A wide grin appeared on Nameless’s face. Then it moved its hand and pointed it straight up!
Abhi’s eyes followed the direction that was being pointed at. Looking at the unchanging eclipsed sun he narrowed his eyes. Then he looked back down towards his company, his brows furrowing in confusion.
“What are you trying to say?”
The smug grin remained on Nameless’s face as he asked “You know how a solar eclipse works right?”
“I guess the moon covers the sun right?”
“Yup! But what If I told you there is no moon in this world?”
“What?!” Abhi exclaimed with surprise and a hint of ridicule in his tone. “Then how is the sun getting eclipsed?”
Nameless took down his hand and let it rest in the dark water causing ripples to flow outwards. He turned to look into Abhi’s eyes glowing golden eyes and said “The illusory sun in this world, is actually a much smaller replica of the real thing. Not much bigger than a city.
“The moon on the other hand is actually just a completely opaque, black and two-faced circular portal, like a hole in space and time.”
His explanation seemed to have greatly interested Abhi. But Abhi’s brows still stayed furrowed with a deep sense of scepticism. Can anyone really blame him for not believing such crazy revelations though?
His doubt alerted Nameless as well. So before continuing his explanation, Nameless gazed at Abhi’s doubtful face and decided to clear things up a bit. “Haha! I know it’s hard to believe, but trust me I confirmed it myself.”
Abhi’s furrowed brows, The right brow raising to symbolize a feeling of confusion. He then said, “What do you mean you confirmed it yourself?”
“Simple really, I went up there and grabbed it,” Nameless replied with a comical smile on his maw.
Abhi’s lips quivered, almost releasing a laugh. But his actions halted as he realized the sincerity hidden in Nameless’s eyes behind the curtain of a comical smile. Getting back to a calm demeanour he said, “You’re really serious, aren’t you? Either you are a brain-dead bastard spewing lies or somehow actually managed to do what you said you did. I don’t know which of the two is crazier.”
“Haha! It’s not that insane Abhi, you’ll see when I get to that part. But let me finish my story first, We might not have as much time as you may think.” Nameless said, as his smile slightly dimmed and a blank glint took over his eyes.
Before letting him continue Abhi interrupted, “Wait! What do you mean we might not have as much time as I may think? Is there some kind of limit? Or is there some danger around us?” Abhi warily looked around while also maintaining a safe distance from his fellow soul body himself.
“Ahh, you goofy! We really won’t have enough time if you keep interrupting me. Now let me finish for real.” Nameless said with light-hearted infuriation.
“My bad.” Abhi nodded, then shut his mouth to quietly listen.
“I’ll get to how I confirmed the existence of the portal a bit later, that happened at the end of my first visit to this dimension anyway.
“So where was I again? Yes, the portal! This big circular black hole is directly above us, It’s a portal in the true sense of the word. We assumed it to be our moon because it obstructs the light of the illusory sun as both of our physical world moon do.
“What happened was, I probably fell through the Abyss for a certain distance and maybe reached some kind of a special place where this hole/portal exists. Unsurprisingly, the portal led here, I fell through it and ended up in this Nightmare. Both the first time and this time as well, the same thing happened.”
Abhi listened attentively, not making expressions of doubt or interrupting like he previously did.
Nameless continued:
“At first this entire dimension; with the falsely eclipsed sun, and the endless ocean was completely unchanging and homogenous. I spent a lot of time mindlessly swimming around this place to find land; all for nothing at all.
“After being dejected and depressed by my prolonged failure, I gave up and just laid still in the cold water. But to my dismay, I heard a cracking sound and watched as the endless dark water below me started to drain away.”
Abhi’s eyes opened up wide, he trembled and slowly looked down at the ocean floor.
Nameless watched this with a subtle grin then shook himself off of his comical reverie and went back to explaining his experiences.
