Old Anton's storage room...
It turned out that Tim's purpose in approaching the storage room was to hide something. On the night he vanished, something must have happened in that room that caused both Tim and the object he intended to hide to disappear together. Unfortunately, Old Anton had discovered this too late; with his limited ability and experience, it was difficult for him to provide a complete and accurate description of the scene at that time.
If only I could turn back time, Byrne thought, shaking his head helplessly as he continued to flip through the notebook.
Before long, he reached the end. Every page thereafter was blank. It was impossible to tell if Tim had run out of things to write, or if his disappearance had simply cut his record short. Byrne closed the notebook and pinched the bridge of his nose, his mind replaying those fragmented words over and over.
Purple mist, whispers, midnight, old alley...
Pieced together, these words exuded an indescribable aura of dread. However, they were too broken for Byrne to construct a complete message, so he set them aside for the moment.
Having finished with the notebook, he placed it back in its original spot. He moved the top box aside and opened the second cardboard box stacked underneath. It felt heavier. The items inside were also neatly arranged, but compared to the first box, these were more work-oriented.
At the very top lay a heavily worn canvas bag. Inside were common repair tools used by freight drivers—nothing special. Byrne glanced at them and tossed the bag aside. Beneath it was a stack of freight invoices. He flipped through a few; they were for ordinary goods that matched the work logs in the notebook.
Byrne scanned the remaining items in the box, but they were all mundane. He put the box back in its place and sat on the bed, looking disappointed. He had expected to find a key clue in Tim's belongings—perhaps the specific cargo of that private job, the employer's identity, or the reason for his disappearance. But aside from the writing on the last page of the notebook, there was nothing else.
Did I miss something?
Byrne refused to believe it. He wasn't willing to let the investigation stall just as a lead was appearing. Since the notebook mentioned that Tim hid something in the storage room, it meant that object was vital—perhaps even linked to his life.
Should I discuss this with Selena?
He looked toward the communicator on the nightstand. His hand hovered over it, but he hesitated and pulled back. It was late; Selena was likely asleep, and Old Anton was in the next room. The old man was a light sleeper, and the sound of a conversation would surely alert him.
I'll talk to her in person tomorrow at work.
As one thought faded, another surged. What if I inspect the storage room again?
The memory of Old Anton's warning and the eerie nature of Tim's disappearance made him hesitate. But the trail had gone cold; the few words in the notebook weren't enough to sustain an investigation. What was Tim trying to hide? Why choose Old Anton's house? Was his disappearance directly related to that object? These questions tangled in Byrne's mind like a ball of yarn.
Ultimately, Byrne stood up. He decided to take a look at the storage room.
He tiptoed to the bedroom door, using his psychic threads to confirm that Old Anton was still asleep. Then, he slowly turned the handle and stepped out. He crept downstairs like a cat. In the living room, the book Anton had been reading still lay on the sofa.
Byrne stopped about a meter away from the storage room. For safety, he didn't plan to open the door immediately. Instead, he chose to probe it with his psychic energy first. If there were no issues, it wouldn't be too late to enter.
He closed his eyes and extended his psychic threads toward the storage room. Previously, he had intentionally avoided the room while testing his threads—first because the distance made precision difficult, and second because Anton hadn't been asleep yet. But now, with the clues at a dead end, he had no choice but to take the risk.
The threads soon touched the door. Just like during the day, there were no special energy fluctuations; it was just an ordinary wooden door. Byrne didn't stop. He maneuvered the threads through the cracks in the doorframe.
The moment the psychic threads entered the storage room, Byrne's brow furrowed. Unlike the empty space he had seen during the day, his psychic perception told him the interior felt "crowded." It wasn't the presence of physical objects, but a sensation on an energetic level—as if the room were stuffed with a churning turbulence of energy.
This feeling was familiar. It was similar to the strange distortion he had experienced during the spatial transfer in the reception room.
Byrne ignored the sensation for now and commanded the threads to spread into every corner of the room. He wanted to find "the thing" as quickly as possible, or at least find some trace of it. However, even as his threads covered the entire room, he could not sense any physical matter—no metal, no fabric, nothing.
Did the thing Tim hid disappear along with him? Or was it never a physical object to begin with?
As Byrne pondered this, he suddenly felt a pulling force, as if something were trying to suck his extended threads in. Realizing something was wrong, his expression darkened. He tried to withdraw the threads immediately, but it was too late.
The suction within the storage room spiked, acting like an invisible hand gripping his psychic energy. Then, a surge of energy began to flow back along the threads toward Byrne himself. This fluctuation was bizarre—it lacked the filth of Chaos energy and differed from ordinary psychic power. Instead, it carried an indescribable emptiness, as if he were touching the essence of a black hole.
Not good!
Byrne didn't hesitate. He surged his internal psychic power and forcibly severed the connection to the threads inside the storage room. At the moment of the break, the void-like energy halted instantly, and the inexplicable pulling sensation vanished without a trace.