Prologue
Edge of Space 1674666
Scourging stars, galaxies that dwarf simultaneously compared to inconceivably gigantic blue giants encompassing heights of at least 500 times the average Sun. Quadrillion stars circulated the first milky way's successors harnessing the billions of solar systems and even some so powerfully stable that they orbit themselves as a source of binary energy.
Nonetheless, these galactic spacial factors remained irrelevant as the tredecillion individuals deemed worthy of the system's insurance have been assembled. On a small crater made out of atomic matter and pilling on an endless compilation of meteorites---long since its decomposition---have mashed onto a single island in which the entrance to Pandemonium would become possible due to the binding black chains made out of black matter; tying the ends of the bottom island to its respective destination below.
Crucified and recognized as "dead", the individuals that varied from their respective planets' races, genders, ethnicities, shapes, and religions, are all united onto that floating rocky island across the dark matter.
Without a shadow of a doubt, they had all been summoned to a specific place where they would meet their "true" end.
Or, commonly known otherwise as: Pandemonium.
The following accumulation of atomic matter in order to gain some sort of shape; comprehensible to any individual present---despite the fact that it would vary its shape regarding whom was viewing it---distorted planets, stars, annihilated black holes from spreading themselves and even consumed medium-sized galaxies; completely erased from their existence.
Once formed, one of the messengers of the "One Above All" would lay down its judgment.
"Be not afraid."
It spoke; its voice resonating with all present individuals, in spite of the sheer difference accumulated.
Thrones has three rings amassing galactic height. The first ring before the central eye is significantly smaller than the other three that follow subsequently---furthermore, it continuously spins around the all-glaring opened eye in a diagonal direction to the northeast side. In addition, each ring has an endless trace of eyes that spread over its entirety. The second ring is double the size of the initial one and it spins in a vertical way. As for the third one, it spins alternating between east to west without ever pausing. Its ultimate ring towers all other rings by a significant margin; spinning in a horizontal way.
Though all individuals present have experienced horror and encapsulated terror in their beings, the very sight of Thrones gave them a chilling horrific cosmic fear.
Some tried to bite their tongues out of fear just so they couldn't witness it.
Needless to say; its overall height tripled that of hundreds of galaxies combined as its necessary formation components only allowed it to gain such size. Therefore, its entire size was inconceivable to many present.
"Judgment will begin at this present vacuum. On behalf of how the spectrums of your existences in each atomic world have performed according to the system and towards its might, you will now be subjected to Hell. Your sins of pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth, will become the vessel of your demise. Condemnation to hell has been entitled to you irredeemable waste of atoms; forwarded to your epidemic in that hectic of a place!" Its voice grew louder and louder as the judgment's length increased.
Vocal pandemonium let out loose as angry cry outs in all corners were heard. In the depth of that island, on the tredecillion crosses; all the same replica from the first one; where the "One Above All" was crucified---the Hell subjects unleashed their regrets without shame.
"PLEASE NO!!!! NOT LIKE THIS, I DIDN'T MEAN TO KILL ANYONE, GOD!!!" Killers confessed their sins despite their nature towards the system itself "I WON'T DO IT AGAIN!! I WAS OVER MY HEAD, ALRIGHT?! YOU'D UNDERSTAND, RIGHT!? RIGHT?!" Some tried to exit their crosses by diving deeper with their wounds on their crucified hands and ankles "ETERNITY IN HELL?! I WANT TO LIVE AGAIN, I'LL BEHAVE MYSELF THIS TIME, I SWEAR ON IT!! I DON'T WANT TO GO TO HELL, COME ON!!!!" It went on.
Unlike the countless voices lost in the echo of time and space, one in particular---though not the only one---chose silence. Condemnation had been issued at hand, so, all that was left to do was to accept it and go with the flow of the will at supremacy.
However...
"I can't understand or fathom it, really, I mean---it's pretty fucking laughable." A male individual from planet Earth 1674666, with the dying age of 21, a muscular body beyond the average from toe to toe, but not completely oversaturated in its might, spoke "It's like Hell has no apparent standards except for the quote on quote bullshit like "Sin, and you go to hell", yeah, well---if that's all your system has to offer, God, then..." Human eyes were laid on him, but even the present individuals nearby his location, couldn't help but be drawn in "Your system is pretty fucking flawed!" He let out those words; the humans were in complete shambles as he feared not the wrath of a messenger from God itself.
His grin lit up in the universal brim light against the colossal cosmic force he was up against from afar.
"I've been treated to heaven and what it has to offer all my previous lives and it's also pretty easy. Don't go against God and its will and everything will go your way. However----here is where a line needs to be drawn---this oversimplistic combination of fundamentals that are systematically used to pre-determine whether or not someone goes to Hell is such a boring, dull, and sporadic approach, do you not think so too?" He spoke in Thrones' direction "Come on, use your galactic powers and search through all these pathetic losers. What, you think that THEY are WORTHY of hell just because of some emotional slips that led to what they call "evil"?" He laughed in the others' directions, harnessing their hatred immediately "NONSENSE! THESE REGULATIONS ARE TOO DIM AND SHORT-LIVED! HOW DARE YOU PUT ME IN A PLACE I'VE SO LONGED FOR WITH THESE WORTHLESS SUBJECTS WHO ARE BEING SENT TO HELL JUST OUT OF SOME QUOTA?!" He cried out.
Thrones from afar took precise attention to these words of his, although Thrones could've taken not.
"ARE YOU FUCKING RETARDED OR SOME SHIT?! THIS THING CAN HEAR YOU AND IT'S PROBABLY GONNA GIVE US SOMETHING WORSE THAN HELL NOW!!" Shouts were lashed from every direction towards the crucified individual "JUST WAIT UNTIL WE'RE IN HELL! I WILL KILL YOU OVER AND OVER WITHOUT EVER GETTING SICK OF IT!" He remained stoic to these words, only facing Thrones with his unwavering eyes "WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU EVEN DONE THAT'S SO MUCH WORSE THAN WHAT WE DID?! DAMNED NARCISSIST, YOU'RE ALL TALK!!"
From the color of pinkish white, Thrones' rings began to formulate a closer akin to the color of dark matter; in all its primal galactic force.
Not only that but the tredecillion crucified individuals were warped into nowhere all collectively, only leaving the individual who talked to Thrones. His very existence felt like a drop of water compared to the tallest mountain. Thrones' entirety dwarfed the crucified individual to the point where it began to close in on him, leaving him with the vision of Thrones' eye only.
"To question the system that reigns beyond the comprehension of that you can ever amass---your predecessors' lackluster evolution; and yet its supremacy to be this tainted, even after you have been granted the immeasurable honor of heaven for not once, but more than that! Authentic absurdity born from the pits of such spectrum; foul creature. Spearhead your words to God!"
The individual's body temperature began to feel what the heat of the stars around him, and mainly Thrones, emitted; to feel suffocated in the atmosphere of outer space---yet unable to die---that's what he felt for a short while, as a demonstration of power.
"Viktor Von Einradhyunda. All of your lives, not just the one before this---they remain historical knowledge to I. Your thoughts that belong to such feeble consciousness; belong to a realm of rule I tower in might. Your births; deaths; losses; moments of profound lack of faith toward God itself---I know them all."
Not terrified, but able to breathe again, momentarily, Viktor spoke.
