had been trying to get to Diyu when she ended up here. She had enough faith in her abilities to believe that she could get to Diyu from here. Now she needed to figure out the rest of the way there on her own. She wished she had asked more questions when she had the chance. No one was available to field questions here.

She would never know unless she started opening doors, but a part of her could not shake the thought that she could only open one door. It sounded like the sort of thing that would happen at the climax of a high-stakes movie scene. This hallway obviously had a purpose and it would be pretty unfriendly for its users if that was the case. Another scenario came to mind and she worried that she would be forced to enter whatever door she opened. It seemed like she could think of a dozen reasons to do nothing at all.

She knew nothing good could come from waiting here and hesitating to do anything at all. This place seemed pretty deserted. She could easily imagine being here for hours or even days and never running into another soul.

That notion made her shudder. Souls. Where she was going pretty much everyone would probably be nothing more than souls. She wondered if she would stick out like a sore thumb by being corporeal. The oni she saw appeared to have bodies so there was a chance she would not be the only one there with a physical form, but the idea of being around what would more or less amount to spirits of the dead left her feeling cold and clammy.