NOVEL WEB Chapter 8 – Round Two
I ruminated on the boy's words.
Just like the boy said, this room revolves around light.
It’s common-sense to look for a flashlight to navigate through the darkness.
But…
“Searching for the light from something other than yourself.
Now you're just running in circles…”
Is searching for a flashlight not correct?
Assuming that’s the case, is he talking about the halogen lights from the emergency exit?
No, but his statement about light was directed to me.
Finding light from within myself…
“As it stands, you will forever be lost in this darkness.”
Ughhh! It makes no sense!
How exactly does a human being emit light?!
What part of his speech am I not getting?
Shit…
Well, I have plenty of time to think about his words.
For now, I’ll just try to figure out the rule for location shifting in the darkness.
There’s another condition I’m missing.
For some reason, I wasn’t being moved to different places despite being submerged in complete darkness.
I figured out that I haven’t switched places due to another unknown condition.
During experimentation, I placed a shoe next to a rack as a marker.
Then I wandered in one direction in the dark.
About the same jumping distance I did, right before the light disappeared from the emergency door from last time.
Then went back in the same direction, hoping that the room had moved me to another place.
But to no avail, the rack and shoe were in the same location.
It wasn’t about distance…
Damn it, think..!
I’ve been stuck in the darkness for 2 hours, and the only thing in this room was darkness and the buzzing sound from the air conditioner!
Wait…
The buzzing sound?
What if the conditions for the room’s displacement were darkness and silence?
Let’s see…
What noise is disrupting my sense of sound..?
…
…
I could hear the buzzing of the endless storage room’s air conditioner…
And…
…
Badump.
Badump. Badump.
…
Ah… My own heart beating.
I see.
The darkness took away my sense of sight for so long, that my brain decided to focus on the one thing it could recognize.
Badump.
My heartbeat.
That makes a lot more sense…
In addition to the fear I was experiencing, I had also been running away from the monster.
Which meant that my pulse must’ve skyrocketed to a point where my brain recognized my pulse before entering the darkness.
So the problem was me the entire time.
Had I not rushed and got myself excited, perhaps my brain wouldn’t have been tricked into mindlessly focusing on my heart pulse.
Wait a minute.
“Searching for the light from something other than yourself.”
The boy’s words.
“This is a trial.
Right now, you are failing miserably.”
Ahhh, fuck!
So that’s what he meant!
I failed the moment I wasn’t calm!
The problem wasn't my circumstances… It was me the entire time!
Perhaps I could’ve been able to teleport away by now.
But my brain is already focusing on my heartbeat in the darkness.
Fuck…
…
Wait a minute.
There is a way to reverse the situation.
If my brain is focusing on my sense of sound, due to the darkness.
Then let’s give it a distraction.
The same sensation from before.
Light.
I quietly scrambled for a flashlight from the boxes.
Got it.
Let’s go for round two you ugly bastard.