36 Searching

Nothing came. It was a frustrating experience. He knew he dreamt the previous night. He was sure of it. But for the life of him, he could not recall any tangible thing, place, or person from the dreams. He felt like his mind had turned against him! He did his best to analyze them, but fell short with each trial. It was like grasping at straws.

As he lay in bed, with frustration steadily creeping in on him like a noncturnal predator, his phone rang wildly. The rude vibration of his cellphone was an unwelcome distraction. Reluctantly, his eyes peeled away from the blank ceiling to the bedside table on his left. Groggily, he answered the phone without even checking to see who it was;

"Hello."

A thin feminine voice answered from the other end;

"Hello! Mister Alex???"

It took him a second to recognize the voice.

"Mister Alex it's Eliana, Scarlett's sister."

Alex relaxed. But that did not last long.

"Eliana? How are you? Is something wro---?"

"It's Scarlett! I think she's dying!"

Alex eyes widened. As he sat up straight, he wondered why he had not noticed her frantic tone much earlier.

"...she fell asleep with me last night, but she reufsed to wake up this morning! The doctor said she somehow slipped into a coma through sleep...either they don't know what's happening, or they just won't tell me!!" she sniffled as she fought back the sob rising in her throat. "Please mister Alex!! Scarlett really needs you here! I need you here!!"

Without hesitation or any further questions, he gave her a three worded reply;

"I'm coming."

He dropped the phone and moved towards the door with the intent of teleporting right away. On the way, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and saw just how slovenly he looked. There was no time for a shower. Besides there was no point when he could simply-

SNAP!

It was the sound of his fingers snapping. Instantly, his look changed into a much refreshed version of himself. His entire physcial appearance went into order as if some magical butler had fixed him up. Having cleaned up, he spirited himself away and reappeared in the same blindspot from the previous day.

When he remembered the long ride to the thirteenth floor in the elevator, he cringed. He snapped his fingers again and this time, reappeared at the balcony where he had last been with Scarlett. It was on the same floor, and barely twenty feet from Eliana's room. Thankfully, no one saw him.

In Eliana's room, the roles were now reversed. Scarlett was now lying in bed in the hospital gown, while the younger sister hovered over her with puffy eyes and a worried look. It really looked like fate had it in for the girls. They simply could not catch a break.

As soon as Eliana sighted Alex at the door, she rushed to hug him and sobbed on his chest.

"It's all my fault!" She wailed. "Maybe I transferred my curse to her!! What's wrong with me mister Alex??? Why does Scarlett have to keep suffering because of me???"

Alex pulled her away gently. He was not heartless. He simply lacked the experience and emotional maturity to soothe a weeping adolescent. All he could say was;

"Let me take a look at her. I'm sure she'll be okay..."

Five seconds later, Alex was not so sure himself.

Just as he had suspected, someone had gotten to her. Quite possibly the same person behind the man from the previous night. A quick scan of her inner being showed that his initial suspicions were right. Parts of her soul had been forcibly taken away. Because this had been done against her will, it had resulted in the partial shut down of her body, and her cognitive functions. She was alive alright, but only biologically. A better part of her soul was not present. Her consciousness was somewhere else entirely.

She had to be searched for and rescued.

But this posed to be a real deuce. It was not as simple as it sounded. Firstly, her soul presence was hidden away. That meant someone was actively masking her presence. Alex had actually tried on the spot to search for her, but the fluctuations of her soul had simply vanished. This person was extremely powerful. There was also the fact that he did not know exactly where she was being kept.

At his current level, he did not have the juice to perform a wide range search. It was possible that the search might have to extend to extend to the entire planet. All for a person whose presence felt like it had been ersased completely. Only the mere thought of this task was enough to give him a soul ache. Much like a super computer running at the same speed, he could not managed to do some more advanced computing now.

Alex held on the bed frame tightly as his eyes danced back and forth.

