Pit (2)
My hands kept groping upwards, and my arms soon became sore.
This was a meaningless action, but my mind went blank for a moment and I didn’t know whether I should put it down.
This was the first time I encountered something unusual. My first reaction was not to think about why, nor what to do, nor was it panic. Instead, I felt completely at a loss and bewilderment.
When my teammates gave me the warning, they warned me not to make any noise and then turned off the light source, so I was also prepared to be attacked by something in the dark.
But now, apart from where I was climbing the hook, everything else simply disappeared.
Reason tells me that this is impossible, because according to this logic, I am now a dried starfish clinging to the wall, suspended in a narrow cylinder with no boundaries above or below.
Just imagining this scene, the strong sense of absurdity is enough to make people feel confused and disconnected.
Compared to the well-ordered "sentry box", all the information the pit has given me so far is fragmented and chaotic, and I can't find any pattern at all.
But starting from the moonlit mud disaster in the rainforest, I have to admit that there is indeed a huge, ghostly, almost weird rule that governs it.
But even if it's a weird story, it can't be without any physics, right? Is this a weird story sent by the Trisolarans?
I was completely puzzled, so I stretched out my hand towards the void above and stared at my palm which did not disappear at all.
That is to say, at least outside the boundary line between "existence and non-existence", there is no invisible laser or bloody mouth that will cut off the part beyond the boundary in one go.
Next, I took out my steno pen and protein bar and tried to lift them up to the blank space, but nothing happened.
I put out a small platform for resting, freeing up my hands: I hold something with one hand, close my eyes and use the other hand to feel around, and I can touch the thing I lifted out of the boundary. It seems that the "non-existence" of everything is just a basic rule that I need to abide by.
The more I tried, the more confused I became.
Because I didn't feel any imminent danger, it seemed as if this sudden accident and such a big commotion were just to catch me off guard and hang me out to be made into dried bacon.
Help me, change it up. I thought, even if it was really a plate of bacon, it should be cooked by now. If there really is some kind of danger in the darkness, what is it waiting for?
The current smooth sailing and peace made me feel very uneasy. After hesitating for a long time, I opened my backpack, took out the headphones that I had wrapped tightly, and put them on.
The teammates' channel was still eerily quiet, even the scratching and breathing sounds were gone.
I tapped the headset, tried calling a few people, held my breath and waited for a while, but there was no response.
At this moment, the confusion gradually dissipated, and a certain unknown sense of urgency rose again.
We can't wait any longer.
Next, I did something that would normally be impossible for me to do.
I took out all the spare climbing ropes in my backpack, tied them together, let them down continuously, and then fixed one end of the rope directly to the hook on the wall.
Then I took off my spiked shoes, tied them together with the laces and hung them around my neck, released the grappling hook, and hung myself completely on the lone rope.
During this time, I didn't think at all about what to do if any of the knots in the connected ropes came loose. I just let my mind go and suddenly tightened the rope and went down.
Maybe I was swinging in the air for a while, or maybe it was just an illusion caused by the excessive emptiness and darkness. After completely leaving the only existing tunnel, I felt that my sense of balance and direction were completely messed up.
The only basis for judgment was the rapidly shrinking tunnel above my head. As I fell far beyond the length of the rope, I continued to fall until the top became a small black dot, and then I could see nothing.
I was still going down and the rope was still extending.
Under the gloves used for protection and anti-slip, my knuckles were worn out and I had lost all feeling. Finally, I stopped at an unknown height, pulled out the flashlight from my waist, turned it on, and looked around.
The light swept through the darkness, and surprisingly, a faint polarized light was reflected back when the light was only a few steps away.
I immediately reached out to feel around, but there was nothing there, so I used my body weight to shake the rope hard, and my whole body swung along with the rope, and then went straight through the place where I thought there would be rocks and walls.
It's hard to say which came first, the disappointment or the surprise. I thought to myself, what is this, hide-and-seek? I suddenly lost all my strength.
At this moment, there was finally a very slight sound in the earphones.
Someone is tapping on the headphones.
I listened over there, but didn't hear any breathing sound at all. Only after a long time, there was an elusive tapping sound on the earphone.
A glimmer of hope flashed through my mind, and I knocked back, feeling unusually uneasy.
But the sound from the other end was cut off immediately, and the headphones also lost all channel connection. I had no idea whether it was trying to escape from me or whether it had given me enough hints.
I calmed down.
No matter what it is, compared to the puzzle, the fact that I need to face more urgently at this moment is: because of this series of risky actions, my physical strength has indeed been depleted too much.
I have no regrets or shame, I'm just glad that even when I went crazy I didn't just let go and jump.
In fact, after venting my emotions, I felt that the abnormality caused by confinement was relieved a little, so I calmed down and thought carefully again.
It must not be such a difficult puzzle. The pit has only given me inspiration so far. In the extremely terrifying moonlight, the intuition brings me irresistible sleepiness and peace.