"Ain't that great?! Anything else you'd like to say to make me feel small?! After all, I'm just a petty human from an incredibly small race in comparison to masses such as you! Don't hold yourself back now, give me eternal pleasure in hell! Take a DAMN look at what I've done in my previous life! COME ON, DO IT! I did it in such a way just to make sure I qualified! See, I thought about it a lot! What it meant to be going to hell and what it meant not! The very idea of evil; I strove to perfect it! Do I not qualify?! You know I do..." Viktor's blood pulsed greatly as he pushed through the scraps of metal, containing his open palms and intertwined crucified ankles "Your knowledge of the system pales to its liking." Thrones simply states, in a less harsh tone, confusing Viktor "...What? Look, just send me to Hell. I am obviously so inferior that I can't understand whatever advanced reasoning you throw at me because it would transcend human comprehension; ergo---my own." Viktor sought to go to his desired place immediately, meanwhile, Thrones began to float around the island, looking at Viktor from every direction.
Viktor's doubts increased for some reason, as he felt something was off. The same question kept ringing in his brain over and over.
"A lack of turmoil lies inside your being---a hole that goes deep yet it's not bottomless. For your condemnation alone, faraway mirage dreams at distant shore---the trapped souls have been laid its prisoners in a realm in which we cannot interfere but for a creature like you, who has the qualifications to enter the part of that realm itself---it certainly is possible." Thrones reasoned, further confusing Viktor, who was now beyond skeptical "The fuck are you talking about?! Send me to hell already!!" He began to grow irritated as his worst current fear was being played with "Be silent, accumulation of atoms. Not God, but I alone, seek your services---as you will obey its primordial trajectory. Instead of Hell, therein lies a far more appropriate realm for the likes of your specific kind. Use that turmoil for the system and behold its grace." Thrones' fading voice as Viktor begins to fade out of existence in that contemporary space in that specific timeline marks the beginning of a new one.
A single thought in Viktor's mind, accompanied with another collided: "Another realm that's not Hell?! What is it?!", to which, Thrones' fading voice replied to: "A place where you will learn."
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Part I: Temple of Water - Cancer
The sight of thundering dark clouds, torrential rain, and a violent horizon within an ocean tormented by water waves beyond measurement that Viktor had ever captured; blurred his red eyes.
"....." Viktor looked at his own hands and realized that his previous piercing wounds from the crucifixion were no longer there.
Likewise, his frontal ankles were untouched as well. Plus, unlike before, when he was completely stripped with no clothing on in that cross, he now holds a blueish kimono with long wavy sleeves; his slightly showing his specs. As for his pants, the color is white and they are immensely wavy yet it's part of the design itself. There is a central black belt used for tying up his entire outfit. However, he had no shoes whatsoever and was, therefore, shoeless.
"I almost didn't remember from what timeline these clothes were from... I never really liked them that much, but it's better than nothing." Viktor remarked as he grasped a strand of his luminous blonde spiky hair with his right hand amidst the torrential rain.
In front of him, there is a downward staircase with steps that length over five meters; usually abnormal for a staircase. It holds dual supporting low brackets on each side. However, due to the rain, it was plagued with water; undoubtedly questioning the stability of the surface were he to walk in. What lies at the bottom is a dark ocean raging waves against each other. Therefore, he opted to prioritize analyzing his current surroundings; starting with the temple behind him.
"No damn way. What the hell is that creature playing at...?" Still questioning why Thrones didn't warp Viktor to Hell like the rest, he found himself in surprise when he saw the temple ahead---just ten meters away.
Over twenty meters in height and fifty in width, the temple towered Viktor with ease. This temple-shaped structure remained at the very center of what was keeping the place where Viktor is in, was the only thing standing amidst everything else. Therefore, a single temple stood, with a downward staircase right behind him; already telling Viktor two things at least.
Viktor walked into the shelter of the temple where dark-blue crescent brackets were covering the smallest part of the outer temple. Though it sheltered him from the rain mildly, it was enough to not get completely soaked.
"This temple has no entrance door, which means it's bound to be on the other side... Which is weird considering that the frontal part doesn't have it..." Viktor had this thought as he judged the very fact that a graded wall made out of thick unknown iron, shielded the core of the outer temple---with squares intertwining in between them.
A small, compact footstep alerted Viktor's audition from the right side of the temple; underneath the shelter. His head spun fastly in the voice's direction momentarily.
".....Huh....?" The individual brought a halt to her walk as she captured Viktor's appearance in front of the temple "...Another human...? What's going on...?" Her meek voice showed fear and repercussion as Viktor's vicious eyes assaulted her with just his sight alone "...." Viktor analyzed her entire structure without much time wasted.
Against Viktor's size of 1,89 meters, the female individual held up to 1,61 meters, shrinking slightly in comparison. Her hair consisted of a pair of twin tails and a central fringe with dual medium bangs; her hair's color---purple. Size-wise; the twin tails extend to her bosom at best. Her bust size is about 92 centimeters; waist size of 61 centimeters and hips of 91 centimeters---which Viktor did not neglect as he mentally praised such hourglass features. Regarding her clothing, she's wearing a set of pink maiden clothes including wavy lengthy pants with a top that resembles that of a shrine princess's ensemble. To tie her waist, she holds a semi-large ribbon-shaped belt behind, just on top of her bosom. Lastly, she has pink socks that are in line with the quality of her clothes. Naturally, this set of clothes seemed unnatural to Viktor but considering the temple factor, he reasoned that it couldn't be too much of a stretch after he had one of his previous lives' outfits back to him somehow.
"...All this time, I thought I was all alone, but..." She looked at Viktor in disbelief yet with a small glimpse of hope within "...I never encountered another so I thought---" Viktor interrupted her speech "Where the hell am I?" With a rash abrasive tone, he demanded an answer first "...I..." Viktor's intense glare and unyielding attitude made her skeptical as Viktor began to approach her fragile figure "I shouldn't be here, this is a mistake... I've been condemned to Hell, and this is not Hell, right?" He asked, knowing perfectly well it wasn't hell, in the hope of an answer in contrast.
She took two steps back once she realized something.
"....You've been...." Her body began to shake "...To Hell....?" In addition, her lightish purple eyes shrank in shock "....." Viktor could not understand what she was so afraid of "Just tell me wh------" Viktor's words became replaced with her sloppy running stance towards the left side of the temple, to which she rushed completely "?!" Viktor became slightly shocked at her attitude as he watched her run off.
His previous sentence about Hell made him question whether or not it was such a big motive for her to freak out, and so, he opted to reach out to her by running in her direction forward.
"No, but still... What the hell?! She doesn't have to run away like that just because I've been condemned to Hell...!!" Viktor argued against him "Stop running! I won't hurt you, I promise!" Viktor watched her pass to the other side of the temple as he was completely catching up to her; his slight lag in distance being from the fact that he took some time to self-reflect "I just want to------" Viktor now emerged to the other side of the rectangle-sized temple "Huh?" Viktor spoke to the air around him.
As the rain fell harder, Viktor couldn't believe the sight ahead of him.
"She's... gone?!" He thought as the female individual's figure was nowhere in sight "That can't be!" He ran to the upcoming section in order to scout the perimeter as he noticed that there was no clear entrance to the temple.
In other words, if there was overall no entrance, she would have to run around in a circle hoping for an escape from Viktor. Viktor was beyond confident in his physical skills, so he took no time to scout the entire perimeter, running the entire time in a lap under six seconds.
It also took Viktor no time to realize that he didn't find what he was looking for as he completed the lap around the temple.
"WHAT?!" He shouted at the thundering clouds above him in the midst of the nonstop rain "But I just saw her go in that direction a second ago, so how?!" With his hands, he went to the same hall where she disappeared and tried to see if there was some sort of hidden switch or just about something that would let him inside as he became convinced that she was indeed inside the temple "The hell?! There is no damn entrance to these walls!!" He became flustered extremely quickly to the point of punching the hardened wall of the temple with his fists "Hey, come out! I just want to talk! I really won't hurt you, I swear, damn it!" The thunder struck nearby, louder than usual.