Eliana, being the sharp one, discerned that he was trying to figure out a way to help. Not one to sit back, she offered herself willingly;

"You can use me to do whatever it takes to heal her. I know you did something amazing to me yesterday, so please, do the same for my sister! PLEASE! I'll do whatever it takes!"

Alex mumbled; "It's not that sim---"

A streak of brilliant inspiration flashed across his eyes. It was something Eliana had said! Of course! He had completely forgotten that she was an A-level human. Well, that did not mean he wanted to have sex with her- at least not in this situation. But what that meant was that she could actually assist him.

His mind flew back and forth as he struggled to organize his excited thoughts.

Eliana and Scarlett were blood siblings. Their bond, much like their blood, yearned for each other. Pure love was one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and it was particularly potent in humans.

There was a phenomenon known as soul resonance. Souls of the same blood, who shared an unusual tight bond resonated with each other. So, with the right amount of power, he could use Eliana to track down the soul of the sister!!

It was brilliant on-the-feet thinking. He was not sure that it had been done before. But, theoritically speaking, there was no reason why it would not work! Especially since both sisters were top tier human who ranked very high on the potential continuum! This was the solution!

This was the first time Alex was experiencing pure undiluted excitement since he became a human. Of all his human experiences, so far, this trumped all the others. It was a victorious feeling born of triumph over hopelessness and adversity. It was almost like having a mental orgasm!

By the time Alex was done uploading this information onto her, Eliana felt like she had been hit in the face with a sledge hammer. Her entire world was turned upside down. Suddenly, she felt like a toddler that was learning to see the world anew.

"Eliana, I know this is a lot, but I have to tell you, this is very risky business we are about to undertake. Especially for you...are you up for it?"

Alex was pretty sure he had slammed the poor girl with some very hard facts. But Eliana took it like a champ. Even though she had been stuck in a wheel chair for a decent portion of her life, the young girl was still very much an A-level potential. All her life, she had sensed that there was more to the world than just what she could see and feel.

But, with no one to guide or show her the way, that side of her had remained dormant. Her sickness had been a major contributing factor to that.

So, when her sister's mysterious (and strangely flamoboyant) friend explained everything to her, it did not come as some kind of fairytale. Surprisingly, she accepted it right away, without offering up any kind of resistance.

As she stood there, transfixed to the spot, staring into space, she realized that what had happened to her only yesterday had after all been a paranormal incident. Initially, she thought she had dreamed the whole thing up. But this recent revelation revealed that it had been very a lot more real than she had realized. Her gaze shifted slowly to Alex and fixed her piercing blue eyes on him.

Just who was this guy exactly? Some kind of shaman?

To Eliana, it was as if she was truly seeing at him for the first time. And for the first time, she saw that, even though they looked like they were the same age, the young man's knowing gray eyes were filled with wisdom. They were not sad. They were not haughty either, and neither did they carry the mischevous streak that was common with most young men of his age, No, they were just...really- old.

His familiar voice brought her back to earth again.

"I'm sorry Eliana, but this is the only way. I need you to make up your mind righ---"

"I'm in." she said in a determined tone.

"Excuse me?" Alex heard her. But he just had to make sure.

"I said I'm in mister Alex- or whatever your real name is. You don't have to ask me twice, I'll do anything for my sister. So, let's get on with it."

She sounded so calm, so confident, and not shaken at all. Alex exhaled. This was definitely not the reaction he expected from a human whom he just told about the existence of the cosmic realm. She took the news pretty well, and he sure was glad that she had spared him the usual drudgery one would expect from a newbie. She really was an A-level alright.

With that out of the way, they could finally begin properly. He moved swiftly to explain the next step. But it came out awfully wrong from his mouth;

"I need you to get in bed and lay perfectly still..."

Eliana recoiled.

"I AM NOT GOING TO FUCK YOU MISTER ALEX!!"

