Twisted space
François, Paul, Julien, and Altin stood shoulder to shoulder inside the vast warehouse and its eight alleyways. The door had closed behind them, and they could hear no sound.
The warehouse was at least 10 meters tall.
High racks stood on either side of each alleyway.
The roof was covered by patches of glass through which light shone on the room. However, it was only the source of light illuminating the gloomy surrounding.
Inept and dead neon tubs hung from the roof.
At the very entrance of the warehouse, the boys had yet to see any danger. However, they could all feel the danger around them.
"So... what do we do?" Français asked, unsure of how to proceed.
"What do you feel all?" Altin worried about the chilling sensations in the back of his head. The chills were not growing in intensity; they seemed of stable power.
François, Julien, and Paul described their feelings; it appeared that all four felt approximately the same thing with various intensity. Julien had the hardest time of all four evaluating the 5th force.
"That's fortunate. Since we all can feel the presence of the 5th force, then we can work together to avoid the anomalies." François said. He motioned towards the beginning of the 3rd alleyway with calm brown eyes.
"I say we take the shortest path with careful steps. We pause every one or two meters to check that everything is ok."
"Agreed," Altin said, "slow and careful."
"Ok !" Paul nodded too. He seemed the less afraid of the four.
"Um," Julien said. "I'll follow you."
Each alleyway was about three meters wide. There was a rack about 4 meters long on either side of each alleyway. According to the map, they were standing in front of the rack splitting the 4th from the 5th alleyway.
They walked 4 meters to their left and arrived in front of the 3rd alleyway.
In the dim light, it was hard to see far ahead. However, there was nothing of note in front of them.
The boys walked ahead, one step at a time. They walked a meter ahead.
The high and dark racks around them projected shadows all around.
The racks were filled with boxes and packages of various sizes.
Altin asked openly: "Let's stop for a moment. Where do you think we are?"
Julien was quick to reply; he had been thinking about that since he woke up in the detention room. He adjusted his glasses, looked around, and spoke: "It must be like a hangar to store merchandise. A sort of warehouse. Jurgen said he'd drop us at the nearest city... so we must be in the countryside, but no way to tell where exactly."
Altin followed up: "Makes sense. However, why isn't there anybody?"
"Maybe," Julien said, "when the anomalies started here, the entire area was evacuated out of safety."
"So no way to get help, right?" François pondered.
"Probably not..." Julien sadly confirmed. "Um... let's do what he wants for us for now... Do you feel any danger around us? Altin ?"
Altin was the most sensitive to the 5th force, and everyone knew it.
"I feel it is all around us, but not much more than at the entrance where we entered. It is still stable; we should be safe".
The group expressed a soft sigh.
"Let's walk a bit farther, then," François suggested.
They walked two more meters.
They stopped.
Nothing of note.
Two more, again, they stopped—still nothing.
They had passed the first rack.
They walked, again, four more meters, pausing after 2.
They felt like terrified snails. Forced to progress slowly, their anxiety could not be suppressed.
They stopped...
"Hey... Do you see that?" A young boy with mismatching clothes said, his arm raised towards the direction he faced. That was Paul.
In front of them, there appeared to be a dark spot. It was unnaturally dark, even considering that the light was dim and shadowed by the rack.
"This is a light anomaly, maybe even space anomaly," Altin said.
"What do you think we should do, Altin?" François asked.
"We... I'm not sure." Altin didn't know. They could go another way, attempt to cross it, come closer, inspect it, or come closer and turn left or right.
"Altin, we have to rely on you for this decision." Julien pressed him.
"Ok, well... Let's walk till we are close to the anomaly, then turn left.
We continue to stop every so often to inspect our surroundings." Altin proposed.
The boys nodded.
They walked four more meters.
"STOP!" Altin forced the group to a halt. "Wait... I feel confusing chills. Give me a moment."
The dark space was only four meters away now.
Julien pulled out the map; he was the one to have kept the map after Jurgen passed it to them. He also had a pen.
"The storage box with the 'goodies' should be in or after the darkness. What do you feel?"
Altin replied: "I definitively feel a powerful application of the 5th force in front of us... It comes from the ball of darkness. I also feel something to our right... and our left. "
"I do feel something to our right too..." François said. "It feels familiar... Ah! Look at that!" He directed his hand towards the ceiling.
Several storage boxes were floating in the air, making no sound.
