The van comes to a halt. As the group comes to, they find themselves in a red world. Stephen rubs his eyes in disbelief of what he’s seeing. He puts his face on a window to get a better look at everything. “There’s… There’s no way! Red grass? Red clouds? Red… sunlight? How is this possible?! That can’t be real!”
“What you see is what is true,” Tristan replies. “You’re going to learn soon enough that this is how things go with us.”
“You were talking kind of weird there in the beginning, Tristan,” Misty comments.
“What?” he reacts.
Stephen scratches his head in sheer confusion and stress. Ray puts a hand on Stephen’s shoulder. “Look, I know all of this is new. I’m going to guess that you’ve never dimension hopped before. I know when it first happened to Ryan and I, we were confused out of our minds, because we were just trying to drive away from a horde of zombies in this van that we found abandoned eight years ago,” Ray comforts.
“Wait, you’re telling me that you’ve been doing this thing…dimension hopping, for eight years?!” Stephen reacts. “And all I thought life was about was just about surviving. All we’ve been doing for four years was just trying to avoid evil robots. I was eleven when it started. I didn’t know we could have been exploring this whole time! If I knew we could have been dimension hopping, I would have tried to get us out of that dimension. Chances are, though, that I probably never actually would. Then again, here we are.”
“Life is still about survival, kid. Jumping dimensions is just the half of it for us now,” Tristan proclaimed.
“Alright, so the dimension indicator states that we are in Dimension 40408,” Brandon announces.
“Alright, thank you, Brandon,” Tori replies.
“Speaking of being somewhere new, I think the sun is setting on this dimension. Let’s sleep, finally,” Ryan points out.
“Finally, a well-deserved rest,” Monica comments.
“I don’t know if I should sleep yet,” Lincoln states.
“And why is that?” asks Ryan. “You sleep for an entire day.”
“Something just does not settle well for me in this world,” Lincoln answers.
“Huh,” Ryan mutters. “Well, still, I need to sleep. The others also look tired. So, I’m going to hit the hay, and you can stay up if you want to.” And with that, Ryan crashes on the loft.
Lincoln watches as everyone falls asleep. Everyone except Stephen. “You should be sleeping, kid. It’s not healthy to stay awake,” Lincoln tells him.
Stephen sits on the floor of the van and stares at the carpeted ground. “I have a hard time sleeping,” he reveals. “I’ve had problems my whole life. And when the robots took over, it only got worse.” He scratches at his nails. “I feared every night that they would take me. I never knew if I would wake up again if I fell asleep.”
“I see,” Lincoln reacts. He goes quiet, staring out of a window. The whole van is silent. Lincoln is now in deep thought.
“What are you?” Stephen breaks the silence.
“I don’t know what I am, but I remember these small creatures that built railroads to connect the floating islands, and built cabins on them, calling me a Trazdak. I guess that’s what I am,” Lincoln responds.
“A Trazdak? What can you do?” Stephen asks.
“Well, I can fly,” Lincoln answers.
“How? You don’t have any wings,” Stephen questions.
“I’m not sure what wings are. I just basically swim through the air,” Lincoln replies.
“Oh… Okay.”
Things go quiet again for a minute. Stephen leans against Lincoln. “You’re really soft,” he reacts.
“Thank you,” Lincoln responds.
“I never thought I would escape that place,” Stephen laments. “Every day, I was just more afraid. What if the robots took me one night? And now there’s a robot in the same vehicle as us. How am I supposed to trust them?”
“They don’t seem at all evil to me. They never tried to attack us,” Lincoln states.
“I just want to be sure that they won’t attack us,” Stephen declares.
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about them attacking us,” Lincoln claims.
“Okay,” Stephen replies. He stares blankly at the ceiling, noticing the hole the laser that killed Flotsam made.
“You need to try to rest, kid,” Lincoln orders. “I’ll stay here and protect you while you sleep. I’ll protect everyone.”
“I can try,” Stephen quietly replies. He closes his eyes. Lincoln listens as Stephen’s breathing eventually slows down.
Lincoln keeps staring out of a window, his eyes squinted a little bit, suspicious of the scenery. “Something is out there, just beyond the horizon. I can feel it. Of what, though, I don’t know,” he mutters quietly under his breath.
********************
The night takes over. Lincoln can barely see outlines outside. Just the darkest red shades you can imagine are visible. Bulbous shapes can be made but can’t be comprehended into an understandable shape. Stephen is sound asleep, just like everyone else, except for Lincoln. Sound of wind blowing around can be heard outside. It’s gently shaking the van whenever a strong enough gust of wind blows over it.
It was then that a low growling noise reaches the van. Alerting Lincoln, he moves to look outside the side-door windows. This action wakes up Stephen. “What’s happening?!” he asks.
“Hush now, kid. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves,” Lincoln whispers. He gets close to a window to try to catch a glimpse of the source of the noise, but he can’t see anything.
“What is it?” Stephen asked.
“Nothing. Well, there was definitely something that made that noise, but I couldn’t see it,” Lincoln responds.
“What was that growling?” Misty stirs awake and stares and Lincoln. “Was that you?”
“No, it was not,” Lincoln replies.
“Then what was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should one of us check?”
“No, it’s too dangerous.”
“Even for you?”
