"What are you trying to hide?"

Abhi's words echoed throughout the endless space, shattering the false veil of a cooperative attitude among the two.

Nameless looked up to the sky, a subtle grin appearing on his face. His vision stayed unfocused yet his fist tightened revealing his hidden emotions. "So you don't trust me, huh?"

Abhi didn't answer, nor did he move his piercing gaze on the side of her face.

A few seconds passed and she continued speaking uninterrupted. "Well, everything I said is true. All of that happened, and I was quite lucky indeed. Believing it or not is up to you."

"Oh, I certainly do believe what you said to be the truth."

She tilted her head a little looking at him with the side of her eye. "Then why do you think I am hiding something?"

"Because the most dreadful of the lies are hidden between the truth," he said with a

She giggled a bit before saying, "Guess you caught me. Like they say better to be a smart fella rather than a fart smella-"

The two souls chuckled, and then Abhi continued. "Now's not the time for jokes ya know, weren't you the one who talking about we not having much time left?"

"True, true. So what do you want me to do?"

"What else but tell the full truth? Not some half-baked story but everything you know, I wouldn't want to force anything out of you but your answers might make the difference between life and death."

Nameless turned her eyes and focused on Abhi with a strangely cold gaze. Her quivering lips stopped, turning into a frozen and immovable smile. The words she spoke next sent ripples through dark waters.

"What are you going to do if I say no?"

Abhi didn't reply for a while, his eyes producing a gaze equal to that of the one against him. Then he loudly sighed and replied, "I'd like to hope we won't have to find out."

Both of them continued to stare at each other as they floated atop the dark body of water. No further words were exchanged for a long time, their eyes as unmoving as the eclipsed sun.

After a few minutes of silence, both of them gave in at once and sighed.

"Pointless!" Both exclaimed at once.

Noticing the other person saying the same thing as themselves they let out a small giggle then Nameless said, "Bizzare, isn't it? While stuck in this hell hole, the thing both of us worry about the most is another."

Abhi let go of a heavy breath and unceremoniously relaxed his tense body. Then turning his head to look up to the sky again her said, "Well said, I don't want to waste time on unnecessary arguments either. However, for cooperation, it is necessary to have at least some degree of trust. I'm sure you can understand why I won't trust a stranger's soul in another desolate world. But why do you not trust me? You know me better than almost everyone else knows me due to your 'flashback'."

Nameless tilted her illusory head this time a complicated expression appearing on her face. She said with an even tone, "You can't be serious."

Abhi raised his right brow questioning the sincerity of her reply.

She continued, "You said it yourself, I know you better than almost everyone else in your life. Do you not understand the implications of this sentence? This means that most people in your life don't know you at all. And not just that, but even after such a long time of observing you, I still know next to nothing about you.

"Why are you shrouded in so many mysteries? Why do you not completely open up to anyone at all? What's the mystery behind your relation to Rakvil and Incident 99? Why did you not discuss it with the people you yourself called 'friends'? And why is your body the host to this world and to my soul?"

Abhi intensely squinted his eyes before he slowly said, "Excuse me… My body is the host?"

She scoffed, "Stop acting ignorant. How could you not know that this realm and my soul are contained within your body? What even are you, an alien or a demigod? How does my world connect to yours? And how do both of our worlds connect to this third, hellish one we are in right now? Seriously so many questions, mysteries and doubts surrounding you; how can I possibly trust you?

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Abhi stayed quiet for a long time, a deep frown growing on his lips as his eyebrows scrunched in. He suddenly started to rub his temples, his eyes looking at nothing as if he were deep in thought.

Nameless looked at his state with frustration, then growled at him in a hoarse voice. "What? Do you have nothing to say? Just gonna continue like we are deep in thought now are we?"

Abhi still didn't break out of his reverie, instead, his thoughtful expression intensified even further. After waiting for a few seconds he said "Please tell me why you came to the conclusion on why 'my' body is the host of this world and both of our souls right now. You don't have to trust me, just consider this a deal. A trade of information, you tell me what you know and I'll do the same."

Nameless didn't speak for a moment, observing Abhi without a pause. Then said with a concise tone, "Deal."

