BACKROOM: The Wanderer's note. Chapter 2: Chapter 2 : Lesson from the old man

Read chapter 2 of BACKROOM: The Wanderer's note. by SuVeryLong on NovelPedia.

Buzzzz———— … Footsteps break the ‘silences’. A shadow of a man walks by. It’s Owen. The maze, it’s like a forest. Different directions, born different routes. Each tree changes your route, just like how each wall turns Owen’s path. The only difference is that there’s a ceiling shutting him in. ‘Huh?...’ … Darkness. A corridor that leads to darkness. Owen just made a corner turn and there lurks a corridor that leads to the unknown. There’s another path with the usual fluorescent buzzing, the usual wallpaper, the usual corridor. There is no buzzing coming from the abyss. ‘Should I go?...’ Owen stood still, yielding, and striking a thoughtful pose. ‘Grandpa would have told me to not take risks…’ He turns back. Leaving the corridor alone in silence. … ‘In that darkness, it feels like something’s glancing at me.’, Owen uncontrollably takes a peek in the corner of his eye, looking behind. Leaving, Owen noticed something… A drop of water rolled down from his forehead and left a trail of streak, ‘Shit. why am I sweating…’ It wasn’t hot. In fact, it’s just a few degrees higher than air-con temperature. However, he’s sweating. His hand trembles. ‘Calm down, Owen… It’s okay, you can do this.’, he shouted in his mind, however his body didn't listen. It continues to tremble… He continues to sweat… Hiss ——— Frozen in place. He immediately turned to the direction of the sound. The sound Buzzzz———— In response, it’s just the usual hum-buzzings. Am I hallucinating? … —— Snow Forest The evening sky burns above the forest like wildfire. Burning clouds orange. The night sky is slowly devouring the world. The forest covers small mountains like a blanket, and grows around large snow mountains. The ground is in a thin layer of snow. Grass, and rocks can be partially seen. SHUSH. SHUSH. The forest is brushed by two ascending figures. It reveals… A teen, dark hair and eyes, an oddly pale skin— The old man— a large but empty bag. Young Owen skims the surroundings. Then, looks at the evening sky “It’s getting dark… Gotta be quick!” Young Owen’s footstep becomes more frequent, faster. Suddenly, somewhere in the forest, it emits a blast of delicious food burning, roasting. At the same time, Owen’s stomach growls. His trail of footprints starts to curve to where the food smell originates from. Suddenly, a hand reaches for him, stopping him. “Stop." Owen : ? “Let's go back down and take the other route.” “Huh? Why?!?”, Owen questioned. “I’ll show you…” The old man warily scans the surroundings, especially the ground. ‘Metal…’ He walks deeper. deeper… and deeper… … CLAMP! HE JUMPS IMMEDIATELY! With a grunt, he bounced away. Footsteps, Owen rushed to the old man, “.W- What happened!?” A metal flash in the eye corner… “A BEAR TRAP?!?” What happened was— The old man stepped onto the bear trap, then immediately jumped out of the bear trap in a fraction of a millisecond. THE HECK IS THAT REACTION TIME, 0.00012983s? A white device attached to one of the dark-oak trees, source of the smell. Damn, technologies truly are creepy, they got these in 2070 huh? Anyways… After aura farming, the old man concluded, “As the saying goes, ‘Show don’t tell!’, now not only you know but understand the danger of forests…” “Now go down.” … After returning and taking the other path, where an empty rock road is paved, separating the forest into two. Same tree after same tree. Same road after same road. No sense of progress. His legs are already sore after just 20 minutes. It's throbbing and burning like an overheating computer. However, the old man didn’t even break a sweat, ‘Is he a machine?!?’,Owen thought. Until finally… As they get taller to the mountain, the forest begins to transition to plain snow. Scattered trees instead of dense forest, Rocks under snows start to reveal. In the middle of the transition… “We’ve arrived”, the old man who’s in the lead, seeing the checkpoint, announced. Owen lifts his head with a jolt of curiosity, swaying the sweat away from his face at the sam