Lincoln turn to face Misty completely, making her back away a bit, intimidated by Lincoln’s size. “I’ve been having an uneasy feeling ever since we ended up in this dimension. If that says anything about this situation, it would be that it is way too dangerous to be alone in a world where you know nothing about it,” Lincoln explains.
“Y-Yeah, I-I see,” Misty forfeits.
“It’s best to be in a group, unbroken, to explore a world we are not privy of,” Lincoln states.
“I know… I didn’t want to make you angry,” Misty comments.
“You didn’t make me angry. I’m just trying to keep everyone safe.”
“I don’t mean to be mean, but there’s so many people here-.” Stephen gets interrupted by Misty’s laughter.
“Stephen, kiddo. Lincoln is our strongest member here. And if he doesn’t want to go out alone, we have to side with him.”
“I’m sorry,” Stephen sulks.
“Why are y’all making so much noise? Is it morning” Ryan wakes up.
“Ryan now is not a good time,” Lincoln proclaims.
“What?” Ryan reacts.
“Something happened, but it doesn’t matter at the moment,” Misty tells Ryan. “Just some weird noise that we’ll deal with in the morning.”
“Wait, why aren’t we dealing with it now?” he presses.
“Because it’s nighttime, Senoaks,” Misty responded. “You know night can be dangerous.”
Ryan leaned back and stared at Misty in annoyance. He clearly did not like that she used his last name to refer to him.
“Okay, try to look out the window, Ryan,” Misty pesters.
Ryan sighs and leans towards a window. He puts his hand on the blinds and pulls them back. He finds himself staring at a blurry sea of dark red shades that he can determine any detail of. “What is going on here?” he comments.
“We can’t see a damn thing out there, Ryan,” Misty responds.
“Okay then. It must be some night phenomena or something,” he remarks.
“We need to wait until morning. Ryan, Misty, Stephen, rest now,” Lincoln order.
“But what about you? Aren’t you tired? You’ve been up for a while,” Ryan asks.
“Someone needs to keep watch even if one can’t see anything outside,” Lincoln states.
With that, Ryan recedes and forces himself to lay back down. Misty rests in a chair, and Stephen stays where he’s at, and with his eyes closed, he tries his damnedest to sleep. Lincoln stays awake watching over everyone.
********************
Morning comes. Lincoln watches the scenery come into view as the haze finally dissipates. Ray stirs awake and sees Lincoln staring out the windows. “Hey, Lincoln. Is everything good?”
“Something is not right about this world, Ray. I stayed up all night to keep watch,” Lincoln answered.
“I appreciate it, but you didn’t have to stay up all night. You could have done shifts.”
“Shifts? What do you mean?”
“Let’s say if you are on watch for something but you’re getting tired in the process. You can have someone else stay on watch as long as you sleep. Once they get tired, however, you or someone else would have to stay on watch,” Ray explains to Lincoln.
“I’ve never done anything like that before,” he replies.
Tori wakes up and hears the two talking. “What’s the news?”
Ray and Lincoln look at Tori. Ray took in a breath to speak but was stopped when Lincoln started talking. “This world is not safe, ma’am,” he states.
“No world we’ve gone to is safe,” Tori retorts. “You’ll get used to it. I’ve been used to it for way too long myself.”
“I know of the danger of the worlds we have gone through together, but this one feels unnatural. Something about this… dimension feels deeper. It’s not right. This world unsettles me. It’s a feeling I haven’t felt for years, for decades, even. Do you not feel it?” Lincoln replies.
“Well, gee, I didn’t expect to hear all of that coming from you,” Tori responds. “You’re the strongest one here, and if something is unsettling you, then what the hell is out there.
“Simple, something,” Ryan suddenly chimes in.
“Goddamn it, Ryan!” Tori flinches. Ryan laughs.
“Anyway, when it was nighttime, Lincoln, Misty, that one new kid I’m blanking on his name, and I were awake. I actually was woken up by those three talking. I was told to look out the window, so I did. I could not see a damn thing. And before you say, ‘well, of course you wouldn’t; it’s nighttime, you idiot,’ I mean it. Nothing. You and I know that you should at least be able to see something, right? Well, no. And it wasn’t because we couldn’t see the sky because of clouds. No, it wasn’t like that. All I was able to see was weird bulbous shapes through the dark red… I don’t know,” Ryan tried to explain.
“I’m not getting what you’re saying,” Tori states.
“Look, I’m trying to explain-.”
Tori interrupts Ryan by opening the van side doors. Outside of the van, it looks like when they had entered the world, but more brighter, for morning has arrived. The group could see more details on distant mountains, on the red plains, of strange foliage on the ground. The sky, still red, is almost a hue of pink, and is vibrant, and there is an object high in the sky, octagonal in shape, glowing in the sky. “Where do you see flying bulbs, Ryan?”
“This was at nighttime, damn it!” Ryan yells, waking up many in the van.
“What’s going on?” Brandon asks.
“Are we being attacked?! Where is the threat?!” Whitticus questions.
“No, Whitticus,” Ray replies.
“Then why was there yelling?”
“Just a small argument. Nothing serious.”
“But why was there an argument?”
Ray sighs. “Don’t worry about it,” Ryan chimes.
“We should continue exploring this dimension,” Ray comments.
