Chapter 21: New blue marble

"Oh, shi* I almost peed myself. Can I even pee here? I'm sorry that's a bad thing to ask. It is just so ... I don't know, I'm speechless. Am I a spirit for real? Are we there yet? I'm so excited, I can't calm myself. So cool."

In a pitch dark place, Safo Nur felt that something touched him and screamed at the top of his lungs. Just to be embarrassed afterward when he recognized Luna's voice calming him. She came to guide him through the darkness towards his soul room.

Luna took Safo's hand into hers, Safo felt weird, he couldn't determine the heat from her touch. He was able to feel the pressure, but nothing more.

Luna explained to him that it requires time and practice to get used to the place in order to grasp the whole spectrum of awareness that the new world could offer.

Luna also suggested going straight the next time he spawned in the darkness through meditation. Solely by that route, one could reach one's soul room. If one tries to turn from the straight path one easily loses it, wandering around the darkness for eternity.

For Safo though, things were much simpler, he might get lost but he always could return to the living world and come back again.

After a minute of walking, they finally stopped. For a moment Safo Nur got blinded by an unexpected light source that came storming right into his eyes. Safo's eyes used to be in a completely dark environment and that sudden change was almost painful. One thing's for sure, his vision worked just fine.

"Ooh, what is this?"

"Welcome, to your soul room Safo Nur!" Luna's gentle voice sounded friendly and almost as if some AI welcomed him in an airport. She was also excited to show him her world, the domain inside of Safo Nur's soul.

When looking back Safo Nur found himself standing at the edge between pitch-black darkness and bright, iced ground. It was like a doorway, rectangle in shape lacking a door itself though. As soon as he stepped to the brighter side the passage behind him closed and no dark place could be seen. Only a black line on the ground indicating the location of the exit.

"I closed it, but you still can return whenever you want." Luna hastily entered that door when Safo Nur's spirit managed to slip into the spirit realm, she intentionally closed the door right after entering the dark place to crawl up to Safo and scare him. Otherwise, when the spirit entered the dark place its door would open automatically so the soul could detect it and go towards the light emitted from the doorway. That was the phenomenon called "the light at the end of the tunnel".

Many people, who had a near-death experience, described the light shining through the darkness like a lighthouse.

Safo Nur turned towards the voice and the prettiest girl he ever saw stood in front of him. Luna looked at him with a shy and innocent look, one couldn't tell that a minute ago she managed to prank Safo, scaring him to death.

She was a one and half meters tall, red-skinned girl, her curly, black hair was a little messy but added an extra cuteness to her overall look. Her gaze from her short height gave Safo the feeling of manliness. The feeling that a proper man should feel near the right woman for him, an urge to be a man, to protect, to provide.

"Hi… are you…Luna? I'm Safo." At his young age, 18 years old, Safo experienced contact with females. He had dates, first love, heartbreak, and a love of his life once again. He wasn't particularly a shy guy once he got used to new people, but he had a hard time talking to strangers.

"Yes, I know…umm...so this is your soul room and this iced place is your soul stone." Luna successfully started the dialog, ending the awkward moment.

Still, half-blinded after emerging from the darkest place he tried to get a sneak peek of a place. "WOW! Is this the stone? It's a freaking planet! Ok, maybe not a planet but an asteroid for sure."

Still, as if it was a fully grown planet, a huge round bluestone was the place where Safo Nur and Luna stood. In front of the planet was another smaller one, in a grey color. Safo Nur’s memories had been flooded by nostalgic images of the Earth and its Moon.

However, the planet was blue not due to the water as it was on Earth but due to the blue-hued ice surface. 2 meters thick ice layer covered the stone entirely.

Safo Nur’s new blue marble was about 50 meters in diameter because its circumference was around 150 meters. It took him 2-3 minutes to walk it over.

While Luna's stone was 4 meters in diameter, for comparison. They both didn't know the standards for stones, though.

"As The Great O'rmon says, we don't have time! Let's go, I will show you something." With that Luna ran away. Safo Nur diligently followed her.

Barren iced surface stone had nothing but ice. But out of nowhere, something made of white marble with black veins like an image of a thunderstorm popped up on the horizon.

Actually, 6 of them. Identical looking 6 wells.

"A water wells? Here? Is there water under this ice?" Safo Nur was bewildered. According to Dost's friend, soul stones were stones and nothing more. They could exist in different shapes and sizes but still were stones with nothing else on them or in them.

To his disappointment, Safo Nur found out that water wells were clothed, with other pieces of white marble, firmly installed on top of them.

"I think if we open these lids, we will unlock your superpowers. I could do it by myself, but now it is two of us here. We can give it a shot, right?" Never in her long experience of migration from the body to body Luna saw such things. She was eager to solve the puzzle.

"And look this was in the center." Water wells were positioned in a circle creating a space in the middle, around 5 in diameter.

Luna pulled a white bucket and a coil of thin rope in it, from behind the closest well.

"So these wells meant to work then. Let's try to move the lids." Determined Safo and Luna spent the next half an hour in attempts to even slightly move the marble lids.

Luna had no physical body but still, she was exhausted. As for Safo Nur’s real body, it was gushing sweat even if he sat still. His mental strength was working near its limits. With every minute it got harder and harder to maintain his spiritual self.

They decided to take a break and try the next day. Luna was about to lead Safo Nur to the exit when an unexpected thing happened.

All that time they were desperate to open the lids and pushed all their might together combined. But when they gave up, Safo punched the lid out of anger causing it to fly several meters and collapse to the ground. Water wells mouth wide opened, ready to be used.