“What? Limbo? ” Detective Lee asked while holding his injured arm and hidding in the bushes behind a townhouse: “Forgive me for asking a ton of stupid questions then - like for one, what the fuck is a limbo?!”

“Calm down. It will literally do you a lot of good here.” Aimee tried once again with her spell, just this time she tried to get into contact with her power of mind and will instead of just her magical energy, and this time, a small shard of ice appeared floating above her palm: “Okay, nice, I could still use some of my powers.”

“Can you try a healing spell on me then? My arm’s killing me.” Detective Lee panted and said: “And what IS this limbo?”

“It’s like a special bubble, a special dreamland, where your mind can get sucked into.” Aimee took a deep breath then concentrated her power in her right hand, then placed her hand on Detective Lee’s injured arm. A smooth and soothing chill ran up Detective Lee’s arms, and his painful expression slowly faded away.

“This is but an illusion, you’ll get injured, but the pain is not real, at least not as real as it feels.” Aimee felt that this spell expended quite a bit of her power, and she had to lay back on the wall of the townhouse: “Tell me, Lee, do you recognize any of this place?”

“Yeah, kinda, this is - well it looks like the neighborhood my family lived in when I was still a child.” Detective Lee looked around: “It’s quite different from what I remember though - not just the color, but the way the street turns, and the streetlights - I don’t think they’re there.”

“That’s because those are from my childhood neighborhood. ” Aimee looked from behind the townhouse to make sure the shadowy creatures from which they were trying to stay away were not following them anymore, but was disappointed and frustrated to see that they were still roaming and gradually approaching their positions. “Fuck, these things are slow but really persistent, let’s keep moving.”

“So this is a place that’s a mashup of the elements from our own childhoods?” Detective Lee helped Aimee up and started moving through the bushes and shadows from the townhouses: “Why?”

“From what I remember and what I could tell, it’s a trap.” Aimee shook her head as she walked in careful but tired steps along with Detective Lee: “Do you remember what we were doing before we got here? Anything at all?”

“Um...” Detective Lee thought for a while: “... no ...”

“Almost the same as me, I just remember that we were with a consultant. It’s like I have some weird holes in my memories” Aimee said: “I think those memories might be the keys for us to leave.”

Just this moment, a few branches of pale while lightning lit up the sky, and it just kept expanding in its trajectories and shooting across the entire sky for the next few seconds. And there was all of a sudden a loud rumble from somewhere remote, like a series of explosions, or an earthquake.

A wave of wind blew across the entire land, and it was the first wave they ever felt since they had been here.

“Let’s get into that old house - it looks unlocked.” Detective Lee pointed at a single family house at the end of the townhouse buildings.

“No. Don’t.” Aimee took just one look at that house, and her face turned even more pale: “Nononono - don’t go in there.”

“Why?”

“That’s my childhood haunted house.” Aimee frowned and coughed but she could not take her eyes off that house with an open door and cracked windows because of the terrible feeling that house gave her: “Let’s go around it.”

Just this moment, an old bald man wearing a Plaid shirt and a pair of worn down khaki pants appeared behind the doors, and the face of an old woman appeared behind a broken window, both with an uncomfortably wide smile on their faces and their pupils glowing in green.

“Shit!” Aimee grabbed Detective Lee and pulled him to the side to hide behind a part of the townhouse beside them.

Detective Lee seemed hypnotised and confused when he saw the old man and the old woman in that house. Their glowing eyes and smile seemed chilling and creepy but his mind seemed to be strangely attracted to them, and as he watched for longer and longer he felt that his consciousness withering away bit by bit, and only when Aimee pulled him aside and slapped him in the face a few times did he regained control of his mind, after a loud and long gasp.

“Shhhh!” Aimee immediately covered Detective Lee’s mouth.

A cough and wheezing sound approached, along with slow footsteps accompanied by the gentle stomps of a cane. These sounds were never threatening to either of them before, but now, the hairs on the back of their necks were standing.

In the other direction, they could hear the moans of the wandering shadowy creatures with indefinite amounts of arms and legs getting closer and closer.

Two loud screams came from the direction of the old house, then they heard something being torn up and ripped into pieces like that from a poked balloon. Then, they saw a familiar figure leapt in front of them and thrust his silver spear to the side, tens of silver shadows of spear tips shot out at the approaching shadowy creatures. Around six to eight shadowy creatures were impaled, then torn to shreds by the silver shadow spear tips.

“Okay.” Jason sheathed his silver pen-spear and asked Aimee and Detective Lee: “How are you? How long have you been here?”

“Detective Lee is injured.” Aimee let out a sigh of relief: “Can you heal him? I’ve exhausted myself too much.”

“And we’ve been here for around one day.” Detective Lee extended his injured arm at Jason and said: “I - I remember you now. How did you get in here?”

“A limbo is just a realm of the mind, and if I want I can just come in.” Jason’s palms shined in silver, the silver light coated Detective Lee’s arm in silver as well: “But we’ve gotta hurry and get out of here - what have you figured out about this place? Looks like it’s based on your memories?”

“Can’t you break us out directly?” Aimee asked.

“If I did, I can’t guarantee that your minds will be intact, as this limbo is already slowly decomposing. ” Jason sighed and extended his hand at Aimee, projecting the silver light onto her.