“The water was quickly being thrown out by two giant cracks that appeared below the ocean floor. So quickly in fact, that the two of these golden glowing cracks started to form two small whirlpools on top of them. Well small at first but they quickly grew as the cracks opened up wider and wider.
“Luckily, The two cracks were situated horizontally in the same line. And there was a great distance between the two. And even more luckily I happened to be in the exact center of the two cracks and two whirlpools. So because of their contradicting currents of equal magnitude; my surrounding area turned into a small safe haven in a sea of chaos.”
Abhi frowned, his eyes still bouncing back and forth between the ocean floor and Nameless’s faintly glowing eyes. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but then finally decided to speak. “Sorry to interrupt, but is this calamity the reason you said we may not have as much time as I think?”
Nameless sighed then answered nonchalantly, “Yes, last time it had happened. It took a long time after I reached the Nightmare Dimension. But who is to say it will take just as long this time around as well? There is no guarantee, it can happen at any time. And realistically there is no trigger to its arrival as far as I know. Well, no discernible trigger at least.”
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Abhi squinted his eyes, itching to ask a question. He ultimately chose not to interrupt, deciding to listen and let Nameless continue speaking.
“That colossal and ever-growing whirlpools weren’t the only threat though. Remember I said the cracks were glowing with golden light right? The more they opened up the more they released this ‘golden light’.
“This light had such divine power it slowly started to warm up this endless freezing dark ocean. If I didn’t move fast, even my safe haven in between the two colossal country-devouring whirlpools wouldn’t mean anything. I would just get cooked by the boiling water or the divine golden light.”
The frown on Abhi’s face grew more and more dire, he finally couldn’t hold in his curiosity and interrupted Nameless to ask a question. “How the hell did you fucking survive?”
“That's the part where I get even luckier! Before the ocean started boiling, another whirlpool formed, exactly below. Interestingly this was somehow upside down haha! At first, it looked like a pillar of light. I thought another crack appeared below me and it was just another type of lethal threat, which was quickly advancing towards me from down below.
“But there was no crack below me, and the pillar of light was actually a pillar of water—or more like a torpedo of water. It probably just looked like a pillar of light because it was reflecting or refracting light from the other two actual pillars of light coming out from the other two actual cracks.
“But this new attack, a presumed curse from fate ended up being a new opportunity—A boon instead. I prayed and left my hands to fate, surprisingly the upside-down whirlpool slapped me towards the eclipsed sun. So my baseless and foolish plan was to try and grab them.
Trying to grab the moon is how I discovered it’s a portal, and looking behind it I realized how comparatively small and close to the ocean’s surface level this world’s sun is compared to the real ones. So yeah pretty confident in saying I confirmed their status”
Abhi shook his head in disbelief and snarled “You’re crazy. No! You really are a crazy bastard you know that right? Well, It ain’t a bad thing to be crazy in a crazy world though I suppose.”
Nameless laughed not taking any offence at Abhi’s comment. He then said “Haha true! To get to the finale of my long story, the water torpedo finally erupted like an aqua volcano and launched me in the air, I grabbed at the portal’s left edge and tried to go in.
“I was thinking maybe there is a bottom to the abyss dimension and the portal is a hole within it. So maybe if I went inside the portal from the Nightmare dimensions and came out to the abyss, I could’ve travelled to its edge and stood on the solid ground of the bottom of the abyssal dimension. Solid ground is all I asked for, but I guess that was too good to be true as well.
“The Abyssal Dimension had no bottom, just endless and eternal darkness with a random portal in a random spot. I was thrown out of the portal and back into the Nightmare dimension, The entire Nightmare dimension then crumbled to the power of the divine light I got vaporized out of existence with it.
“That's the story of my first stay here, very hospitable indeed.”
Both looked into each other’s eyes and stayed quiet for a bit in the amused yet dark atmosphere. Abhi squinted his eyes and looked at nothing while gently rubbing his chin. While in deep thought he looked interesting to Nameless.
