>

Wind and unwind. Walk a little further. Unwind again. Looks like the rope is dangling on this side, that’s okay, toss it to another. There, it landed on solid ground this time. Okay, this way is clear. Wind and unwind.

Such is the life of me for a journey far too vapid and dull to ever describe.

I’ll spare the grimy details. Just know there wasn’t much going on to write home about. We walked the seemingly endless abyss and that was all to it.

Nearly stumbled into a couple of pitfalls in the occasional unsure toss of the rope. Not much of a dilemma, just throw the rope again and see whether you’re right the first time.

Jin fiddled around with his detached hand for a while, trying to wring it back into his arm like a plug into a power outlet.

Jabbing and pushing, muttering to himself frustratingly about how ‘this is supposed to work, why won’t you work?’ and generally uttering some selective profanities to his plight.

Don’t know where he got his knowledge from. Ask any doctor and I’m pretty sure ‘just shove it back in lol’ would be at the bottom on their list of advice when it comes to the delicate art of reattaching severed limbs.

In the end, he left his left arm well alone, temporarily detached from its hand, all forlorn and forgotten in the grip of his right. His foul mood made a palpable resurgence, rudely awakened after his many failed attempts, and spent the rest of the journey looking as if he forgot to charge his phone the night before a busy day and then finding out later on the day that he actually had a power outage this whole time.

Whether it be just through sheer tediousness, or of plans ending up being thwarted, life will always find a way to keep you down on the ground.

“I might be disabled,” Jin said that, frowning.

A sluggish throw to the left, then I turned his way, “Nothing that a bit of counseling won’t fix, I’m sure.”

“Not that kind of disabled.”

He tossed his hand at me, to which after a bit of fumbling, ungraciously plopped onto my palm.

“Switch with me, I’ll do the rope thing now,” He said, his other hand outstretched. “Dying of boredom here.”

No complaints here. I obliged. It was now my turn to be hand-holder.

“So where to?” He asked, twirling preemptively the rope around like a lasso. With one hand too. I’m mighty impressed.

For what seemed like the first time in a long time, I paid proper attention to that little square blip we’ve been clambering around for, only to realize that things are much closer than they first seemed.

To Jin my eyes went, and I answered.

“We’re here.”

The lively whirling rope slowly lost its momentum and flopped pathetically to the ground.

Like my own, his eyes started scanning the environment for anything other than the nauseating white.

Only took a second, cause what the hell else is there around here? It’s empty enough to be an abstract painting and labeled as an art piece in a prestigious museum.

Unlike the conclusion I’ve arrived at, thinking the shit game was just being shit again, Jin conjured up an explanation which just brought upon ourselves another conundrum to be solved.

“My guess, the room is either right up above us or way down below,” The rope in his hand acted up again, and a steady focus gaze was directed to the empty sky. “Textures won’t start loading in for us until we’re actually inside of it.”

"So how do we know for sure where it is?"

He threw the rope, a slithering brown line shooting up to the heavens, before descending to the ground with its other end hanging limply off an edge.

“Know a couple debuggers who'd do this all the time when they accidentally find themselves out of bounds. Toss a rope and if the end of it seems to disappear for no discernible reason, then it simply means it has momentarily entered an existing room. Of course, phasing in a room is a lot easier than phasing out of one, just gotta find it and enter. No need for glitches.”

Then he proceeded to dangle the rope downwards, as far as it would allow him, but still, the rope remained visible in spite of him planting his face to the floor and his arm stretched to its limits.

Releasing a constricted breath, Jin retreated away from the invisible edge, frowning slightly with visible creases on his forehead, “What’s this? Is it really not here? Thought this might work.”

“Maybe it’s just all the way down,” I suggested, bending over to overlook the infinite abyss. “Like, down-down, way beyond the rope’s length.”

“Maybe. But I’m not gonna throw our only source of navigation just to see if that’s really the case. What if you’re wrong?”

“You don’t have to,” I simply said, an idea firmly taking root inside of me. “We’ve got the next best thing right here.”

“Next best…?”

Hands are pretty handy, I just realized. Especially when they’re someone else’s.

“Sora, no,” Jin said sternly, somehow sensing what I was about to do.

“Sora, yes,” said I, and that little lump with fingers went sinking to the void below, dropping fast like a solid brick.

“YOU LITTLE -” Jin scowl was like daggers, rapidly he drew up beside me, just in time to see his hand utterly vanish from its freefall.

I felt my lips curl at the sight of it.

“See, I was right.”

Jin, however, appeared unamused.

“You know, your plan from before is starting to sound very appealing to me right now.”

“Really, which one?”

I felt it, a mounting pressure. A sudden shove from behind smearing away the smile on my face. A loss of footing, sending me teetering over the edge of a fall, made my heart skip a beat.

To the side, Jin didn’t even bother to hide his disdain for me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Go fetch.”

This time I saw it before I felt it. Jin shot his arm forward, didn’t even have time to react before the point of impact sent me flying away from my hold with solid ground.

For a split second, it felt like one of those old cartoons. One moment I was suspended in mid-air, eyes locking with Jin, looking into his cold, dead, eyes of apathy, silently pleading with him.

‘Why, why you do this? Why?’

The next moment, there I went, like a penny to a water fountain, a pebble to a pond, flicked away unceremoniously. And so for the second time in a row, I found myself at the mercy of gravity.

Damn you, Newton.

Cold air, cold musty air, whistling past all of my senses. Irritating the eyes, freezing the nostrils, deafening the ears… could practically taste the ice building on my tongue.

All that fronted me in my struggle to see, was the same shade of white that encased us all around.

I began to have doubts.

What if I kept falling? What if I was wrong all along? Goddamn Jin might have just killed me after all! Fetch? I’ll come back and fucking fetch him to the afterlife if I die here!

Killed over a lump of flesh! Wouldn't be surprised if all the angels in heaven started laughing at me once I reached the pearly gates.

Then just as abrupt and sudden as falling was, the glaring white dissipated at once and a familiar darkness began to consume everything in view. White to black, an instantaneous shift with no warning. Blinded, I wasn’t able to brace for it at all - landing was a resounding face-plant onto an even more familiar, concrete surface.

It wasn’t as long as a free-fall as last time but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't as bad as before.

My heart would have stopped multiple times in the midst of things if this was the real world, honestly.

I groaned as I flipped over to face what was formerly an open murky sky. What greeted my eyes instead was a dimly lit ceiling constructed of stone. Almost on impulse, my eyes shifted to my lower left and sure enough, there I was… smack dab in the center of the room we’ve been searching for all this time.

Finally here.

Something was pressing against my back, sending waves of irritation over me. I reached from under me, clutching the source of my discomfort in a pincer, and instantly knew what it was.

“Hand,” I groaned softly, raising it above me before tossing it to the side in revulsion. “Fetch, he says… goddamn smartass.”

An audible creak, a straining creak, somewhat stifled to the left of me. Not a natural sound of ambiance, I turned.

A readied bow, its string straining under sheer might, the arrow’s sharpened edge only mere inches before my eyes.

Shit.