The scene felt eery.
"Do you see what I see?" François asked hesitantly.
"Levitating stuff?" Paul suggested.
"Yeah..."
"Gravity must be weird there; let's not go there." It was possible to go from one alleyway to another by slipping through two racks.
"Here, too, there is an anomaly. I think I see a ... body ?" It was the voice of Altin's. He was facing the left direction.
Julien, François, and Paul turned in the same direction. It took a moment for the boys to process what they saw: a charred and burned body, the face mercifully out of view.
François was the first to escape from his stupor, saying: "It... it's still burning from being electrocuted. See those little electric arcs? And the smell?"
"I see..." Julien said, "it seems electric currents are being generated there... Let's call it an Electricity anomaly."
Little by little, the boys looked away.
Gathering his spirits, Julien took a pen and drew the letter "E" at their left, "L" towards them, and "G" at their right. He explained his action while writing on the map: "We need a way to find a safe way to the storage box. I marked E for Electric anomaly, G for gravity anomaly, and L for a light anomaly. I think we shouldn't cross any anomaly if we can help it."
Julien showed the map to everyone:
LEGEND:
=== : VEHICULE, BLOCKED
---- : HERE, ENTRANCE AND EXIT
1 : 1st alleyway
x : storage box
o : current position
From left to right: the alleyways
From bottom to top: the racks
MAP:
______=====______
| | | | | | | | | 7
| | | | | | | | | 6
| | |X| | | | | | 5
| | |L| | | | | | 4
| |E| o |G| | | | | 3
| | | | | | | | | 2
| | | | | | | | | 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
________---________
Julien explained: "I wrote numbers for the alleyway from left to right and numbers for the racks from the bottom to the top. We walked from the 4/5th alleyway to the 3rd, then up to the 3rd rack. "
Woww... awe radiated from François, Paul and Altin. That was smart. They felt their chances increased with such a detailed map and careful method.
"Julien, I love you." François, facing Julien, said with a wide grin. "Good job Julien!" Altin and Paul both congratulated him for coming up with this idea.
Despite not saying so, Paul didn't really put effort into remembering the map. He knew he could leave it to the rest of the boys.
Julien felt a bit of pride, but the gloomy, dark, and lethal dangers around him prevented him from feeling too smug.
They had yet to survive this ordeal.
What if an anomaly had destroyed the storage box with the goodies?
"Thanks, everyone! Let's go back to the 3rd alleyway and 2nd rack.
From there, let's go to the 2nd alleyway. Altin, please continue to lead the way...."
The boys went back as Julien suggested. They stopped a moment at the location (3,2) before walking into the 2nd alleyway by going to the left of the map. They had arrived at (2,2).
Altin focused on scanning the surrounding.
"I only feel something in front of us, but nothing at our right where we came from, nothing to our left and nothing behind," He said,
"Let's go to the 1st alleyway and hope the way is clear to move to the 4th rack.
François, Julien, and Paul nodded.
The four teens walked 4 meters, pausing every two meters.
They arrived at the 4th rack.
Altin had a poor sense of orientation. He wasn't sure what was where. "Julien, can we take a look at the map?" He asked.
"Sure," Julien passed the map. Their location was (1,4). The target storage box was at (3,5).
"Ok, let's slip through between the 4th and the 5th rack to move back into the 2nd alleyway." Altin proposed.
He slowly approached the 2nd alleyway, careful as ever.
He had never forgotten to pay attention to the subtle feelings, particularly if the tingling increased.
As he was slipping to the 2nd alleyway, a cold terror gripped him from head to toe. He felt the same way back when the school's eruption had occurred.
"Stop, stop !" Altin shouted.
His voice reverberated through the hangar.
"What is it ?" François asked, right behind Altin.
"Strong anomaly, right ahead, I think," Altin explained himself.
"Are you sure?" François could hardly feel anything too explicit.
"No, but... let's throw something and see," Altin suggested.
He gripped a small package to his right on the closest shelf and threw it toward the middle of the 2nd alleyway, between the 5th rack and 6th rack.
The box never landed. It seemed to disappear out of thin air with no sound at all.
They couldn't go this way.
"Let's go back to the 1st alleyway..."
The boys went back to the 1st alleyway.