“Let’s do this,” Ryan responds. Lincoln, however, just stares out a window.
Ray climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the engine on. Svetlana wakes up to the sound of the engine running. Ray starts to aimlessly drive around in the fields. Lincoln is still glaring out the windows as the scenery flies past. Ryan stares at Lincoln for a few seconds when a thought comes to him. He looks over to the dashboard, giving most of his attention to the radio.
“Hey, the radio is on, right?” Ryan asks.
“Well, no. It’s silent,” Svetlana notes.
“Move the volume dial,” Ryan orders.
Svetlana stares at Ryan in confusion. Ray moves the volume dial of the radio only to see it’s already at four bars. “What?” Ray reacts.
“Why is it silent? Why is it silent?! It’s not even making background noise. It’s just… nothing!” Ryan exclaims.
“Change the channel,” Tori suggests.
Ray does so, and everyone listens to the radio sift through silent stations.
“What is happen-“
Suddenly, Ray tunes into a channel where a booming growl noise broadcasts through.
“What the hell is that?!” Tori reacts.
“What the hell is that racket?!” Brandon shouts.
“Turn it off! Turn it off” Whitticus cries, covering his head to block out the sound.
“Gah! What is that?!” Emmatina wakes up in surprise.
“Argh! Where is that sound coming from?!” Lincoln growls.
“Ray! Kill the radio!” Ryan yells.
Ray presses the volume dial like a button and the radio turns off. Everyone goes quiet as Ray continues to drive. Ray stares out of the windshield as he drives, not making a sound. Brandon rubs his eyes in annoyance to the radio broadcast. Emmatina regains her senses from being woken up from such an abrasive sound. Ryan looks around aimlessly, completely lost in mental confusion. Lincoln stares at Ryan, concerned for him. Whitticus scratches at his arm. Tori has her left hand over her mouth as she stares at the radio. Svetlana looks back at everybody. A half a minute passes before anyone speaks.
“What just happened?” Svetlana mutters.
“I have… no idea,” Ray responds.
Stephen stirs awake and sits up. He rubs his eyes and stares at the people that are already awake. “Is something… Did something happen?” he asks.
“Radio went all insane and screamed at us,” Ryan replied.
“What?”
“Look, I don’t know! It just happened, okay?!”
“Hey.” Svetlana snaps her fingers a couple of times. “No need to get snippy. The kid just woke up.”
Ryan puts his hands up. “I’m sorry,” he answers, quietly.
“What do you mean the radio screamed at you?” Stephen questioned.
“We discovered that the radio was completely silent. There was no electrical, nor atmospheric interference coming from the radio. We tried to change the channel to something, but it was just more silence. It was then that we must have hit some station because this loud growling sound came through,” Ray explains.
“My head is still hurting from that,” Tori comments.
“A growl? Did it sound like a machine?” Stephen asks.
“Oh, definitely not,” Svetlana chimes in.
“It sounded animal. I should know, as I was once a nature documentary narrator. I’ll tell you this, however; I can’t tell you what it reminded me of,” Brandon states.
“That’s concerning,” Tori reacts.
“This isn’t good, is it?” Whitticus mutters.
“Probably not!” Ryan exclaims.
This wakes Riley up. He sits up and stares at Ryan. Riley pinches the top of his nose before speaking. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, a lot-.“
“There’s too many weird things that have already happened in the span of two days,” Lincoln interrupts. “We haven’t found a single form of life yet. The nighttime was just off. Nothing was right. We couldn’t get any detail outside of the van during the nighttime. No silhouette, nothing. Now that, what is it, radio? The radio just emitted a loud growl.”
“Not to mention the radio was completely silent beforehand,” Tori added.
“What the hell happened to you all whilst I was asleep?!” Riley exclaimed.
Stephen stares blankly into place as if he were observing something. “Wait… There was a growl last night,” Stephen announced as he stared at Lincoln for clarification.
“That’s right. That did happen last night,” Lincoln reacted. “We’ve got to be careful in this world. A lot of things have been happening that none of us can explain. We seem to be all out of our elements here.”
“Wait, the radio. You said it made a growling noise. Turn it back on,” Riley orders.
“No, don’t!” Whitticus begs.
“I’m not hearing that growl again!” Ryan snarls. “I’ve already heard enough growls from massive creatures.”
“Yes, and I was there, too. Now turn the radio on,” Riley pushes.
“No!”
“Then change the channel and turn it back on!”
Ray sighs, changes the channel on the radio, and presses the volume knob to turn on the radio. Instead of hearing another aggressive growl, they heard what seemed to be the only running station in the dimension, for they just tuned into someone in mid-conversation. “…doesn’t matter! We know that Thomas betrayed us in some way. He’s got contact with one of those… those things, Maxis! And if the records are correct, then it just so happened to be the worst one! The most destructive one. And before you say it can’t be that one, there were forty of us! Now it’s down to four!”
“Yeah, well, we’re still alive,” someone, likely by the name of Maxis, replies to the other voice.
“We are refugees in a demolished lab, man! They’re not going to bring us back to our world. They probably told my family that I’m dead.”
“We have to broadcast our findings and status, anyway, Yuri,” A different voice speaks.
“Serge, please,” what must be a man named Yuri responds.
“Why are you like this? This wasn’t you in the beginning,” Maxis interrogates.
