Can You Hear Them Calling

Chapter VII

3:47 am

We held on each other's back as we ventured in a straight line, "Just what Reins had said." I mumbled to myself. Limelight continues to illuminate the surroundings while I suddenly felt flight on my feet.

Everything was slowly turning horizontal---then spiral---then straight---then vertical---then into the formless waves of an ocean. The walls of pulsating flesh-like roots disassembled to either form different structures or just levitate in an empty space. I was swept on my feet as the platform that I stood upon hovered elsewhere from where each of their platforms took them, we all were scattered in disarray. 

The sound of grains falling atop each other mixed with the symphony of bashing gigantic machines was beating to the rhythm of a drum. Walls and even the floor itself was bending, malformed, dismantled, and repressed to form uneven shapes and sizes, now reality bent from what seemed like a straight line now turned into a horizontal one---or at least from my perspective, similar to what gravity also did as we either fall to the left, right, and even get pulled to fall upwards.

The platform that I stood upon also scattered like fleeting vermins when touched by light. I fell further below where an emerging wall caught me as it quickly strode upwards. It rose up to be a mighty looking tower of a wall, but what seems like a calm in the storm came to an end as another towering wall was making its way straight for me. It was coming from above.

With no time to waste, I rolled over to the left and fell horrifically from what seems like an endless fall. The two giant towers collided against each other making a loud and enormous scream of pain that sounded nothing that I know off---as if those two towering beasts were alive---but died just now. 

The black wall of unknown content spread and collapsed with a vast scope, reaching my comrades who were far off each other even to me. Dark red juices poured like rain as both towers were gleaming with a red pulsating silver lining. 

It was both a beautiful and horrifying sight to see---just like a dazzling red rose with sharp teeth pointed out its body. I rolled over countless times in air as I continue to descend. A platform that wasn't whole coincidentally caught me as it was flying to the opposite of where gravity was taking me.  

I clenched hard as my nails plunged deep into the roots itself. My chest felt like it tore off as relief and fear both instilled my heart. It flew high up---then suddenly came to a stop, thick red juice drips down on my fingers while I continue to struggle my grip on the small platform. 

One arm embraced the top of the small platform as the other on the bottom similar to those of my feet as my body was on the verge of falling to the abyss that occupied below---or at least to my below for we were all in a very different plane but of the same medium where gravity is as dismantled as this horrid place.

The black iron smiths itself in the cold drench of red liquid that hid in an odorless aroma, together they crumpled like pieces of rolled papers baring no definite shape---just a shadow of its former self yet somehow others remain unrecognizable for what we only know is that they were of walls that hear and the floors which yield.

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3:47 am

After a few cranks here and there, everything finally came to a halt. The beat of my heart still hanged on the verge of falling. From the furthest of my left, their Reins were, deeply below was Xiao, and the farthest from above was Rio. Miraculously---our life was still bounded to us.

Similar to a sheep separated from the herd, we all cower and struggled---for fear now has its thick ropes around our necks with both feet and hands bounded in a tight knot.

Nightmares and desperation plagued our thoughts like a drop of tainted liquid on the ocean of innocense. We knew not but a drop of sense to what this place is but knew a sliver of what this place brings---like a moth to the flame our darker nature overwhelmed the best of us in a snap of a finger. 

"The real path lies in a straight line! The predator is just getting inside our heads!" Reins Vigorously yelled. Straight-line? millions of small black clusters filled the far as the eye could see, as malformed shapes and galore did so too.

None bore sound except for us, the living, but something definitely was deeply bothering me. I felt a gnar that made the hair from the back of my neck stood, it also bore no sound but still reverberated in my ears and in my thoughts. 

I shifted my head from all angles and nothing but black clusters could be found. I pulled myself up the small platform and now cautiously stood atop of it, or so I thought. I realized later that I was standing below it, gravity to me was upside down. 

In my mind---I repeatedly said the word "straight line" but could not find in myself to see what I speak for nothing occupied what was in front of me, not a single stepping stone at the least. None the less, I laid out one foot to the vast space---then suddenly what my eyes could not see nor my mind comprehend was there.

A solid footing was there yet my eyes couldn't tell nor see. I crouched down as I took a closer look. There I saw gentle small and complex bounds of light that spontaneously moved together in a slow phase, the light bounced off each other that made crystal-like tringles of light to form. It was everything that I needed, a small spark of light---amidst the grim and shallow embrace of fear. 

And there you were, my hope.