Silence was met. No response came forth whatsoever as the rain somehow increased even more than usual. Viktor felt unusually trapped and a greater sense of unease broke out as he wield a depth of rage considerable.
His restless fists lay dormant on the cold wall as he sunk his head down, defeated--grinning his teeth.
Questions pilled up with little to no answer.
Viktor kept on hearing the thunder and took a look behind as he examined the ocean in all its length; now entirely darker with waves increasing in length, which would probably be considered tsunamis by human standards. Luckily, the height of the area outside of the temple is immensely astronomical. Aside from the long stairway which reigned unknown lengths down below, the area was divided into four different sections. The first layer below was a lake that was receiving water from the chain of channels that operated as fountains. Clearly, the water could not be contained by the lake's boundaries yet it kept on delivering water nonetheless.
The channels started as four on each side, making the first row composed of eight fountains in total. As for the second row, it encompassed eight channels on each side, thus sixteen as a whole. The deeper it went, the more it doubled, until the ocean's water consumed what was remaining of it. In other words, the entire area was utterly undiscoverable as Viktor could only glance at what he could and not its entirety.
No longer protected from the rain, Viktor came into contact with granite-like bullet raindrops that were inflicting pain on him yet he cared not as he clenched his fists so hard to the point of his skin becoming red from the blood vessels he was destroying; spilling a thread of blood down to his forearms as a consequence.
To the thunder that became resonant as it struck like never before; emitting white flashes consequently, Viktor shouted.
"COME ON GOD, ENOUGH WITH YOUR BULLSHIT!! I WILL NOT PLAY THIS JOKE OF A HELL AS MY CONDEMNATION!!! JUST SEND ME TO HELL FOR FUCK'S SAKE!! I FUCKED UP, ALRIGHT?! SO I KNOW I DESERVE IT AND YOU KNOW TOO! NO NEED TO GO THROUGH THIS UNNECESSARY LENGTH OF MOCKERY, DAMN IT!!" He took a deep breath and then shouted against the thunder somehow louder than it "I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME, DAMN IT!!" He concluded with the expression of a devil on his face.
He was met with silence from the one individual he wanted to hear from.
Just a sign, something that would indicate that he could go to his desired location.
Yet nothing but loud thunder and piercing rain came forth as the heavens didn't listen to Viktor's words this time.
Rain droplets began to accumulate all over his clothes and he was beyond soaked, but somehow, his feelings of guilt consumed him to the point of becoming completely numb to it.
After anger, came apathy.
He sat down on the first step of the stairway from the top. Its water abundance didn't mind him at all, in fact, he felt a slight comfort for some reason.
To himself, he then began to talk, with no clear intention of shouting any longer.
"I don't get it. No, seriously..." He placed his right borderline frozen fist on the right side of his face with his left hand supported in his left knee "I am no different from all of those countless Hell subjects when it comes down to it, despite my argument... It's a systematic qualification----we are not special enough to get attention from the higher ups so they just decide to create a system to create balance in the universes that believe in the concept of religion... Even so, do I not deserve Hell?" He pondered.
He shrunk his vision and thought back to his previous life and his doings.
"No, I clearly do, yet... Why would that eye monster---that damned subject of God---send me here instead of Hell?! It doesn't make any sense..." His thoughts fizzled as he checked Thrones' speech "Something about trapped souls in a faraway mirage...?" He concluded something "....Do I need to go through this clownery before going to Hell? It said it seeks my services yet just what exactly can I do that------" Viktor got a clear idea of what is happening after he connected Thrones' speech words all together.
Viktor got up rather fast and faced the temple without moving.
Then, he started to slowly walk up to the front once more.
"Trapped souls... It said that it was a realm in which he-----He? Hell if I know---but apparently, he has no power over it. I'm sure that although he can warp people into different realms, he has no control inside them. In other words, this realm as a whole is under the rule of something or---someone that goes against the will of his favorite." He theorized as he walked to the temple "That aside... My existence here cannot be a coincidence and her existence must have a clue to at least explain what is happening and what kind of place this is; what answers it could have. Yet more importantly..." He reached the frontal wall of the temple.
His cold right hand, he gently placed on the repulsively chilling iron-like mineral covering the wall.
"Hey." He simply said without no follow-up.
As expected, no answer came forth.
Viktor waited a couple of seconds before speaking again, trying his best to remain patient.
"I'm gonna assume you can hear me, so don't be intimidated by the confidence, alright?" He spoke in a low voice tone to her "My name is Viktor---or at least one of them. I want you to know that even though I've been condemned to Hell, I would never do a thing to harm you. That is not my intention here. I've been wrongfully placed in this place to which I know literally nothing about and as such, I hope to find my way back to Pandemonium so I can finally go to Hell like I deserve..." Viktor spoke some truth and waited a couple of seconds to allow her to process the information "When it comes to this place, you said you've been here a long time, so with that in mind----I think you have a better idea of how to get out of here than I do, or at least a clue to that, for that matter." He holds himself back and doesn't speak for a while, waiting for some sort of response, despite waiting over ten seconds "....So, can you say something back to me for now...?" Viktor tries his absolute best to remain composed in the face of silence from the other party.
He waits over thirty seconds.
Under that limit, he has a singular thought.
"This bitch... This bitch is ignoring me...?"
He clenches his fists yet again as he readies for a bash.
"COME ON, JUST TALK TO ME!!" He desperately shouts for her attention "WHAT ARE YOU EXACTLY IGNORING ME FOR?! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING TO YOU, SO WHY?!" He keeps up the attitude despite his small unknown progress "YOU'RE TRAPPED IN HERE, AREN'T YOU?!" Her eyes widened in surprise "YOU DIED AGAINST YOUR WILL, DIDN'T YOU?! THAT HAS TO BE WHY YOU'RE TRAPPED, ISN'T IT?!" Viktor kept throwing questions on top of questions hoping for an answer, so there could be some sort of development.
But there was not.
For reasons he could not possibly comprehend, Viktor was being ignored coldly by someone who he deemed "key" to solving some of the mysteries surrounding this temple.
This infuriated him as he didn't like to be entirely dependent on someone to work it out, therefore, Viktor decided that it was time to take a more drastic approach.
He turned his back on the temple and aimed for the way below.
Through the stairway case, he started storming all the way down despite the extreme lack of stability that lies in those sloppy watery steps.
"Damn it! Fuck that bitch! She can stay there as long as she likes, like I give a flying fuck! I gotta find a clue to what this place is, no matter what!!" Onward to the unknown, Viktor decided to go into the way that would lead to the turbulent and possibly deadly waters.
This triggered something unknown to Viktor as he continuously descended the uncountable steps in the hope of an answer.
"These stairs lead somewhere... Most likely a path underneath the water because, at the end of the day, this is just a drowned temple... In other words, there is most likely a way to the inside of it through the waters... As long as I continue to go down, they ought to lead me to somewhere otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense..." Viktor reassured of the possibilities by implanting advanced confidence onto himself "I don't care if I have to throw myself at waves that are capable of destroying cities because all that matters is finding something. And I will find something." Viktor became completely convinced of his plan.
However, as his distance from the raging water below began to decrease, only being about 500 or so meters from it, Viktor noticed an inconsistency---or a pattern, so to speak.
He, therefore, stopped a bit to analyze that supposed inconsistency.
".....That's---weird...." Viktor fixated his eyesight on the water below and compared it to when he began climbing down from the top "I could've sworn that the water was far lower prior..." His vision decreased out of inner skepticism "Yet it's like the deeper I go the more..." He reasoned further but it all came to a full stop once he realized what was actually happening.