“I wish I could have stopped this, Maxis. It’s been taken too far. You-.“
“Don’t even,” Maxis snarls.
“We didn’t… We didn’t think fast enough and look where it got us.”
“Yes, I understand. It’s a waking nightmare every day.”
“We knew we were going to be put in a world unlike our own. We all signed off on it. Of course, there was no way of knowing these things would be here,” Serge points out.
“I mean, not everything has attacked us,” Maxis states.
“Nothing has helped us either,” Yuri reports.
Suddenly, everyone in the van can hear a loud siren coming from the speakers. “Argh! What is that?!” Stephen cries.
“Ah shit! The sirens! Shutdown! Shutdown! Turn off the lights!” Yuri can be heard shouting from the radio.
“On it! I’m on it!” Serge’s voice rings through.
“What’s here this t-.” The radio broadcast cuts out abruptly before Maxis can finish his sentence, leaving everyone in the van absolutely confused of what just happened.
“Okay, that’s enough radio for this dimension,” Ray comments before turning off the radio again. He takes in a deep breath. “But also, this just brings more questions.”
“We must be dealing with something massive here,” Tori replies.
“Are we going to run into more massive beings?” Brandon ponders.
“Should we… try to find them?” Whitticus asks.
“Who? The beings? That’s a suicide miss-.”
“I meant the people.”
“Oh… I mean, I guess.”
“How are we going to find them?” Stephen questions.
“Think. Look for any building in this wasteland,” Riley replies.
The team traverse the red landscape. As tension fills the van from all of the silence, Brandon tries breaking the silence. “So, does anyone want to talk about something?” he suggests.
“I can’t even think of anything,” Emmatina replies whilst rubbing her eyes.
“I’m still trying to think of what they radio broadcast was about,” Stephen comments.
“Well, whatever it was about, they were freaking out over it. It must be something dangerous,” Whitticus suggests.
“There’s no way that whatever is bothering the broadcasters is looking to have a tea par-.”
Tori is interrupted by a freaking out Stephen. “Uh, guys?! Out… Out the window!”
That’s when the others see something off in the horizon. Whatever it is, it towers over the mountainside. It looks like they are asleep on top of the mountain, resting their ginormous head on the peaks like a dog rests their head on someone’s lap. Their body is of a pale citrus orange color, with red highlights around. Branch-shaped tendrils flow out of their form. Though the eyes are closed, the crew can see that it has numerous rows of eyes. It’s jaw is massive, enough to swallow the van whole, if it so chooses. And teeth… oh, how many teeth is has. You can’t even count how many.
“What is that?!” shouts Emmatina.
“So… So, m-many eyes,” Stephen mutters.
“Why is everyone screaming?” Monica wakes.
“Out… t-the window,” Stephen stutters as he points to the creature over the mountains.
“Wha-. Oh, holy shit!” Monica jumps back upon seeing the creature. “What in the fuck is that?!”
“Oh, here we go. More eldritch beings. Let’s go,” Ryan complains as he covers his face in annoying.
“Y-You’re telling me that you’ve dealt with something like that before?!” Monica exclaims.
“Yeah, but nothing that big before,” Riley answers.
“That’s something straight out of H.P. Lovecraft!”
“Hey, we should probably be quiet. We don’t need that thing to wake up,” Ray states.
“What’s going on?” Darla wakes up. She looks at everyone awake and sees her younger quavering like a leaf that’s about to drop off a branch.
“Don’t… look… outside,” Stephen warns.
Darla can’t resist, for she looks outside anyway. She sees the creature. “Oh my, God…”
As Ray tries to drive past the mountain creature, the creature’s body is blocking the sunlight, casting a shadow on the van. Suddenly, the creature’s eyes open. One by one, light from their eyes beam down on the van. Their dim compared to the sunlight, but they are as bright as a dim streetlight, easily cutting through the shadow’s darkness. Monica ducks behind a seat, as Stephen gasps in fear. Emmatina covers Whitticus’ eyes. Ray just keeps driving, not letting the eyes of that beast get to him.
“What are you doing?!” Tori whispers.
“Just trust me on this. Please be quiet,” Ray replies. He keeps driving, but at a slow pace. The mountain stares at the van as it slowly drives past, before it closes its eyes and lays back down, seemingly uninterested in the moving object. To the surprise of everyone, they are all safe.
“That… shouldn’t have worked,” Brandon commented.
“But thankfully it did,” Ray adds.
“I knew something wasn’t right about this world, but at least that creature back there didn’t have any ill intent for us,” Lincoln stated.
Overwhelmed by what just happened, Stephen passes out, leaving Darla to catch him. “He should lay down,” Svetlana states.
“Yeah, I… I can see that. He’s been very stressed for so long, and.- What even was that?!”
Svetlana climbs out of the passenger’s seat. She helps Darla carry her brother to the loft so he can rest. “Why are you so calm?” Darla asks her.
“You have to be in a situation like this.”
“So, I think we know now what we’re dealing with in this world,” Ryan comments. “The biggest eldritch beings we’ve ever seen. I kind of hate it, heh. Like, I know we’re used to it, but.-“
“What do you mean?! I’m not used to this!” Darla interrupts.
“I meant some of us,” Ryan replies.
“What was that thing? What does ‘eldritch’ mean?” Whitticus asks.
