NOVEL NEXT Chapter 56: Wake Up
Kyle brushed a hand across one of the four pillars with a cat's curiosity. Beneath the layered cloth he felt the scrape of carved grooves.
Pulling the fabric aside revealed a fragment of a symbol, and the other pillars, when uncovered, all carried similar half-hidden marks.
"Kyle, put the cloths back," Adela said, watching how the torchlight shifted with the shadows. "No, don't strip them off completely, just slide them."
Kyle looked at her with a touch of scorn before rolling his eyes.
'That's totally not confusing for my dumb brain, right?'
It took patience, tugging and sliding the fabric until the torchlight drew clean lines across each surface, and piece by piece the fractured marks stretched across the four pillars as if bound by invisible ink.
The image resolved into a complete sigil, jagged and circular, shaped like a twisted eye framed in thorned lines.
The moment it formed, a low vibration shuddered through the floor and dust slipped from the ceiling. The sigil had either awakened or triggered something hidden.
'Would you look at that. A mystery box, a flock of zealots worshipping false gods, a Demon that chopped off my head, and now another earthquake. Or rather, temple quake.' Kyle leaned a hand against the wall, appearing calm on the surface.
Adela flinched back, Orion paced slowly across the basement, and Na-Ri tightened her grip on the torch. Kyle alone kept a faint grin, though unease prickled behind it.
In truth, no matter how much Na-Ri insisted their investigation might lead to a way out of the Trial Zone, he found the whole notion flawed. Every sign said danger, but here they were moving
further into a temple, down into a basement that showed signs of recent visitors, and handling objects best left untouched. Playing detectives in a place like this only invited disaster.
Of course, it might have been his insecurities and his weakling attitude, but those two things had kept him alive until now. Come to think of it, he did carry a useless pride that stopped him from showing his true self, especially to the others, and perhaps that was why he could not voice his opinion.
The thought itself was foolish, but he still did not turn against it.
"That is not the symbol of a friendly neighbour," Kyle said, glancing at the sigil as the memory of the vibration lingered.
In one sense, it might have been nothing more than an alert for the cult, or whatever name they would give this red-obsessed civilisation. But what would he know. At the very least, they were caught up in it together.
A compulsion hung over them after the tremor faded, drawing them further into the unknown. Caution pressed hard in every mind, yet none of them moved from the pillars, their attention fixed on the completed sigil.
"Well, we should keep moving. I think we are getting close to something," Na-Ri said at last.
Behind the altar, the investigation revealed more. A panel slid aside to uncover a hollow space, and within it offerings had been stacked: dried food bound in leaf bundles, a brittle scroll marked in ink dark as rust, and a small bronze amulet.
Adela reached forward out of instinct, but Kyle caught her wrist and shot her a glare.
"Why would you just grab anything? You never read the survival manual of this world? It could be a bomb, it could be a curse…" he muttered, before turning and plucking up the amulet himself.
He knew well enough that if it was something fatal, it would not end him, but the same could not be said for her. Even so, unease was beginning to gnaw at him.
Since stepping into this temple, the others' reasoning seemed dulled. The clown especially was not acting like himself. Orion's usual edge of mockery had flattened into a constant seriousness that suited him poorly, perhaps even he could not joke in every situation.
Still, something was off. Na-Ri was pragmatic by nature and far from dense, but here she moved along without question, almost as though she were caught in some trap of the mind.
And for Adela, with all her emotional vulnerability, she would not ordinarily have bent so easily to the other two. Perhaps she might have lowered her head to the beautiful stranger, but never to Orion, which meant her mind should have resisted Na-Ri's proposal as well, since it echoed his.
As for himself, he knew he was caught in his own personal snare, unable to voice what was wrong even while suspicion gnawed at him.
In the end, he concluded the three were truly under a mind spell. Something had blunted their judgement, though it had failed to do so with his, perhaps because he was already weakened by the bond of companionship with them.
Either way, he was the only one aware of it, and he would need to find a way to draw them out, though more by subtle guidance than open defiance.
Kyle lifted the amulet. In his grasp, it pulsed faintly, warm against his palm, the rhythm unsettlingly close to a heartbeat. He turned it once between his fingers, then glanced at the three, who stared at the trinket as though it were a delicacy long unseen.
"It's active, which means the cult hasn't abandoned this place, and the candle on the altar confirms they were here only moments ago. We should probably leave." Kyle tilted his head towards the exit with deliberate plainness, repeating the obvious.
"So they'll return," Adela said softly, echoing exactly what he expected.
He already knew that would not break through their caged minds, but he tried anyway.
The silence stretched before Na-Ri spoke:
"We should not leave. This proves there is more to uncover."
'Are you kidding me? What the fuck are we uncovering?' Kyle snarled inwardly, a scowl tugging at his mouth.
Orion, without hesitation, nodded along with the beautiful stranger.
"Agreed. We have only seen the surface."
Adela let out a weary breath, then added:
"And if they are still here, better that we know what we face."
'Fuck. Fuck. Is it this amulet that is dulling their sense…?'
Kyle tilted the amulet in his hand while watching the others. None of them argued, each conjuring reasons that sounded sufficient, though he marvelled at how quickly sense had been discarded once their minds had been dulled. He slid the amulet into his pocket with quiet care, making certain none of them noticed.
Their search stretched on, and it was Adela who spotted the faint discolouration behind the golden statue on the altar. She moved towards it with intent, her focus fixed.
By then, Kyle had grown weary of the charade. Enough of shadows and silence; it was time to shatter the glass over their eyes and break open the cage in their heads.
He drew the amulet from his pocket, hurled it to the floor, and stamped it to pieces. Then, for no reason beyond dramatic flourish, he turned and struck the handsome youth across the face.
"Wake up from your haze, goddammit!"