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The pressure that gripped him was gentle enough to not squeeze or crush, but he was uncomfortable being picked up as though he was a tiny animal. Inadvertently, his legs and arms kicked to be free.

He froze up when Weldir parted his fangs as his maw opened. Horrified, he looked past sharp teeth to the back of his throat and saw nothingness.

Then he was tossed inside.

It was cold and tight when he was swallowed, but he experienced nothing else. He attempted to claw into the walls of his throat, or whatever passageway he was sinking inside of, but he was unable to get purchase.

Then, before he knew it, he was spat out from somewhere and began to fall as a white world filled with mist opened up. He spun and flipped through the air, and a roar he was unable to hold back escaped him.

The longer he dropped, the more he could see land coming towards him.

There was no cold cut of wind, and the ground was strange, appearing almost reflective, like the top of a lake’s surface. In the distance, there were ghostly trees that were see-through and didn’t seem tangible. That was all he could make out as he fretted, unsure if landing would be painful.

At the last second, Ingram turned right side up and gently landed on all fours.

The first thing he did was spin in a circle to assess his surroundings. Thick mist shielded his sight completely, making everything beyond a few metres indistinguishable, even with his hyper-sensitive vision.

He could just make out transparent tree trunks and branches, and the mist moved all throughout them.

He didn’t know if he’d turned back around or not, losing his orientation within seconds, but darkness snagged in his peripheral. He faced Weldir, who had materialised in his proximity.

“You can enter your own stomach?”Ingram asked.

“Like I said, Tenebris is part of me, while also being separate. I can access any part of my body as a physical manifestation of my consciousness.”

Physical manifestation?Ingram reached out to see if he could touch him, but his hand merely passed through his form.

“You cannot touch me, as you are not dead. You will also be unable to interact with or touch anything within Tenebris.” Weldir then shoved his intangible hand into Ingram’s torso and pulled a multi-coloured piece of string from him. “We must not waste any time. You will begin to notice me consuming your physical form, and once I do, you will be unable to leave here. You will have died and passed over.”

The multicoloured strings separated like someone unravelling twisted twine. A small number of the threads shot towards the sky and their ends disappeared through the mist, whereas many more branched outward around him throughout Tenebris.

Most within Tenebris were white, except for four different strings.

One was twisted with a purple and pink glow, another with purple and orange, and one that was purple and black. The final one was purple and rainbow, and it linked between Ingram and Weldir’s chests.

“What are they?”Ingram asked, tilting his head at them.

“I guess you can call them strings of fate,” Weldir explained as he followed the one that was purple and black. “The white ones are all the humans you have consumed and brought to me. Three of them are your familial bonds. The one we are following is the bride you have chosen and have connected with physically.”

Ingram inspected the black-and-purple string leading their path. “It will take me to Emerie?”

“Yes. It is why I had to come with you. It is the only way we will be able to find her, as I am not connected to her on any level.”

His blue vision lightened from its depressive colour. His Emerie was at the end of this line.

Within the span of a heartbeat, Ingram was sprinting.

Along the way, he noticed multiple things. Firstly, there were no scents here. He could not smell the trees, the ground, the mist, or even Weldir.

Secondly, between the spaces of nothing, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of Ghosts that interacted with each other. They didn’t seem to notice Ingram passing literally through them, as he refused to deviate his path for them.

Their sounds were soft and inaudible with the speed in which he ran past.

Although he was curious about them, about Tenebris itself, he only had one objective. Nothing would stray him from it; it was all that mattered.

The third thing he noticed was, the longer he was with Weldir, who kept up with his speed with ease, the more his chalky outlines grew smaller. Less of him was noticeable, as if he was losing the capability to remain seen.

And lastly, he’d noted that the purple and pink string was moving as if the person on the other side was in motion as well. The one with orange in it had long since moved to be behind him.