“It’s um… They’re like massive being that you can’t really describe well,” Riley answers.
“So, like Lincoln?” Whitticus responds innocently.
“What?” Lincoln reacts. Tori stifles a chuckle.
“Not exactly, no,” Riley corrects.
“Okay.”
“Anyway, I think our next mode of operation should be finding those people that were on that broadcast. They shouldn’t be trapped with creatures like this,” Ray states.
Monica looks out the front window of the van. She can see a forest in the distance. “Do you think they could be in there? It seems pretty secluded. It’d be a good place to hide,” she suggests.
“Well, it couldn’t hurt to try,” Tori commented.
“Let’s do it, then,” Ray answers. And so, Ray drives over to the forest off in the distance. Lincoln stares out of the car as the forest gets ever so closer. Ryan stands by him, pressing against the roof of the van as it to anchor himself to the floor of the vehicle.
********************
“Is the coast clear?” Maxis asks as he tries to peak a look out of a window.
“Is there anything on the radar?” Serge responded.
“I-I don’t know,” Maxis mutters.
Yuri does a roll across the floor to reach the terminal. He picks up a flashlight on the ground and activates it. With his hands on terminal table, he lifts himself up, and with the flashlight in his hands, he points it at the terminal’s monitor. Projected on the screen is a radar trying to detect any objects on it. Nothing is being picked up. “I think we’re good for now. Nothing’s around,” he announces.
“Ah, thank god!” Maxis covers his face and sighs, letting out a nervous laugh in the process.
Serge stands up and does a stretch. “Finally. It was getting uncomfortable laying on the floor.”
“What do we do now?” Maxis questions.
“I have no clue,” Yuri replies. “What can we do?”
“How many supplies do we have left?” Serge inquiries.
“Let me think, um…” Yuri stares up at the ceiling as he tries to figure out the question. “Well, since it’s just down to us three, when there was forty to begin with, we should have at least a month, maybe two, of food, water, and other resources if we ration right.
“Like that’s going to matter. No one’s coming for us,” Maxis mumbles
“You don’t know that!” Serge fires back.
“We’ve been here for months. Thomas went missing like a couple months in. And you remember how he was spewing all this crazy shit about like how this world is like a prison holding something. Last time one of those beasts attacked, it was almost three weeks ago. You’d think they’d send somebody to get us the first time we were attacked. Well, look where we are, Serge! Still here!” Maxis argues.
“Hey, be quiet for a minute. Something’s on the radar,” Yuri states.
“Damn it!” I was just getting to not being on edge,” Maxis exclaims.
“You always are on edge. What are you talking about?” Serge comments.
“Fuck off!” Maxis growls.
Yuri turns on a television that is hooked up to a security system. He turns up the television’s volume to better hear the camera feed. With a keyboard, he switches to different camera feeds until he hears something picked up on the camera’s microphone. The sound is peculiar. “That doesn’t sound like a creature… That… That sounds like…” His eyes go wide as a realization washes over him. “A vehicle!”
Yuri sprints out of the room. Maxis calls out to him to stop before he and Serge have no choice but to go after him. “Dude! How do you know that this is not something playing an auditory trick on you?!” Maxis calls out.
“I can just tell, Maxis. I-I know what I was hearing! It was definitely a vehicle!” Yuri answers back as he continues to run through the facility, with Serge and Maxis not that far behind. Yuri eventually reaches the entrance of the facility and makes his way outside. “Where are you?!” Yuri shouts out.
********************
“How much do you want to bet this forest is fucking huge?” Ryan comments.
“It probably is,” Riley responds.
“Knowing what we’ve seen of this world, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Monica adds.
“Forests…” Lincoln continues to stare out of a window as Ray traverses the van through the trees. “Where I’m from, those are rare.”
“Forests are rare? How?” Whitticus asks. “I’ve seen many forests in my life! I’ve had to stay in one for a bit to avoid the infected.”
“You weren’t there to see it, but where I’m from, my species lives on these floating islands. There’s barely any land on the ocean’s sea level. There’s trees on the floating islands, but forest can only appear on massive islands. There’s only a few of those that I know of,” Lincoln explained.
“I-I s-see,” Whitticus replies. There’s a tinge of embarrassment in his void.
“I’m not mad for you asking. You were only wondering. I don’t mind talking about my world or about my species. It’s okay to ask me anything,” Lincoln reassures.
“Alright,” Whitticus answers.
“All I know is that I don’t ever want to see whatever that was on the mountain ever again,” Darla buds in.
“Get used to it,” Tori blankly responds.
“What?!” Darla voice gets defensive.
“Trust me, you’re going to want to get used to it.”
“How am I supposed to get used to looking at something that could probably render me asunder by just staring at me?!” Darla shoots back.
“Look,” Tristan jumps in. “You’re still a young lady. We’ve been on this journey for a long time. Nearing a decade, even. We’ve seen our fair share of crazy shit.”
“Maybe don’t swear in front of a kid,” Brandon comments.
“I’ve been swearing since I was like nine, dude. And besides, we’ve been swearing in this van for eight years, and it didn’t stop when they joined.
“And I’m awake,” Maddie rises up. “What’s u-.” She pauses as she sees that they are in thick woods. “Why are we in a forest?”