What exactly was the inspiration behind the pit this time? Did the person who reminded me think that I already had the information I needed?
I closed my eyes and said to myself: sound, light.
“Boom.”
Subtly, I closed my eyes, perhaps out of tiredness, or perhaps some hidden motivation, and gently tapped my forehead against the air in front of me.
"Boom, boom, boom."
Just like that day, there was someone knocking on the door in the wall.
I felt grounded once again.
I opened my eyes and the normal light I caught for a moment almost made me dizzy. Then I found that not far above my head, about ten meters high, at the narrow tunnel exit, the tail end of a hanging traction rope was shaking gently.
The estimate Wildcat gave me at the beginning was correct. It would only take about three or four hours to reach the bottom of the pit. When the unexpected happened, we were really only one step away from our destination.
At this time, my consciousness finally returned, and I looked down and around me to see where my other teammates were.
When I saw this, I was plunged into an indescribable sense of unreality.
I was standing in a pool of water that was not very deep. The water was not turbid, with just some floating gravel and fallen leaves, but no stench.
The cool water flowed over my feet, and the unusually smooth and flat feeling on the soles of my feet made me slowly realize that my shoes were still hanging around my neck.
I walked out of the puddle, and while putting my shoes back on, I kept looking around to confirm, suspecting that there was something wrong with my cognition.
In fact, I had already seen a few guys not far away, but at this moment we all kept looking around at the same time, completely ignoring each other's energy.
Because the place where we came out was a not-so-big abandoned reservoir.
This reservoir is located in the northeast corner of the camp. Due to mud disasters and ground subsidence, it was casually covered with plastic sheeting to block it off.
The camp was lit steadily, the nearest one standing unremarkably high above our heads.
I wiped my face, I didn't know if it was sweat or splashed water, and my fingers twisted away some yellow sand.
At this time, the footsteps were clear and real. A team of people were patrolling and walked towards the light. A guy with a cigarette in his mouth turned around casually and saw me.
My heart skipped a beat.
When our eyes met, he saw me without any doubt or alertness. He nodded at me in a very natural and relaxed manner, as if I were an acquaintance whom he trusted very closely.
A strong chill suddenly crawled up my spine and surged through my whole body.
I almost subconsciously took a step back, looked around, and grabbed a fellow who accompanied me to the field tonight, and found that it was Fang Ao.
He was also looking around blankly, muttering something to himself.
I suddenly turned him over, and under the bright lights of the camp, we could see each other's faces at the same time.
Without any communication, I knew that the expression on my face now showed the same fear and horror as his.
Because it was a face full of cracks and filled with mud.
That is the evil spirit in the mud.
We came to the bottom of the pit, came to the camp, and became part of the camp again.
At this moment, I finally understood what Yan Er, the shopkeeper, meant when he said that he could not distinguish the evil spirits in the mud and would think they were his own people. I am afraid that even he himself could not imagine the despair and desolation in this.
The Mud Devil is indeed a member of this camp. Not a member of the past or future team, but a member of the present moment.
I had to stand there for a while, a feeling of suffocation that made it difficult to breathe made my eyes go dark.
A hand held me up.
I raised my head and looked around. Wildcat, Gao Liu, Manager Yan Er, Fang Ao, and all the other guys who had gone to the fields with us had all gathered together quietly at this moment. They no longer observed or verified anything in the camp.
"I... I specially selected the best and newest batch of equipment for us." Shopkeeper Yan Er said with a sad smile, "90% new, I'm afraid you, the consultant, will be unhappy and expose me later."
“Pah.”
As he spoke woodenly, a piece of dried and caked mud fell from his face, tearing the skin behind it slightly red.
I looked at him without moving, and felt that my expression was almost ferocious.
Shopkeeper Yan Er was stunned for a moment, then immediately put his hands on his face, his expression changing in an instant, and then he gave a strange laugh, and began to grab and rub it hard.
"High six!"
I blurted out, almost in a stern voice, and in an instant Gao Liu and Ye Mao pounced over, twisted Yan Er's arm, and pressed him to the ground.
Shopkeeper Yan Er struggled violently, raised his head, looked at me again, and made a sound that sounded like crying and laughing, as if he had been electrocuted, and all of a sudden all his strength was drained away by something.
Then I realized that my hands had been raised up and placed on my face.
At this moment, the temperature and touch of my own skin were so strange, and my hand seemed to have transformed from a piece of organ into some kind of inhuman and terrifying creature, trembling slightly. And the voice in my brain told me that the inhuman being at this moment was me.
"..." My language ability was completely messed up, and I subconsciously wanted to find a topic to get out of this absurd nightmare. What I saw were pairs of equally confused eyes.
I asked what time it was.
"It's seven o'clock, it's time for curfew." Gao Liu said, his face a little pale, but his tone was still calm.
"bite……"
The next moment, confirming her time, clear bells rang throughout the camp.
In twos and threes, scattered groups of people began to walk towards the tent, chatting and laughing as they passed us.
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