“What ya thinkin' about, partner?” Nameless asked casually.
Abhi sighed… “If this world follows the logic of ours then there are some things I’d like to ask and some things I’d like to say,” Abhi said with a serious tone and stern eyes locked onto Nameless. The unrelenting gaze sent a shiver down her spine.
Nameless raised her left brow and asked with a forced casual tone, “Oh is it? Go ahead then spill the tea”
Abhi frowned looking at her for a second then turned to look at the eclipsed sun and said:
“Firstly, you said that you feel through the portal connecting the Abyssal dimension to the Nightmare dimension right? So you directly fell into the dark ocean at unbelievable speeds. Due to the insanely long and continuous fall, you should’ve reached a level of speed where even falling onto water should’ve obliterated your soul body into smithereens.”
Nameless motionlessly stared at Abhi for a second then gulped and said. “True… I guess I didn’t really think about that.”
“Ignoring that, isn’t it a bit weird that a portal randomly appeared at a random spot and randomly led you to the nightmare dimension? Maybe it is random and did happen randomly for you but then both of us are here, appearing in this dimension together at the same time. Coincidence?”
Nameless drew a cold sweat, the cold water of the dark ocean not helping him at all, without even giving him a chance to say anything Abhi continued:
“Secondly, I don’t think you are as lucky as you said you are. Unless you were directly at the maws of the two whirlpools, you would’ve ended up in the centre of the two anyways by just swimming in the opposite direction of the closest whirlpool.
“But you also needed the knowledge and skill to use the force of another whirlpool to pull you towards it, and away from the more immediate one. Not just that, you also needed to stop swimming at the perfect time to not end up going too far in the wrong direction”
Nameless awkwardly scratched the back of his head and said with a quivering smile, “Uhh, I… Uhh, think you are giving me too much credit brother.”
Abhi smirked while looking into Nameless’s fluttering eyes and said, “Oh am I? Maybe I am but that’s not the only example of your competence.”
He looked down at the bottom of the dark ocean for a bit then continued, “Another thing, The pillar of water, or torpedo of water—whatever it was. The upside-down whirlpool wasn’t based on luck either. The contradicting currents of the opposite spinning whirls probably helped create a third—mini-whirlpool. And it ended up being upside down because another form of current was building up in the ocean.
You know warm water is lighter than heavy cold water, right? As the cracks appeared on the ocean floor; the divine golden light was essentially warming up the bottom-most layer of water in the ocean. And because the bottom-most layer got warmer and therefore lighter, the entire layer travelled upwards creating a torrent that ended up flipping the third whirlpool on its head.
Well, that's at least the logical conclusion I can come up with. I’m thinking about how the instances you mentioned align with logic to see if this dimension follows logic itself. And so far I believe it does”
Nameless interrupted Abhi again, he said as his lips continued to quiver: “See I told you I was lucky right? This torpedo has nothing to do with skill.”
Abhi looked back up towards Nameless, then sighed before speaking with a grin; “But as this follows logic, luck cannot be the sole reason for why you were able to take advantage of the water torpedo. You understood what it was and what it could do to help you.
“Not only that but you also had somehow accurately guessed that the eclipsed sun is smaller and closer to the ocean surface than its real-life counterpart. And also planned to try and grab it, your attempt wasn’t as baseless and foolish as you make it out to be.
Everything you did was logical and strategic to the core, the consistent inconsistencies and many missing details suggest something quite unpleasant to me.”
With that, the false sense of friendliness built among the two instantly shattered.
Abhi looked directly into Nameless’s eyes, with an unmistakable threatening potency in his vision. It made Nameless shiver and tremble with fear, he tried to look away but Abhi was ready to break apart the world of tranquillity.
A single sentence came out of his mouth, but it was enough to tip the scales of the secret subtextual negotiation that was going on between the two parties from the very start of their interaction:
“What are you trying to hide?”
………