“You don’t want to know what you missed,” Darla tells her.
“That’s ominous, uh…”
“Trust me, okay?”
“Okay then…”
Someone else wakes up. Narekos sits up and rubs his eyes. He looks around in the van, seeing the people that are awake, and the few that are not. “I never realized how many people are actually in the group,” he comments. “By the way, where are we?”
“We don’t really know, but we’re in a forest, that’s for sure,” Riley answered.
“You know, I just realized something. I never checked what dimension we are in,” Brandon mentions. He then proceeds to go check the Dimension Identifier. “It says we are in Dimension 40408.”
“So, what did I miss?” Narekos asks.
“You don’t want to know,” Darla responds.
“That’s… a vague response.”
That’s when the crew starts hearing a voice off in the distance inside the woods. “Is that someone shouting?” Tori pointed out.
“Should we go check that out?” Ryan replies.
“What if it’s a trap?” Whitticus questions.
“Well, there’s a lot of us and probably like one of them,” Brandon answers. “Besides, Ray is going to find a way to get us out of the situation.”
As Ray kept driving, the crew saw a building start to come in view. “Is that a structure?” Monica points out.
“Looks like a lab. I guess that would make sense, what with that radio broadcast we heard earlier,” Riley commented.
The crew stop someone standing outside of the building. “See, look! It’s a vehicle!” they hear the person exclaim.
“That can’t be rescue!” another figure shouts as they run out of the building. Another figure also follows.
“Is that a green van?” the third figure asks.
“Hey, stop the car here,” Riley suggests.
“On it.” Ray pulls on the breaks and brings the van to a halt. He signals for the others to stay in the van. He opens the driver door and steps out.
“Hey, it’s another person!” one of the people say.
“Are you here to rescue us?” another one asks.
“Look, uh, I don’t know where any of you exactly come from, but I can still get you out of this world, at least,” Ray responds.
“I’m… I’m Yuri Vetrovsky. The other two are what’s left of our crew, Maxis Ignatov and Serge Zharykhin,” Yuri replies. Serge does a welcoming hand signal whilst Maxis just stares off into the distance, not really knowing what to say. Yuri lets out a sigh before continuing to speak. “Well, okay, there’s another one somewhere, but we don’t talk about him.”
“Thomas?” Ray inquiries.,
“How.-“ Yuri’s voice staggers in shock. “How did you know?!”
“We heard your broadcast while we were driving around this eldritch world,” Ray answered.
“Ah, yeah, well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” Yuri loosens up, letting his shoulders drop. “So, who are you?”
“My name is Ray Vantair,” Ray states.
“What are you even doing here?” Maxis jumps in. “Don’t you know this world is dangerous? Don’t you have a family you need to get back to? Why would you risk coming here?”
“One question at a time, man,” Serge comments.
“Look, I’ve been in many dangerous worlds. This isn’t my first time in a dangerous world,” Ray responded.
“What do you mean?” Maxis asks.
“I’ve been jumping dimensions for eight years now. Years before that an apocalypse broke out in my home dimension. Apocalypse spread across the dimensional plan. I don’t even know if my family is around anymore. I was an only child. I’ve seen so many different apocalyptic scenarios in the span of like eleven years. My crew and I have been trying to find the source of this multi-dimension force causing apocalyptic scenarios for nearly a decade. I live danger at this point,” Ray explains.
“I… I s-see.”
“I can get you out of this world. I assume you’ve been here for quite a while. I don’t know how to get you back. I don’t know where you came from. I know we’ll figure it out somehow, though. But what I need to know is that are you willing to go on another long journey, because my crew has to keep moving.”
The three men stare at Ray for a few seconds. Maxis lets out a groan before answering. “Beats being stuck here.”
“Somewhere new would be great,” Serge returns.
“Let’s do this,” Yuri responds with a strange look of determination in his eyes.
“Let’s get this show on the road, then.” Ray signals over to the van. “Follow me.” He starts to walk to the van, the three scientists following him. Ray turns to face them. “Oh, I should give you a forewarning. Not everyone on my team are humans. You’re going to have to get used to that.”
“What?” Maxis reacts.
“Wait, are you saying you have monsters on your team or something?” Serge asks.
“Don’t call them monsters,” replies with a nonchalant, yet annoyed tone. He then proceeds to open the side doors of the van.
“Is that a moth person?” Maxis points out.
“I’m noticing a pattern,” Jenny mumbles.
“I’m more wondering what that thing is,” Yuri looks over to Lincoln.
“To answer your question, weird tall man, his name is Lincoln and he is a Trazdak,” Ryan answers.
“Let’s all focus on the fact that we finally seeing more people,” Serge states.
“Fair enough,” Yuri responds. “Well, hi, everyone.”
“Aren’t you an awkward one,” Tristan remarked.
“Look, all I’ve seen for a month are these two guys. Cut us some slack,” Yuri retorts.
“Who are you people?” Monica asks with a calm voice.
“I’m Yuri,” he responds.
“Yo, I’m Maxis.”
“Just call me, Serge.”
Monica nods her head hearing the trio introduce themselves. “Greetings, I’m Monica Vescovich.”
“There’s a lot of people in here. How?” Yuri asks.
“Well, uh, heh. This van is not normal, as you can probably tell,” Ryan responded.