Viktor noticed in addition to all of that, that the water was severely decreasing backwards, as if to channel all of its strength to a single wave itself.
Without wasting a single breath, Viktor turned back and formed a running stance that he thought he could obtain a greater sprint from.
The towering wave that was forming to a monstrous height behind him---still accumulating in its height---shadowed him completely as Viktor desperately ran back towards the top.
"I gotta run, damn it! I need to get into the back of the temple or else that damn tsunami is gonna eat me alive!! As long as I can get behind the temple and avoid frontal contact with it, I can live! The temple is made out of some absurd mineral and I bet this isn't the first time it has been hit with that thing, so I know for a fucking fact that it will make it!!" Viktor trusted in his plan and decided to take the drastic approach of climbing the stairs by jumping from three degrees to three degrees without any breaks whatsoever.
His breath though ragged, but his leg muscles did not give in despite the extreme pain.
"Seriously?! I can't even scout the damn waters because if I get too low it starts to counter-attack by forming a FUCKING tsunami?! That's fucked up!!" He complained while peeking a sneak into the height of the tsunami.
Now at the top in under thirty seconds, the moment he stopped and stared at the tsunami's height and the dark looming shadow over the entirety of the temple---Viktor came to realize that the inhuman height of it went above and beyond the image of what he thought it was. As a matter of fact, compared to the highest tsunami known to mankind in Alaska, year 1958, with a monstrous height of 524 meters; it's a complete miniature compared to the 10,035 meter-sized tall tsunami that Viktor had grasped.
The shock was so great that Viktor's eyes widened in terror as he became absolutely confident that regardless of being behind the temple, he would be ultimately swallowed by the tsunami.
"Hey!" A female voice came crying out in what seemed to be a desperate call for attention "Take my hand, I can get you inside!" Viktor heard her voice despite the wave forming a downward direction toward the temple "There's not much time, please!" Sincere worry could be witnessed in her voice as the hand was sticking out through the wall via what seemed to be a yellow gradient-like portal.
At an increasingly alarming speed, the tsunami descended and engulfs the entirety of the temple.
The ricochet from the numerous forming waves that consequently hit the same very spot afterward kept increasing but to no avail.
As it all came crashing down, the temple stood tall and didn't show any signs of damage to its structure. Not even the staircases and the channels were broken, which is something utterly unnatural considering the weight of such forces.
"..." Viktor takes a look around before saying anything at all.
What he finds is nothing like he had imagined the inside to be.
A windowless room that had pink color to its walls. In the center towards the right side, there was a pretty comfortable four-layered bed with blue sheets as well as a lamp on a small table on the left side of the bed. Toward the left side of the room, there was a desk full of books and plenty of stuffed animals. There were other desks as well for other purposes, but overall, it was, what one would call a simple room for a teenage girl.
There was, however, one particular feature that Viktor took immediate notice of.
"Um..." She brought him back to reality while being on the border of her bed---Viktor standing up, utterly soaked "Mind telling me what was that all about?! I was about to get swallowed by a tsunami, damn it!" Viktor is quick to defend him as he felt manipulated.
She starts to retreat further into her bed, feeling authentically in danger.
Viktor sees this and calms himself down by composing his posture while avoiding eye contact in order to not completely scare her.
"..." Viktor wants to initiate a conversation but can't find the exact opportunity to do so.
Midst that, Viktor takes this opportunity to analyze the one particular feature he had taken notice of earlier.
"That door..." No, now's not the time for that... First of all..." Viktor decides to place a heavier priority on something else first.
Viktor distances himself a bit to show some boundaries. Furthermore, he decreases the hostility in his glare as he looks at her.
"Wanna start with an introduction...?" He puts a serene, harmless look on his face as he asks that.
She looks at him slightly for a bit and slowly nods.
"Good..."
"My name is Viktor. Not with a C, but a K. I'm from---well, I was born in my previous life in Iceland." Viktor explains a detail about his origins to get her to possibly open up "...." Yet to no avail as she observes him and remains silent.
Viktor waits a while and doesn't show impatience, and only after a bit, does he continue.
"In the presence of one of God's messengers, or whatever that thing was..." He sighs "I was supposed to be condemned to Hell alongside tredecillion of other sinners. But I think I screwed up---well, to say "screw up" doesn't even begin to put it mildly... I sorta taunted the damn entity by questioning the system a little bit and for that matter, against my will, I was placed here instead of Hell, where I'm supposed to be in." Viktor scratched a bit of his head like a child, appealing a sense of wonder "Why would you...?" She blurs that out meekly on accident and taps her mouth with her right hand subsequently, ashamed "Hm?" Viktor was interested in what she had to say on the matter "..." She poses silence again.
The atmosphere is hit with silence again.
Although it took him a while, Viktor knew exactly what he should say, so after a bit, he went for it.
"There have been a few things that I've come to observe since I've got here." He earns her undivided attention with those words "First, the clothes. Mine and yours are kimono outfits which is an odd coincidence, isn't it?" Viktor asks her "...Now that you mention it..." She replies, but Viktor doesn't go overboard with it "...Second, the rain. Does it ever stop?" He genuinely asks to which she replies with a negative nod.
He pretends to think deeply about it and after a few seconds, he makes his question.
"Does it get worse with time?" He asks to which she nods with a yes.
Viktor takes time to take account of something.
"She's familiar with this place then... Which means that, without a doubt, she..."
With a deep breath, he cracked his neck a bit to the right, but not in a distressful way that would alert her.
Then, he placed his red eyes on her.
"The water... I tried to go down but it only provoked that type of response... Did it happen to you too when you tried to go down?" Viktor tries to view her experience with this place but unfortunately, she doesn't reply as she looks down.
Viktor takes another deep breath and inhales profoundly in anxiety.
"Alright... Can I have your name?" Viktor seriously asks "...." She does not respond, but looks at him nevertheless "Well..." Viktor starts to throw his arms in the air, shrugging a bit "It's alright if you don't want to give it to me. It's just kind awk---" She interrupts him with a more confident reply this time; her voice not entirely meek and weak "....Naomi." Viktor becomes stunned a little bit as he looks at Naomi.
He was so genuinely surprised at the name that he didn't find the appropriate reaction for it.
"Judging by your accent---German?" Viktor forms a guess to which Naomi is slightly stunned and a bit reluctant to admit with a nod "Hahaha!! Are you kidding me?! This is great! We were closer than I thought in our previous lives!" Viktor laughs but Naomi finds him a bit weird "But---seriously, I believe I'm here for a reason and I think you know what that reason is, Naomi." Viktor changes the mood of the conversation "..." Naomi doesn't reply.
He takes three seconds before speaking again.
"I've asked before but I'll ask again..." He looks down with his spine crooked "Naomi, did you also die?" He looks at her from below "....." She hides her face without replying, leaving Viktor in a dilemma.
"Lord almighty, is she ever gonna--------"
As Viktor was having that thought, she decided to speak a bit.
"I...." Viktor's complete focus was drawn to Naomi's lips "I didn't die... I'm stuck in a nightmare." She speaks in an urgent, sorrowful tone to Viktor with her right hand on her chest "...Say what now...?" Viktor's head felt a bit towards the right side as he was not expecting that answer from Naomi "I've been stuck in this nightmare ever since that one night..." As if to lament something, Naomi looks down and refuses to maintain eye contact with Viktor.
This was a dose of new information that contradicted some of what Viktor's prior thoughts implied to him. Therefore, he had to take all of this in.
"What? Unlike me, Naomi is not dead, but she's stuck in her nightmare...?"
With his right hand, he formed a fist, got to the ground, and supported his right fist to the right side of the face---using his right upper leg as support.
