Margana: To Seek The Truth

8. The Call of Clues

The low hum started ringing through my ears again, it was about time we faced whatever it was anyway. Finally, I could practically feel the freedom of doing anything again in another dimension. The nickname of this one will be nasty, as in, nasty. Back to reality— This entity is done for! There's no way that it's going to be too hard to defeat, right? Lino stopped for a moment, I was looking around so I didn't really see what was coming towards us in front. The moment I realized what I just saw, charging in recklessly was a mistake. I froze for a good 8 seconds, my brain was overflowing with thoughts. What was the best possible thing to do in this scenario? I didn't know... I just simply wanted to run, but I couldn't. My body just stopped moving. Was it out of fear? Maybe it was. Good thing Lino thought quickly and just pulled me in the opposite direction, at least we'd buy time.

The entity started to go slower, while we both ran as fast as we possibly could. I stopped looking at what was behind me and focused on what's in front of me. Out of all times, we were greeted by a giant wall. We've reached the end of wherever we were. Walls as tall as a mountain came up surrounding us left and right and as far as eyes can see. All we can spot in this darkness is an incoming wave of smoke with red light coming from the center.

Lino and I panicked, what else can we do in this situation?

"We're not done yet. There has to be some way out of this, there has to be!"

"Hey... Could we somehow climb the walls?"

"Climb walls? You're saying it as if it's so easy."

"Well it is pretty easy I guess?" Right there Lino just jumped on each wall side-to-side as if he had wings to carry him.

I was about to ask something until he interrupted me saying, "Something doesn't add up though. Think about it. Walls have been put around us preventing us from escaping, right? The only thing in front of us is a dark smoke cloud with something red in the center. Could it be that we have to think outside the box?"

He was on to something, but I just can't put my finger on what we should do. We can't obviously approach it, that thing will probably suffocate me. The pressure on the two of us to find a solution before it consumes us. I could smell the extremely foul odor, it smelled like something burning— it gave me the creeps. We had to continue or at least do something, we won't be sitting ducks here. I thought of something!

"Wait... What if we barge through it?"

"Barge through it? Are you crazy..?"

"Trust me! It makes sense!"

"It doesn't tho— Fine, let's go. There's no other choice anyway."

I knew he was kind of reluctant about it, I'm being honest, I felt the same way. I had to entrust my own faith and Lino's faith into fate itself. Whatever happens, acceptance is key. "Let's see how this goes then." I said to Lino, while he just gave an unconfident nod. I know where he's coming from though, I'm not mad about it. He's the only one who could accompany me in this world, there has to be a reason for us meeting. I couldn't think of any other possible solution, I just noticed that it slowed down. Is it actually giving us time? Does it know that deep inside our heart there is uncertainty? Does this place only truly activate the "room" if the people are really sure of their decision? Isn't this like a game show wherein you have to lock in your answer and see if it's right or wrong? I see, that may be the mechanic to all this. I took my time to scan around looking for clues or leads. Well guess what I found, nothing! Lino is just doing the same thing as me, could he have figured out the same thing I thought of? It doesn't matter now, we'll just observe.

After taking my good time searching, I found that the only sensible thing to do at this point is to dive into whatever it was.

"Hey, Lino... I know you've been searching for a while too. Looks like we both found nothing."

"Yeah, sad to say but— we'll have to run through that thing. The walls extend forever."

"Huh? It does? You tried going up?"

"Not really, it'd be tedious. Take my hyperbole as a grain of salt. Maybe it does though?" He then let out a little laugh with a hint of mischief to it.

I just nodded for some reason. I'll take whatever he said as a yes that we'll go through with the initial plan. I signaled him a look that basically said "Let's go", Lino gave the same look back. Our answers were locked in, the shadow-like storm was coming towards us at high speeds. Lino and I just closed our eyes once again and ran right through the storm of shadows.

"What— What is this...?"