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墨書 Inktalez
I ignored his emphasis. What he was pinching didn’t matter; what mattered was that if I followed his line of thought and replaced the imagined object from Nest to Zongzi, the entire hive constructed from imagination would collapse before my eyes and in my mind. I admired his spatial imagination, capable of drawing others into his imaginative space—truly a master. It was hard to believe that someone like him was just an Engineer.
I stood face to face with Liu Squad Leader in the middle of the Branch, engaging in some inexplicable actions and uttering incomprehensible words, which frightened Zhao Squad Leader quite a bit. During this time, I noticed he had circled us twice, and the circles were getting larger, moving further away from us. He must have thought we were possessed. However, when we reached Nest with Zongzi, he approached us, looking seriously at the space between us from the other side. I couldn’t afford to be distracted; even a slight disturbance could cause my mental sandbox to collapse, so I had to ignore Zhao Squad Leader’s curious actions.
Liu Squad Leader’s powerful imagination made him completely unafraid of interruptions. He casually patted Zhao Squad Leader on the shoulder and smiled at him before turning back to me. “If my Zongzi cannot touch air or repels air, can this hypothesis hold?” I truly didn’t understand how his mind worked to come up with such bizarre questions. I thought this discussion should end; we needed to focus on more practical work to prove my hypothesis. “You forgot about gravity; gravity doesn’t allow your Zongzi to float in Midair.” I ruthlessly shattered his fantasy.
Yet, Liu Squad Leader remained unfazed, as if the complex model still existed before him or could be rebuilt at any moment. He looked up at the dark Ceiling, uneasy, saying, “I don’t know why, but whenever you share your thoughts, this model immediately appears in my mind. You’re right; this model defies logic, yet I still feel we are within it. You know what, Brother Qiang, I think there’s something above us.”
I glanced at the Ceiling, realizing we couldn’t leave for now. I had to dissuade him; otherwise, if he became stubborn, who knew what might happen? After some thought, I tentatively asked Zhao Squad Leader, “How about I shoot upwards?” Both of them grabbed me simultaneously, saying, “Brother Qiang, don’t joke about that.” I knew that firing a gun in this unknown environment was dangerous. However, I had nothing else for this experiment; everything throwable along the way had been tossed aside, not even an Empty Magazine left behind. Surely I couldn’t use water and food for this experiment.
Suddenly, an idea struck me—my shoe! I handed the torch to Zhao Squad Leader, sat down on the ground, and took off one shoe. The hard-soled military boot was heavy; holding it up high for Liu Squad Leader, I said, “Watch.” Then with a forceful throw, the Boot flew into the darkness of the Ceiling. Immediately, I clasped my hands over my head and stared at the Ceiling. All Zhao Squad Leader could do was hold the torch in one hand while wrapping an arm around his head, muttering “tricked again.”
Liu Squad Leader was the only one wearing a helmet and looked up with a mischievous grin on his face.
After a moment, I admitted that I threw the Boots with considerable force, yet I didn’t hear it hit the Ceiling. A strange feeling welled up inside me—not because of Liu Squad Leader’s model theory causing trouble since that could only be imaginary and wouldn’t stand against reality or theory. Instead, I was pondering another question: how high was this Ceiling? Another moment passed. My face twitched as there was no movement from Zhao Squad Leader, while from Liu Squad Leader, there came an intense sound of teeth chattering like a woodpecker. The Boots hadn’t fallen back down.
No matter how hard I threw it, that boot shouldn’t have stayed up there indefinitely. This truly exceeded my understanding. My mind went blank as nerves kicked in; raising my gun, I shouted, “Throw my Boots down!” Hearing my own trembling voice made it sound weak. Only then did Zhao Squad Leader snap out of it and pull out his pistol while shouting, “Who the hell is up there!” No one answered; only the sound of Liu Squad Leader’s teeth clattering filled the air. My scalp tingled as if a strange face lurked in the dark above us, something coldly watching me from within that darkness.
In silence, no one knew what we were waiting for; I was still waiting for my Boots. What were they waiting for? Suddenly, Liu Squad Leader softly suggested, “Could it be a ghost?”
So softly as if afraid a ghost might hear him. I nearly broke down. Were you trying to scare us to death? My already frayed nerves felt like they were about to snap; were you sent by God to punish us? Though I didn’t believe in ghosts or deities, fear of the unknown crept in nonetheless. In this bizarre situation, even this atheist began to waver.
While I prepared for an attack alongside Zhao Squad Leader, Liu Squad Leader was already contemplating escape routes and which direction to run towards. Watching him poised to flee at any moment made me realize we couldn’t stay here any longer; if he broke down and went mad, finding him again would be difficult. Thankfully he didn’t have the torch; otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to hold on much longer.
I gently told Zhao Squad Leader, “Let’s move right and get out of here.”
No one wanted to remain here; everyone’s nerves were stretched taut. My suggestion received immediate response as Zhao Squad Leader stared into the darkness above before retreating towards the right passageway. Following closely behind him was Liu Squad Leader, while I brought up the rear as we retreated through the passageway. The shadows of both men twisted grotesquely under the unstable light of the torch, adding several degrees of eerie terror to our atmosphere.
As I left the Branch, I didn’t forget to make a mark—a sign indicating where we had passed through so we wouldn’t end up going in circles without hope of escape.
Leaving the Branch did nothing to ease our tension because we knew we were heading toward another one—what would await us there?
Walking with one shoe felt incredibly awkward; that sensation of one foot being higher than the other made me feel like something was wrong with my legs. However, most of my energy focused on that strange incident earlier as my mind kept asking: what on earth just happened?
I needed to explain this objectively—discarding notions of ghosts or metaphysics. If someone educated like me couldn’t explain this scientifically and objectively, we would plunge ourselves into endless fear and lose ourselves completely here.
The three of us walked silently without speaking; clearly lost in thought over this issue. But finding an answer proved exceedingly difficult.
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