"As I thought..." Naomi still avoided eye contact despite whispering that "It's too ridiculous to believe in such a thing, ahh...." Naomi exasperated, sighed in disbelief "No." Viktor was quick to deny it, which earned immediate eye contact from Naomi "It... Well, it's a start." Viktor confirmed as he looked her in the eye more deeply "...A start?" Her expression became less shackled and more invested in what Viktor could say "Yeah." He gets up "But before anything else..." Viktor points at a specific location in the room.
On the right side of the room, in the upper corner, there lies a mysterious black door with a particular uncanny door hold to it. It holds a vertical rectangular shape to it, but its inner structure contains orthodox patterns resembling that of early German 1800-century architecture.
By now, Viktor had noticed that the door's architecture and Naomi's country origins overlapping could not be a coincidence.
And to that door, frightened and terrorized, Naomi looked into it.
"N-No..." She expresses denial as she avoids looking at it "Naomi... What lies beyond that door...?" He doesn't get closer to her physically "Is it...?" He tries to get an answer out of her by posing the question "....." Her body begins to shake as Naomi grasps the top of her head in fear.
Viktor waits a little bit.
"Wanna talk about it?" He tries the same approach to which Naomi doesn't respond to "I'm gonna take a guess and say that..." This alerted Naomi to a visible degree "Stop it..." Nonetheless, Viktor goes through with it "It's the nightm---" Or so he tried to go through with it "I SAID STOP IT!!" Naomi's shout echoed throughout the room and had an abnormal sound to it, which made Viktor's eardrums ring.
Not only that, but her purple eyes began to emit an aura of radiation from it, which was enough to tell Viktor that pushing his boundaries against her wasn't a good idea.
".....My bad." He apologizes.
He reflects.
"That confirms it though... There's no doubt about it, my way forward lies within that door, so..."
Viktor starts to casually walk in the direction of the door.
".....What are you....." Confused, Naomi starts to question Viktor's behavior "Sorry, but I can't help you if you don't let me, therefore, I'm gonna go ahead and hurry the hell up out of here." With his ruthless voice tone back, Viktor rapidly rushes to the door hold and grasps it with high hopes.
"!!!!!!" Viktor notices a slight thing about it.
It won't budge.
"What the....?!" His shock and dismay grow as he continues to push his door with all of his physical strength and also as he tries to unlock the door hold with his strength as well yet to no avail.
His fury grows stronger as Naomi witnesses his chaotic attitude towards it.
"...It won't work..." Naomi says out loud, not in Viktor's direction "....." He stops all of his efforts and slowly rotates his head to the right, to look at Naomi's face "....Only I can open it...." She openly declares it "...." Viktor's expression becomes monochromatic.
Viktor lets go of the hold and goes closer to her bed.
"Care to do the honors? It's fine if I just go by myself, right?" With all taken into consideration, this was a fine proposal and Viktor saw no reason for a rejection "...No....." But Naomi declines it anyway, which infuriates Viktor to a new level "Huh?! You don't have to go, I'm telling you! I can tell you're afraid of what lies beyond this door, but I'm not, so just FUCKING open the door, damn it!" Viktor starts to get verbally violent toward Naomi "....I am NOT going down there....!!" She starts to get visibly aggressive as well, displaying a certain unyielding strength.
In the face of this, Viktor decides on something.
"The hell?! Fine, if she won't obey me with words, then..."
He approaches Naomi and with his right hand, in a flash, takes ahold of her wrist, fully committing to the idea of using her hand to unlock the door.
"Don't hold it against me." Viktor sincerely said that, but as she finds herself in danger, Naomi shouted "BE NOT AFRAID!"
Just like his fade-away with Thrones' voice and inside the Pandemonium all the way to the temple---the exact same moment repeated in Viktor's mind as Naomi's voice was the last thing he heard alongside that particular peculiar sentence.
Right now, once again showered in torrential depths and with electric lethal thunder striking the towering sky, Viktor is outside of the temple, completely back to where he started.
In authentic disbelief and insanity, Viktor grasps all of his hair with his hands, forcefully as he gets on his knees.
"Are you fucking KIDDING ME?!" Viktor yells in despair as all of his progress is thrown into the water.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Several hours later…
Viktor gained the habit of gazing upon the horizon of the ocean despite the constant black foggy clouds getting in the way of obtaining information about what lies beyond it exactly.
The merciless rain was something that he could admire in fascination but he would at times place himself in the shelter when it got too ridiculous for him to handle.
There, he had some thoughts as he gloomed in the shadow.
"That door..." He spoke out loud, hoping for Naomi to perhaps pay attention to him.
He went back and remembered that door and what it exactly meant for him.
"That was my way forward, but..." He scratched his head and then placed his fist on the right side of his face, supporting it with his elbow on his leg "As it stands, she holds power toward what enters inside and what doesn't... In other words..." Viktor gets up slightly and then stands in front of the temple, pondering what he should say "....No good...." Viktor meekly says those words, in a defeated manner.
Viktor covers his entire face with his right palm as he takes deep breaths and inhales simultaneously.
"No matter what I think to say to her, I don't think she'll necessarily respond..."
So, Viktor decided to back off and went into a sleeping position where he took a nap, despite the ridiculous rain sounds. He got a bit jealous of how Naomi's room was completely bulletproof to the rain outside and its noise; mainly the thunder as well.
For a few hours, he slept and didn't have any dreams or nightmares.
When he got up, he had an idea.
Unlike last time, Viktor thought that this would work and that Naomi would surely at least, have a saying in the matter, despite how unresponsive and uncooperative she has shown to be.
By facing the temple, Viktor launched his words against her.
"Hey, you there, Naomi?" He asks fully well knowing she won't respond and after a while, he continues "I was thinking about it and...." He stops for a while then continues "Doesn't your family miss you? Or you know, just people who care about you? It's a pretty big deal to just vanish from their lives; I mean, think about how they must feel without you. Because, from their perspective, you are most likely in a coma. Or as I like to call it, you are deeply suffering from Sleeping Beauty Syndrome---SBS for short." Of course, even after all that, no response came forth, even after a few seconds go by "It's not really a motivational speech, but just something to think about. I don't see the benefit of being confined in this lonely temple for God knows how long." Viktor finishes.
That was all Viktor bargained and he then decided to pass his time by doing a compilation of things.
He did push-ups, tried to dry his clothes by stacking them on top of the brackets of the wall, counted until he no longer could, played Tetris in his mind, watched his favorite movies by memory, and many other things.
Eventually, hours pass again and Viktor is bored with his face down on the wet ground sucking on water.
His eyes go from almost closed to fully open once he hears Naomi's voice across the wall.
"Are you awake?" She asks, to which Viktor immediately answers but not in a completely desperate way "Yes." He settles it with a simply composed answer like that "...My nightmare...." She shows reluctance as her voice shows agony "---It can't be stopped." She says "..." Viktor doesn't speak this time "...I've tried to face it once, but it doesn't end once it begins and I can never overcome it, no matter how much I tried..." Naomi reflects on her past experiences "....." Viktor doesn't speak this time too as he puts his back against the wall with his eyes closed.
A short silence comes forward, but even after almost a minute, Viktor does not initiate the conversation.
"....Viktor....." Naomi speaks reluctantly "....Have you had a nightmare before....?" Viktor waits ten seconds before saying his answer back to Naomi "I don't think there is a person that hasn't had a nightmare, Naomi." Viktor answers and Naomi replies on time this time "That's right. But have you died in your nightmare...?" She tries to communicate with Viktor, but Viktor does not respond "Well..." Naomi nevertheless talks back to him "...What I'm trying to say is... Although our circumstances aren't the same...." Struggling with words, Naomi was trying her best to convey a point that Viktor had understood a while ago.
