His head was in pain again. This pain didn't originate from his body this time though, it came from somewhere much deeper.
Silver only felt like his head was going to explode from the rhythmic bash on his mind. His thoughts were muddled and erratic.
He didn't know where he was, he forced his eyes shut the moment he heard a cracking noise, Oddly enough he felt that this crack sounded from within him.
He knew that something was wrong and tried to open his eyes. However, he wasn't even able to complete such a simple action.
A few seconds had passed by since he found himself in this eerie situation. He wanted to run away but he didn't have any legs. It was as if he was just a wisp of consciousness. He probably didn't know but he had hit the mark on his first try.
Just as his mind was going to break from the constant hammering, the dizziness from before faded away, the constant hammering seized, and his surroundings stilled, becoming eerily quiet. It was not a calming quiet for Silver.
Along with the surrounding, Silver too felt himself being frozen in space.
He gathered the courage to open his eyes.
A single room appeared in front of him— It was weird…to say the least.
It looked like the structure was there and not there at the same time. All the things around him were waving as if it was oil painting immersed in water.
He looked down at himself, his body, which was made of white fog like smoke was floating in the room.
He tried to move in this place, and after a little disorientation, he was able to land his feet made out of the fog on the ground.
Slowly but surely, Silver's mind started clearing little by little. He didn't know where he was but he knew one thing. The thing he was searching for was here. The answer to his question was here and he had to look for it.
As to why he didn't get bewildered by this sudden development? Silver didn't know himself but he felt that with the things getting progressively absurd, he had become more accepting of things.
'I won't be bothered even if the gods were to descend…I think.'
Putting the thought aside, Silver started scrutinizing everything in his sight.
The room was not so big, barely the same size as his room.
What Silver didn't know was that his room was massive. It was even bigger than the lecture room of his university class. Unaware of the normal standards, Silver continued his investigations.
The room was dark, and it looked like the walls were made up of wood. Although there were no signs of the wood decomposing or getting moldy, It looked old, very old.
There was no source of light in the dark room. There was, however, a window.
'Why is there no light? Is the moon not out?'
He moved towards the window, hoping to find more clues.
At the end of the day, it was still mystifying for Silver. No matter how optimistically accepting he was, the sequence of things that he had experienced in a span of a few hours was straight out of a fantasy story, something that he had never read before.
He was being forced into a situation that he never asked for, but he was not complaining. He just wanted answers. The reason for such an occurrence and if possible, he wanted to protect it. If possible, he wanted to relish the feeling of freedom forever, and if not, for as long as possible.
He knew that he would find some inkling to his cause here, no matter what it was, he would accept it.
It was no different from selling his soul to the devil but if it was really the case, he would still do it. At Least he will be able to live his life fully. As to what will happen to him after death, He couldn't care less. The conviction that he had made just now permeated his entire being, giving him newfound courage to face the unknown.
He had reached the window-sill. There were two wooden planks running diagonally from the edges and meeting in the center, dividing the window into four sections. Nothing was covering these four openings, no glass, no clothes, they were open.
He placed one hand on the sill, feeling the coldness, which was surprising in its own right, he placed the other hand on it too and leaned into the lower left section.
Dark and Hazy.
Saying that there was nothing except dark, hazy black fog out there would be unfair. That is because Silver was genuinely aghast at the sight of this fog.
'It is looking at me.'
Silver didn't understand such a rapid and seemingly intrinsic thought, but he knew that he was not wrong to think so.
The black hazy fog in front of him was covering his sight.
'No…It is not stopping me from looking at it… it is stopping it from looking at me.'
Click
Thud!
Breaking himself out of the stupor, Silver backtracked from the window and started gasping for air heavily, creating disturbances in the white fog around him. Even though he himself was made up of fog.
'There is something out there. The black fog…protected me from it. What is it?'
He clearly remembered the feeling of having himself locked onto by the unknown, it was too much for him. He wanted to move but he wasn't able to, that is when he heard a clicking sound, which broke him out of his frozen state and allowed him to be free from whatever the black fog was protecting him from.
'It's that sound again.'
Silver turned around to look at a single corner of the dark, lightless room. It was a conspicuous corner because there was a single table and a chair placed in that corner.
'The sound came from there…'
In this ghost-quiet environment, something like a click would not go unnoticed unless the person was deaf.
Silver glanced back at the window-sill, he was not looking to put his head back there anytime soon.
'Wait, if there's a window then…'
He turned his attention to the only side of the room that he had not yet, it was simply because he was facing away from that very side when he first opened his eyes.
'So it is here…finally something that makes sense.'
Now looking back to the place where he first opened his eyes, Silver noticed a jet-black door. It was standing out from the surroundings because of one dissimilarity it had, compared to the rest of the room.
It was made completely out of the black fog, the same one that was covering the outside perimeter of the room. The fog didn't dissipate, as if ethereal and endless at the same time.
The black fog didn't permeate inside the room, not mixing with the white fog around him. This peculiarity didn't go unnoticed by Silver.
Still, he had no thoughts of going near the door to inspect it. There was this feeling of rejection, as if he wasn't meant to do so. Well, he still wouldn't have done it even if the feeling encouraged him to do so.
'A door, a window, a single room…a house.'
It had everything a basic house needed to have, though he didn't know what sort of sane person would possibly choose to live here, he was not in the least motivated to find out. He thought that the current him was not ready…worthy enough to meet the person who lived here. But, the main reason remained the same, he was scared.
Sighing, imagining the appearance of such a terrifying character, Silver placed his focus back to what he was doing. He looked at the other corner of the room.
The table & the chair.
He moved towards the set. The creaking you'd expect when walking on especially old wood wasn't there. It was complete silence and only the sounds silver made were audible.
The sounds that would spring out of existence when his body interacted with other things just were absent, as if disturbing the stillness of the place would be a grave sin.
Silver was close enough to see the things placed upon the table.
There were few things placed on it but Silver's gaze was stuck on one single thing, unwavering.
Books, scrolls and pens. Various other things that were hard to define were placed not so neatly on the table.
'That watch...I want it.'
In the center of it all, was placed a single silver pocket watch.
What a piece of art it was. It was entirely made out of silver, or at least it looked like silver. There were not three but twelve, yes twelve silver hands. On its face, there were no twelve sections, There was nothing at all. It was blank, no, not blank, but there was something the human eye could not see.
The silver pocket watch was connected to a similar silver chain that was rolled up on the table.
It was without a doubt a beautiful antique, the most exquisite piece he had ever seen.
'I want it.'
However, it was not in a good condition. There were cracks all around it, the chain was broken and fragmented, the hands were crooked.
But the most conspicuous of them all was also the heaviest damage the silver pocket watch has incurred.
At the very center, stuck in the non-existent dial was a black glass fragment. It was an oddity in itself, how could glass even pierce silver?
Entranced by the silver pocket watch nonetheless, Silver's hand was finally close enough for his fingertips to touch the surfa—
Click—
'You'll remember even if I forget'
"...Right?"
Rumble!
Rumble!
"..."
"..."
"Huff…huff…huff"
Laying on his back which was now covered in sweat, Silver looked at his right hand which was extended outwards towards the brightening sky.