Mysterious voice

In the middle of one of the corridors of the castle, Nathan heard a distant voice as his consciousness slowly began to clear.

"...Hey ...Hey!"

Nathan tried to move his body with some difficulty, he felt all his limbs numb and could barely open his eyelids slightly to look around.

"Get up!"

Nathan heard a female voice shouting in his ear, but it took him a couple of seconds to react.

He turned his head to look at Lynn who was still yelling in his ear. But it didn't take him long to realize that the young woman was still sleeping a few feet away from him.

"What?"

"Can you hear me?!"

Nathan put his hand to his head as he heard a voice scream in his ears. He looked around but no one was there, so he frowned and groaned from the discomfort he still felt.

"Who?"

He began to worry that an invisible calamity was stalking him, then he heard the voice in his head again.

"You think I'm a monster! You soulless bastard!"

Nathan had just woken up, and with the voice constantly screaming in his head he was starting to get a migraine, then he couldn't take it anymore and screamed.

"Shut up, you're talking too loud!"

Then the strange voice was silent for a while before speaking again.

"Do you...do you hear me?"

Nathan frowned, now that they were both calmer, he was able to think properly.

'Why do I hear a voice in my head?'

Nathan didn't know what happened after he had fallen asleep, so he checked his body to see if he had some kind of injury, maybe a concussion or something that made him hear voices. But then he heard the voice softly again.

"Then you can hear me"

Nathan noticed how the voice sounded somehow... sad and lonely. So, he asked again.

"Who are you?"

The voice went silent again, and a few seconds later Nathan heard it emit soft moans, as if it were crying.

As the voice cried, Nathan felt a slight pressure on his wrist and looked down at his forearm, only to see a silver bracelet clenched tightly around his wrist.

"What?"

Nathan recognized it immediately, it was the bracelet the ghoul had been wearing. He vaguely remembered grabbing the bracelet before he fell asleep, but he didn't remember putting it on.

Nathan tried to take it off, but at that moment he heard the voice shout.

"Don't take it off!"

Nathan stopped and didn't take it off at the voice's request, but he frowned cautiously.

"Answer me. Who are you and why are you in my head?"

The voice was quiet again and answered almost in a whisper.

"I... I don't know"

Nathan frowned even more.

"You don't know?" He made some force on the bracelet threatening to take it off.

"No, wait! I really don't know! It's been so long that my mind erased those memories"

Nathan didn't understand anything the voice was saying, but something else was bothering him.

"There are supposed to be no humans in the realms, no life apart from calamities. Besides you claim not to be one... So, what are you?"

The voice again took a few seconds to answer.

"That... I don't know either"

Nathan threatened again to take off his bracelet, then the voice spoke again.

"Wait! I... I can't remember anything. But I know I will at some point! ...Just don't leave me alone"

Nathan frowned slightly, he really didn't trust the strange voice in his head. It could be the trick of a calamity slowly trying to eat his brain. Maybe it had become the real thing and he was hearing voices that didn't exist.

The voice remained silent but gave a slight groan as he heard Nathan's thoughts denying their existence.

On second thought, Nathan didn't remove the bracelet, instead he tried to bring some essence to it and surprisingly it accepted his essence.

'So, it's a relic?'

However, Nathan immediately stopped sending essence to the bracelet as he felt all the essence, he had retrieved in his sleep being quickly swallowed up by the bracelet.

He felt slightly dizzy, then the voice spoke again.

"What did you do?"

Nathan frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"What you just did... it felt somehow soothing" the voice said with some reassurance.

'Did it feel my essence?'

Nathan couldn't help but question what kind of relic he had gotten. As he understood it, the stronger and more powerful a relic was, the more essence it would use. That was why those who were in the first rank, even second rank, were most of the time not able to use very strong relics, as their essence reserves were too low.

Although that was for most people, people like Syril, Maya and some other third rank cadets Nathan knew had more essence than normal. But that didn't apply to him, who had only been using essence for a few months, so his essence pool was limited.

"Can you do it again?"

Nathan sighed and slowly stood up.

"No if I don't want to pass out"

"Well..." the voice said with some regret.

Nathan walked over to Lynn and crouched down in front of her before moving his body in an attempt to wake her up. But no matter how much he moved her, Lynn didn't wake up. She seemed to be much deeper asleep than Nathan before.

Thinking about it, Nathan looked around, but there were no windows nearby, so he could not see the sky to guess how many hours she had slept.

The voice spoke again.

"You slept for about 5 hours"

Nathan looked at the bracelet with some annoyance.

"Thank you for the information, but I would appreciate it if you don't read my thoughts"

"...Sorry" the voice replied with some embarrassment.

Nathan picked Lynn up and carried her to one of the bedrooms before putting her down on the bed, then tucked her under the covers and tied her up with the cloth they had used earlier to cover their faces.

Now the gravity was normal, but Nathan didn't know how soon it would change again. So, he preferred to secure Lynn's body tightly to the bed so that he wouldn't have to watch over her all the time.

After he finished tying her down, Nathan sat down on a chair in front of the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

"Do you know what this place is?"

The voice took a few seconds to answer.

"It's a castle"

Nathan twisted his eyes and sighed.

"I know that... tell me what kind of place it is"

"Hmmm... I don't know for sure. But I've been here long enough to know it's not a good place"

The voice's information was nothing short of relevant, but hearing Nathan's thoughts, the voice quickly continued speaking.

"There are plenty of monsters around! But not on this floor"

Nathan rested his head on his hand. Apart from the transformed humans he assumed were victims of the ghoul, he hadn't really seen anything else. Apart from the mercenaries and the ghoul.

The floor was crammed with rooms, with corridors stretching for tens of hundreds of meters, there was simply no end to it.

The only way down to another floor had been in the dining area, but at the time Nathan and Lynn were being chased by the converted humans. After that he never found the place again no matter how far he walked.

"Do you know how to get out of here?"

The voice hesitated for a few seconds.

"Not really... I just know it's like a huge maze"

Nathan closed his eyes thoughtfully, then an idea popped into his head.

"They say that if you always stick to the right wall then eventually, you'll get to the exit..."

Nathan imagined a small labyrinth in his head and tested his theory.

"...It could work" the figure answered as he saw the maze in his thoughts.

Nathan frowned as the voice read his thoughts again.

"I'm sorry! It's not something I can control" the voice said apologetically again.

Nathan sighed and looked at Lynn who was still fast asleep.

'I guess it can wait...'

He himself was tired too, he hadn't rested at all while sleeping in the hallway. He had also depleted his essence in the bracelet, so he preferred to recover quickly before going out and exploring.

Suddenly his stomach growled and Nathan grimaced.

He remembered seven years ago in the village within the realm, when he entered the church and found the kitchen where he could eat his fill. Since then, he had never had the opportunity to learn how to cook.

However, Nathan did not think that this time would be the same as that time. He did not think it would be very possible to find a kitchen full of ingredients to eat.

The only option left to him was to hunt down some calamities and eat them. What was usually done in the realms. 

But the problem was that the voice had told him that there weren't many calamities on this floor. So first he would have to go out to eat.

The very thought made his stomach growl with hunger again, so he could only hold it in and wait for Lynn to wake up and leave this floor.