Hey, I know this page is long and whatnot. If you don't want to read it all on one page, I'm splitting them all into pages for each chapter.
Prologue
Alright, I should start with some explanation of why we’re in this fucking mess. The thing is, it’s such a long story and it’s still going on to this day, and I’m damn positive it will keep going on. My name is Ray Vantair. I'm the designated driver of this survivor group. We drive around in a van, specifically a green Ford E-150. How do I explain this without sounding insane? This van jumps dimensions.
I'll try to explain the best of the beginning, even though it’s hard to look back at that time. It's been a decade since this apocalypse started. It just had to be the age-old zombie apocalypse huh. Except it ended up being at a larger scale than it should have been, like across dimensions. I remember when it hit Muskegon. It was a special form of Hell. There was this kid I ended up running into that had been abandoned by his parents. I ended up taking him under my wing. His name is Ryan Senoaks. He was twelve at the time. I taught him how to survive; how to fight. All that stuff.
A few years later, whilst fleeing from a giant horde, we found this van. We acted fast and entered the van. I was amazed that it still ran when I turned it on. We tried to drive away from the scene and then witnessed something that we never thought would happen. Suddenly, everything started to change around us, and we found ourselves in a different world. We didn't understand what had happened at that point, but we jumped a dimension. Then we discovered in the said dimension that it was also under an apocalypse. Ever since then we've been trying to figure out how to stop this multi-dimensional apocalypse.
Jump ahead eight years later and you are now in the present time. Well, present time for us, or whatever present time it is in this dimension. I don't know where we're at. The Dimension Identifier says Dimension 152. We've been cruising along for probably an hour listening to the Incidental Radio station. That station follows us everywhere and I want to know why. The music that it plays sometimes fits too damn well with the situations we as a group find ourselves in.
Oh yeah, I should probably talk about the group. Besides Ryan, we have an eclectic group of members all from different dimensions. Some members come from the same dimension, while others come from a completely different dimension. The only person I know from my dimension in this group is Ryan. Speaking of which, it's so weird knowing that Ryan's twenty-two. Anyway, tangent aside, every member of this group has their own title if you will. I've already stated that I'm the designated driver. That doesn't mean I drive all the time. You got to earn the right to drive this van. I'm getting ahead of myself again. There's Misty Brooks. I call her the sharpshooter. There's Tristan Corvinter. He is the only non-human in our group currently. We did have some before, but they've either died or left the group, or in a certain case kicked out. He is the warrior type. There's also Svetlana Bogatyryova. (Good luck pronouncing that name if you’re not Slavic.) She is a Slavic soldier. You don't fuck with Svetlana. There is a trio of friends that come from the same dimension. Flotsam Senesha, (unfortunate name there,) Riley Sazurá, and Tori Lenetchra. Flotsam is the Adventurer. He has some trauma from his past. Riley is the scientist in this group. I'm so glad he's here because without him we would probably be fucked. Some of this shit makes no fucking sense to me. then Tori is what I like to call the hellbent medic. Since we had to kick out our original medic because of something she had done, Tori had to take the place. While she's not as good as the previous one, she suffices. We also have Brandon Friseal. He is the nature documentary narrator. He's also Australian if I’m correct. Either that or Scottish. That about wraps up everyone in the group.
Ryan gets called the basket case of the group, which is fair. There was a moment where he got into drugs, and we had to get him out of it. No matter what, I'll always protect him as if he was always my son. Still won't let you drive, Ryan.
Hello, I’m Ryan Senoaks. I like to say that I am Ray’s son, even though I am not. Fuck my parents; they abandoned me when I was twelve whilst it was an apocalypse. My parents were neglectful from the get-go. Sometimes it felt like I didn't even exist to them. I wasn't really allowed to go places except to family gatherings. They never really brought me anywhere fun. I essentially did not have a childhood. Ever since Ray found me, he has taken care of me. He was always the father I wanted.
Ever since I was fifteen, we have been on the road. For eight years we have lived in this van. It has a lot of strange properties. First off, it jumps dimensions, which is already strange itself. On top of that, it is almost like its own dimension inside. Basically, there's more stuff and more space inside of this vehicle than there should be. Somehow there are bedrooms, bathrooms, and, well, anything you would find inside a standard house. It's like an advanced motorhome. That's the best way I can explain it.
I am a hyperactive ball of energy. Sometimes I can get on the group's nerves. I usually don't mean to. My ADHD loves to act up, and well, how am I going to get medication to deal with that in an apocalypse? It doesn't help that I have a history of abusing drugs, which I did kick, by the way. But yes, the point is that I am very hyperactive.
One day I hope we will stop this apocalypse. It's not like it's been going on for ten years. Hell, because of the dimensional plane, it's probably been going on for longer. I've kind of lost track of time, but I know we've been on the road for eight years, roughly.
Anyway, we've been in this one dimension for like a day now, maybe two. It seems that we are stopping for the day. Man, I'm really bored right now.
