Chapter 38 - 37. Where Desire Is Realized
Falling is an experience that was only exciting at first. When adrenaline spikes, and you feel an unexpected giddiness. After that, it was just the awful feeling of questioning your life.
That was what Zein thinking about falling.
When the ground crumbled and his body felt weightless suddenly, his heart lurched and beat fast. The debris that fell with him even knocked his goggles off, and everything went dark then. He could only see a meter ahead and nothing more, although he saw something before his vision got robbed completely—
And then everything went even darker, like his vision was being clouded by darkness. However, rather than feeling anxious, he felt at ease instead. And as if confirming his relief, the darkness around him turned warm--the warmth of another person. A strong hand gripped Zein's waist, and a soft breath tickled his ear.
"Again?"
Zein clutched into the back of Bassena's coat, almost tempted to chuckle despite the situation. "I know, right?"
Everything seemed to be buried underneath the earth, including their objectives. Zein couldn't see now, but before his goggles got knocked off, he could see a spread of a city, or so it looked like. The structure nearest them was the continuation of something like a tower or a skyscraper that Zein had been looking at before his fall.
"I think you're right, we can use the building to come down—although the path down probably got blocked above, that's why we couldn't find it," Bassena said while their body was suspended in the air by his darkness. "Should we get down and see for a bit?"
"Sure, need to find my goggles too..." Zein looked down, but he couldn't see anything, so it felt like he was inside a void.
Strangely enough—or not—he didn't feel one bit scared or uncomfortable. He could feel the darkness slithering around his body, supporting him afloat, like the warm arm around his waist. As they started to move down, the darkness moved and shifted around them, and Zein reached out his hand to touch it.
"Your darkness..." Zein muttered, and Bassena tensed beside him, seeing Zein weave his hand through the slithering fog.