Chapter 135: Deeper Than Emotions

  "Hmm... Someone you will know."

  Yukari gave him a big, reassuring smile, trying to project safety and warmth into the cold, metallic void of this space.

  The young boy froze. A shiver ran through his small frame, visible even under his oversized shirt.

  He abruptly shoved her arms away and scrambled backward, creating distance between them.

  "What's wrong?" Yukari asked gently, keeping her hands open and non-threatening.

  The boy narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her with a suspicion far beyond his years.

  "Miss Yinzi told me not to hang out with strangers," he stated, crossing his arms defensively. "And miss, you told me I will know you. That is a red flag. A massive one."

  He pointed an accusing finger at her. "Shillook Huang said that in The Case of the Smiling Phantom! 'Beware the stranger who claims familiarity, for they seek to lower your guard before the strike.'"

  Yukari felt a familiar pang of irritation twitch behind her eye. Even as a child, his logic was infuriatingly sound yet completely misplaced.

  She kept her smile fixed, though it strained at the corners.

  "You started reading those novels at this young age, huh?" she commented, suppressing the urge to sigh. "That explains a lot."

  She took a slow step forward. "Don't worry. I am not a dangerous person. I'm here to help you."

  The boy’s eyes widened in horror. He took two steps back.

  "That sounds even more suspicious!" he squeaked. "Only dangerous people say they aren't dangerous! I am definitely not getting closer to you!"

  He took a deep breath, filling his small lungs.

  "MISS YINZI! SAVE ME!" he screamed, his voice echoing shrilly down the endless corridor. "THERE IS A KIDNAPPER HERE! SHE'S TRYING TO LOWER MY GUARD!"

  Before Yukari could react, he spun on his heel and bolted, his small sneakers slapping against the metal floor as he ran deeper into the hallway. The hallway seemed to stretch as he ran.

  "Hey, wait!" Yukari shouted, sprinting after him. "I'm not a kidnapper! Stop running!"

  "That's exactly what a kidnapper would say!" the boy yelled back, not slowing down for a second.

  "Wait! Slow down!" Yukari shouted, picking up the pace.

  "No! Get away from me!" the boy shrieked, skidding around a corner. "Or I will have to use one of Shillook's 107 Secret Techniques on you, Miss Kidnapper!"

  "You read way too many novels!" Yukari commented, exasperated but impressed by his speed.

  She pushed off the wall, launching herself forward. She finally caught up to the young boy, her hand closing gently but firmly around his wrist.

  "Gotcha."

  The young boy panicked. He started thrashing around in her arms, a whirlwind of small limbs.

  "Let me go! Let me go!" he repeatedly cried, kicking at the air. "I'm scared! Miss Yinzi, pick me up! I'm scared!"

  He began to cry again, hiccuping sobs that tore at Yukari's heart.

  "Don't worry, don't worry," Yukari said, pulling him into a tight embrace to stop his flailing. "I'm here. You are okay. You are okay."

  She stroked his back. "I'm not a stranger. Will you believe me?" she asked softly.

  "No! I don't know you! Get away!"

  The young boy kept thrashing, his small hands clawing desperately at anything he could reach. His fingernails caught Yukari’s cheek.

  Scritch.

  It wasn't deep, but it broke the skin. A warm bead of red blood welled up and dripped down her pale skin.

  The boy froze. He stared at the red line on her face.

  "Sorry..." he whispered, his eyes widening in absolute horror.

  "Finally, you stop," Yukari said with a warm smile, ignoring the sting.

  "Blood..." the boy pointed, his finger trembling. "Sorry..." he said again, his voice small.

  "Oh this?" Yukari touched her cheek. "Don't worry. You don't need to be sorry."

  "But... that looks hurt," the boy stammered, tears welling up in his eyes again. "I hurt you. Miss Yinzi told me not to hurt others. Only bad kids hurt people."

  "And Miss Yinzi is right," Yukari said, reaching out to ruffle his messy black hair. "You should not hurt others."

  She knelt so she was eye-level with him. "However, this is nothing but an accident. See?"

  Yukari wiped the blood away with her finger. The cut was already closing in this mental realm.

  "Good as new," she smiled. "Nothing to be afraid of."

  The boy sniffled, looking closely at her cheek. "Are... are you sure, miss?"