In Rocky Medias Res (or Why You Do Not Let Ryan Drive)
Ray and the crew were situated at a random dimension, for they had to sleep. It has been a few hours since they have stopped, five at the max. Outside, there is a cloudy nighttime sky. Ray, Ryan, Brandon, Riley, Tori, and Misty were awake. Ryan had gotten restless, so he wanted to drive the van. He decided to act. “A’ight, I’m bored. I’m driving this,” he announced.
“No!” Ray yelled, but Ryan had already jumped into the driver’s seat, and since the engine was on, he started to drive it. Ryan cannot drive, so he starts driving like a maniac. This causes Ray to fly backward. “Fuck!” he shouts.
“Damnit, Ryan!” Brandon complains.
“Oh boy, here we go again,” Misty murmurs.
Because of how the van works, it starts jumping dimensions haphazardly. “Ryan, get out of the driver’s seat. We know from history you’re terrible at this,” Riley orders. Ryan just ignores him. Tori starts slowly making her way towards the driver’s seat, struggling to keep her footing while Ryan drives the van like it was a vehicle on a NASCAR track. “Stop driving, child!” Tori demanded.
“I’m not a child! I’m twenty-two!” Ryan fired back.
“You’re damn acting like one!” Tori snarled. The van experiences turbulence, affecting Tori’s footing, making her let go of a seat. Because of this, she ends up flying backward.
“Welcome to the back,” Ray remarked.
“Hi,” Tori replied, not knowing how else to respond.
This turbulence also sent Flotsam sailing right into the ceiling of the van, making him wake up, finding himself falling right back down on the cot. He started to freak out. “What the fuck just happened?! Are we being attacked by a phoenix again? Please don’t be this.” He then spots who is driving the van. “Oh, this bullshit again.”
Ryan takes a sharp turn, sending a sleeping Tristan careening into a window, thankfully not breaking through. “Ryan, you bitch!” Tristan growls. He did not even need to see who was driving to know that it was Ryan doing so.
“Where’s the chloroform?” Brandon asked.
“We’ve done that many times, it’s probably not going to work,” Riley responded.
With all the commotion going on, it wakes up Svetlana. She observes what is happening and works out what to do. “Alright, I see what’s happening here,” she commented. She gets herself up, pulls her way up to the driver’s seat, and puts her left hand on the armrest. “Ryan, you got to slow down,” she tells Ryan, in a quiet voice.
“Uh… Alright then,” Ryan reacts as he brings the van to a halt. Ray and Tori fall off the back doors and land on the cot.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Ray mutters.
“Every three days, I swear,” Tori reacts.
“Welp, there goes a bottle of whiskey,” Brandon states.
“Well, that was fun!” Ryan comments.
“No, it was not, you fucking prick!” Tristan snarls. Ryan just laughs.
“Ryan, you can’t keep doing this type of thing. You’re going to get someone hurt, let alone yourself,” Svetlana explains. “You are not fit to drive.”
“Then teach me,” Ryan answers.
“We’ve tried, and remember how that turned out?” This makes Ryan think back to an uncomfortable time.
“You still can’t blame me for that game show. There was no way of knowing that would happen,” Ryan pointed out.
“Yes, I know.”
“You were still the one who drove us into a lake,” Brandon chimed in.
“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t-. Why are we bringing it up?!” Ryan complains.
“A’ight, relax. Let’s not give thought to the past right now,” Ray interrupts.
“… Where are we, anyway?” Misty asks.
Flotsam scratches his head. He did not expect to be woken up so rudely by Ryan’s abysmal driving. “Hey, Flotsam,” Riley greeted.
“Hey, Riley,” he replied.
“Yo.”
Flotsam looks outside a window. “Where are w-… Why is the sky orange?” Flotsam reacts. He then realizes something else.” “Why are we in the sky?!”
“Calm your shit, Flotsam,” Tristan orders.
“Shut up,” Flotsam growls.
“Who names their kid Flotsam, anyway?” Tristan mocks.
“Listen, they named me that way because their marriage was compared to a shipwreck,” Flotsam responded. This just made Tristan laugh. “Yes, my life is a joke. Leave me alone,” Flotsam insisted.
Ray has already taken back control of the driver’s seat. Ryan is now sitting somewhere different in the van.
“There better not be any phoenixes nearby,” Flotsam stated.
“Gah! Shut up about the phoenixes!” Tristan complains.
“Well, can we get out of this dimension?” Flotsam asked.
“About that… It isn’t starting,” Ray answers, referring to the van.
“… Damn you, plot,” Flotsam grumbles.
“The fuck is that?” Tori watches as something blue flies past her view. “Fucking hell, that’s peculiar.”
“What are you talking-. Oh.” Flotsam stops as he spots the flying thing as well.
“Alright. So, there are blue flying things. Don’t make a fuss over it. Besides, it’s far away from us.” Tristan remarks.
“We can’t just be floating,” Misty comments.
“Remember when the van became a submarine?” Flotsam questioned.
“Yeah,” Misty responded.
“Yeah… I don’t want to remember.” Flotsam lets out a nervous chuckle.
