Jacob's eyes snapped open as he keeled over, heaving for breath.
"What happened?" Jacob asked silently. One moment he was in the embrace of death, and the next, he's now sitting in an unfamiliar area. He turned his head and looked around, trying to figure out where he had appeared this time.
"Metal walls, metal floors... definitely not the abyss then...is this a cage? Wait, what's with these bumps. Is this stuff moving?"
Bang!
As soon as Jacob came to the realization that he was on a vehicle of some sort, a hand assaulted the back of his head, applying so much force he bent over with the side of his face planted against the floor.
"Who?" Jacob attempted to resist; however, the force from the hand was still there, and unfortunately, his strength was far inferior to hold out against it.
"Shut up and relax," a voice that seemed to come from a young male, probably in his early twenties, spoke. Jacob felt another hand caress the back of his neck.
The fear of whatever was about to happen to him made Jacob go feral as he kept moving his body in weird ways, trying his best to wiggle his way out of his captor's grasp.
However, the captor merely sighed in annoyance and placed a knee along with the front of his leg on Jacob's back and added a little more force on his head, making his upper body stationary.
Jacob felt the man's fingers play on the back of his neck and shortly after felt a pricking sensation.
The man released Jacob and allowed him to scurry to a corner like a rat.
"Who are you?" Jacob asked fiercely. However, all he received in return was a look of contempt and a device the man tossed his way before walking out the iron door.
Jacob grabbed the device and looked at it from every angle, trying to peer its layers and uncover its secrets. However, all it looked like was a beetle with needle-like legs, which he judged must have been the reason for the pricking sensation, but other than that, he couldn't decipher its function.
In what looked like the control room of a small ship, a group of people were observing the cage Jacob was in on a holographic screen that spanned across the entire viewing port.
A familiar figure walked into this room without stealing the attention of the room. He took a cursory glance of the room and walked quietly to the side of a woman sitting behind a series of screens and holographic keyboards.
"So how'd it go? Is he a spy?" The man asked
"So-so."The fair-skinned lady with blond hair tied up in a ponytail spoke without even giving him a glance.
"Ria, you don't expect me to make out anything with that answer, right?"
"Hmm."
"Come on, don't tell me you're mad at me. I had to make him understand not to have any funny thoughts."
"Who said he would have resisted if you spoke to him in the first place?" Ria finally took her gaze away from the screen and focused on the man beside her.
"Gideon's right; who knows what could have happened had he resisted during the implanting process. You have to remember it's a prototype device."
Another woman in the room, whom if Jacob had been there, would have recognized even if both his eyes were gouged out, spoke.
"Why are you all acting like this? The apocalypse is already bad enough, with monsters decreasing our number every day, and you still have the heart to experiment on your fellow human being," Ria bellowed out teary-eyed. Apparently, she had yet to come to terms with the world state and the new brutal ways of the world.
"THAT'S ENOUGH!" The famous deep and gruff voice of their captain shook the aircraft they were on.
"Ria, the world has changed. If you want to keep surviving, you'd better do away with that idiotic mindset... Arthur, how far are we from the capital?"
"Erm...we're about 400 miles out, just a little further."
"Good. Claire, keep your eyes on the prisoner; alert me on any weird changes. Everyone else, get back to your stations."
Back in the cage that held Jacob captive, Jacob was seated in the corner with his head hung low. He looked like he was asleep, and that he was, at least to outsiders. He had returned to the abyss, and this time he didn't need to die to do it.
"Who would've thought thinking of that book would bring me back here? He could have at least told me."
Jacob rolled his arms back and forth, trying to make his actions and movements smoother. Unfortunately, that didn't work; it was like his body was moving at 0.75 speed, and he had to slow his mind down to keep supplying stimulus to his actions to finish its execution. It was an elaborate process that left Jacob's face in a scrunch.
"This doesn't seem to be working; might as well follow what the book says...so what's next?"
Jacob closed his eyes and concentrated on the book in his mind. When he got a clear image of it, its pages flipped open slowly until it settled on a page with the heading.
WILL 'impose your will on the abyss, force your intent on it and make it follow.'
"Impose your will, isn't that what I've been trying to do? Isn't that why I am learning all this... Impose will, impose will...tch."
Jacob sat down on the familiar black sands exhaustedly, with his eyes closed, he continuously repeated his thoughts while visualizing the action of moving his arms. He continued this action for hours, repeating the thoughts over and over again until something happened.
Hours passed until Jacob got his first hint of progress; he felt his muscles twitch a little. But it was strange since he knew he hadn't sent any impulse from his brain, so he ignored it and continued his silent chant. He felt the twitch again and again, but each and every time, he ignored it.
Suddenly, when he was at the verge of giving up and figuring out a new method, his hands directly ignored the control he had over them, contracted and relaxed the right muscles, pulling on the required tendons and bent the needed joints.
The action took less than a second to begin and end, jerking out like a wild animal that had just received freedom.
"What!!" Surprised, Jacob stared wide-eyed at his arm; he couldn't believe what had happened, much less understand it. He could only keep staring absently at his own arm.
"Cool."
Jacob's surprise eventually gave in to excitement; a massive grin spread across his face. He relished the feeling of freedom he felt from his arms; he almost screamed out in delight.
So he carried on; he visualized his body standing up, and immediately his body kicked to action, springing out of its taut state, generating enough momentum for his body to reach about half a meter off the ground.
"Fascinating...it's a whole new feeling, how does this work...what a weird way to move...wait since it's me willing my movements, I should be able to teleport, no?"
So Jacob sprang straight into action. This time he didn't imagine any part of his body moving but rather generated an image of himself on a small hill some distance away.
"Ehh?..nothing's happening; maybe I need to focus more since it's a little absurd."
Jacob, convinced of the success of his actions, jumped back into his thoughts, willing himself to appear on the hill before him. He tightened his closed eyelids and held his palms against themselves.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Unfortunately, before he could see the success of his goals, a splitting headache assaulted him. A splitting headache wasn't even enough to describe it anymore. It almost felt like his head was about to tear open and shoot out brain matter and fluid. It was that painful.
Jacob crashed back on the ground, clutching his head in pain. He maintained this posture for a while, and by the time the pain subsided enough for him to put his hands down, he noticed his surroundings had changed yet again.
He looked up to find he wasn't alone in his cage; a new individual had made their arrival. Black shoes, leather uniform, tempting figure, and those violet eyes. Those violet eyes that emanated coldness and emotionlessness.
A memory was triggered in Jacob's mind—the dull tunnels, the sound of dripping water, and the familiar foul odor that always assaulted his nose—all of it came back like a rushing tide, like a tsunami he was forced to watch as it devoured him.
And that he did; he watched as the weeping young girl fell right in front of his eyes. He heard as the string of the bow snapped back into place, as the arrow drilled into the girl, and as her body fell limp onto the ground. All the while, as he knelt in front of her powerlessly.
Yes, those eyes were the same; they were the exact pair that watched as he took his final breath the first time.
"Haha....how amusing." Jacob laughed mockingly.