Chapter 48: Black Hole (Part 2)

Ethan: "While I'm glad to see that those two are able to think through things, I don't get where this is going at all."

Ethan wears an unexcited face as he hears about the incidents from Sneha.

Ethan: "The whole tomb was devoid of anything useful and the dragon seemed to have been spending most of his time here. It doesn't seem like there is any breakthrough."

Sneha doesn't deny him as those were the exact thoughts of everyone present on the top floor back then as well.

Sneha: "That seemed to be the case, but apparently, was not."

She has been looking down for most of the time and Ethan didn't find anything in the story so far that would lead to her acting like that. So, while suppressing his urge to directly ask the reason for that, he decides to listen to her story chronologically.

Ethan: "So that means you guys actually found something in the tomb, right? Well, please go on."

Sneha: "It was a …"

Ethan: "What?"

Sneha sighed as she said,

Sneha: "Black hole."

For a moment, Ethan was left speechless. 'Black Hole' is something he never expected to hear at a time like this.

Sneha: "When that vampire-like spirit of Sona started tracing the energy out of the room, we followed it. But just as we thought it would go down the stairs, it started … stepping on air."

Ethan: "Whoa! Slow down! Black hole? Stepping on air? Neither of the two makes sense, even with supernatural abilities thrown into the mix."

Sneha nodded and continued with an unchanging expression.

Sneha: "None of us really understood it either but we still followed the spirit in the hopes that it will lead to something. Surprisingly, when we tried to step foot on the path her spirit had walked on, it really felt like there was ground beneath our feet."

Ethan: "So, an invisible floor?"

Sneha: "That should be it, but neither Kais nor I sensed it even though both of us used our methods of reading auras."

Sneha's eyes gaze at Ethan as he starts to wonder what that would mean. Even though he hadn't said anything, Sneha decides to stop talking and letting him think to see if he can come up with an explanation.

Ethan: "So, does this mean that there can be things that can't be detected reading the aura?"

Sneha: "Well, technically, there are a lot of things that don't get detected by reading the aura."

Ethan knows that well. But, he still can't help but ask.

Sneha: "However, aura detects any and all forms of energy, be it psychic, spiritual or something else. So, in this case, none of those things should be responsible for that invisibility."

As her words assured him of the facts he already understood, Ethan formulated a few guesses as to what the reason for that invisibility would have been.

Ethan: "Before you realized that there was invisible floor there, what exactly did you see there?"

Sneha: "Just an empty space. More than half of the top floor is the room in which the coffin was and we thought the rest of the area had been left blank. We didn't pay it much notice at first."

Ethan: "I see. Could it all have been made invisible by some scientific means?"

Sneha: "You know any scientific means to do that?"

Sneha's tone might make it sound like she is mocking Ethan but in actuality, she is not. She is genuinely curious of what he might come up with.

Ethan: "Hmm … I don't."

Ethan closes his eyes while saying so as to admit that wouldn't have been the case.

Ethan: "But in that case, the one other thing I can think of is that the floors didn't really exist in the first place."

Sneha's eyes-widening on that answer as she understands everything of what he means to say and adds to it,

Sneha: "That's it!"

Ethan: "Wait, really!?"

Sneha: "Yeah, that would explain so many things."

She regains some energy in her voice as she states,

Sneha: "It felt like our feet were standing on something solid, which could very well be hardened air and magnetization."

Ethan: "I'm not catching any of that."

After a sigh, he says,

Ethan: "My guess was that somehow the floors are formed when one steps on that part of the air and it seems like you agree that it was what was going on, but how exactly?"

Sneha: "It was the coffin."

Ethan: "The coffin?"

Sneha nods.

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The three people, one mass of energy and one spirit all walked on invisible floors.

Each step made it look like we'd fall, but that didn't happen and henceforth slowly but eventually, we reached the other end of the floor, the wall opposite to the one the room with the coffin is in.

