Chapter 10: The Attic of Lost and Tower of Doors

As his awareness faded, Martin traveled into a long winding tunnel.

The tunnel was like a passage system in a cave and had many channels of different paths connected to it and leading to unfamiliar lands.

He did not bother asking himself questions, as he did not even know where he was. Some unknown method forcedly returned his fading consciousness. 

For God's sake, he just died, and then his consciousness is trying to ditch him, too. What an unfair world. Couldn't he have his complete undivided awareness after all of what happened?

Well, he got what he asked. He became fully awake. 'Thank God... oops only thank, no more God,' he thought.

Specks of rainbow glow illuminated some parts of this tunnel. And the rainbow of lights that gathered before and attached to him is still there, guiding him.

He is traveling through the more enormous tunnels. A left turn, right, another right, up, left... he traveled slow but at the same time fast. 

"The time here is so ambiguous," He couldn't understand how did this place even formed. Physics, time, and so many other scientific concepts eluded this place. It's magical and so unscientific.

"Well, no one cares. I died, and here I am, still living. By the way, is this... my soul? Probably, " He shrugged his shoulder, not knowing the answers to his questions. 

"Ohhh, my voice. I can hear it?! They said that you can't speak inside the void, right? What do souls know? Ha...ha...ha," He laughed mechanically. So boring, that is why he keeps himself afloat with his words.

On the other hand, the small paths on the side are dark and hazy, making it difficult to see its interior. Some have either two big globes of light, like the eyes of monsters lurking in the shadows, or have grayish-like transparent tentacles swaying left and right.

"How distasteful. No one would bother that tunnel of tentacles unless perverted," He lampooned. No one's around to judge him anyway.

After a few more turns, he found some things floating stationary. He passes through a lot of them.

At first, he minds it not. Then, he found similarities.

Various regular possessions of people floated around him, and sometimes broken parts of something passed his way. He did not touch any of it nor even thought of touching one, afraid of being cursed or suffering from the unknown.

Bacteria and microorganisms might be lodged into those. 'A dead might die from infection, do they? I hope not," Being alone takes a significant toll on his mind. 

Talking to himself is one thing, but ridiculing things, that's new for him. He couldn't bother, though. He was alone. Like literally alone.

Fortunately, these things did not bump into him or avoid him. 

"What a relief," He sighed. The rainbow lights attached to his body have a magical ability to repel these things. These lights do not like those things and, at the same time, do not abhor them. Strangers meeting at one point, that's it.

Some big things there looked like a vintage car of dark color with vine patterns with missing tires. There was also a peculiar golden key with eyes as well as trucks of varying sizes and lengths. They look like a part of the same brand with the same logo as a sparrow.

There was also a painting of a long black-haired, beautiful woman with sharp fangs protruding from her luscious pink lips and very lifelike eyes. She is smiling.

Martin was creeped out.

"That painting looks... alive" When he passed through, he looked back, and fear gushed out. That same life-like eyes are still looking at him as if following him.

Luckily, it was just there floating.

There was also a high back leather chair akin to the seats found in throne rooms, and on its armrest has red lions with literal red burning feathers.

Martin could not help but open his eyes more to look if it was burning. 'The flames are dancing, and so it is real,' he surmised. He does not want to pressure his mind to accept them that easily, but just seeing them is entirely different from seeing and believing, those he couldn't do.

'What a magical world.' A lot of things are here. So many... useless things, only a few are passable like that one.

There was a black diamond-inlaid scepter glowing with multiple colors conjuring blur scenes of thunder and lightning. 'That's expensive," Diamonds were expensive when Martin was still alive, but souls don't need diamonds, not black at that matter.

There also seemed to be a school of goldfishes swimming and frolicking around him and swam towards the distance. They are moving and life-like, but this mechanical feeling that Martin can sense comes from these goldfishes.

"What is it? Ah, right. Just like toys," He compared those swimming goldfishes to toys her sister had.

"Sigh... Annie, how I miss you," He sighs whenever he remembers his family. He couldn't help it. He was his siblings' guardian, after all.

He passed by a plantation of metallic-colored seaweeds and a giant nest full of pink eggs at some point in time.

He wanted to reach those eggs and hold them to feel for a while. He is just hungry. That is proven by a "Growl" from his stomach.

Who wouldn't be? When you have hours of battling death, shot by many bullets, you will be hungry as a wolf. 

But, the rainbow lights continued moving him. So, the eggs passed him.

Though magnificent and high-fetching in value, no one retrieved these floating pieces of stuff, so neither did Martin try to take any of it.

But small gadgets are more evident than the bigger ones.

