Awakening: I Ascend Alone-Chapter 38: Nullity

After a few more minutes of walking on the snow, the duo finally arrived, the cave standing quietly before them.

Up close, its entrance no longer looked like a simple break in the snow. It curved inward in a rounded shape, looking almost like an igloo carved out of stone and ice. The edges were smooth in some places and jagged in others, proof that the structure had stood the test of time.

Within the cave was a faint darkness that seemed to be inviting its outsiders in for exploration.

Melvin let out a deep breath and continued forward. However, Aurex, who had reluctantly joined him on this journey to the cave, had doubts... or fear. Whatever it was, Aurex stopped walking.

"I seriously don’t like this," he said immediately, narrowing his eyes at the entrance.

Melvin halted on hearing his companion’s voice, then turned to glance at him.

"What don’t you like about this? Can’t you see it’s shelter?" he argued, and after a brief pause added. "Oh. You prefer walking on an endless route?"

Aurex shook his head and unknowingly dropped the winged lycan on the snowy ground with a forceful thud. Seeing this, it became clear to Melvin that his friend had already made up his mind he wasn’t moving further. Hence, he fully turned now and faced Aurex.

"Then you tell me, what is the problem?"

"It’s a trap," Aurex replied just as quickly. "I mean to ask, what if it’s a trap? We don’t know what lives inside. For all we know, we could be walking straight into something worse than those wolves."

Melvin’s eyes turned grim as he lowered his head for a moment.

Indeed, Aurex’s claims turned out to be genuine. It was not like he hadn’t thought about the possibilities of meeting a greater danger... a more mysterious creature even more than the winged lycan in the cave. It was just his entire life; he had never liked the idea of remaining static for so long.

He believed in engaging with the moving train. That had always remained the best way to seek answers, right?

And for him, continuously walking on the snow path was akin to remaining stationary. Trudging an endless route, there didn’t seem to be any hope of finding any clue that could lead them to conquer this step and get out of it. When he saw the cave from the distance, hope had clung to his chest.

He felt that he had seen a clue – even if a fraction of it – that could lead to the answer he sought. Upon entering the Silver Spire, it was true that strength can determine one’s survival in such a cruel world... but that wasn’t his only purpose.

There was an ultimate goal that had led him to accept his fate as a flux carrier. The faint words that had been whispered to him the last moments before his regression. And that can only be achieved by conquering each step he ventured into.

"You’re not saying anything," Aurex woke him from his reverie.

Melvin raised his head and turned to study the cave, then nodded slightly.

"That’s fair."

Aurex blinked, a bit surprised he agreed so easily.

"So?"

"I will go in and check out what’s up in the cave," Melvin said simply.

Before Aurex could protest, Melvin carefully lowered Keth from his back and handed her over.

"Keep watch from outside," he added. "I trust you to handle her safety. Still, don’t hesitate to call me if anything happens."

Aurex sighed but adjusted Keth on his lap. "Don’t take too long. I’m not too patient."

Melvin gave a small nod and stepped into the cave.

***

The moment Melvin stepped into the igloo-like entrance, the air surrounding him changed instantly. It was still that cold air they felt outside, only that this one felt calmer than the howling one outside.

The further he walked into the cave, the more the sound of the outside world faded into a distant whisper. The passage curved inward like a tunnel, its walls smooth in some places and rough in others.

As he moved deeper, his footsteps echoed faintly thanks to the slime boot. It would have been noisier if he wore any other kind of boot. Before he knew it, darkness surrounded him, causing him to rely only on his vision for a few seconds.

Then, a faint glow appeared ahead.

Melvin slowed down and took in the situation properly.

At the end of the tunnel, just where the passage opened into a wider space, there were two wooden lamps on either side.

They were placed on short stone pillars as if patiently waiting for explorers to make use of them. Inside the lamps, golden-red flames flickered softly, casting long shadows across the walls.

Melvin approached cautiously and reached out to pick up the lamp on his right. The wood felt old but still firm in his hand.

Using the light, he stepped fully into the cave’s interior.

The space he immediately met was not so massive but was wider than he expected. He stood still for a moment, his eyes scanning the area close-by to be sure safety was assured.

As he moved his eyes slowly, and since he held the wooden lamp with his left hand, light was cast, and that was when his eyes caught something across the walls by his left.

There were crude drawings on the wall.

Melvin ventured closer to see what the representations were.