  "I am 100% sure," Yukari said.

  "Now," she continued, offering her hand again. "Will you listen and finally believe me? I will help you if you believe me."

  The boy looked at her hand, then at her face. He hesitated.

  "But... I don't know you," he said, his voice wobbling. "But... but... I'm lost... I'm scared. Will you take me back to Miss Yinzi? I lost her."

  Yukari nodded firmly. "I also know Miss Yinzi. I will make sure you are back with her."

  The boy finally let out a small smile.

  "Now, tell me what happened," she asked gently.

  The boy nodded, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. The tears finally started to stop.

  "I don't know, miss," he sniffled. "I was in the kitchen in the orphanage. I was helping peel potatoes. Then... suddenly I am here. Everywhere I look, it's all the same. It’s dark and lonely."

  "Peculiar," Yukari mused. "But don't worry. I will take you back to Miss Yinzi. I promise."

  "Pinky promise?" the boy asked, holding out his small finger.

  Yukari smiled, her heart melting. "Yes."

  She hooked her pinky around his. "Pinky promise."

  They shook on it, a sacred pact in a world of metal and shadows.

  Yukari stood up and took the boy's hand. It was small and warm in hers.

  "Let's go."

  Together, they started diving through the maze of the metal hallway, hand in hand, searching for a way out of the labyrinth of his soul.

  Until, a bright light suddenly consumed them both in the middle of their search.

  It wasn't a gradual dawn, but a sudden flashbang of white that erased the metallic walls and the cold floor.

  When Yukari opened her eyes again, the sterile scent of ozone and rust was gone. Instead, the air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, boiled potatoes, and cheap soap.

  She was standing in a kitchen area of an old building. The floorboards were worn smooth by countless feet. Sunlight streamed through dusty windows.

  She scanned the room. It was frozen in time. A kettle sat on a cast-iron stove, whistling shrilly, steam shooting from its spout. A half-peeled potato lay on the counter with a knife beside it.

  But nobody was there.

  The young boy's hand was still in her grasp. Yukari looked down and saw the biggest, brightest smile erupt on his face.

  "I'm home!" he chirped.

  He immediately let go of Yukari's grasp and sprinted into the room.

  "Miss Yinzi! I'm here! Everyone! Where are you?" he shouted, his voice bouncing off the wooden beams.

  He spun around, expecting a scolding, a hug, or a laugh.

  But no one answered. The kettle continued to scream.

  The boy’s smile faltered. He started running frantically. He threw open the pantry door. Empty. He checked under the large dining table. Empty. He ran to the door leading to the dorms and yanked it open.

  "Hello? Anyone?"

  Silence.

  He ran back to Yukari, his chest heaving, tears welling rapidly in his large brown eyes.

  "I'm back... but everyone is not here," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Not even Miss Yinzi."

  Yukari did not say anything. She simply knelt on the dusty floor and opened her arms, pulling him into a hug.

  "I'm sure they are here somewhere," she lied softly, stroking his back.

  "Is it true that I'm unwanted?" the boy asked, his voice muffled against her shoulder.

  Yukari pulled back slightly to look at him. "No. No, you are not."

  "But... everyone else told me that," he insisted, tears spilling over. "That's why I don't have my real parents, right? That's why Miss Yinzi is not here to get me, right? Because I am unwanted? And weird?"

  "Please, don't say that," Yukari said fiercely, gripping his small shoulders. "You are nothing like that. Not to me."

  "LIES!"

  He screamed, pushing against her chest.

  "Miss Yinzi is not here! The other kids don't want to play with me! They told me I don't belong! The other adults... they don't want to be near me!"

  His face crumpled, the dam of his childhood trauma breaking.

  "I'm alone! My parents left me! I'm alone! I'm alone!" he cried, a raw, wailing sound. "I don't want to be alone!"

  Yukari grabbed the boy again, hugging him tighter this time, refusing to let him pull away. She squeezed him as if she could physically hold his shattered pieces together.

  "You are not alone!" she shouted over his cries.

  "You will have someone else! Someone to complete you! Maybe not now, but someday! So please don't say things like that!"

  She pressed her cheek against the top of his head. "Please, Kun."

  The boy stopped thrashing. He froze in her arms.

  "How..." he sniffled, his voice small. "How do you know my name, miss?"