A complete small doll for children prominent in the 1700s in Europe, like what he saw in a film, there was also a cracked but still working stopwatch with gold chains, a tattered dog leash can also be found, a flask of green liquid, a metal of unknown origin, a hanger for clothes, bronze coin of unidentified markings, a mummified mummy with thick yellow pus, the foliage of branch filled with vibrant green leaves, and many more normal-looking possessions.

Aside from the mummy, everything seems normal. He knew it was a mummy because of the movies he had seen.

"All of the things or possessions that are floating here are like lost belongings of some individual vanished in time. It seems to be a collective place of useless junk stuff usually found in attics," Martin said to himself as he inspected the tunnel he was traveling.

'Well, most of it anyway.' he added to his mind.

Levitating his way, he could not point out the difference between north and south and tumbled every once in a while. He tried to stop moving, but there was this rainbow of light pulling him somewhere.

He let the strange force pull him into this mysterious tunnel where he is nothing but a spectator.

Time was nonexistent in this mystical place. He could not count how many twists and turns of tunnels he entered. He only discerned that a lot of time had passed.

Maybe a month, a year, decade, century, or even longer, he doesn't fully know. He never felt pain for hunger or even thirst. Maybe it was a psychological cue of emptiness.

For all those times, he saw a lot of things, uncountable things. 

He felt nothing at all. As if he is watching a movie. See things, pass through, then see more items.

He found things, rooms, destroyed buildings, a wingless plane, patches of land, a mountain of jewelry, and many other kinds of stuff more than what Earth could ever possess.

In this mysterious, timeless place, with nothing to do, Martin also seemed to see past clips of other people's lives and also his' at some point. When did it start? He has no idea.

At one point, he saw his fourth birthday party, his embarrassing things during his high school, the back view of his crush, and the pages and manga of his favorite light novels and anime.

"My crush..." He lamented that he had died, and he couldn't even say his feeling to that girl. He is an average hormone-gushing teenager who has his puppy love, just like any other his age.

During these times, he appeared to realize some things in life. He closed his eyes and reminisced and swam in this pool of memories. His happy family, joyous moments, his savage death, the betrayal, unsolved wishes, grudges, hope, love, dreams, and luck.

Tears began to form in his eyes. He remembered when he was shot, the pain of a bullet drilling into his body. The sweet memories with Annie and Luther. The grief of being weak as he waited for the evil men to shoot his family.

His life fleeted before him and he was there spectating it all over again.

"Life is ephemeral like the wind in a stormy day," he couldn't help but be poetic. With his words, in this mysterious place, a gust of wind appeared out of nowhere and blew with it the scent of spring, and it was immediately gone like a popping bubble without sounds.

"I cannot stay in one place all of the time nor choose my destination," a cracked stopwatch appeared behind him, similar to the stopwatch he passed by, and it was gone before the image of a plain pavilion made of rocks was constructed around him in an instant. It vanished as fast as it appeared.

"Maybe fate will send me somewhere I'll seek my purpose," an imaginary image of an unending red string unknowingly tied him, without his knowledge and awareness, to somewhere in the void and turned invisible as a single-celled microorganism swam around him, and a lamp brightened his entire being. The former disappeared before the latter showed its presence. But these two mystical things have dark colors as if they are not entirely formed.

Lastly, "All I want is for a satisfactory story that I may bring to my death," an ancient feathered pen emerged as it began scrambling tokens of characters unfamiliar to any civilization on Earth. It moved so fast that it vanished quickly as its tokens of characters faded as well, and a sarcophagus, with a skeleton and a bony crown on top of its head, engraved on it locked Martin inside. After a few seconds, like the rest, it also evaporated into nothingness.

Everything that had happened felt surreal and imaginary at the same time. So many strange artifacts appeared around Martin, but with his eyes closed and perception entering enlightenment, he did not realize that even one of them could shake any world of the cosmos.

Natural and unnatural phenomena kept occurring and recurring around Martin. He never knew why, but whenever these phenomena appeared outside his awareness, he felt comfortable, just like when he was in his mother's embrace.

He is lost in this unknown place, both physically and mentally.

As he dwelt more into his newfound insight, he passed in many different tunnels and entered paths of darkness, water, crossed rivers of fire, dens of demons, and many winding trails. And he did not mind the track of time passing by.

Countless mysterious artifacts and strange places seemed to be attracted to Martin, but their affinity together appeared to be lacking.

After an unknown time traveling in that tunnel, he seemed lost as a single question bugged Martin, "Who am I?"

In an instant, memories fogged by the lost track of time returned to Martin. His family, his death, his traveling, and his present state.

"I am Martin, a lost soul, a wretched traveler, and just a point of life in the infinite span of cosmos."

As he opened his eyes, he seemed to see the apparitions of his past again, his present, and shards of future fleeting his vision. They are moving faster than they did before and more illusory.

With the familiar pain, his consciousness faded away as he finally found the end of his journey in the presence of an inconspicuous wormhole.