Alex did not think he was capable of cringing. Eliana had that wary look in her eye now, and it was all because of his tactlessness. He quickly moved to diffuse her fears by explaining;

"Forgive me, that is not what I meant. What I meant to say is, we both need to lay down perfectly still for our souls to collectively leave our bodies. From there, I can get a reading on your sister's soul fluctuations and trace her location."

He lifted up his hands innocently;

"I assure you, there's no funny business here. For us to do this, you need to trust me completely? Can you do that?"

Eliana nodded and said; "Sure."

They both moved Scarlett's body to the couch and laid side by side on the bed.

"Uhmm, do I need to make any enchantment or something? I haven't willfully done anything like this before."

"No need. Just take a deep breath and close your eyes. I'll help you come out."

He did.

When Eliana opened her eyes. She once again saw the familiar sight of her own body lying motionlessly on the bed. Beside her, also gliding effortlessly was Alex who was encased in a reddish halo of light. He did not open his mouth to speak, but she heard his voice in her head clearly.

"Don't be afraid," he reassured her. "I've already located your sister's soul fluctuations. It's pretty weak, but I think I know where she is."

Eliana thought it was good news, but the look on Alex's face, as well as his energy told her that he did not like where he suspected Scarlett was being held. She did not know why, but in that state, she could read his emotions from his energy.

"You know where she is don't you?" she inquired. "Tell me. I want to know."

Alex replied her flatly; "Your sister is in hell."

He did not give her time to react or bombard him with questions. He simply floated towards the window and levitated his way right down to the ground. Eliana rushed after him, fairly certain that if she fell too far behind, she would lose him completely. When Alex got to the ground, he looked up, as if waiting for her. As soon as she got close to him, Alex grabbed on to her hand.

Eliana was not in anyway prepared for what happened next.

The thing was, she was not even sure that it was possible to touch each other in this form. The feeling of Alex's palm grasping her wrist was not exactly how it would have felt in her physical body. But that was not the strangest thing yet.

As soon as Alex laid his hands on her, the ground seemed to give way. Eliana opened her mouth to scream, but it was swallowed in the darkness that followed. The yawning abyss swallowed both of them as they plunged right into the bowels of the earth. The wonderful blue sky, the beautiful city landscape, the towering buildings and the familiar green of the world above, completely disappeared. And it its stead was a horribly oppressive darkness that could be felt in every way.

There was no light source. It was pitch blackness in its purest form.

Her eyes were basically useless at this point. But strangely enough, even with her fears blasting in her ears like a trumpet, Eliana could feel her environment with terrifying acuteness. The perfect situational awareness was insane. There was no wind or guiding instrument, and yet somehow, she could tell that they were travelling at an astonishing four hundred miles per hour!

Still fully dependent on her eyes for sight, she looked around frantically, hoping to catch even the slightest flicker of light. But it was futile. She felt the vastness of the tunnel they were travelling through. She felt the vibration coming from the drills of the oil rigs from a couple thousand miles south of her location. She felt the yawning chasm of the oceans east of her. It was incredible, it was terrifying, and it was phenomenal.

Of all her senses, her visual perception was the weakest.

She could feel everything, including the heat- especially the heat. The emptiness of the tunnel was only surpassed by the rising temperature around her. It seemed the deeper they travelled, the more intense the heat was. Like a geological mapping system, her mind conjured a mental map of her environment.

She could not explain how, but she knew that there were mutiple tunnels like these all over over the world. And they were embedded deep in the crust. They all ran into the bowels of the earth, and led to one specific location;

HELL. HADES. THE UNDERWORLD. It was called many names. But it was very much still the same place.

It was so close, she could almost sense it. It was like a boiling cauldron that had been specifically designed to double as a prison and as a torture house. The whole journey took a terrifying sixty eight seconds. All through that period, Eliana's heart had been in her chest. Her heartbeat was so loud and so pronounced, she was sure everyone within a two mile radius could hear it thumping away wildy.