Chapter 296 Louder

Abi yelped as she fell on the ground. This was it. Here she was, in this pitch black darkness for the second time around.

It was still as terrifying as she remembered. But at least right now, she didn't need to fear for her life and search for the way out. Her first experience was terrifying because it was compounded with the fear of the unknown. But now, she knew exactly what this place was. Besides, this time, she just needed to sit there and wait and hone her skills.

Despite knowing all of that, it was still quite scary to have one of your senses be taken away. Her sight was useless in this place and for a second, she felt like she was suffocating. But in the next second, she took a deep breath and steeled her mind to do her job this time. She needed to do her best for her sake, and for Alex's sake.

Abi started her training by trying to remember what she did that previous time that made her able to hear every little sound.

What did she do that time? That was right, she had been desperate that time to see Alex, to come out alive and hold him again and tell him she loved him. That time, she didn't want to die without letting him know her feelings for him.

As she tried to jog her memories, Abi subconsciously closed her eyes as the memories of that nightmare appeared in her head. She took a few deep breaths to calm her own loud heartbeats. She tried to shut her mind to forget about Alex and just think about her mission. It wasn't easy, almost impossible, but she persevered. She took another deep breath and tried to flood her head with nothingness and darkness.

And the result surprised her. She could hear it now. The sound of her own heartbeat, their rhythm, their pitch. Her hearing slowly became clearer and louder to her ears, as if the world turned silent and her ears could only hear her very own heartbeats.

As she focused all her attention to her sense of hearing, the different sounds she could hear inside that cave increased in number. The sound of something burrowing down the ground, the sound of a flying insect flying through the air, the sound of something scratching at a boulder - these were all the different sounds that she started to hear. And when she focused on a particular sound, it would increase in volume and become louder. This must be it, she thought. She didn't expect that it would be that easy. But maybe, as Zeke said, this was an innate ability that she had all along but she just didn't know how to use it.

Abi thought that all she needed to do was shut down all of her other senses to focus on one, her hearing. That must be it!

Time slowly ticked by and Abi started to hear noises coming from rodents. She could tell they were rodents because of the squeaking sound they made and when she focused on them, she was able to hear their heartbeats as well. As she concentrated, she was able to determine that one of these rodents had pulled away from its pack and was approaching her. The hair on her skin started to stand and the fear almost messed up her concentration. 'No, Abi, it's just a rodent! Ignore it! Ignore it!,' her mind willed her.

It took all her willpower to stay still and not react. The animal was now by her feet. Abi flinched and it ran away. She was relieved but she didn't open her eyes. 'But now I know how the animal's heartbeats sounded like,' she thought.

She then forced herself to memorize the patterns of the different animal's heartbeats - rodents, flying insects, crawling insects and all things in between. She wondered if all animals had the same heartbeats but it seemed that they were all different. She guessed it made sense but that meant it would be harder for her to differentiate between different heartbeats.

She kept going, trying as hard as she could to detect the differences. It was difficult, seeing that this was only her first time doing this, but she persevered.

A second later, her brows slowly pulled together into a knot. She was starting to hear something different. Was there another animal inside aside from rodents and insects? Abi remembered the first time she was here and she didn't encounter anything larger than rodents. So what was this that she was hearing?

It was loud. Louder than all the insects. Much faster even.

Abi was curious but at the same time, scared. She didn't know why but a shiver just ran down her spine the instant she heard it. The heartbeat was fast, faster than hers and the pitch seemed far higher than hers, too. It was strange and she didn't know why but she thought that it was terrifying. Because she could just tell that whatever this was wasn't human. She knew that no human would have a heartbeat as fast as this.

She could hear that the heartbeat belonged to just one creature. W-was it a bigger animal? Or could it be that someone was here other than the animals?

Abi swallowed. This was different. The air around her slowly changed. It was as if it was getting heavier as the heartbeat came closer. She could tell it was approaching her.

The fear made Abi's brain snap and she finally decided to scream to let Alex and Zeke know that there was something wrong.

However, before Abi could scream, she was suddenly unable to open her lips. She opened her eyes wide as her hands moved to her neck. There was nothing around her neck so why did she feel like she was being strangled?

Abi felt like she was under sleep paralysis. What was this? H-help me. She screamed inside her head. She could still hear the heartbeat and it was still making its way over to her, getting closer by the second. 

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