But as we walked on this floor, we didn't realize that removing the coffin's lid had caused the air to harden enough for us to walk on. I knew full well there'd be psychic energy surrounding the coffin so I didn't think much of it when I sensed it. I assume Sneha was the same too. And by doing that, we failed to notice that the psychic energy is causing psychokinesis so that molecules of the air and small solid objects around are lined up and contracted in a way it became capable of being called a floor. As for the reason why they were lined up like this, it was because of magnetism. There were various north poles and south poles here and as their existence was also obvious, none of us paid attention to it either.

While it looks obvious now, none of us thought of it and so, without realizing the how of it, the five of us walked on the hardened air and reached the other end of the floor. And as the first person to reach there, the vampire-like spirit touched the wall and all of a sudden, the tomb started to shake.

Sneha: "What the hell!"

Sona: "Sagzear, what are you doing?"

The spirit looked back at us blankly as if it didn't understand why Sona was yelling at it. Our freaked out selves though were busy trying to get to the wall as fast as we could.

The little girl was the second one to reach the wall, followed by Sneha, Sona and me. During all of that, the tomb kept shaking.

Kais: "Did you figure anything out?"

I asked them as soon as I reached the wall, but they had no luck with it. Although they had tried to investigate the wall, especially the place that Sagzear touched, they found nothing. And the same was the case for me.

Girl: "W-why is the tomb shaking so much?"

She put her hands to her head and squatted down in a very childlike response to the situation. But as if right on cue, the tomb stopped shaking as soon as she did that.

Girl: "U-uh, i-it's over!?"

Relief came upon our faces, a very short-lived one.

Sneha: "Hey, what is that?"

Sneha was the first one to spot it and point it out to us. As I followed her finger, I found a minute black substance floating around in the air. By the time all five of us noticed it; the substance had started to grow larger and had started to exude an attracting force. Furthermore, the force it was exuding was much more than what it should be for something so small.

Seeing all that signs, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what it was.

Sona: "A-a black hole?"

By the time she said that, one of us had already started to fly towards the black hole unable to resist the attracting force. That person was the little girl.

Girl: "AAAAAAAH!!!!"

She cried out as she got sucked in and left the four of us behind. We were left speechless. The first thought that crossed my mind was to use teleportation to get someplace away from the black hole. And as that thought came to my mind, my body started to act on its own without me even agreeing to that approach. But in all honesty, I was glad my subconscious was faster than my conscious in making that decision.

Sona: "Go back!"

Sona ordered so to her spirit, Sagzear, and it disappeared away. But just as that happened, she got sucked in the black hole.

I wanted to help somehow. I wanted to try to save the two of them. But, I realized no matter how much potential anyone says I have, I am not going to be able to suddenly fight against a black hole. However, I didn't teleport away. I was stopped by a voice, a voice I had heard for the first time 12 years ago and the second time a day ago in The Cage.

Abyss: "Don't try to resist it."

Kais: "What!?"

Abyss: "I know it looks dangerous, but you need to let yourself see – the other side of that darkness."

As I heard that, the energy gathered in my body to use teleportation just dissipated away. There was no time to think of anything. I stopped resisting completely. And,

Sneha: "W-what!?"

I saw a shocked expression on Sneha Stone's face as I got sucked in the black hole. But even though it was only for a second, no, much less than a second, I saw the black hole shrinking in size.

And then I got sucked in.

As soon as I did, I tried to look behind me and spotted the little girl and Sona floating with their eyes closed. They seemed to be unconscious. After not seeing Sneha for a while, I realized that she didn't get sucked in.

Kais: "HAH!!!"

That gave me a sigh of relief as I moved my gaze in the darkness. Before I had realized it, my body was floating just like Sona and the girl but I didn't fall unconscious.

Kais: "Just … what in the hell is going on?"

As I posed my question to nobody, somebody answered me.

???: "'What is going on?' What a foolish question to ask?"

The voice was loud but not unpleasant and came from my back. In order to find the source of that voice, I turned back and saw,

???: "What is going on – is what we call the beginning of a dream, a scarlet dream."

I saw my father in that darkness talking to me as if it was natural and my mother was beside him as if standing in the middle of nowhere.

While looking at me, their son, the couple was smiling. However, it wasn't a happy smile, it was a malicious grin.

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