When she opened her eyes, Jessica found herself in a bricked hall. To one side was a series of stairs that went up a small flight of stairs before turning in a different direction. On the other side was a long hall that stretched out beyond her sight. As she looked around, she didn’t see the boy. Only at this moment did she notice that one of the walls right next to the stairs was not made with brick, but had the same rough texture as the rest of the laboratory.
“What is this place?” She had just woken up, however she didn’t have much energy. The little she did have, she didn’t want to waste. Without thinking, she sent her thoughts to the ball of energy inside her arm. To be honest, she didn’t expect a reply. Every time she had talked to the boy, it was always through speaking openly.
Strangely enough, she did receive a reply, “It doesn’t matter. Right now, you just need to listen. In a moment, I am going to ask that you do something for me. For now, I just need you to listen to me. I said before, you’re going to need to think for yourself. But right now we don’t have that luxury. Now, I scouted ahead and found a way for you to escape. All you need to do is listen to me. Can you do it?”
She wasn’t completely awake, still, once she heard the deadpan emotions combined with his words, she felt more awake almost instantly. She couldn’t explain the reason, the emotions transferred to her were raw in a sense. It wasn’t the same as emotions being shared between two people. She had an inkling that the two of them bound by soul could hide their emotions to a certain level, and if she was right, they couldn’t fake emotions.
This raw emotion was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Not even the old man had this type of feeling when he interacted with her. He, even when angry, always had a firm type of affection or caring that was hidden in his eyes that she had never seen disappear when looking at her once. Even when he was angry, it was always body language. But the boy didn’t have a body.
Unsure of how it worked. The ball of energy, if she wasn’t mistaken, was the boy’s soul. There was no body language, and the only thing she could feel was raw emotions that couldn’t be hidden. As if she had a dictionary and a bright and open set of windows into his eyes. She was of a firm belief that if one was skilled enough, they could read the true emotions of a person from their eyes. It was the things the old man had hammered into her from the beginning.
While it always held true it didn’t mean this was a simple or easy to learn skill, in fact, after making sure the theory stuck, the old man went back on his word and told her not to trust it. Before she could get confused, he explained that she was simply too young to be able to use it as definitive proof. But if she continuously paid attention, she would be able to in the future use it to gain a deeper level of understanding into a person and their true feelings.
Jessica did exactly that. While on unimportant matters, she would often try to train this method. She failed a lot, but as she continued to do it, she started to get to a deeper level. The problem arose when she used it or failed to realize the seriousness of a situation and failed to understand the deeper meaning. There was a type of feeling that the eyes gave off.
Probably wouldn’t be in any decade soon, and yet, every so often when she trained this method she would get it right and could see a deeper level of the true self of people around her. It was the same type of feeling she got when she communicated with the boy. Tired as she was, she didn’t try to pick apart his words. So maybe that was why she could feel all the emotions instead of just picking up on the largest emotions being involved in the decision for those chosen words.
Without the many facades a person had, without the energy to peel away the important bits, she was given a front row seat to something she was not ready for. His words were serious, so serious in fact that it gave her a deeper level of understanding how fucked she was. There was a gentleness in his words that matched the words he spoke before that helped her feel less on edge, as if meaning to soothe her.
But deep under that, in a layer that was at the very center of that ball of energy, were the emotions she had felt in the mark near the door. No matter how hard he tried to bury it, she could still feel it. Without any way to stop it, with her focusing solely on his words, she could feel the carelessness hidden deep inside the boy that he was trying to not let bleed through.
From the first time, she got into contact with him and conversed. He had never tried to be nice or hide much of his true emotions. He was rude and argumentative. Only now he was showing so more care. But it couldn’t hide the fact he probably calculated her odds of getting out of here alive to be, not so good. The carelessness was not directed at her as a person, but the fact that she was close to dying if the situation didn’t improve soon. It was very small, yet, she could feel just a tiny hint of helplessness. Or she was simply too tired and simply imagined it.
Jessica didn’t have a way to know, she could only follow his words as she tried to stand. She didn’t have any problems, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to last long. As instructed, she took out the water bottle and savored the last of the bottle. Without waiting for her to finish savoring the taste of the last of the water, he ordered her to go through the wall.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Unlike the first time, he was chanting it like a mantra, “The wall is fake, like an illusion you just need to walk through it, and it won’t be able to stop you.”
As she listened she didn’t have the strength to waste so she only pushed her hand forward a bit from her side as it made contact with the wall briefly as she focused on the boy's voice. Without any distracting thoughts, she walked through the wall with her eyes closed. The instant she made it through the walls, she had the feeling that this was practiced. At the very least, it made her feel he had planned this ahead of time. It caused her to wonder if he purposefully made her angry to force her into a situation where she reached this point so as to allow her an easier time through the first wall.
