I feel it

There was no more a way to know which direction to escape the darkness.

Could it be a nightmare?

Altin pinched his nose and blew through it. Unfortunately, the air didn't pass through.

The reality test yielded the result that he wasn't dreaming.

His fear intensified. And so did Paul's.

"Altin, what happened? Why aren't you moving?" Paul asked.

If he could see Altin's face, he wouldn't have asked the question. Altin was terrorized.

Altin couldn't find any word immediately.

"Ah... the rope... I mean... the bag. The backpack. My backpack. It's here. So it means... Paul, I'm sorry. I don't know which way to go anymore."

No outside sound seemed to cross the darkness. The area was eerily silent. Altin could hear his heartbeat. Fast.

Paul took Altin's response as a setback, but he didn't lose hope. "So what do we do now?"

"I don't know..." Altin replied.

And now Paul lost hope.

He had been trapped for a few minutes before Altin, so he knew... it didn't matter which way you came, any way felt like you were going through an endless floor of darkness.

However, Altin had yet to experience it. The latter didn't lose hope right away. He had to try everything.

First thing, he needed to get warmer, or else he would die first of hypothermia. It was cold! Now that the rope lost its usefulness, he put on the clothes and backpack.

"Hey, have you tried using your phone's flashlight? " Altin asked.

"Ahh, no! Let's try it." Paul realized he had been so scared and so focused on finding a way out that he had forgotten that he had his phone at his disposal.

Paul and Altin took their phone and pushed their thumb on their phone to unlock it with their fingerprints.

The phones emitted a satisfying beep, signaling they got unlocked.

But no light came out.

The screen was pitch-blacked.

"Nothing shows up at all," Paul said.

"Same for mine. Just darkness." Altin added. "I think this anomaly is absorbing all light, whatever the source is."

"Yeah..."

"In this case, we must focus on finding a way out."

"Paul, did you find a way any different than the other?" He asked.

"I didn't," Paul answered. "Every way seems to go the same way."

"How long did you try walking in a straight line? Maybe this place is of finite dimensions?" Altin asked in return.

"Not more than one minute, I spent more time walking in a circle, trying to find where I came from," Paul said.

"Paul, if we keep walking in a straight line, even we see nothing, we'll eventually reach a wall or something. That's our exit ticket!" Altin explained.

Paul realized that... indeed, it made sense! Nothing was infinite in size, right? Plus, the dark area didn't look so vast from the outside.

And so, Altin and Paul decided to walk ahead of them, holding each other's wrist not to lose each other.

Altin counted... One second... Two seconds...

Counting helped him to focus on something other than his primitive fear of the dark.

He was trying not to think that there might be something hiding in the dark, observing him.

He was trying hard, but his mind played tricks due to being in total darkness for a few minutes already.

100...101...

There was still no change whatsoever.

He stopped counting.

"Hey, Paul, can you tell me about the latest movie you watched?" Altin thought that the situation would be less scary if they talked of something fun.

"Oh, yeah, it was ..." Paul understood what Altin was trying to do; He was fully supportive of the idea.

Just like that, the two friends talked for a long time about movies.

After an unknown amount of time passed, they eventually resumed being silent while they kept walking.

"We've been walking for a least 15 minutes... I think. But I see nor feel any end to this." Altin thought worryingly.

Fifteen minutes walking in darkness and silence, blind and deaf, was extremely long.

There seemed to have no end in sight to this dark space.

Aktun despaired. He feared being trapped here. He stressed that even walking an hour would not be enough to see the end of it. Still, he refused to give up. He told himself that his friends would miss him. That Mr and Mme Durand would miss him. That he couldn't give up on Paul: he needed to escape, too.

He refused to accept this damned fate of having been trapped in this endless darkness.

And so he became angry. Angry against this fate or whoever arranged it for him.

"DAMN IT!" He screamed. "I CAN'T ACCEPT IT!"

Paul, at his side, silently listened. There was nothing to do, no word to say. Nothing would help.

"WE CAN'T STAY HERE!" One more shout came from Altin.

He then...

... cried.

So did Paul.