“I gave up trying to comprehend it after the twelfth person walked in. You’re better off not thinking about it,” Tristan added.
“Look, as a scientist, even I don’t understand how thus van works. I guess it’s like a… a pocket dimension? How it works, I’ve no clue,” Riley tries to explain.
“Wait, you’re a scientist, too?” Maxis inquiries.
“Yep, and an adventurer. Well… I guess I still am, whether I like it or not,” Riley answered.
“Oh great, there’s five scientists on the team now,” Tristan grumbles.
“I don’t really think I count,” Brandon reacts.
“You are a nature documentary narrator who is the one that is constantly checking the dimension indicator, always keeping track of what dimensions we’ve been in, and are always writing down details about the dimensions, despite how much you drink. You are a scientist.”
“Harsh way to put it, but okay then! Geesh!”
“So, why are you people… here of all places?” Monica inquiries.
Yuri looks at the floor of the van and sighs. “We were part of an expedition team to explore a different world, or I guess a different dimension. We were only supposed to stay for like at most a month, but everything went… pretty quickly down the gutter,” Yuri replies.
“When things got bad we tried to contact back home, but…” Maxis stares off in the distance for a few seconds before speaking again. “Radio silence…”
“Wait, so they didn’t even bother checking in on you guys?” Brandon asks.
“No, they didn’t! And we don’t know why!” Maxis responds.
“We kept trying to, but no one would ever respond,” Serge adds. “And as more and more of those beings appeared, more of our colleagues would go missing and die. We’re pretty sure we’re the last one’s left.”
“And Thomas,” Yuri chimes.
“We don’t mention Thomas!” Maxis growls.
“Who’s Thomas?” Tori questions.
“We don’t like talking about him,” Serge answers.
“And why?”
“Because we think he’s working with one of those beasts.”
“In what way?” Ray asks.
“We’re not sure, but one day he went missing, but we were still able to hear him over the comms. The things he would say were really worrying. It was like stuff about how something was stuck here for ages, and that it needed to be let out or something. I don’t know, but it was like he was praising something,” Serge explained.,/p>
“So, if we find this Thomas person I can shoot him?” Tristan asks excitedly.
“Yeah, go for it,” Maxis replies.
Tristan cackles in joy, standing in a pose with his hands balled up in fists and his face has a massive smile. “Hahaha, yes!”,/p>
“You are way too eager to kill someone,” Darla commented.
“Best get used to it, because he’s always like this,” Tori states.
“That’s worrisome.”
“He’s a loyal guy, so don’t be worried. If anything, are enemies should be worried about him.”
“It still worries me. My brother doesn’t need to be around that.”
“Well, it’s too late for that, now is it?”
“Lady, I’m not going to hurt your brother, alright?” Tristan buds in.
“O-Okay,” Darla hesitantly respond.
“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you or your brother and your friend. You are on our side, yes? Then I’ve no reason to hurt you.”
“Alright, okay.”
“Okay, let’s get out of these woods,” Ray announces as he turns the van around.
“Good idea,” Yuri agrees.
As Ray drives out of the woods Maxis blanks out for a moment, staring out of the windows. Then a question comes to mind. “Have you ran into one of those creatures?”
“Yeah,” Tori responds. “It was this massive pale orange and red creature. They were resting on a mountainside when we were passing through. Also, they has a lot of eyes, and they glowed.”
“I’m sorry you had to witness that.”
“It’s fine. Some of us are used to it.”
“I’m not going to question that part.”
“I would not be able to fight off a creature like that,” Whitticus commented.
Maxis looks down at Whitticus. “Aren’t you like four?”
“I’m nine.”
“Not much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.”
“Hey! I can fight! I survived by myself for a couple of weeks!” Whitticus gets defensive, his eyes turning red.
“Lay off the kid!” Emmatina snarls, her eyes red too.
“Yeah, what she said!” Ryan adds. Tristan also cracks his knuckles as well.
“Okay, okay! Sorry! Sorry! I understand now that you can fight!” Maxis reacts with his hands in the air. Whitticus and Emmatina’s eyes slowly revert back to a neutral color. Ryan goes back to focusing on the view from outside the dashboard. Tristan interlocks his fingers and stands in a neutral position.
“What is with the yelling?!” Cartier wakes up, rubbing his eyes.
“Wow, you’ve been completely absent for this entire fucking dimension,” Brandon jokes.
“What’s it to you? Also, why is there more people?”
“I guess if you give sass you get sass,” Brandon comments to himself.
“We found them in a lab. We also saw an eldritch being. Apparently, there’s a lot of them in this dimension,” Ray answers Cartier’s question.
“Great, eldritch monsters. That’s somehow worse than giant, killer robots,” Cartier responds. He then sees that Jenny is awake. “Oh, you’re awake.”
“Yeah, I’ve been up for a while,” Jenny replies.
“Is Ashley okay?”
“She’s been asleep this whole time. She missed seeing the thing on the mountainside.”
“That’s probably for the better.”
“Yeah.” Jenny nods her head in agreement.
As the crew starts driving out of the woods, they notice that something is casting a shadow, and it’s a massive one. “What is that?” Darla asks.
“Something, that’s for sure,” Ray answers.
“It’s… It’s another one of those… those beasts!” Maxis exclaims.
