The yellow light from the wall torches flickered against the dungeon walls like a dying breath. Lane reached out with profound care, sliding his hands beneath the small girl's body and lifting her into his lap.
His movements were so silent and steady that it felt as if he didn't even want to disturb the air around them. "You are very sweet," he whispered, his voice floating like a cold mist in the silent room. He cradled her as if she were made of thin glass—fragile enough to shatter at the slightest touch.
Lane's fingers began to move slowly through the girl's tangled, dusty hair. He started tapping her head with his palm in a rhythmic, steady motion—one... two... three. The touch of his fingers and that gentle tapping worked like a silent spell. "Go to sleep... your eyelids have grown so heavy, let them rest now," Lane murmured softly. Within moments, the girl's body went limp, and her breathing became deep and steady. She surrendered to a heavy sleep, tucked against Lane's chest.
With immense caution and without making a sound, Lane lifted the girl's head from his lap and rested it against the cold, stone floor. He made sure she was comfortable before pulling back. He then turned his neck and looked at Luka. Luka could hear his own heartbeat drumming in his ears as he moved closer. His voice was like a needle scratching against stone, "Now tell me... the door... those shadows... what was all of that?"
Lane looked into Luka's eyes. Luka noticed that Lane's pupils were dilated, and a faint moisture glistened at the corners of his eyes. His voice had become thinner and more fragile than a silken thread. "Will you truly stay with me?" Lane's words stumbled painfully. "If I tell you everything I saw... will you not look at me with disgust? Will you not leave my hand, thinking I am a liar or someone who has lost his mind?"
Luka felt the mask of innocence on Lane's face finally beginning to crack. He reached out and placed his hand on Lane's head, patting it with the same tenderness Lane had shown the child. "I will believe everything you say, Lane. We are friends. Whatever you tell me, I will accept as the truth. Now speak, do not be afraid."
Luka's reassurance acted like a key, unlocking the terror trapped inside Lane. Suddenly, Lane's hands began to tremble uncontrollably. Seeing this, Luka immediately reached forward and firmly took Lane's trembling wrists into his own hands. Lane's skin was as cold as ice, and Luka held them tightly to give him a sense of security.
"When that heavy door shrieked open..." Lane began, every breath sounding like a suppressed sob. "Did you see? The other children sat there like stone statues. To them, there was nothing but silence. There was no movement in the air. At first, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, so I crawled into the dark corner in fear. I hid my face between my knees so that I wouldn't have to see anything."
The horrific scene began to play out again before Lane's eyes. His voice now held a strange tremor. "But you... you stood there still, as if you were truly seeing 'people'. I don't know what you saw there, Luka. For me, the wheel of time had stopped. I only knew one thing—I must not look at those things."
Lane's hands continued to shudder within Luka's firm grip. "Sometimes I see such scary and bad things, Luka... but they weren't humans. My eyes didn't see any bodies of flesh... there was only rot. They were walking corpses with decaying black flesh hanging off them. Something strange was dripping from their skin, and where their eyes should have been, there were only hollow, dark pits. They didn't look like humans or vampires; they were just very scary and evil shadows!"
The chill in the room seemed to intensify with Lane's words. "I was so scared that my breath stopped right there. But when I finally looked up, those rotting fingers were gripping your hand! They were pulling you toward that darkness. I thought they would vanish on their own, but when they actually started taking you away from me, my chest began to ache with pain. I didn't want to let you go with those scary shadows. I didn't want to lose my friend, so I used all my strength to pull you back toward me."
Luka was stunned into silence. He could feel the ice-like coldness and the sheer terror radiating from Lane's hands. He realized then that Lane wasn't playing a game—the boy was living a horrific reality that the rest of the world couldn't even perceive. In that dim light of the dungeon, a bond was forged between them that was now unbreakable.