8. Escape

Gareth decided to find an exit, he felt that this place was still full of mysteries but staying here may uncover something that was better off not knowing.

His idea was to rule out anything that wouldn't be a potential exit and the first thing that came to mind was those fluctuating space anomalies. Even just thinking about would make him enter panic mode and shiver uncontrollably.

Next to be ruled out was the numerous different sized coloured thread. He had wanted to explore what they do when he discovered an erratic time elemental that moved about snapping those threads.

Each thread snapped caused the bottom half of it to slowly dissolve and a creak as if some ancient ship moved echoed all around the space.

He then saw other elementals began to get frantic moving at speeds unimaginable in human terms, each one either repairing the threads or chasing the abnormal one in efforts to stop it.

What came next made his whole being shudder and cause him to briefly turn hollow and unresponsive. The space rippled and began to tear as a long whisker like part extended out. It was massive and even from 100 of km away it still blotted everything around it, the whisker slowly approached the crazed time elemental. The mere sight made Gareth soul feel like it was being crushed and it could easily remove his presence not only through this lifetime but never reincarnate again and that was from its presence alone.

Gareth never believed in reincarnation but after he felt his soul tremble and he experienced what he felt like his soul being removed from something temporarily. It was like having something always part of you removed. Except this feeling was magnified and affected your past and future selves.

What's worse is that you're unable to recover the part because it was taken with absolute authority and fairness. There was no error, and you were in the wrong and committed it in full conscience of knowing this fact. What was taken from you was fair and reasonable even to the point of being too magnanimous and this was unanimously agreed by everyone without second thought.

Fighting back was like saying that not every living thing should be able to live and breathe. This was what Gareth felt from the mere presence of a single whisker of that being.

The time elemental noticed that huge whisker coming for it and tried to flee but it was like a normal ant trying to escape being covered by a falling mountain. It was pointless and it couldn't even move far as it seemingly collided with an invisible barrier as if to further dampen any attempt to escape.

Without any suspense the whisker gently nudged the shaking elemental and it was lifted gently and pulled into the torn space along with the whisker.

Things turned to normal after the threads were repaired but Gareth didn't recover until a long time, he had even died of old age twice and only his friend kuchi restoring him back to normal helped avert permanent death.

Gareth finally regained his senses and his goal to find the exit only magnified. That terrifying existence was something he dared not imagine nor want to find out. It made this already dangerous space a horrible nightmare.

With new 'renewed' vigorous Gareth found a curtain that had a sense of familiarity to him and without hesitation he jumped through. Kuchi though a bit hesitant on leaving also followed.