Julien updated the map: "I wrote S for Strong Force where the box disappeared. Here's the updated map:"
LEGEND:
=== : VEHICULE, BLOCKED
---- : HERE, ENTRANCE AND EXIT
1 : 1st alleyway
x : storage box
o : current position
From left to right: the alleyways
From bottom to top: the racks
MAP:
______=====______
| | | | | | | | | 7
| | | | | | | | | 6
| |S|X| | | | | | 5
| | |L| | | | | | 4
| |E| |G| | | | | 3
| | | | | | | | | 2
| | | | | | | | | 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
________---________
"We are at (1,4)," Julien said, showing where they were with the pen. "Let's walk up the 6th rack and turn right. This way, we may circumvent the strong force anomaly."
Altin couldn't help thinking: "What if either way is blocked? What will we do?"
He kept to himself his fears, for he knew that voicing them would only worry his friends more.
The boys walked in silence, close to each other, in the dim light of the diminishing sun.
The sun appeared lower and lower in the sky. It was setting.
The dark racks around them felt like giants watching them with sinister looks.
The boys walked up to the 6th rack and turned left, getting into the 2nd alleyway.
The strong force anomaly was located at their right and ahead of them...
There was darkness. Another dead end, another side of the storage box blocked by the anomaly.
It was the body's instinct to fear the darkness.
They stopped and added this information to the map:
LEGEND:
=== : VEHICULE, BLOCKED
---- : HERE, ENTRANCE AND EXIT
1 : 1st alleyway
x : storage box
o : current position
From left to right: the alleyways
From bottom to top: the racks
MAP:
______=====______
| | | | | | | | | 7
| | |L| | | | | | 6
| |S|X| | | | | | 5
| | |L| | | | | | 4
| |E| |G| | | | | 3
| | | | | | | | | 2
| | | | | | | | | 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
________---________
Only one side of the target storage box remained unexplored: the location (4,5).
They walked carefully and slowly to (4,7).
As they passed through the hall, they saw the heavy door of the hangar entrance. It was closed shut. No escape through it seemed possible.
Unfortunately, they found that (4,6) was blocked by darkness as well...
They circumvented the darkness by the right side of the map and arrived in front of (4,5).
It was the only way to get across the storage box they had yet to verify.
But yet again, the path was also blocked by darkness.
It seemed as if the whole storage box location was surrounded by darkness, except its left side, where a strong anomaly had manifested itself.
Luck was not on their side.
"Julien, have we explored all the possible paths?" François asked.
"Yes," Julien replied. "See the map:"
LEGEND:
=== : VEHICULE, BLOCKED
---- : HERE, ENTRANCE AND EXIT
1 : 1st alleyway
x : storage box
o : current position
From left to right: the alleyways
From bottom to top: the racks
MAP:
______=====______
| | | | | | | | | 7
| | |L| L| | | | | 6
| |S|X| L| | | | | 5
| | |L| L| | | | | 4
| |E| |G| | | | | 3
| | | | | | | | | 2
| | | | | | | | | 1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
________---________
"What do we do ?" Paul asked.
The words seemed to echo in the air.
The teens kept silent.
The hangar continued to darken as the end of the day drew nearer.
"When I became trapped in the dark hole near our school in January, I didn't meet any danger inside... except darkness. Altin was able to find me and exit with me." Paul recounted. "We may be able to cross the darkness."
Altin considered the suggestion. He said: "If it is only as last time, yes, we should be able to find the exit using our senses. It seems doable."
"What if it's more dangerous than last time? What if there is something inside dangerous?" Julien voiced an objection.
Altin argued: "Then we retreat. We are more trained than last time; we can feel danger."
"I vote that we try it, and quickly." François gave his opinon.
"I think we should," Altin said.
"We did it once; we can it twice," Paul reassured.
"Ok..." Julien caved in. He whispered, "Is there no other way...?"
Nobody could find any other way indeed.
A large wall of darkness stood in front of the kids. It was several meters wide and several meters high.
They knew that the "goodies" were behind that wall.
What else awaited them?
For the second time in his life, Altin was forced to enter the darkness for a chance to live and save his friends.
He pictured a beautiful green lawn filled with flowers. The scene calmed him.
He relaxed his breath and reminded himself of his training under Juliette, "Fear not the 5th force; instead, accept it as you inhale air, and guide it as you blow air out of your mouth."
François offered his hand; Altin took it.
Four terrified boys walked towards the darkness in the hope of surviving this ordeal.
They entered.