The two friends cried together, alone in total darkness. They were losing hope. They cried for a long, long time. They thought of the steps that led them here. They so profoundly regretted even coming. But regrets always come too late, so they had to resign to their fate.

They stopped crying after a long time; Paul sat silently on the ground, talking to himself in a low voice. Altin sat next to him, but he was silent. His eyes were vacant. No conscious thoughts came to him; he had stopped trying to think. He was falling asleep.

Altin's mind was so vacant that he could feel every minute feeling.

He could hear his heartbeat and its lungs breathing in and out;

He could feel his toes and the fine hair on his leg raised due to the cold;

He could smell his sweat: despite walking only not more than 30minutes, for it had taken him all the energy he had. And so he sweated.

He could taste his saliva: he usually wouldn't be able to taste his saliva. But in this state, he could.

He could...

feel what?

He had the feeling - or rather; he thought he felt - a sort of tingling at the back of his head, very roughly where the brain area managing motion was located - the cerebellum. It was the same feeling one may have while feeling extremely excited and relaxed at the same time. It may be the feeling one may feel while watching "ASMR videos."

Whatever it was. It was "something" that wasn't there before.

"I feel it." Altin mused to himself, half awake.

He focused on this feeling.

It disappeared.

He forgot about it.

It came back.

"It's that feeling." He came back to his senses...

But he stopped thinking further or doing anything.

He enjoyed this feeling.

Little by little, it became a little more clear.

"This is it. This is the feeling." Altin took a robust hold of the feeling.

He "listened" to this feeling for a full minute.

He became more and more conscious, but he didn't lose the feeling again thanks to having located where the feeling came from.

"I feel like something is going through my brain... continuously. Like electricity." Altin thought. "I have never felt that before. This is new! Could it be related to this place? Or am I just turning crazy?

"Ok, let's suppose I am not crazy yet.

"This place is special, especially light and space; it's all messed up. Could it be I sense something related to that?"

"Paul! Paul !

"Paul, I need to ask you a serious question," Altin said, his voice tinged with pronounced excitement.

"Um... what's up? You seem... excited ?" Paul spoke, surprised by the tone of Altin.

"Yes. I feel something weird. I want to know if you feel it too. I want you to relax as much as possible and try to feel a tingling sensation in the back of your head. Tell me if you can feel it." Altin explained.

"You're serious ?" Paul was puzzled.

"Dead serious. It may be related to exiting this place." Altin justified.

Paul sensed how serious Altin was.

"If he has hope, then there is hope." He thought.

He began to relax, taking deep breaths.

Then, he focused on feeling every little thing perceived around the back of his head.

Nothing came.

"I don't feel anything."

"Try a few more minutes. It's best if you stop your conscious thoughts. Think of a movie." Altin suggested.

Paul resumed his attempt.

He thought of the movie Lord of the Rings.

He thought about how the hobbits managed to defeat an otherwise unbeatable demon, Sauron.

He thought of the music, and as the theme of the Lord of Rings played, "Concerning Hobbits," it brought him into this universe.

He relaxed and quickly lost the train of his thought.

And then he felt it, an unmistakable tingling in his head like he never felt before.

However, as soon he realized he felt it, he lost grasp of the feeling.

"Altin. I felt it. I'm sure. It disappeared, but I felt it." Paul said.

"Yes! Thank you! We're not crazy right, we feel something, right?" Altin was very excited to hear that; he had nearly believed if he had lost his mind. He continued:

"Paul, let's move. Let's see if we can feel that in other places in this darkness." Altin suggested.

"Agreed."

Altin and Paul started to walk in a random direction.

Then, they stopped and focused on feeling it.

Altin succeeded in a flash, whereas Paul was only able to barely feel anything.

Altin entered an intense state of computation in his mind.

"This is about the same as before... but less intense?" Altin pondered. "I don't know what I feel, but I know I don't feel that outside this place. Here I feel it less. Does it mean I get closer to the exit?"

"Oh my gosh... that's it... I know it. I must be right. That's it!" The realization struck him.

"PAUL! "

Paul jumped, surprised by the shout.