The first thing that drew his attention was the text that was carved in uneven, rough strokes, standing alone in what Melvin thought was a horizontal space. Slantly looking through other drawings, he felt that whoever had engraved such pictures maintained an orderly drawing board of rectangles for each of them.

NULLITY.

That was the text that had captured Melvin’s immediate attention.

"What is this again? Mysteries?" he muttered, running his free hand along the strokes. "I’m not even done solving that of the Opening Bastion, and here is another one."

Then, a thought suddenly struck him. Maybe... just maybe these drawings were going to be a roadway to giving him the answers he wanted about those knights. About all he wanted to know. About how everything that had happened... happened.

Not allowing his thoughts to encage him, Melvin moved forward to the next drawing. And there was a door.

It looked exactly like that door he had encountered in the Opening Bastion, standing alone in emptiness. Around it, the sky was made up of twisted clouds that seemed to represent something that was once whole but was gradually erased.

Beneath the door were other scratched words.

"Gate of Null," Melvin read it out and blinked twice before moving to the next image, the lamp still in his hands serving him faint light that cast shadows on the wall.

The next image was that of two human figures facing each other. They looked the same, very identical to each other, except there was a slight difference in how they were drawn.

No, even a slight difference can mean something extraordinary in this world.

The human figure on the right was drawn solidly, while the other on the left was fading.

The fading one looked like it was about to break apart into dust. Or... Melvin ran his free hand again across the image, taking a closer look at it, and his eyes sharpened in clarity. Unlike the first human figure, there was neither pain carved into the second figure nor struggle. Nothing that showed it was existing.

The fading figure was extinguishing into nothing. While the solid figure was watching it carelessly, like it hadn’t realized what was bound to happen.

Melvin watched this image longer than he wished and shook his head. What does it mean?

For a while, he wondered if Ruven had passed through all these mysteries of a thing and was still able to escape each step in a short timeframe. But then, he remembered what the Principal had told him.

Escaping didn’t make him a conqueror yet. The bearer of that name, Ruven, was only lucky. But was he even aware that whatever he passed through didn’t count as unique achievements?

’Perhaps it’s my luck playing with my fate,’ Melvin thought. ’Or... I’m specifically chosen for this shits?’

Melvin didn’t know why that last thought had crept in, but he didn’t believe it was the case. From all that had happened to him so far, he didn’t think he could be a protagonist or a main character in that kind of world. Keth, to him, was fit for that title, all things considered.

He was only here to fulfill his personal goals.

Melvin shook his head once again to get the thoughts out of his mind and moved to the last image.

A lone figure was standing at the top of a mountain. The features looked exactly like those of the solid human figure.

And, at the peak of the mountain – again – was the same Door, except it looked smaller now. Or it had just been drawn to look that way.

Melvin practically fell to the cavern floor on his buttocks out of frustration, the wooden lamp slipping off his hand and falling with its light not extinguished... yet.

What had made Melvin frustrated was not only the fact that everything looked impossible for him to put together for understanding. It was the two sentences that were written this time above the human figure and at the top of the door.

"What did I leave behind?" directed to the human figure. And on top of the door were the more mysterious words.

"Gone... without a scream."

At that immediate instant, he heard a scream of his name.

"Melvin!"

Due to his distance in the cave, the scream sounded muffled. The caller seemed to have called his name out of panic. Hence, he waited to be sure it was who he expected calling him.

The call didn’t come again until after another stretched moment; he heard it once more.

"Melvin! Melvin!! Melvin!!!"

The caller seemed to be advancing closer, and the voice sounded so familiar.

Scrambling up, he picked up the wooden lamp and practically began to run. However, whether it was out of frustration or not, Melvin jammed a makeshift fireplace instead of the entrance he had come in from. By the corner of the fireplace was a neat stack of firewood.

’What?’ His heart skipped a beat as he hoped what he dreaded shouldn’t be the case.

With the wooden lamp firm in his hands, flickering shadows on his face, he turned immediately, flashing the faint light across the space of the cavern... and realized he had missed his way.

"Melvin!"

"Oh, that way," he muttered, and just at the same time as his name was called again, but this time distant.

There was panic in that caller’s voice. Real panic.

Melvin’s eyes sharpened instantly. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Without hesitation, he turned and rushed back the correct way he came, the lamp still in his hand as his footsteps echoed rapidly through the tunnel.

Something had happened.