And that's how it ended up, Nova allowed Hanah to sleep in his room with feelings that were slightly confused but not objecting. The two of them slept in the same bed. Nova's bed was indeed quite big and spacious—it seemed to be specially designed for two people from the beginning of its making. Nova himself didn't really mind this because he understood that Hanah was scared after watching the horror movie earlier.
Hanah fell asleep very quickly beside him, probably due to exhaustion. The sound of her regular and calm breathing indicated that she was already truly fast asleep in deep slumber. Not long after that, Nova also fell asleep with calm feelings.
And then... Nova woke up in the same place as before—that strange and mysterious place again.
Thick and suffocating darkness enveloped everything around him like a thick black blanket.
"Uhh... why do I feel like I've been here before? Is this just my feeling or have I really been to this place?"
"Hm..."
His memory of this dark place was very vague and unclear.
Like his previous habit, Nova began walking in that endless darkness. But suddenly, the darkness in front of him began to crack like glass being hit hard by something invisible.
*CRASH!*
In a very quick blink of an eye, Nova was already in a completely different place.
"What happened? Where am I now?"
Nova looked in all directions, trying to understand the strange situation happening to him. The room where he was now had a very strange color like yellowish-brown. In that spacious room there were also many long corridors extending in various different directions, creating a complex and confusing labyrinth.
"Ah..."
"Wait a minute... I feel like I've seen this place before. But where? Why does it feel so familiar?"
Nova forced his still-childish brain to remember hard. And then, like a lightning flash striking, his memory suddenly connected clearly.
"Ah! This place is very similar to what I once saw in a cartoon shown on TV! Although I don't really remember the cartoon's title clearly..."
"But why am I inside here? That's just an animated cartoon, there's no way a place like that exists in the real world, right? Am I dreaming now?"
Children indeed always dream about things they watch on TV or experience daily. Dreams are common and normal things that children always experience—that's what Nova knew about the concept of dreams from his limited knowledge.
"Uhh..."
"If this place is really the same as the one in that cartoon, then I already know its ins and outs and rules." Without hesitation, Nova ran quickly to the right, toward one of the corridors he chose based on his memory of that cartoon.
That strange place had a leveled structure like a video game, and now Nova was on the first level which was the easiest. In every corner and hidden crevice were various doors and dangerous and deadly traps. However, thanks to his quite detailed knowledge about that cartoon, he knew exactly which doors were safe to pass through and which were dangerous to avoid.
Despite his appearance like a child around seven years old, there was no fear at all creeping into his heart. Nova continued running through those corridors.
Nova had indeed learned many things about this world, but there was one important thing he still didn't understand well—fear. He was like someone who didn't have that emotion at all. Was this because he was still an innocent child? Or was there another deeper and more mysterious reason? No one knew for sure the answer to that question.
After running at high speed for several minutes and successfully passing through various confusing corridors full of traps, finally he arrived at a clean white door standing majestically and prominently at the end of the long corridor.
"As I suspected, this place is indeed identical to the one on TV. All the details are exactly the same."
"Then let's continue to the next level." Nova pushed the white door with sufficient force and stepped inside. Now he was already on the second level.
"Am I really inside the story I once watched? Or some kind of parallel dimension," he murmured.
"If this is a dream, it's too real and detailed to be called an ordinary dream..."
"Well, I already know all the levels in this place, so I think I can complete everything easily, as long as there's nothing different from what I remember."