“Oh, here we go!” Serge reacts.
“Not again!” Yuri complains.
Just outside the woods stands a being well over six stories tall. It’s a deep rosewood red. There’s tendrils protruding everywhere off of their head. They have what looks like several tails of different sizes. It has fur over its body, and the further down the tails you go, the lighter the shades of red get. Its face for some reason was more pink than red. It stared down at the crew with its massive eyes. Much of the crew started to panic upon seeing the massive eldritch being, except for the ones that have been in the team for several years. And then it spoke. “Ray, Ryan. I’ve been watching you for a while. Come out.”
“Oh no,” Ryan muttered. “Why do they know us?”
Ray sighs and opens the driver door, climbing out of the van. He looks up at the eldritch being, seemingly with no fear on his face as he does so. “What do you want?” he asks.
“I don’t mean you or your people any ill will. I’ve come to give you a warning,” the beast responds, their voice deep and rumbling.
“Who even are you?” Ryan asks, now out of the van as well.
“You can call me Redkan,” they respond.
All of the commotion finally wakes up Ashley. “What’s going on? I’m sensing a lot of noise.”
“Ashley, no, not a good time!” Cartier exclaimed.
“What do you m-.” And that’s when she sees Redkan. She freezes up and stares at the eldritch beast in fear and awe.
“Ashley, no!” Jenny cries.
“What… is… that?” Ashley mumbles.
“It’s-. It’s nothing, Ash,” Jenny answers.
“Um… O-Okay?” Ashley reacts.
Meanwhile, outside of the van, Ray stands fearless as he asks Redkan a question. “Why do you know us?”
“I’ve been watching you for a while now. I’ve seen the adventures you’ve been going on. I know that you’ve been jumping dimension. I know you’ve been trying to find a way to stop this inter-dimensional apocalypse for a while now, and I do commend the effort. But as I said, I’ve come to give you a warning,” Redkan explains.
“And what is that warning?” Ryan requests.
“There is something contained in this world that has the capability to bring absolute doom and destruction to dimensions. In fact, it’s done it before,” Redkan answers.
“Is that what’s causing all of these apocalyptic shit in these different dimensions?” Ryan theorizes.
“I don’t think so, but if he is released, his name being Vantarask, he can cause even more dimensions to fall apart. This dimension was made as a failsafe to contain entities that can potentially bring destruction to the inter-dimensional plane. Now, not every being here wants to bring destruction to dimensions, but there are some that do, and Vantarask is one of those,” Redkan clarifies.
Overhearing the conversation that Ray and Ryan are having with the eldritch beast, Redkan, gives Yuri confirmation on why this world is the way that it is. “Wait, that makes sense,” he mutters to himself. He then gets an epiphany. “Thomas… Thomas is trying to free that Vantarask being!” Yuri then opens the side doors.
“What are you doing?!” Maxis reacts.
“Just wait a minute!” Yuri answers back as he climbs out of the van. He then approaches Redkan, oddly not too scared of the fact that an eldritch beast is standing over him. “Is somebody trying to break this Vantarask out of their confinement?” Yuri asks.
“That’s what I’m thinking. I give you this warning that if in the event of Vantarask breaking free, you can be prepared for a fight, and I’ll be there when that fight happens,” Redkan answers.
“Are you on our side or something?” Ryan questioned.
“Yes,” Redkan responds. “But you must be on your way. You mustn’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
“Oh, from experience, I know that,” Yuri commented.
Redkan bids the team farewell. “Stay safe. The inter-dimensional plane needs you.”
"We’ll try our best,” Ray responds. Ray, Ryan, and Yuri return to the van. Ray drives the van away from Redkan, who eventually walks off themselves.
“What the heck was all of that?” Maddie asks.
“Just a conversation with an eldritch being,” Ray responded.
“You’ve been really quiet, Madeline,” Darla points.
“I’ve no clue what to say about everything that has been happening today,” Maddie answered.
“Your actual name is Madeline?” Monica reacts.
“Also, I think we’re forgetting the fact that, uh, Misty has been asleep the entire day,” Brandon points out.
“Expert sleeper, apparently. Also, sometimes it’s like that. Your body needs the longer rest sometimes,” Monica answers back.
Finally, after all this time, another portal opens up. “Let’s get out of this red world,” Ray comments before driving into the portal. The van disappears into the portal before it closes.
********************
Somewhere in a deep cave in the Red Fields dimension, a lone traveler roams through the tunnels with a flashlight in their hand and a backpack on their back. Their footsteps echo as they walk through the cave. The sounds of water dripping on the cave floor feels the wanderer’s senses. His movements are of someone with a purpose set in mind. They know where they are going. Eventually, they reach the end of a tunnel. Something massive is bound to the cave’s walls, ceiling and floor by strange looking chains. They are laying down on the cave floor, affected by the weight of the chains. Their numerous tendrils rest on the ground. The traveler’s flashlight glows up the beast’s face. The wanderer can see its dark purple and black body. The beast stares down at the wanderer.
“My lord, Vanta. I will find a way to break you out of these binds. I will not stop at anything until you are free, my lord,” the wanderer declares. They put their right hand on the beast’s snout and rests their head on it. The beast brings their head down, almost like they were leaning into the wanderer’s touch. “One day, you will be free. Mark my words.”