Chapter 93.

One day.

Two days.

Three days.

Four...

Five...

Six...

Seven full days passed by in a flash with no sign of recovery in sight. By the seventh day in hell, I was on the verge of breaking down. I was losing it. My eyes were dead. I felt like a lost wandering soul with nowhere to go.

Even when I knew she was right there beside me the entire time, I still felt unbearably alone. I’d grown numb to being alive and seeing the same empty void day in and day out.

It was only when I came out on the eighth day that there was some sort of change to the outside world.

The moment she took me outside on that day, I was greeted by a cacophony of fireflies fluttering wings. They were everywhere. They had filled the void as far as I could see.

However, the further we went from my apartment, the lower the density of fireflies remained in the surrounding area.

By the time we were at the office, there were hardly any fireflies remaining. I was confounded by this sudden realization and for the first time in what felt like an eternity within these seven days, I was slightly intrigued. From the very beginning, the fireflies had been around from day one. Could the inauspicious fireflies actually hold some sort of secret after all? If I figured out their significance, would the world return to normal?

This time when I was at work, I left Val’s office on my own without her assistance. I told her I was going to the washroom and that she didn’t need to show me the way. I didn’t want to bother her with this if it turned out to be nothing.

After a week of practice with Val, I’d gotten much better navigating through the void. The chaotic sounds, despite the reduction from the air muffs, still left me feeling sick to my stomach even after these long seven days. No matter how much time passed, it was something I knew I’d never grow accustomed to.

I made my way to the bus stop and took out my wallet. Val helped me buy a bus pass, so all I had to do was flash it when the bus arrived and I was able to avoid fiddling with the invisible change I couldn’t see or feel when trying to pay the fare.

She was far too considerate, but it pained me deeply to rely so heavily on her for every little detail. The last week made me fully understand how dysfunctional a person without any senses truly was. The simplest of operations became extraordinarily difficult and even the slightest change in the environment became a monumental life-threatening hazard to me. Without Val leading the way, every step I took was like walking on a tightrope over a bottomless chasm.

While I rode on the firefly bus, the name I gave it after lengthy internal deliberation; I looked out the window. I saw the usual firefly cars, but unlike before, there were now lone fireflies flying about everywhere. The closer we got to my apartment, the denser the firefly population became in the vicinity.

When the bus stopped at the intersection where my apartment was located, I made my exit into the firefly infested world. I tread through the void carefully in the direction the fireflies grew more dense in search of the origin of what caused their sudden influx.

It didn’t take long before I realized that the fireflies all had one similarity, overall, they all flew in the same direction. They were also unnaturally moving from sparsely populated areas to a region increasingly dense in population.

With that unnatural phenomenon, I was certain there had to be something attracting them all. It lit a small flame of hope in my heart while I desperately trudged through the cold heartless void. I was slightly convinced that it had to be the key to escape this nightmarish reality. The fireflies had been here from day one, and I never understood the mystery of what they represented in this world. The closer I got to the origin, the more quickened my pace. I was anxious. I wanted to be released from this desolate world where nothing existed; the sooner the better.

As the distance decreased the closer I drew to the truth, the more ragged my breaths became. I couldn’t feel the thumps in my chest, but I was certain I had a significantly elevated heartbeat. With the inability to feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, it made me unsure whether I was really dead or alive.

When I arrived at my final destination, where the fireflies had congregated, I was left confounded. At the origin was a single door created by fireflies whose lights gradually transitioned between on and off.

It wasn’t the strange door that left me confused, it was because based upon my memory, the door led to the unit directly beside mine. I started to doubt my memory and assumed that I somehow miscalculated my steps on the way here. It could very well be my own room and I might have made a simple mistake.

I felt unnerved when I examined the door constructed by the fireflies. When I approached closer, I discovered both the frequency at which the light flickered in and out along with the intensity of the light given off by the fireflies was inversely proportional to the distance I was away from the firefly door. I backed away to verify this, and as expected, the emitted light returned to its previous state where the frequency and luminosity was notably lower. It screamed of sketchy, but I was desperate to escape from this world no matter what cost I paid.

I extended my hand out to touch the door formed from fireflies, but the moment I did, they suddenly scattered in all directions in slow motion. They fled both towards and away from me as they created a peculiar flickering particle effect. When they scattered, what was revealed behind was a wide-eyed figure completely buried in lightless fireflies. A gruesome figure with insects veiling their entire appearance was all I could see amidst the flickering lights from the fireflies in the surroundings.

My heart stopped momentarily as I staggered backward and called out in a panic, “who are you!”

My own question rattled my brain when my voice echoed out on repeat inside my head. I felt queasy and weak in the knees, just about ready to collapse from the spinning sensation brought on by lightheadedness.

The figure instinctively replied to my abrupt question with a single word, “Adele.”

The instant I heard the voice, or rather; the moment the name registered in my head, the darkness suddenly expanded from the two of us as the crux, outwards, revealing the familiar scenery I’d desperately longed for over the last two weeks.