  Yukari pulled back, smiling through her own glassy eyes. "I told you, didn't I? I know you."

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  She hugged him again.

  This time, the boy didn't fight. He slumped against her, his small arms wrapping around her neck, fully accepting the warmth.

  "Weird," he mumbled, his breathing hitching as the sobs subsided. "Now I feel like... I know you, miss."

  Yukari just smiled, rocking him gently.

  "You..." the boy whispered, burying his face in her neck. "You smell nice. Like flowers. Not like the others."

  The hug lasted longer than a moment, a suspended breath in time where the cold metal world faded away. It was only interrupted by a loud, awkward sound.

  GRRROOOOWL.

  The boy’s stomach protested violently against his ribs.

  "I'm hungry," Kun said, pulling back slightly, his face flushing pink.

  Yukari chuckled, the sound vibrating in her chest. "Well, what do you want to eat?" she asked, wiping a smudge of dirt from his cheek.

  "You know how to cook, miss?" Kun asked, eyeing her skeptically.

  "A little," she lied. Or rather, stretched the truth.

  "You don't sound confident, miss," Kun observed with brutal childish honesty. "But I trust you."

  The boy smiled, a toothy, genuine expression that lit up the dusty kitchen. "I want a honey apple pie. Just like the ones Miss Yinzi always makes. They are delicious."

  Yukari stood up, smoothing her imaginary apron. "Alright. One honey apple pie coming right up."

  Meanwhile, back in the central room...

  Mila, Bob, and Zhu stood around the two metal beds, their eyes fixed on the sleeping figures connected by wires. The room hummed with tension.

  "What did you do to her?" Zhu asked, her voice sharp as she looked at Dr. Iskandar.

  "Nothing much," the hologram said calmly, floating near the console. "See that needle poking out of both her and that boy's neck?"

  He pointed a translucent finger at the silver probes embedded in their skin.

  "That is the neural link I developed," he explained. "I am siphoning some of the boy's Void energy and transferring it to this girl through the needle and the wire. That should, in theory, work as a bridge. A lifeline."

  "In theory," Bob commented, crossing his massive arms. "Never tested, right?"

  "Correct. Never tested," Iskandar admitted without shame. "But both this girl and that boy are anomalies."

  He looked at Raito’s body. Small bursts of black flame flickered in and out of existence on his skin, like a dying fire fighting for air.

  "That ring of hers," Iskandar continued, gesturing to the pulsing Sakura band, "should get her deep into the boy's mentalscape. Like a gateway key. Their connection, if it is true, will be stable enough to allow the girl to pull the boy's soul out of the Void's grasp."

  He checked a monitor, watching the brainwave patterns sync. "All we can do now is wait."

  "You really know a lot about this 'Void' you keep mentioning," Mila said, eyeing the scientist suspiciously.

  Iskandar paused. He looked away, his holographic image flickering slightly.

  "Well," he murmured. "I... I partially discovered it. So I had some experience with it."

  In the orphanage kitchen...

  "Ta-da!"

  Yukari presented her creation with a flourish.

  On the plate sat a black, charred mass. It was flat where it should be puffy, and hard where it should be flaky. A sad trickle of burnt honey oozed from a crack in the crust. It was supposed to be a honey apple pie. It looked more like a charcoal.

  Kun stared at it. He stared at her.

  "You failed, miss," he said flatly.

  Yukari groaned, burying her face in her hands, her ears turning red. "I'm sorry! Don't look at me like that! I am sure I followed Miss Yinzi's recipe in my head!"

  "Uh-huh," Kun gave her a skeptical side-eye.

  Then, he reached out. He picked up the burnt disc.

  "No! Don't eat it!" Yukari tried to stop him, reaching out. "It's a failure! It might make you sick!"

  CRUNCH.

  Kun took a big bite. He chewed slowly, the sound of charcoal grinding between his teeth audible in the silence.

  "It is," Kun agreed, swallowing with some difficulty. "It is a failure."

  But then, he smiled. "But... the taste is not bad. It's sweet inside."

  Seeing the boy's smile, seeing him accept her flaw without judgment, Yukari felt a warmth spread through her chest that had nothing to do with the stove.

  "You haven't changed," she muttered to herself.

  "What was that, miss?" Kun asked, taking another bite.

  "Nothing," Yukari smiled, watching him eat. "So you admit it's not bad?"

