Chapter 300
It was not a hard collision, but rather a strange sensation at the tip of her tightly clenched fist as it spun at full speed—something that did not feel soft, yet not entirely rough either, perhaps the texture of thick fabric or a surface coated with some kind of material.
That sensation brought the entire rhythm of Erietta's anger to a halt, like an emergency brake.
Instead of the punch flying toward its intended target, her body reacted with a stronger reflexive instinct.
She jumped backward, a small, panicked leap in the darkness, which instead brought her closer to Ilux, toward the place that should have been her target.
In that sudden new position, panic transformed into instant and profound regret.
The simmering irritation and fury abruptly extinguished, replaced by the realization that she had just touched—or nearly struck—something, or someone, who was not Ilux.
In the blind darkness, that uncertainty gave birth to an acute sense of guilt.
Her head immediately bowed, even though the gesture was pointless since no one could see her in the dark.
Her voice, previously filled with mockery and anger, now turned into a rushed and innocent whimper of apology.
She apologized not to Ilux, but toward the darkness ahead, for her "unethical" action, an admission that the anger she intended to vent physically had gone astray and might have struck an innocent party lost in the same corridor.
"THAT—THAT'S A GHOST!!"
Erietta's gaze, which had briefly turned toward the darkness where her hand had just made contact, suddenly froze.
A silence denser than the surrounding darkness seized her, before being shattered by a scream erupting from her own throat, almost simultaneously with a similar scream from Ilux beside her.
The two voices merged into a single cry that exploded through the narrow corridor, a declaration of panic that transformed all previous guilt and tension into one primal emotion.
Fear of ghosts.
Their index fingers, which may have unconsciously lifted halfway to point at something they did not yet fully understand, now seemed to mark the direction of a shared enemy.
Then, without command, without consideration, their legs acted on their own.
They ran.
Not back toward the entrance, but forward, deeper into the belly of the attraction, as if their fight-or-flight instinct chose to sprint away from the newly identified source of terror, even if it meant moving farther from the exit.
The sound of their footsteps, suddenly heavy and fast, echoed through the corridor, accompanied by ragged breathing and perhaps lingering shrieks.
They bolted in blind panic, a word perfectly suited to describe a frantic sprint with no clear direction other than fleeing the point where they believed they had seen or felt an unwanted presence.
"Move now, Aldraya. The trail hasn't completely faded."
With sudden urgency, Theo and Aldraya shot forward from their static observation point.
The two silhouettes moved like slipping wind, completely ignoring the five figures now standing—or perhaps frozen—in the darkness.
Those figures, wearing ghost costumes of tattered cloth and deliberately twisted postures, projecting terrifying shadowy silhouettes on the walls, drew no attention from them at all.
To Theo, they were merely part of the background, props irrelevant to his primary mission at this moment.
To catch Ilux and Erietta before the two teenagers truly exited the attraction or wandered so deep that they vanished from sight.
Their steps were fast and purposeful, their feet striking the same floor as silently as possible, though their increased speed now made sound suppression more difficult.
However, the noise of Ilux and Erietta's panicked running ahead was enough to mask the more trained footsteps behind them.
Theo focused all his senses on the receding sounds, on the echo of hurried footsteps and labored breathing.
He hoped with all his strength that the panic would not drive Ilux and Erietta straight to an emergency exit or cause them to decide to end their experience prematurely.
This observation had to continue.
He needed to see how they would handle the fear after identifying the "ghost," whether they would blame each other, comfort one another, or instead burst into laughter afterward like they had on the height-based attraction.
"This is how the play always goes."
On the fortieth step, a wordless synchronization brought both observers to a halt.
Their feet landed at the same moment, creating a sudden pause in the middle of the tense pursuit.
The air in the still-dark corridor felt different now, no longer filled solely with the echo of retreating panic, but now infused with a new sound drifting from somewhere ahead.
The sound was laughter.
Not nervous or breathless laughter, but laughter that was clear, spontaneous, and deeply familiar to Theo's ears, which had long studied the vocal patterns of both subjects.
That laughter cut through the artificial horror like sunlight piercing dark clouds, a contrast so striking that it made them freeze, choosing to listen more closely before taking another step.
Theo held his breath, focusing all his hearing on that sound.
He tried to separate tones, match rhythms, and identify the source.
In the darkness, the sound was like an acoustic lighthouse signaling a shift in circumstances.
His trained mind analyzed.
If what had previously been heard were screams of pure fear and panicked running, then this laughter indicated a drastic emotional transition.
A hypothesis began to form.
Had their intense fear just now flipped into a pleasurable release, similar to what happened on the height attraction?
Or had they found something genuinely funny in the middle of this darkness?
His uncertainty made him reflexively glance toward Aldraya, seeking confirmation from his observing partner whose sound analysis might be sharper.
Aldraya, who since stopping had focused his attention on the direction of the sound, met Theo's gaze.
In zero light, eye contact may not have truly formed, but an understanding flowed between the two connected consciousnesses.
After a brief moment of data processing, Aldraya gave his answer.
His head moved up and down once, a slow yet certain nod.
It was a silent confirmation that Theo's analysis was correct.
"HAHAHA! Your face was completely pale just now, Ilux!"
"Don't get it twisted, Erietta! You were the one who almost fell, and I was the one trying not to laugh!"
The echo of wild footsteps and ragged breathing gradually faded, sinking into the corridor's acoustic design that finally allowed the darkness to speak in its own silence.
The panicked chase that had torn through the attraction's quiet ended not at an emergency exit, but in exhaustion that forced the body to surrender.
At an unseen bend, Erietta's and Ilux's legs finally weakened, realizing that fear could not be defeated by blind running through a lightless labyrinth.
They stopped, bent over, hands braced on their knees, gulping the stifling air that seemed to have run out.
And from within that exhaustion, from the depths of lungs still trembling with adrenaline, the first sound emerged.
A short, shaking exhale, then it broke into laughter.
The laughter burst forth wildly and freely, washing away the remnants of terror that had just frozen in their veins.
Erietta laughed loudly at the sound of Ilux's high-pitched voice, warped by breathlessness.
Ilux cackled at the image of Erietta's expression, surely drenched in sweat and panic even though it could not be seen.
They laughed at each other's cowardice, their stupidity in sprinting aimlessly, and the hysteria that turned an accidental touch into the most terrifying monster of all.
In the darkness that fused all silhouettes and shadows into threats, their laughter instead became the clearest marker of their location.
To be continued…