A Rising Star of the City

Ch.12: Seamless Transition

The lights around us flickered as our footsteps echoed, bouncing back & forth as a way to demonstrate how "empty" the place known as the Library was. Despite the recent addition to our group, this illusion still felt like a graveyard. It was completely devoid of life and also took the lives of those daring to step inside.

"..."

After a while, my footsteps halted. The moment I did, all noises stopped, causing a shiver to run down my spine. The air around was tranquil, not even disturbed by the lights next to me. My blood froze and my head slowly turned to look behind me.

Angela was no longer present. I clearly remember her standing at the bottom of the stairs when I began my ascension but now, her figure was gone. Gears spun in my head until I came to the conclusion that she must have pulled her magic trick and teleported herself to the top.

...But I don't remember hearing her snap her fingers. It was a sound loud enough to catch anyone's attention, powerful to wake up a sleeping person and yet, for some reason, I couldn't remember hearing that iconic noise.

"...Angela?"

No response. I was completely alone. Deciding to not let that get to me, I shook my head slightly and took a small sprint to reach the top of the stairs. Surely, she was going to be at the top, waiting for me with her annoyed look like always.

Just thinking about it was enough to make my eyes roll. Sure, I might have stepped further than I would have liked to when receiving our guests due to my tiredness but I don't think it's worth the glare. Sadly, knowing Angela, she was definitely going to make a big deal out of it.

As I began to imagine the scenario awaiting for my return, I scanned my surroundings and came to an abrupt stop for the second time. The lights which previously illuminated the corridors of this place were no longer present, leaving me in complete darkness. Confused by what was going on, I looked behind me but could not locate the bottom of the stairs.

"That's weird, did Angela mess with the Light?"

I mumbled to myself as I tightened my grasp on the book that I brought back from the previous nightmare I survived. I still have yet to open it, I just don't have the will to do so, my mind is whispering me to not reveal its content out of fear, a Pandora's box waiting for me to lose my guard.

With nowhere else to go but forward, I resumed my march, forced to hear my foosteps resonate like I was deep underground. No matter how far I went, no signs of light were present on my obscured path.

Something was definitely wrong, I knew that by now but I couldn't understand what was going on. The last events that occured were me and Angela welcoming our guests and then me making my way upstairs after our talk. It was nothing truly out of the ordinary, it might as well be a routine by now.

I was left to rot in complete darkness due to some strange circumstances that I couldn't understand. The many sounds coming from my steps were the only proof that I wasn't a floating consciousness, a proof that I was going somewhere, even if I wasn't aware of what the destination looked like.

Was this the afterlife? Maybe my lack of energy caused my body to lose its form. I knew close to nothing about the Light that served as a catalyst to revive the dead employees so nothing seemed impossible in my eyes.

The thought of roaming endlessly in a void that seemed to go forever was enough to give some energy in my legs, turning my regular walk into a sprint. I was hoping to find a "wall" that would indicate me that I was indeed inside a real room, just simply bigger than one would expect. Seconds passed and quite possibly minutes until a miracle occured.