"Paul, I know how to find the exit. Our five senses don't work, but... this feeling, we can use it! We don't feel it outside, right? So doesn't that mean that the less we feel it, the closer we are to the exit?" Altin explained.

"Umm... let me think." Paul focused for a moment. "Yes, I guess. But personally, it's hard for me to feel it in the first place, so I can't say whether it's stronger or weaker here than in other places."

"I can say. Here, it is weaker; I'm sure of it. Call it my sixth sense, but I feel it better and better."

Altin was getting used to the feeling. He felt like a baby who had started to walk; once a baby took the first step, improvements would be quick to follow.

"Paul, follow me. Stay close to me. I have to focus, so please don't talk. Trust me. Ok ?"

"Ok." He agreed.

Altin chose another direction and walked for 5 minutes. Paul followed like his shadow.

Altin focused on the feeling. It was... stronger.

"This direction must be wrong..." Altin thought.

He turned around and walked back in the same direction for the same amount of time.

He had come back to where he was.

He took another direction and walked for the same amount of time;

He stopped again and focused on feeling the tingling.

It was weaker.

"So this direction is correct..." Altin thought.

He smiled. Despite being still in the darkness, he could already imagine light getting closer to him at each minute.

Like that, Altin continuously walked toward a direction where the feeling was the weakest.

It was tough: walking straight didn't work. Instead, he had to walk left and right, as if he was going through a labyrinth. To find every time in the right direction, he had to go through a great number of trials and errors.

The search for the weakest "feeling" lasted for two hours.

Eventually, Altin stopped for a long time.

He couldn't feel anything anymore.

"Altin, you ok? Why did you stop?" Paul asked worryingly.

"I don't feel it anymore." Altin slowly said. "I think we must be very close, but because we are, the feeling is very, very hard to feel. Don't worry; I'm not giving up."

"What if we walk randomly? Maybe we'll exit by chance?" Paul suggested.

"Not if we can not to. Do you remember right after coming, you still couldn't come back by turning back? The directions here... they don't follow the rules we know. It's very easy to walk endlessly. Plus, we didn't see any change when we walked straight for 10 minutes. The exit may not even be a continuous surface like a wall. Instead, what if it was a small area, like the area the black hole took? It's too easy to miss when walking blindly and randomly."

Altin's imagination had been working non-stop since he had starting to feel the strange tingling sensation. He had come up with all these ideas by himself, thanks to his great imagination as a dreamer and thanks to experiencing the "force" causing him the tingling sensation.

"I don't think I can help, but prove you can solve this, and I'll give you my lunch." Paul encouraged Altin to continue. He had already placed all his hopes on him;

Grrrr... Altin's stomach growled at the mention of food.

His friend was ready to give him his lunch? "I absolutely need to escape a.s.a.p., else I'll die of hunger first". Altin mused to himself jokingly. Although he was hungry, he didn't care about lunch at this point. His survival instinct had pushed anything and everything aside so that he could focus the entirety of his willpower on finding a way out.

He...

... sat.

Altin started meditating.

Time passed.

He finally felt the tingling sensation.

It was almost imperceptible.

"Paul, grab my wrist and never let go," Altin instructed.

He did two steps ahead.

The sensation grew more substantial.

He did two steps backward, coming back to where he was.

He did two more steps backward.

The sensation disappeared.

He...

... did one more step backward.

And blinding light shone all around him.

Altin and Paul came out.

In that moment, they forgot to breathe.

They were out, on the ground floor, visibly outside the building. By some magic, they were already out on the open ground.

Behind them.... laid a colossal mass of darkness, englobing the building entirely.

They could hear police sirens rushing to the area.

They could also hear people screaming and running.

So they ran too, for fear they would again be plunged into darkness.

They ran without looking back, filled with adrenaline like never before.

---

At the same moment, the dark silhouette of a woman retracted a camera from a tripod laid in front of her and facing the enormous sphere of darkness ahead. She looked at the picture she had taken. In that picture, two teenagers appeared to be running out of the sphere. One looked around 160cm, while the other was a bit taller.

She raised the phone she was holding in the other hand and said:

"Two kids just exited the sphere."

"That's impossible!". A voice said across the phone.