So, he took this opportunity and went for it, facing the temple face up now.
"Naomi." He simply said her name "..." She didn't reply but that didn't stop him "Your nightmare... Let me face it."
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Part II: Station of Death - Nightmare One
"Can you do it?" Viktor asks "....." With some confidence, though lackluster, Naomi meekly grasped the door hold with a nervous grip "If you try that again..." Alluding to what happened earlier "I know. You'll just stay here hidden without listening to me outside. I won't harm you." Viktor was quick to dismiss any possible misunderstandings between the two.
Though, realistically speaking, Viktor holds little to no power here, so going against her word is arguably foolish.
"---Alright.... Then...." The door hold begins to unfold downward as Viktor's curiosity grew stronger by the second.
Pitch-black darkness is what they both see. Furthermore, Viktor decides to slowly push the door so they could venture onward.
In front, Viktor took the lead, but not without saying something first.
"No matter what is ahead, I'll face it." Unwavering and confident, Viktor didn't flinch.
Naomi slowly begins to make her advance as well. On their way forward, Viktor noticed that although their path was filled with indescribable darkness to it, it still felt like they were hovering on water.
Shortly after, they would encounter a linear path that had slightly more luminosity to it. That luminosity emits a blueish gradient from the ocean's depth on the bricks from the side walls.
"We are definitely underground in the temple, which means that if I somehow continued to go down and the tsunami didn't trigger, I most likely would have found some sort of entrance to it..." Viktor reasoned to himself.
On the first sight of another door---a door though resembling one in shape and size, in reality, it would resemble more of a luminosity portal with a faraway mirage of what it would offer---mirroring the content of it. Naomi, on the other hand, halted as she came to face that door from afar.
Viktor took short notice of this and stopped as well.
"This it?" He asks and she nods in fear, her body somewhat stiff.
Viktor advances to the mirage while the levels of the water he was feeling prior decrease. He grasped the door hold and tried to open it, knowing fully well what the outcome would be.
"I'm powerless against the door, it seems." He said, while trying to analyze what lay beyond and he gained a somewhat good idea; meanwhile, Naomi didn't move from her position "...Naomi..." Viktor looked in her direction "If you want this to be over with, then..." He pressured her into making a decision, already coming this far "...Just give me some time..." She said with reluctance "...." Viktor waited a bit.
He switched his field of vision from Naomi to the glowing mirage that mirrored the dimension beyond the door. Clear glimpses of daylight could be sparked.
"Just what the hell is beyond this door anyways... This isn't her first time here, so she knows..." He thought to himself as Naomi began to slowly advance her way in.
With a little push, she unlocks the door hold and the door begins to fade out; leaving only an ethereal light to be followed.
Naomi then placed herself behind Viktor.
"You go..." Without much to say on this matter, Viktor obeyed those words from Naomi "Yeah, yeah..." Viktor walked into the brim darkness ahead that kept on becoming less of a path and more of a way towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
Soon enough, Viktor caught a glimpse of something that lacked the ethereality of a mirage and instead had an akin element of "reality" to it.
"....." Viktor noticed that Naomi was holding his back kimono's clothing a bit too hard for a reason "Oh God..." He could feel her hands shaking from behind "That---That's enough...." She started to retreat a bit "Let's just go back..." Viktor, despite not looking at her direct face as it was shrouded in shadows, could sense that she was in fact starting to cry a bit "..." Viktor looked deeper into the light and caught the true glimpse of it "Stay close to me and don't let go." Albeit afraid, Naomi nonetheless grabs onto Viktor a bit harder as they begin to advance.
With each step, the brighter the light. Viktor had to shield his eyes with his right forearm and then, without warning, the scenery changed.
The first thing Viktor noticed amidst the bright solar morning light was how he felt different and that was because his clothes had changed into that of a school uniform. That uniform consisted of a dark-blue blazer with a red-shaded tie, with a white uniform shirt below encompassing long sleeves that went all the way to his wrists. Likewise, he had slim-fit blue uniform jeans with black debonair shoes.
Yet this wasn't the thing that alerted Viktor the most in the crowd of multiple people in a train station waiting for the train to arrive---those people being mainly students with the same uniform if not all---it was the very fact that he had lost touch with someone.
"The fuck?! Naomi's gone....!!" He immediately noticed that in the crowd of endless people on the border of a train station, he could not find a glimpse of her anywhere.
This train station consisted of a rectangular-shaped area outside of the central ticket machines and so far, no train had arrived. In addition to that, moving was an extremely hard thing to do due to the sheer amount of numbers. Nevertheless, Viktor tried something.
"Naomi! Where are you?!" He shouted in the hope of an answer while the students around him immediately glared at him back; not a single soul present wasn't looking at Viktor, which he found weird "Over here!!" Naomi's voice could be heard, but Viktor couldn't exactly detect the direction of her voice, unlike previous times.
Viktor then had a critical thought as he attempted to figure out his next move.
"If this is her nightmare then that means she's about to die, which means....!!"
On the border's limit at the very center, with her uniform consisting of a blue blazer with a red ribbon near her neck, a white shirt underneath, and a skirt that would go with her tights medium size---blue as well; ultimately her black shoes went well along with the rest, as she held her school bag with her two hands---Naomi had found herself once again in the same location.
The 8 am daylight almost blinded her as she always found herself wondering why the same thing would happen over and over, no matter how many times she repeated this scenario.
Toward the left side where a tunnel engulfed in primal darkness would be located, with a tall bridge underneath amassing at least ten separate railways, a train would start to approach the platform from afar. Its velocity started as slow the moment it would exit the tunnel.
"Viktor probably couldn't find me..." Naomi thought as she couldn't see Viktor anywhere.
The train starts to increase its velocity as Naomi already knew what would happen.
"It's inevitable..." She thought to herself "Just like last time, or any other time, someone will push me over to the railways just as the train is about to reach and I will---------"
A tear is born from the corner of her translucent purple eyes, streaming down to her luscious pale skin as she didn't want the same scenario to repeat itself over and over again.
That nightmare she was familiar with, as the train approached the platform would soon be reborn.
"Viktor..." One more time, out of despair, Naomi looked around as she tried to move just a bit, in the hope of Viktor to be somewhere nearby.
However, as she felt multiple hands pushing her to the railways below---the distance between the platform and the railways being a grand total of almost two meters, Naomi knew that Viktor was nowhere to be sighted.
Her knees and body felt great pain as the impact from the metallic structure from the railways combined to add a physical turmoil that Naomi wished to not experience again.
Helpless, as her legs showed no strength, she saw the bullet-speeding train of doom arriving straight in her direction.
"No... Not again... Please...!!!" She followed with a singular shout as she closed her eyes "VIKTOR!!!!!!" Naomi cried out in desperation.
Midst her crying, as the train approached Naomi at a threatening speed, ready to cross anything in its sight; a left hand grabbed Naomi by force and pulled her out of the railways.
Immediately after, without a chance to process what had happened, Naomi found herself inside the train.
Through an abysmal ocean that Naomi was oddly familiar with, by looking through the train's windows, she came to realize that she had managed to get out of the very loop she had been so desperately trying to get out of for the longest time.
"...I'm... alive...?!" Shocked and surprised, while holding her school pack with her two hands, she couldn't believe that the pain she had previously felt as she fell onto the railways, was utterly gone.
Furthermore, on that train, Naomi could witness more and more students idly chatting with each other in their seats. Some seats contained the standard two seats facing two seats in a square-shaped area, while others contained vertical lines upholding a row of eight seats. Naturally, some students opted to stay up as they watched the unfathomable sparkly ocean from afar contrasted with the dark sea of thundering terror that Naomi was oddly familiar with.
