296 Louder (1/2)

Abi yelped as she fell on the ground. This was it. Here she was, in this pitch black darkness for the second time around.

It was still as terrifying as she remembered. But at least right now, she didn't need to fear for her life and search for the way out. Her first experience was terrifying because it was compounded with the fear of the unknown. But now, she knew exactly what this place was. Besides, this time, she just needed to sit there and wait and hone her skills.

Despite knowing all of that, it was still quite scary to have one of your senses be taken away. Her sight was useless in this place and for a second, she felt like she was suffocating. But in the next second, she took a deep breath and steeled her mind to do her job this time. She needed to do her best for her sake, and for Alex's sake.

Abi started her training by trying to remember what she did that previous time that made her able to hear every little sound.

What did she do that time? That was right, she had been desperate that time to see Alex, to come out alive and hold him again and tell him she loved him. That time, she didn't want to die without letting him know her feelings for him.

As she tried to jog her memories, Abi subconsciously closed her eyes as the memories of that nightmare appeared in her head. She took a few deep breaths to calm her own loud heartbeats. She tried to shut her mind to forget about Alex and just think about her mission. It wasn't easy, almost impossible, but she persevered. She took another deep breath and tried to flood her head with nothingness and darkness.

And the result surprised her. She could hear it now. The sound of her own heartbeat, their rhythm, their pitch. Her hearing slowly became clearer and louder to her ears, as if the world turned silent and her ears could only hear her very own heartbeats.

As she focused all her attention to her sense of hearing, the different sounds she could hear inside that cave increased in number. The sound of something burrowing down the ground, the sound of a flying insect flying through the air, the sound of something scratching at a boulder - these were all the different sounds that she started to hear. And when she focused on a particular sound, it would increase in volume and become louder. This must be it, she thought. She didn't expect that it would be that easy. But maybe, as Zeke said, this was an innate ability that she had all along but she just didn't know how to use it.

Abi thought that all she needed to do was shut down all of her other senses to focus on one, her hearing. That must be it!

It took all her willpower to stay still and not react. The animal was now by her feet. Abi flinched and it ran away. She was relieved but she didn't open her eyes. 'But now I know how the animal's heartbeats sounded like,' she thought.

She then forced herself to memorize the patterns of the different animal's heartbeats - rodents, flying insects, crawling insects and all things in between. She wondered if all animals had the same heartbeats but it seemed that they were all different. She guessed it made sense but that meant it would be harder for her to differentiate between different heartbeats.

She kept going, trying as hard as she could to detect the differences. It was difficult, seeing that this was only her first time doing this, but she persevered.