  "Yes," Kun nodded. "But I definitely don't want to eat this every day."

  Yukari chuckled. "Fair enough."

  FLASH.

  A path of brilliant white light suddenly appeared next to her, slicing through the dusty air of the kitchen. It was a doorway, beckoning.

  Yukari looked at it. Then she looked down at the boy.

  "I guess this is goodbye?" the boy asked, putting down the rest of the pie. He looked sad again.

  "No," Yukari shook her head firmly. She knelt down one last time. "It is never a goodbye."

  "Then," Kun asked, tilting his head, "can you tell me your name, miss?"

  Yukari stood up and stepped into the light. She looked back over her shoulder, her silhouette glowing.

  "It's Lin," she said, her voice soft but clear. "Lin Meihua. Your future wife."

  She smiled.

  And everything turned white.

  The white light faded, replaced by the heavy, suffocating grey of a storm.

  Yukari blinked. She was standing outside the orphanage this time. The building looked older, more worn than in the kitchen memory.

  She tried to step forward, but her feet were rooted to the spot. An invisible restraint locked her in place, forcing her to be a spectator.

  The sky was dark, swollen with bruised clouds. Rain began to pour, not a drizzle, but a deluge that hammered against the roof and turned the dirt path into mud.

  Then, Yukari saw them.

  Four figures stood on the porch in front of the heavy oak door.

  One was a young man, around sixteen or seventeen. It was a younger Raito—or Kun, at this point—his face sharper, his posture defensive. He was drenched, his clothes clinging to his thin frame.

  Facing him was the familiar, comforting bulk of the Elephant Sacred, Miss Yinzi. Behind her stood two others, but their forms were blurred and indistinct, like smudges on a wet painting.

  The rain should have been deafening, drowning out all sound. But in this memory, the conversation cut through the storm with crystal clarity.

  "Why?" Kun shouted, his voice cracking. "Why can't I stay? I can help! I can clean! I can cook! I don't need payment! I just want a roof!"

  Rainwater dripped from his nose and chin, mixing with something that looked suspiciously like tears.

  "Kun, please," Miss Yinzi pleaded, reaching out a hand. "Come inside and let me explain properly. You're getting soaked."

  "Explain what?" Kun stepped back, rejecting her concern. "One day you just came to my room and told me I have to leave soon. Why? So even you think I am a burden, Miss Yinzi?"

  "Kun, it's not like that!" Yinzi cried, her large ears drooping. "It's also a difficult decision for us! We tried to—"

  "It must be because I am too old and no one wants to adopt me, right?" Kun scoffed, a bitter, ugly sound. "I'm just taking up space for the younger more desirable ones."

  SLAP.

  Miss Yinzi slapped him. It wasn't hard, but the shock of it silenced the rain for a heartbeat.

  "It's not that! It's never that!" Miss Yinzi shouted, her voice thick with emotion. "Kun, believe me! I raised you from when you were a baby! You are my son in every way that matters! Listen to me!"

  Kun held his cheek. He looked at her, his eyes hard and cold.

  "No," he whispered. "I'm done. If you want me gone, I will leave. I will leave now."

  He turned away, hoisting a meager rucksack onto his shoulder.

  "Please!" Miss Yinzi pleaded, stepping into the rain. "It doesn't have to be this way!"

  "I hope the orphanage stays successful," Kun said without looking back.

  He walked away, his figure disappearing into the curtain of rain.

  Behind him, Miss Yinzi slumped against the doorframe, covering her face as she cried.

  Yukari covered her mouth with her hand, her heart aching. "This sight... this event..." She hadn't expected to be shown the moment he broke.

  "Turned out... the orphanage was shutting down due to lack of funding," Raito's voice echoed from the sky, sounding older, filled with regret. "That's why she had to let me go. She wanted me to find a new path before I was kicked out with nothing."

  The scene of the rain-drenched porch began to dissolve.

  "How stupid I was back then," Raito scoffed at his younger self. "I thought I had been betrayed again. I lashed out at the only person who loved me. I hate myself."

  The voice faded into the hum of the void.

  "Raito! Raito!" Yukari screamed, struggling against her invisible bonds. "Where are you?!"

  Then, another blinding white flash consumed the world.