"I didn't die... Unlike last time or the others...!" Still processing the event, Naomi had yet to come to a sudden realization "Which means that the hand that saved me was....!!" She dramatically let go of her school bag on the floor as she attracted the attention of multiple students nearby "Viktor..." Her eyes widened in response to her own words.
Yet the more she looked around, she found out that something was rather lacking. The students that she knew by face, didn't resemble Viktor at all.
"Wait..." She noticed.
Toward the doors to the right that allowed a passenger to pass through the other carriage, Naomi started to run.
"Viktor! Viktor, where are you?!" Naomi started to scream his name and no response came immediately "Over here." An almost silent voice alerted Naomi but in the opposite direction instead.
Therefore, Naomi quickly changed trajectory and ran in a sloppy manner towards the south direction, where she had felt that Viktor's voice was in.
By overpassing through at least five carriages full of students, only then, did Naomi catch a glimpse of him.
"Viktor!" She exulted herself in her speech, showing a bit more happiness than usual as she slowed down "Hey, you made it." On one of the train's doors that lead to the outside platforms, Viktor was gazing at the light-blue ocean basking in the radiant solar light with metropolitan cities underneath "Beautiful, isn't it?" He asks Naomi now, looking at her "I----Uh, yes..." She doesn't deny it despite her confusion.
Naomi approaches Viktor whom she notices is in the male uniform that she is familiar with. Unlike Viktor who has his vision fixated on the ocean below with a seemingly white-glowing invisible horizon to it, Naomi looked at him before asking the question.
"It was you, wasn't it?" She tries to confirm it "Silly. Who else but me?" He gives a confident reply without hiding the truth "...." Naomi becomes slightly bashful as she avoids eye contact for a bit "But how...?" Regardless, she attempted to affirm how Viktor got the upper hand against the nightmare circumstance, to which Viktor ceased his smile a bit and gave her the answer "Well, I figured you'd have to die since it was a nightmare scenario yet how exactly would you die... I asked myself that..." Viktor looked over the clouds "And came to the conclusion that you'd most likely die by the train by getting pushed over to the rails and if I tried to go through the people, then something would probably happen." Viktor reasoned "..." Still not convinced, Naomi waited for the final reasoning "I went around the platform where the passage is prohibited and then got into the railways from the right side so that I wouldn't collide with the train immediately. So, from your blind side, I was actually running in your direction, and the moment the train started to approach maximum velocity I ran in your direction and tried to drag you out of the railways, but it turns out we both got teleported inside." Viktor shrugs and concluded.
Viktor's bizarre approach caught Naomi a bit off guard.
Yet at the same time, she was a bit surprised.
"That was... Unexpected..." She thought to herself.
Naomi found herself looking at Viktor with more attention, as he looked at her with a slight head rotation to the left.
"Naomi." He simply said her name "...Yes?" She replied while exchanging eye contact with him "Have you been through this point?" He faces Naomi's direction as they both positioned each other on the mirroring windows of the dual closed metallic door of the train "...No..." She denies it "I always died back in the train station. The crowd would either suffocate me without a way out if I tried to go back or someone would push me to the railways at the exact moment the train was showing signs of arrival..." She clarifies "..." Viktor absorbs this information.
He looks in a forward direction again, to the bottomless ocean.
"So there is a pattern in motion for her death in the nightmare, which is most likely predetermined..." He thinks to himself.
Viktor placed his right fist on the right side of his face without any way of supporting it.
"Um..." Naomi spoke, catching Viktor's attention "Can I say something...?" She asked, very delicately "Sure." Viktor allowed her and they both took a seat next to each other in a horizontal row of eight seats where there were eight empty seats.
They went to the ones in the middle, Viktor on the right and Naomi on the left.
Then, after a deep breath, Naomi spoke while looking at the windows in the front emitting the blue light mixed with the solar light.
"This train... This is the train I use to get to school..." Viktor absorbs this while also looking at the windows where the metallic silver structure of the train lay still "I live pretty far away from it but even so..." Her breath demonstrated a drop of anxiety within "I have to go to it, every day, regardless of how crowded it gets..." Naomi found it hard to say what was on her mind next so she took a few seconds to speak "...Uh, to be honest with you..." She looked at Viktor for a bit "...." Viktor also looked at her "I don't like taking the train..." She confessed "...And that's because..." Viktor decided to speak in her turn as she showed reluctance "The creeps?" Viktor claimed as he looked at a specific group of male students in the left direction.
These students had been eyeing Naomi with lustful eyes and Viktor in particular with slight angst, though Viktor didn't pay much attention to them.
"Oh my God, yes! How did you know?!" Unaware of why, Naomi was shocked at Viktor's accurate perception of the matter "Well... Let's just say I'm not unfamiliar with people who share the same feeling so I get you." Viktor smiled a bit as he closed his eyes and arms "....?" Naomi couldn't understand what Viktor was implying "I think I've been mugged a few times by them... So, I..." She wasn't specifically talking about the ones present, but more, most likely "...." Viktor looked in her direction, emitting an aura of security "I can----trust you... Right...?" She asks sincerely and Viktor takes a few seconds to reply to this "Idiot." He deliberately says that with a serious look on his face "I saved your life from a bullet train. What does that tell you?" He asks her.
Naomi's eyes intertwine with Viktor's red eyes as she dives deeper into them with her mind.
Then, her pink soft lips start to move as she begins to form something to say.
"That you are... Trustworthy." She says with confidence "If you say so, miss." He smirks a bit "Anyways, this whole thing is a part of your own world from the looks of it. Maybe we were from different Earths..." He notes and Naomi says something in regard to the sentence prior "I think it's connected with my fears... I've always feared the train and the people in it..." She confessed even more "Plus, the thought of someone pushing me over the train station and leaving me to die in the railways has haunted me..." She didn't stop "It's weird, because... I know it's not something many people would consider like a true fear but I... just can't help myself, so..." Naomi felt very honest about herself and didn't feel like holding back anymore.
Viktor had listened to it all.
Yet, as he looked through the windows, he saw that they were starting to reach a dark tunnel, which alarmed Viktor greatly.
So, he grabbed Naomi's two hands, catching her off guard.
"...Eh?" She blurted that out "Naomi, I have to tell you something----" He said and Naomi became perplexed and she didn't know how to react "I-----" But it was a bit too late.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Part III: Wrist Slices - Nightmare Two
At the gates of a prestigious school with a golden horizontal gate of a width of ten meters; five meters tall---Viktor was somewhere else, without any trains in sight. As a matter of fact, he was at the entrance of a school that had an open door through the reception room on the right, with no one in it.
As for the time, it was about midday, the sun at the top. Though lukewarm, it was swinging in the cold direction with a gentle breeze passing through. Cars were stationed all over the street behind him from both horizontal and vertical ways. Despite all that, there were no people on the streets, and thus, Viktor was all alone, with just one clear way in.
"...Not again..." He said as he noticed that Naomi was nowhere to be seen.
Without much to accomplish by just standing by, he noticed he was in the uniform still and opted to enter the school by going through the reception room that allowed anyone to go in.
The sideway trees towered over Viktor greatly, for over ten to twenty meters as he went to the central pathway made out of solid bricks which would lead to the main block of the school.
He took a normal walk towards it, not fearing anything.
"A school... Well, the train's destination was this, without a doubt... However, if that's the case, then this is where she dies, so..." He starts to accelerate a bit toward the main building.