…

Nameless embraced herself for everything she was about to reveal to her company. Just arranging all this information was going to be a great task, but carefully nitpicking the information that needed to be revealed and communicating it perfectly was damn near torturous.

"Let's start from the start, from the current knowledge I have it really seems like the portal between the Abyss Dimension and the Nightmare Dimension only appears at random and sucks you into it. But I have a theory that might be able to predict or at least explain the pattern of the portal's appearances." She said in a conversational tone devoid of malice.

Abhi nodded, prompting her to continue.

"I believe there are specific conditions needed to open up a portal."

He raised his right brow and asked, "How, and why so?"

She pursed her lips before saying in a reserved tone. "I believe the changes in this world have something to do with the stability of your mind."

He squinted his eyes in confusion, "Huh?"

"Yes, the first thing I saw in your day's flashback was you getting knocked out by that damn supervisor. And then the scene in your day's flashback reversed, it reversed to the point where you stood in front of the Kolar school building and said… "Big ahh school"."

Abhi stared at her for a second then said, "*Cough* Uhm, I see that's quite interesting. But what's that supposed to do with anything?"

She lingered for a bit then said, "You see, the fact that you had an intense traumatic experience at the start of the flashback gave rise to an irrational theory in my head. What if the scene at the start of the flashback didn't only dictate the beginning of the flashback? But also the appearance of the portal connecting the Nightmare dimension with the Abyss Dimension.

"This was my immediate thought because both the flashback and the appearance of the portal happened almost at the exact same time. What if they were not only tied with correlation but also causation? What if the mere fact of you having a traumatic experience caused the worldly changes in this limbo realm?"

Abhi deeply frowned, strongly creasing his brows he asked with a tone of uncertainty, "That's one hell of a theory. But I don't buy it yet, simply put the sample size is too low for it to be considered empirical. Even if it's hard to believe. My traumatic experience, the start of your flashback and the appearance of the portal could all have happened at once coincidentally.

"Logic in this realm is still beyond our understanding, therefore I ask for more elaboration on your part to see the whole picture. Also, I still don't understand why you are so adamant about my body's relation with this realm either. Could you maybe explain that?"

Nameless sighed, "Yes, I will explain your body's relation with the limbo realm, but I'll save that for later, it's better to go through everything chronologically."

Abhi lingered for a second then nodded, prompting her to continue.

"There is more to my theory than just this example. If this was the only instance, of your mental state causing changes to the limbo realm I wouldn't have even mentioned the theory.

"There is a bit more nuance and proof to that. To begin with; When the scene of reversed time ended in the flashback; the earliest scene in real time was you gazing at the grand school building of Kolar with awe.

"Why is that? If the flashback was supposed to show your entire day, shouldn't the earliest scene be you waking up in the morning?"

Abhi blankly nodded, "Makes sense."

Nameless continued, "Then why did the scene start with you standing in front of the school building? Could it perhaps be related to the state of your mind? Were you feeling especially strong emotions when gazing at the school? And because of these strong emotions, the view of the school got anchored as a starting point for the flashback of your memories."

Abhi continued to stare at the eclipsed sun, his thoughts a mystery. He spent quite a while in silence, gently rubbing his chin and said while being in deep thought, "You might have a point. As you know already, my life has been anything but privileged.

"I have never gone to anything remotely resembling school in my entire life. Education itself was nothing but a distant daydream to me. The only reason I even learned to read and write was because my mother deeply cared about my literacy. So to stand in front of the greatest school in the nation, knowing I was going to be a part of it was a surreal feeling.

"The school building symbolized far more for me than I could put into words. It was the path to a better future and a happy life for me and my mom…

"Perhaps the emotions I felt at that time were more solid than I realized. It's very reasonable to believe my state of mind at that moment could've affected the limbo realm and ended up being the anchor point to the start of your flashback."

The two stayed quiet again. Abhi was engaged in his own thoughts and feelings, and for a bit Namless let him have his moment.

But time didn't stop for anyone—well unless you are in a flashback but still; the danger could be approaching the two of them at any given moment. So it wasn't wise to spend too much time in reverie.

Therefore she finally broke the silence with an audible sigh, "I see, but there is still more to my theory."