The two exchanged a glance, and Joey suggested:
"Why don't we pull it out?"
As he spoke, his eyes remained fixed on the wound in Gul Friedman's chest without blinking.
Somewhere beyond his understanding, something seemed to be drawing him in.
The proper procedure would have been to wait for the coroner from the Sheriff's Office to arrive and examine the body.
But a powerful impulse from deep within him stripped away his self-control. His body moved toward Gul of its own accord, and he reached out to grasp the strange murder weapon.
The instant he touched it, all he remembered was a dizzying sensation, as though the world had spun around him.
He seemed to have fallen into endless darkness. Weightless and blind, he panicked for a moment.
He tried to shout, but something seemed to have clamped around his throat, leaving him unable to make a sound.
In the darkness, he could only walk helplessly forward. Beneath his feet seemed to stretch an endless river of time.
Something deep within that river seemed to be calling him onward.
It was a strange sensation. He could even clearly feel the life force within him stirring.
The farther he went, the stronger those pulses of life became.
Thud! Something tripped him as he walked, and his body pitched forward uncontrollably. When he tried to get up, he discovered that his legs seemed unable to support him.
After several failed attempts to stand, he could only crawl along the ground.
In this space, he could sense nothing except that faint pull guiding him onward. There was no sound, and a curtain of darkness blocked all sight.
Above him, in the distant heavens, beyond the darkness-or perhaps above the stars-a pair of eyes seemed to be looking down on him coldly, watching