Viktor starts to witness students inside the main building which was a fairly squared area of a hundred meters tall and fifty meters in width from each of the four sizes. It contained fifteen rows of horizontal windows split evenly from top to bottom; eight windows on the right and eight on the left for each row respectively. The color of light-sharded yellow with a mixture of yellow completed the midday ambiance quite well. More importantly, the well-taken care of school grounds reflected a luxurious atmosphere to Viktor who was mildly impressed by how clean it was.
There were no signs of trash on the floor, and no dirt on the school grounds as each student was forced to take off their shoes and put them in their respective lockers. Furthermore, each installment had a security camera allocated in their upper corners for safety measures, except bathrooms as that goes against the school's policy due to lack of ethics.
As he comes across the main building by entering through the automatic sliding glass door in the middle, he notices that the students did not even flinch at his existence which alarmed him somewhat.
He tried waving at them and even snapping his fingers in front of their faces yet to little avail as they didn't respond.
"Am I invisible to them or what?" Viktor scouted the first floor after the locker area which contained a row of over fifth lockers in a singular horizontal line "That's gotta be it..." He climbed the mini-stairs that would lead to the central hall where the first floor's classrooms would allocate throughout "Or maybe I don't exist yet..." He noted as he came across more students while also trying to find a way to the upper floor "At least not yet." He found a way up in the left corner of the first floor as it had a stairway that would go up five meters and then after switching directions to the left for another five meters would welcome the second floor.
Still, Viktor felt that he couldn't waste any more time with these pointless observations.
He stopped and then, with all of his lung strength, he pulsed his thorax back slightly, contracted his abdominal cavity, and ultimately pulled his two arms back before shouting.
"NAOMIII!!! CALL MY NAME IF YOU HEAR THIS!!!" Viktor bargained on deaf ears as his shout was not even intercepted by the nearby students, let alone Naomi.
Viktor starts to stress; his expression hardens as he fears for Naomi's life and its consequences.
He accelerates himself.
"This is bad...!! If she's not responding, then..." Viktor starts to check every classroom by opening each and every one of them---looking through the classrooms that are already opened in the first place---in the hope of finding Naomi.
In addition to this, Viktor decided to shout for her name along the way but this only added to his stress as Naomi didn't respond midst all the students who were engaging in their respective conversations.
"Think....!!! THINK, VIKTOR!!! WHERE WOULD SHE----" Viktor starts to crystalize the possibility of the location of where Naomi could most likely be, if not in the classrooms that he had already scoured through.
He arrives at one particular thought on the twelfth floor. A thought so tempting that he became certain that it would be where she would be.
Now, as Viktor had already encountered all the classrooms, he had noticed that each classroom had assigned a list of students to each classroom just outside it; therefore, it was public information for anyone in that school to know what student belonged to the classroom they would be standing in front of.
Despite going through over well 300 classrooms, Viktor knew from the top of his head just what classroom Naomi belonged to and what floor it was in.
"Fuck, fuck---FUCK!" Viktor started to instantly run back down from the twelfth floor all the way to the seventh floor without caring for anyone in their way as they couldn't perceive his existence in the first place.
With a blinding speed, Viktor jumped from surface to surface in the stairways that would connect each floor, ultimately avoiding a single step in order to not waste any time, as his breath started to get ragged; his physique being put to the test.
On the seventh floor, he ran with all of his might towards the rightmost corner where the male and female bathrooms would be and without any hesitation whatsoever, kicked the female bathroom's door while shouting.
"NAOMI!! SAY SOMETHING IF YOU'RE HERE!!" He made his presence known "GYAAA!! A FUCKING CREEP JUST ENTERED THE DAMN BATHROOM!!" A group of girls allocated in the mirrors of the bathroom immediately fleed the scene as Viktor realized that they could now notice his existence which contrasted the previous scenarios "SOMEONE KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THIS PERVERT, RIGHT NOW!!" Viktor starts to forcefully kick each bathroom door as he finds girls attending to their necessities.
As he goes on, he fails to encounter Naomi, only having three more doors to check out of the other seven he already had checked.
"GYAAAAAAAA!!" Viktor gets a phone thrown at his face to which he isn't stunned for a long time, but instead moves to the door to the left "DIE, PERVERT!!" He closes the door without hesitation this time in order to not get hit by anything as he sees that the girl in the bathroom wasn't Naomi.
Lastly, he grasps the door hold of the ultimate door with all of his might and quickly opens it as he starts to gather a crowd of unwanted girls in the bathroom, full of shame and resentment---mainly will to kill.
"Naomi...?!" He finds exactly who he was searching for all along "Hey, Naomi!" He shakes her lifeless body hoping for some sort of response.
However, much to Viktor's dismay, as he gets down on his knees and comes face to face with Naomi's hollow eyes, lacking general life---he sees that aside from her entire body being utterly unresponsive, her right wrist was bleeding from a central cut to the veins as her head lies splattered on the floor; tears glowing from her eyes.
Viktor enters in a state of shock as he can't believe that Naomi was dead on the floor.
"No way, Naomi-------" As Viktor says those exact words, his position is altered back in time.
Once again, Viktor finds himself at the very starting point---in front of the school gate, as a singular open eye in the shape of a necklace around his neck says something.
"Two tries remain." The eye speaks out to Viktor, who, despite wanting to process all of this, decided to immediately put at the top of his priorities, one thing in particular.
Wasting no time at all, Viktor stormed through the reception room and got inside the school once more.
As he ran to the seventh floor, Viktor decided to shout a particular set of words.
"NAOMI!! WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T KILL YOURSELF!!" Viktor caught his breath as he climbed to the fourth floor, surpassing multiple steps of each ladder, sometimes going from four to four steps simultaneously "I'LL BE THERE RIGHT AWAY, JUST HOLD ON, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!" The climb continued.
Now on the edge of the seventh floor, Viktor ran like a bullet towards the female bathroom and his existence started to become visible to the others as they wondered where Viktor came from.
But, that wasn't important to Viktor, as Viktor witnessed a strange group of five girls with wicked grim smiles on their faces as they exited the female bathroom.
"What the..." Viktor comes across one of the girls from the group who had tied black hair with a ponytail as he entered the bathroom "Hey, let's run..." That exact same girl uttered that to her group which was visibly stressed at the sight of Viktor who was pondering between instigating them or just going through the bathroom.
Faced with a decision to make, Viktor watched them go by as he opted to come to Naomi's rescue in the bathroom.
"NAOMI!! HEY, SAY SOMETHING, HEY!!" His voice was heard loud and clear in the bathroom and he got almost the same type of insults, except he didn't kick any bathroom door and went straight to the last one, where he found Naomi.
Much to his distress, the result was only slightly different this time around.
Dead on the floor again, Naomi was lifeless and dried out of life as her throat on the ground started to emit scarlet blood, creating a pool in a circle.
However, a knife could be seen---a small knife of around twenty centimeters---on her throat.
"It's different this time...?! Someone killed Naomi..." Viktor thought as he is positioned back in time once again.
That gentle breeze started to annoy Viktor a little bit. The very scent of midday cold mixed with an artic chill every time he inhaled. Or how he could predict what that thing would start to say.
Viktor took a bit more time to analyze the entirety of its existence now.
The necklace around his neck overlapped his top uniform and it contained a thread of what seemed to be human pale skin as the lace. The intriguing part, that Viktor immediately took hold of with his right hand as he positioned it to himself, was how it gave the real sensation of holding a real eye, even from behind. Its pupil though black had an obscure depth that seemed to contain an alluring mystery to it. The overall iris was leaning towards white and gray simultaneously.
Regardless of it, the eye felt and could be physically perceived as a living organism, especially from the way it spoke.
Which was a voice that Viktor recognized yet couldn't exactly make the association with, strangely.
"One try remains." It told Viktor, who put on a more serious expression as he organized every detail he could sum up from the past tries.