Chapter VI

3:47 am

Heaven's touch, it's when light lingers softly on bare flesh. It does not bring corrosion nor suffering, only eternal life.

Eternal life---was the life I had and felt through her heartwarming embrace, every time her delicate eyes would meet mine, and whenever my entire being just stood and stop---only to watch her doing anything that comes to her mind.

The day I lost her...was more than just losing her. I lost more than anyone could ever know. I stood and watched their gravestones, the sun finally sets in a flare of golden rays just as we would want it, as the clouds asunder in its overwhelming beauty. Leaves danced as birds sang but all that rang through my ears and shimmered in my sight was a cemetery that had claimed my wife and my son's grave.

I lost the only sun that shined brighter than anything in this world. Heaven's touch isn't eternal life, it's how you spend your limited time with the people that are dearest to you.

The light swallowed me whole, it accepted me as if I was some sort of an offering. I felt its touch, then I heard a heavenly symphony. "It is not your time my little soldier." followed by a whisper that felt like an echo through the ages, "They still need you...they're waiting."

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3:47 am

My eyes dwindled as I see a glimpse of firelight. It was a mere kindle at first then slowly grew in size, it was a campfire and I started to see three silhouettes, tiny glowing limelight floated off the ground making their flight slow and aesthetic. It was almost a glowing orb but was merely a very visible particle. It was matter---pure and succulent, that shimmered in the same dimensional plane.

My feet were wrapped with bandages as did parts of my legs. I partially wore a soldier's uniform with blood staining over it, "Klaus. Schneider?" it was my uniform, then voices rang my eardrums. "Schneider you're awake!"

My eyes widened and I almost jumped off my feet as my lips stretched from cheek to cheek seemingly awkward for me as it is. Lieutenant Xiao, Reins, and captain Rio, they're all here sitting with me by the bonfire. Does my sense of sight trifle over me once more? Does the hell hole that I was magically spat too, continues to run this nightmare? I can't understand...what do you ask of me?

A solid pat by the shoulder pulled me wide awake, my comrades were definitely here---with me at this very moment. I pointed my throat and formed a crushing motion by my hands and that they understood by just mere seconds. But that wasn't the reason why Rio gave me a hard pat, "Thank you." It was boldly sincere and simple at best that manifests perfection and unsaid words that slowly sinks in me like raindrops gliding through the roof.

I gave him the same pat by the shoulder followed by a smile that speaks of "brother" we shared laughter---somehow I felt overwhelming comfort and cheer, "You look like shit. I'm glad you're here." At this very moment---what feels like eternity slowly turns into tamed time. I'm here---we're here, this is real.

They've given me a sit wrap on the current situation so that we were all on the same page. They saw me four days ago when an old wooden door suddenly popped right in front of them with symbolic carvings and that captain Rio himself was magically transported here too not long before me.

He came from the ceiling, where pounds of dirt and thick wooden roots spat him out. Fortunately, Xiao and Reins were there when it all happened and noticed my uniform wrapped in his head.

Xiao and Reins, however, has been here the longest. After what happened at the grove, they were immediately brought here, consider themselves lucky if you ask me. They've been down this place for at least what they describe as, " A very...long...time." and I can definitely see that their hair including facial hair grew long, it seems that you lose all sense of time in a very dark place such as this. Xiao and Reins, has actually aged---a lot.

They describe this place as the "Predator" they've manually counted each second that it took and a total of five hours at least is the remaining time before this contraption shifts again. This all pierced me as if I could feel my heart getting weaker while my body grew wary.

They speak of this place as a damp, moist, and dark place. Here reaches a subzero level of ruthless cold, and sometimes boiling hot. It depends on your fears, anxieties, weaknesses, and your deepest desires. The rooms sometimes even grow pitch black, and even shrinks, it tests you in every way it could. Hence earning the name Predator.

Ever since Rio and I appeared the rooms began to drastically become tougher, but Xiao and Reins got it all figured out. Beside the bonfire were countless patterns and maps drawn on damp and thin papers, rag pieces of cloths, and even on their skins with numbers so that they'll keep track.

Their plan will commence within the next five hours, they speak of a certain path through the compact contraption where it would challenge you the least times, but the most daring none the less.

This place reeks of dead men. I can feel it by the touch of the air. We were in the middle of the contraption that behaved similar to a maze but definitely something that is foreign to me. Black cybernetic chromas serve as the floor, ceiling, columns, and even the walls.

I stared long enough between the cracks of the floor regardless of the glowing limelight that covered almost everything---truly a spectacle amidst the troubling phenomena.

