"So, what do you think, Gil? I have already talked with some of the others. If we all joined hands, we could better watch each other's backs and—"
Leaving a portion of his attention on Greg as he continued talking, Gil freed most of his mind to think.
Truthfully, he didn't know what to believe right now.
First, misfortune—
Hector—had come knocking at his door, beaten him up, and kidnapped him.
Then he had woken up here, with other poor souls like himself, an ominous test looming over their heads.
Let's not forget the strange voices he seems to have dreamt of.
And now, what he thought could be his ace, his sole reliance, had unfortunately come without a user guide.
Gil was exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.
Nothing seems to make sense anymore.
Keeping his thoughts to himself, he barely responded to Greg's words.
All I can do is take things as they come.
Thinking so, he diverted part of his attention to look around, and froze.
"What the—?!" he blurted out before catching himself.
"Hum? A problem?" Greg asked, surprised.
"...No, it's nothing. I thought I saw... something, but it must have been my eyes playing tricks on me,"
Gil explained evasively.
Greg found nothing wrong with that and said,
"Yeah, makes sense. Without much light, it's pretty normal for that to happen. I read a thing about that once..."
Looking at Greg rambling on, Gil heaved a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, the man hadn't noticed anything strange.
Then, Gil's face turned somber at once.
What happened, dammit!
His mind was in a mess, and his eyes began to ache again.
This time, it was a slow burn instead of the abrupt pain from earlier.
Why? He had no clue.
It should have been good news—at least he could use the sight longer—but right now, he couldn't muster any joy.
Because, between the time of his backlash and now, things had changed.
He had thought Greg was an exception.
He was wrong.
And with that discovery, what little he understanding he had of his ability was now in question.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled his resolve and pushed aside his unease.
Maintaining his focus, he looked around.
But the more he observed, the more confused he got.
He was sure that before that flash of pain, he had looked everywhere. Aside from the grey clouds, the dark skulls, and the one with the red aura, there had been no other intent there.
Then Greg had appeared.
At the time, much of his reaction was due to seeing a snake in front of him.
True.
But it was also due to seeing an intent he hadn't seen earlier.
He thought at first that he had just missed it.
To see what else he might have missed, he looked once more, and he knew instinctively: he probably hadn't missed Greg earlier.
Why was he so sure?
Simply because, aside from Greg, there were now plenty of "missed" sights that he was certain weren't there before.
Or was he just not able to see them then? If so, what had changed?
More questions, but no answers.
"Hng." Gil stifled a groan, not wanting to be noticed.
A flash of pain passed behind his eyes and his vision blurred, but he held on stubbornly.
He exhaled, exhausted, but he couldn't falter now. Not after all he had seen.
Things had changed in his sight, to say the least.
Firstly: the ceiling. It was red—dark red, like dried blood.
He didn't know if objects could have intent, but for lack of a better term, he categorized it that way.
It was so striking he could almost taste iron in his mouth, as if someone had used the blood of many people to paint it.
The image was static, but something told Gil it was only for now....
Now, for the intent.
Aside from the almost omnipresent clouds, other intents had appeared silently.
Even the clouds had changed. Earlier, he had noted that some were darker than others.
He remembered vaguely wondering what would happen if they continued to darken. Now, he could see the results.
And it was worrying.
Some grey clouds had become as dark as ink, hanging lower and lower until they obscured the captives completely.
Instinctively, he felt that those people were hopeless.
At least he could guess the meaning of that intent.
But for others... he couldn't, for the life of him, guess their meaning.
There was one captive whose intent looked like a faceless puppet sprawled over him, sometimes twitching, sometimes still.
That captive lay on the ground, unmoving.
Another had floating mouths whispering around his ears nonstop; yet, he seemed unaware, sitting there humming a tune, looking rather relaxed given the circumstances.
And these were among the more "normal" ones.
Another was just an amalgamation of numbers, letters, and symbols, flashing erratically without a discernible pattern.
That one looked restless, pacing back and forth.
Another—Gil couldn't even name what that intent looked like.
He saw a dark, viscous mass of matter twisting and squirming above one captive.
The captive sat perfectly still, but the stillness was creeping Gil out, and he decided to watch out for that one.
Three others were in a group, seemingly comforting a fourth who, from what Gil could gather, was crying.
It was a heartwarming scene, but there was something disturbing about it to Gil's eyes.
The more they talked, the more effort they put in, and the more they tried to cheer the other one up, the darker the intent around them got—until dark, ominous skulls appeared on their shoulders.
Those three looked like they wouldn't end well, but strangely, the fourth one looked fine.
More than just fine; Gil couldn't even pick up that one's intent.
No clouds.
No skulls.
No strange things.
Nothing.
Then— something unexpected happened the one being comforted suddenly raised their heads .
And looked straight into Gil's eyes.