As the door swang open, Saif's breathing became heavier and his heart beat got louder. He wanted to run. Just leave. He didn't want to do this. Yet what stopped him from running away wasn't his friends who were their make sure he will go inside, it was himself. His determination to get better is what drove him to stay standing there and not run away. As the door finally finished opening, and he saw what's was inside that door, it looked different. Back then, it had a blur barrier that was between this world and the Purgatory. But now it's gone. And they were the reason why. But that memory haunted Saif, and was one of the worst moments of his life, due to what happened that day.
As he looks inside, he, again, sees the first level of the entire place. A place he has only seen twice, and this was the third. The obstacle course. That was it's name. As he looked straight at it, it still looked the same as he last seen it. A destroyed obstacle course that looks like those in those TV shows that you swear are easy till you try them yourself. Memories flood his head of when it looked like a normal obstacle course, but was just a trick to make them not panic too soon by PRAY, and to know what to do. Remembering all the screams and in some areas how they needed to run over corpses, and many more horrible things. But it was destroyed, as the illusion wasn't needed anymore when they came back.
Saif hesitated to go inside again, but he was the one most sure this was truly over. So why was he so afraid? The answer was obvious, but he didn't like the answer of trauma or PTSD. He wanted something more real, as he survived all of this, and now fears what's already is a past long gone. He wasn't as scared of this place when he was inside as he is from it now. Is it because he feels finally safe again? He didn't know. Saif then suddenly felt a push from his left shoulder. It was Ethon prompting him to move. It made Saif smile a bit, as he feels not alone in this, plus, he isn't the only one scared, so maybe being scared of something that isn't there anymore isn't too shameful. After all, he sees the fear in all of their eyes, and feels the hands of both Isaac and Ethon slightly, almost unnoticeably shaking.
Saif then took a deep deep breath, as he then took his first step to walking again towards the Purgatory.
As he got closer and close, he looked up more and more at the huge door the closer he got, and his fear when looking at what's inside only skyrocketed even more. He resisted walking forward a bit, but felt the back resistance from both the hands of Ethon and Isaac. Making sure there is no going back now. As he steps closer and closer, the more he feels like he is suffocating, like his soul is about to leave his body right when he steps back in there. He holds his breath as he finally is one step away from entering again. But then he remembers too many memories at once right at that moment, and he stops. He doesn't want to move anymore. He doesn't want to go inside. He resists the force of both the heads of Iscaac and Ethon and halts himself right at the line between that world and this world.
"You okay?" Iscaac asks gently with concern in his voice. Saif replies after a while, as everyone in the background is preparing themselves for anything he might pull. He says, with a trembling voice, out of sadness, like he is on the verge of tears, "No, I am not okay." He continues, "I can't. I can't go back inside." His voice slightly trembles more, "Not this place. Not this again." Ethon and Isaac look at each other, not knowing what to do. Ethon waits a while before he replies back in a caring voice and says, "We know Saif. But you have to go through this door." Saif's voice gets even more miserable and angry, "I can't! Don't you remember how much this place took from us!" He becomes calmer, and the anger in his voice is replaced with just pure misery, and tears start to fall from his eyes from the memories he had from this place, "I just can't."
Everyone then goes quiet for a moment. No one really knows what they should say or do in this type of situation. Ethon gets a dark look on his face, and suddenly then says, "Then forgive me for what am about to do." Before then attempting to push him inside. Saif saw that coming from a mile away, and used the force of the push to rotate his body, making Ethon's hand slip as he slightly tumbles forward, and the rotation then pushes Isaac's hand back, breaking his grasp on him, and allowing Saif to escape.
Everyone now is on high alert as Saif looked like he was going to try and escape, as they then quickly lunge all at him at once to stop anything before it gets started. He then suddenly yells out, "Wait!" Which made everyone freeze for a moment, and that moment allowed him to continue and said, "I am not going to try and escape. I- I, I just need a minute." Saif, with a hunched shoulder, then started to gloomily walk to the corner of the room, and everyone, seeing this, doesn't stop him. They don't even move. They all understand how he feels, better than anyone else. Everyone needs their minute.
As Saif then sits down at the corner that is really far away from the door as the hall is pretty big, he just has an empty look, as his head keeps pulsing a headache with every beat of his heart, and with every pulse, a wave of memories falls on him. All those horrible memories control him. Especially that final one. Everyone looked at him with sympathy in their eyes, fully understanding the scale of his pain. They were locked on to him to make sure he won't leave, but sympathy never left their eyes.
Sally was the one who broke the silence between them and said, "I really thought he would have actually gone inside on his first try. Not like how we all fought back and were forced inside. He actually was willingly walking closer, and got right in front of the door." After what Sally said, silence fell on them once again, and an even gloomier look fell on their faces. Ethon was the next one to speak and said, "Guys, is it bad that I didn't want him to go inside on his first try? The relief I felt when he stopped is killing me inside." Silence fell again but was quickly broken by Victoria who replied to his question, "It's not that you didn't want him to go inside on his first attempt, it's that you didn't want to feel so much weaker than him that you had to be dragged inside while he just walked right in. That's called envy, and yes, it's not good." Silence fell again, and the air was filled with a mix of negative emotions all around.
Leo broke the silence, trying to lighten up the mood a little, "Hey, hey, everyone, let's not be like this. Hey Ethon, man, if I am being honest with you bro, that was something horrible to think about, but thank you for actually saying it out loud and asking us instead of letting it build up inside." Ethon holds his arm and looks away in shame of himself, but quickly changes that shame into determination of trying to be better, and Leo smiles when he sees that and then continues and say, "But hey guys, we can't let this gloomy atmosphere continue like this, it's will just suffocate us. Let's just try to move around and just loosen our bodies a bit. Now come on with me everyone." Leo started to move around in ways to loosen up his body and his joints while hyping everyone else to do the same and trying to get them to freshen up.
Everyone hesitated, but one by one, they soon followed, and it actually did freshen things up and was blowing away the gloomy atmosphere a bit. Isaac was the only one who wasn't doing it and just kept staring at Saif. He then suddenly started to walk towards him and said before he walked off to Saif, "You guys keep doing this, and I will go talk to Saif." This made everyone freeze and stopped moving, looking worried about what's about to happen. Leo, noticing the atmosphere is getting dark again, hyped them up to just keep moving and to let Isaac do his thing while they freshen up. They slowly started to move around again, but while still moving, their focus was fully on them. Leo included.
As Isaac finally reached Saif, he looked down at him, and when Saif felt his presence, he looked up, but the thoughts were still fresh on his mind. Isaac moved his head in a way that asked 'Can I sit next to you?' And Saif just stared at him with an empty expression for a moment, then swung his head saying 'Sure. Whatever man'.