Between its cracks, twitched a pulsating nerve. I gasped and almost leaped back if only I could. I realized that it cluttered everywhere: from the floor to the ceiling and from the ceiling to the walls. It looked like a root, finding its way beneath the cracks but also felt very much alive once touched. It was almost a plague-like scenario.

Everything in this---place, it's completely oozing with disbelief. root-like figures swimming beneath the cracks as some even malformed what it touches: it has a hue of pink flesh that highlights a red pulsating line inside it. The aroma and the structures of this place is none of what we know of, what we see and feel from its malicious deception is only bound to what our tongue limits us.

A black alien-like tech is what this place strived in, mere words that couldn't comprehend what the eyes could catch. From these cracks slowly emerged particles of limelight that hovered up. A matter that certainly lived in another world.

I fear when the roots stop to beat and the particles begin to fade, an everlasting eclipse in this howling abyss where none can see, where the absence of light reigns supreme, where light finally concedes from the eternal battle with darkness.

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3:47 am

I woke up from the slow droplets of what at first felt like water, only to recognize blood seconds later. It came from the cracks at the ceiling and there I started to wonder---whether this "place" is with life.

I sat upright while my chest thumps on its own. Xiao crouched in front of a certain closed entrance in a countless bunch. I hear him murmuring as I slowly limp by, "43, 44, 45,..." while holding four fingers up.

Reins and Rio, on the other hand, sat by the bonfire. They talk of what to expect and how to overcome the coming storm. Pieces of cloth and thin papers scatter around them, "The predator---on this path, is a vile tempest. At first, you would see and think that everything is completely collapsing, but in reality, the path would only be a straight line. Be very careful and tread lightly." He points at his arm where a map on that path is written.

"And everything that would come next will entirely depend on you." Reins pointed out as he exchanges look both for me and Rio. "GET READY! ITS TIME!" Xiao screamed from the top of his lungs while we skedaddle over to him.

This place, vibrated in immense intensity and a sharp reverberating sound crowded our eardrums. I shut both of my ears as I was bent on one knee, it echoes through and within me, I can feel, "it", it's in my bones, beneath my flesh, it sings for me. It shakes the entire ground just by its tremendous sound.

As the ground shook I couldn't help but notice the sound of the walls shifting and turning but still the sound that could break bones and could summon a feeling of great dread demanded my full attention.

Then just like that, it stopped, and countless skyscraping pathways were open with enormous cracks and oozing flesh like roots, as glowing particles continue to scatter all over this place. Slowly we stood, and steadily we exchanged a glance.

I couldn't speak, but most definitely would at the depth of this obscurity. Rio slowly turned his head to Reins, giving him a certain and definite look. "That never happened before..." said Reins, now similar looks were exchanged.

Fear certainly took over our hearts, as a sharp blade were plunged deep, and definitely---was skewered. Steadily I stood, my fingers continue to fumble with each other to prevent it from trembling.

We started to walk in a profile with me being last. Every bit of my existence, every bit of atom in my body couldn't help but to quiver---I can still hear the piercing sound that was no more at the back of my head, it lurks beneath my skin, it lives and breathes behind the facade of me.

As we continue to walk, my hands suddenly pulsated uncontrollably, my lips strummed similar to a guitars string while being played, my body...no, my soul---stiffens, as my head locked making me only look nowhere but forward. I can feel something, staring at me from behind, but every part of me prevents me from looking.

It felt something big, something taller than of a mountain and wider than the ocean. I felt that "It" was false, "It" isn't a thing neither a being nor of the living. There are no words to describe, no feeling that would match what I felt at this very moment.

But still, my mind wandered, what could such obscurity be? I've already lived, felt, heard, and saw such sights filled with malice and also of gleaming astonishment. But what could such anomaly leave me to be as I am right now?

I moved my head only of the slightest motion and immediately I know. I saw. I overwhelmingly felt. Eyes, more than the billions of people on earth combine wouldn't measure to this. All of those eyes stared at me like daggers, a glance that could make the mountains split in half, and even make the oceans as still as stone.

Death never smelled and felt sweeter. I would've never thought that something as this---obscure, would make the fear of death so very little for this anomaly certainly grants exceedingly greater demise, the very meaning of hell can't even compare to what this is.

Tears broke off my eyes as I continue to limp behind them. Religious context sometimes speaks of the devil, but definitely not something like this. Heaven and hell both tremble at its presence. Something much vile than the depths of hell and something much sinister than of the devil.

The anomaly again rang its piercing echoes behind the back of my head, it whispers for me. It calls me.