  Yukari opened her eyes again. Her body still wouldn't move, locked in place as a spectator to her husband's memories.

  Another scene played out in front of her.

  A young man—Raito again, but even thinner, malnourished to the point of being skeletal—sat huddled under a stone bridge. He had only a piece of damp cardboard as a barrier against the cold of the night.

  She scanned the surroundings, the architecture, the smell of coal and spices in the air. She knew immediately where this was.

  Jinlun., The capital of the Ruhong. Place she once called home.

  This was when Raito first arrived here with nothing but the clothes on his back.

  She watched him. His complexion was pale, almost translucent. His body shivered uncontrollably in the biting wind. He was just looking up at the stars above, his face somber and devoid of hope.

  She tried to reach out. She tried to scream his name.

  "Raito! Raito!"

  But she was ignored. Or more accurately, she simply never existed there. She was a ghost haunting a memory.

  This younger Raito finally spoke, his voice hoarse. "Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll surely get a job. I have to."

  He looked across the canal at a large, illuminated billboard attached to a high-rise building. He grabbed a pebble from the ground and threw it weakly. It fell short, splashing into the dark water.

  He was aiming at the face on the panel.

  The face Yukari was intimately familiar with. Her own face, from back then. Cold, distant, perfect. With the name 'Snow Flower' written in elegant calligraphy beneath it.

  "I hate her," Kun whispered, his eyes burning with envy.

  "She must be rich. Lots of food. Clean clothes. Dozens of helpers. Never knowing poverty. That face... having to look at that face mocking me from her throne of riches..."

  He spat into the water. "I hate that face."

  Yukari was shocked. She knew she had everything back then—wealth, status, power. But it had felt empty to her, a golden cage. But to the Raito of that time... she was everything he was jealous of. She was the symbol of the unfairness of his world.

  Then, two figures approached this Raito from the shadows of the bridge. They offered a hand.

  "Come work for me," one of the figures said, his voice rough but kind.

  "Yeah... I never told her this," Raito's disembodied voice echoed once more, heavy with guilt. "But I genuinely hated her back then. She had everything, and I had nothing. The fact that we met a few years after that... and fell in love..."

  A pause.

  "There is no way I can tell her now. She would hate me."

  "You should have just told me," Yukari commented softly to the empty air, her heart aching for the boy under the bridge.

  "I would have been a goner if Mr. Zhang and Jack didn't appear that time," Raito continued. "I am indebted to them. I thought I could face the world alone. I was wrong. I hate myself."

  Raito's voice disappeared, fading into the wind.

  And along with it, another flash of white consumed the scene.

  Flashes of memories began to pass right through Yukari, rapid-fire and intense. She wasn't just watching a film; she was living it. She felt everything he felt.

  The rainstorm.

  She felt the cold seep into his bones, but more than that, she felt the paralyzing uncertainty. The fear of getting involved with a noble, the fear of the consequences. Yet, overriding it all was a desperate, illogical need to save the girl shivering in the alley. He took her in despite his terror. This has to be a mistake, but she is crying….

  Their first breakfast.

  She tasted the bland, watery porridge he made. She felt his anxiety spiking as she took the first bite. Is it good enough? Will she hate it? And then, when she smiled—her true, unmasked smile—she felt his heart skip a beat. It hammered against his ribs, confusing him. Why is my heart racing? I hate her. I should hate her. But he didn't.

  His selfishness.

  She felt the pang of loneliness when she left his decrepit apartment. She felt the selfish, quiet wish: Please come back. Don't leave me alone in this silence. And the explosion of warmth and relief when she actually returned.

  Their first date. The picnic.

  She tasted the 'toxic sandwich'—a culinary disaster that they laughed over. She felt the grass under his back as they lay in the grass field of Jinlun’s outskirts. The simple, domestic joy of their days together.

  The first time they fell asleep holding hands. The warmth of her palm against his. The feeling of finally belonging somewhere.

  Everything transmitted to Yukari like a wave of warm, aching nostalgia.

  "I feel the same," Yukari murmured, tears streaming down her face in the white void. "Even back then... the time I spent with you... I loved it."

  "I love her," Raito’s voice echoed, soft and full of wonder.

  Then, the tone shifted. The voice cracked.

  "But I should not have. It was a mistake."

  The scene shifted abruptly.

  The light vanished. The warmth evaporated.