“Good job, you can open your eyes again. From here on out, I am going to give you a few orders before I ask you to run with all your strength. No point in arguing, as it will only waste strength. If you can’t trust me it means you will die, because you already used the last of your water, you now have no choice.”
She couldn’t help but pause slightly. Even if it wasn’t meant to be malicious, he didn’t hide the heartlessness in his words. But he was right, for the time being she had no choice but to continue to listen to him.
“Now you’re going to go down the left corridor. You need to put your arm on the left wall and stay within two steps from the wall. You’re going to take three steps.”
She hesitated for a moment but could feel her energy quickly draining from just standing. She didn’t have much mana left, as she needed to use it to move the day before to make it through the passageway. Before that, she had used the majority of her mana on trying to bring the injury in her arm to an acceptable level. Now she felt rather regretful of that action, but there was nothing she could do about that now.
With the first step, she paused slightly before, nothing happened. Taking the second step, she still didn’t feel anything. But on the third step she was very nervous, to make matters worse as she was starting to lower her foot she felt a burst of mana from the boy leak from her body before filling the side of the hall with it. Quickly, she heard an audible click as she heard something cutting through the air. She stumbled slightly as she wanted to stop, but ended up taking the third step.
Very quickly, a sound cut through the air next to her as she heard a loud explosion as something metal made contact with the floor or wall. She felt her body lose all strength as she was about to collapse, “Run!”
It was very loud, she paused slightly as she felt no energy at all. And the next second she picked herself up and started to run as the boy’s mana once again exploded out around her. She felt like her heart was going to explode as she felt a huge wave of energy that seemed to come from her brush with danger. After the first, there wasn’t any other sound besides her heavy thumping steps and her panting.
When she reached the crossroad right before she was about to stop, the boy’s mana continued to explode as he spoke out, “Turn right, don’t stop or slow down. Once you stop, the adrenaline will fade, and I won’t be able to last to get you out of here. If you want to live, you need to run with all your might.”
Little other choice, she didn’t hesitate this time. Down the second hall she went straight. Right, straight, left, straight… After seven more halls, she turned one last time. She could barely breathe as her heart felt like it was about to give out. Her legs were gone, and even she wasn’t sure how she was still able to run. Since the first trap, she had not heard another trap in any fashion. “I…”
“Shut up! Talking will waste energy, and you won’t make it.” She was within three steps of the crossroad waiting for the next direction, only there was a difference in his voice. The boy sounded exhausted, “Dive! You need to dive or you will die.”
Her chest was the last thing she felt. From the beating of her heart to the feeling as if her lungs were about to rip from her extensive breathing. Even her throat felt dry. Her entire torso felt like it was on fire. Even with all that heat, she could feel her clothes starting to stick tightly to her body. With the last of her strength, she dove forward. She didn’t hear another trap.
Slamming hard into the ground, she could feel it extremely roughly. She wanted to scream but opening her mouth all that came out was air as her lungs continued to expand and contract without giving her any time to do anything but gasp for breath. Still in motion, she heard another crashing sound that she was unsure of its origin. The sound was different from normal. Once she stopped rolling, she finally came to a stop as she could feel parts of her skin on her arms and legs were likely torn from the skidding and rolling.
But she didn’t care, there was pain all over her body. It wasn’t a bad feeling as while it hurt, it made sure she knew she was still alive. Sitting up weakly, she was stunned to see a hand next to her. She had to pause, after checking, she noticed the hand was dry. She looked around before looking behind her. Her backpack had been torn in half as the contents inside regardless of which pocket were scattered on the ground.
As she looked around, she saw a familiar set of doors. She wanted to ask, but all she could do was pant to endlessly try to fruitlessly catch her breath. Having just woken up, she was surprised to feel drowsiness sneaking its way back. If she had to guess, she couldn’t imagine it had even been ten minutes, and yet all her energy was already sapped from her.
“If you want to live, you need to push pass those doors.” She wasn’t alone as she had an invasion of foreign words alongside a completely exhausted feeling that invaded her head as they were transferred to her from the mark in her arm. Since she was still alive, she couldn’t help but subconsciously push on the doors with all her might. The doors weren’t completely closed, if she was right, this was the room she fell from. And yet, just trying to push the doors open enough to slip in was troubling.
With a final push, she was able to pop her head through the crack that was created and sure enough she saw the shadow of weapons and other objects in the distance. Once she saw this, she had a few thoughts pop into her head, alas they quickly faded. She barely pushed herself through before she found herself getting weaker by the second. Without being able to explore, her head hit the ground as she was losing strength. It wasn’t hard and only encouraged her to close her eyes faster.