Everlasting; The Promised Neverland [Reader Insert]

43 | The Key

Emma looks to her left, she sees the house's wall is moving.

She looks to her right, there's a cliff like a hole that sucks everything near it.

There's a trap on the floor and sometimes a random object falls from above and when she closes her eyes, she can hear those heavy footsteps of her family—the clones of her families, whose face covered with blood tears—are rushing to her from only the demon God knows where.

When she is finally able to get together with Ray after they got separated as soon as they enter the gate of The Seven Walls, they were lost in the maze that looks like their bunker shelter. They have come across the monitor room for 154 times and the unstructured stairs for the past hours but they are going in circle.

This place is so unstable, much more than Emma could think of. Laws of physics or any other laws aren't working here. It's difficult and so confusing, they could've lost their track if they relax even for a second.

While Emma still has her sanity, she has to solve this maze as soon as possible.

During their walk, they finally find a large cupboard which hasn't been seen by them before. Hoping to find a clue, they open the door and see the cupboard is actually a door that connected to an almost too familiar terrain.

The blinding streaks from a sun that hurts their eyes for the first time, the dry and hot wind and the amber sand as far as they can see.

"A desert?" asked Emma.

The further they step, the more their surroundings are getting strange with a large amount of paper windmill are standing, lining on the sand. There are fogs from a few corner with a random cupboards surrounding them.

Ray sees how each cupboards has at least a slight trace of fogs from it. "We finally made it to a different place."

Noticing the new place they are in, Emma then remember what did the painting in the temple said, " 'When the arrows in the sand cease, and the sun sets at ease'."

This place has both of the elements.

Then Emma continued, " 'Stopping time and going back'."

The Seven Walls are both space and time. Emma wonders, is that means they have to stop the time here?

"We can solve it here? But how?" asked Ray.

Just as they are wondering, as if the place are having ears on those windmills, fogs from afar are mixing into one like a sandstorm.

Trying to bet into her intuition, Emma points her finger to the new object upon their eyes. She said, "For now let's shoot an arrow to that sandstorm."

Ray is preparing his bow, taking an arrow from his back and prepare to shoot. However, right only mere three second after Emma finished talking, the deformation effect is happening again to Emma.

"What—?!" She screamed a frustration. Her body is getting smaller and smaller like before.

But it won't stop getting smaller.

Scared of what will be happen, Emma shouts to Ray with her high-child-alike-voice. "Ray! I can't stop chang—"

"Emma!—Not again!" Ray groan. He neglects the arrow and runs in order to catch Emma since she is getting impossibly smaller compared to before.

Between her piled up cloaks and boots, Ray found Emma who has been turned into a baby with a blanket around her. His eyes grows larger in confusion.

The unstable phenomenon here tends to return back to normal after some time. Still, Ray doesn't know how long Emma will be stayed in this phase.

What should we do now? Ray wonders.