  Yukari stood in a pitch-black dungeon. The air smelled of mold, rust, and old blood.

  Once again, she found she couldn't move. She was forced to be a statue in hell.

  She saw him. Raito. The Raito she knew, not the child. He was chained to the wall, stripped to the waist.

  It was the scenery she had always heard about in whispers, the event she still blamed herself for every single day. This was Raito when he was arrested, because the nobles of Jinlun thought a commoner like him was corrupting the Snow Flower.

  Yukari tried to avert her eyes. She squeezed them shut. She turned her head away.

  But every time she turned, the scene would play out right in front of her face, forcing her to look. There was no escape.

  A figure stepped out of the shadows.

  It was Xiang Feng, the young Tortoise Sacred. The boy who had looked up to her like a beacon. But now, he wore a distorted, sadistic smile that made him look like a stranger.

  "Talk," Xiang Feng hissed.

  He grabbed Raito by the wrist, twisting it until the bone creaked. He threw him against the stone wall.

  CRACK.

  Then came the whip.

  SLASH. SLASH. SLASH.

  Xiang Feng whipped him until every inch of his back was a map of bruises and lacerations.

  "What method did you use?" Xiang Feng demanded, his voice trembling with righteous fury. "How did a rat like you manipulate Lady Meihua? Drugs? Blackmail? Tell me!"

  "Stop!" Yukari fell to her knees in the memory, sobbing. "Stop it! I can't!"

  But the beating continued. More tools were brought out. Irons. Pliers. It was methodical. It was unending.

  It was truly a miracle Raito had survived this. It was a testament to a stubbornness that bordered on insanity.

  "Looking back..." Raito’s voice echoed once more, hollow and dead. "I should have just died there. It would have been easier for everyone. I hate myself."

  The onslaught of memories continued, faster now, a blurring kaleidoscope of joy tainted by a narrator who only saw failure.

  Every path they took on the journey to Hanyuun flashed by.

  Yukari felt his loneliness, deep and gnawing, as he waited for her every night in that cold room while she worked for the Warlord. She felt his terrifying insecurity—Will she come back? Does she still need me?

  She felt the heartbreak that nearly stopped his heart when they split up. And the explosion of pure, unadulterated joy when they reunited—a happiness so intense it frightened him.

  She felt his resolve harden like steel as he picked up a blade for the first time. Not to kill. To protect. To stand beside her.

  She felt his awe, bordering on reverence, when he awakened his own Core. The wonder that he, a nobody, had been granted power.

  The wedding. She heard his internal thought as he looked at her in the stolen dress: I am marrying the most beautiful woman ever. I don't deserve this.

  The vacation to Spica. The laughter. The peace.

  Then, the rage. The blinding, helpless fury when Emile sacrificed himself for them.

  She felt his crushing incompetency as he watched Mary and Anise weep for the lost doll. They are crying because of me. Because I wasn't strong enough, I have to keep being protected.

  His first taste of the Black Flame. The seductive whisper of power. The surge of aggression that felt good, until he saw her face. His fear of her fear. The terrifying realization that the person he wanted to protect was afraid of him.

  It was all laid bare for Yukari to see, including Raito's internal thoughts at the time. The words she couldn't hear then were screaming now.

  And every time, over every scene, the voice of the present Raito would echo, blaming himself, hating himself, wishing he had died.

  It all culminated in the scene in the desert. The attack of the two mechanical beasts.

  Yukari saw herself through his eyes. She saw her own body, mangled and bloody on the sand.

  "Why can't I save her?" Raito's scream echoed in the mental sky, tearing through the memory. "Why can't I protect her? All of her injuries... all because of me. I hate myself!"

  Then, his latest memory.

  Yukari saw it. The dark tunnel. The drill machine. The Old Man grappling with the pilot.

  She saw the mechanical arm swipe. She heard the sickening crunch as the Old Man hit the tunnel wall. She felt Raito's sanity snap.

  "Once again..." Raito’s voice returned, weaker now, dampened by despair. "Because of me... everyone got hurt. I hate myself."

  His voice began to retreat, fading into the distance like a dying radio signal.

  "Raito!" Yukari shouted, looking around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice in the swirling white.

  Then, pitch-black darkness consumed her. The ground vanished.

  She was falling. Deeper and deeper into the abyss of his soul.