“Ryan, what are you doing?!” Svetlana yells. Ryan opened the back door and looked under the van to see a mechanism pushing them around. He almost falls out, so Svetlana pulls him back in. “Jesus Christ! Check yourself, man!”
“We’re on a track. Something’s pushing us forward,” Ryan announces.
“Interesting,” Ray replies.
The van suddenly goes to a -45-degree angle. Ryan goes flying backward. The back doors are flailing around. Ryan catches hold of the doors. Svetlana grabs said door and pulls in Ryan. Tori grabs Svetlana to help her. Ray, Tristan, Brandon, and Misty are pushed back into car seats by the sudden change of force. Riley holds onto the back of a chair. Flotsam is blown back into a chair.
The van eventually slows down and is no longer at an angle. Svetlana, Tori, Ryan, and Flotsam fall to the floor of the van. Riley lands on his feet. Ray, Tristan, Brandon, and Misty are no longer being pushed back in their seats.
“Holy shit!” Svetlana exclaims as she takes in some heavy breaths.
“Well, that was fucked!” Ryan states.
“I don’t get paid enough to deal with all this shit,” Tori complains.
“The crazy ride wasn’t my fault this time! Ahaha!” Ryan states.
“What the fuck just happened?” Ray questioned.
“Why can’t we get a break? I’m in fucking pain,” Flotsam protested.
“Get up,” Tristan uttered as he pulled Flotsam back onto his footing.
One of the flying blue entities goes right past the van. “Holy fuck, that thing was big,” Riley commented.
“Nope!” Flotsam exclaimed, before getting away from the window. “Fuck that.”
“Well then,” Misty reacted.
“Is everyone alright from that?” Tori asked.
“I am in pain,” Flotsam replied.
“I know, Flotsam,” Tori stated.
“Yeah, I’m alright,” Brandon answered.
“I’m fine,” Misty responded.
“I was not expecting that,” Ray noted.
“Why can’t we get a break?” Flotsam complained.
“Hey, look! An island in the sky!” Misty exclaimed as she pointed at something in front of the van.
“Yes! Finally! Land!” Flotsam yelled. The track pushes the van onto the floating island. Eventually, the van stops. Whatever was flying above lands down on the island.
“Well, who’s going to be the guinea pig? Who’s going out first?” Brandon inquired.
“No thank you. I will not,” Flotsam remarked.
“A’ight, I’ll do it,” Svetlana announced. She put on her hat and proceeded to exit the van.
When Svetlana steps out of the van, she sees a giant blue creature. There doesn’t seem to be any wings, so she wonders how it can even fly in the first place. She approaches the being, and it stares down at her, perplexed about what she even is. Suddenly, they speak. “Hello,” it greets her.
Svetlana gets startled by this a little bit. “Oh, you can speak,” she reacts.
The creature looks over to the van. “That is a weird carrier,” they comment. “Are they making something new?”
“What? Oh, that? It’s a van,” Svetlana replies.
“A van?” the creature questioned.
“Yeah,” Svetlana replied.
“I’ve never heard of that type of carrier,” the creature stated.
“So, are you like a type of bird?” Svetlana asked.
“What’s a bird?” the creature responds.
“Nice, it’s not a phoenix,” Flotsam reacts. With that, everyone exits the van.
“Hello,” Ray greets the creature.
“I am a ball of energy!” Ryan screams.
“Not now, Ryan! We’re on a floating island!” Ray exclaims. Ryan starts to run around the island anyway. “Tori, help me over here to stop Ryan from soaring off the fucking island,” he ordered.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Tori called back. They chased Ryan around the island.
“Why must I be surrounded by morons?” Tristan complained.
“Shush,” Misty muttered.
“How fast can this kid run, Ray?!” Tori questioned.
“Fast,” Ray replied.
“I’m twenty-two,” Ryan stated.
“Ryan, why are you like this?” Ray asked.
“Ray, we’ve been cooped up for a while, okay?” Ryan noted.
“Just don’t run off the edge, please,” Ray responded. “You and your ADHD.”
“You wish you had my energy,’’ Ryan teased.
“I wish for you to not run off the island,” Ray begged.
“Alright, I’ll stop,” Ryan replied as he slowed down.
“Thank you,” Tori spoke, out of breath. She turned over to Ray. “Thanks, Ray.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Ray answered. He looked over to the creature. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine,” the creature responded.
Tori falls to the ground and takes in some deep breaths. “Fuck, he runs fast,” she mutters.
“What are you doing on the ground?” Ryan asked.
Tori looks at Ryan. “I wonder that myself” she replied, cynically.
“With only nine people we get into so much mischief. It's amazing,” Misty commented.
“Hey, warning. There’s a windstorm coming,” the creature announced.
“A windstorm? This is going to be fuckin’ great,” Tristan groaned.
“And we’re on a floating island,” Tori added.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Svetlana comments.
“Is there even a surface on this… planet?” Ray asked.
“It’s almost entirely covered in water,” the creature answered.
“Oh,” Ray reacted.
Flotsam had a vision of the gameshow. “Oh god no,” he keeps repeating.
“There’s a place you can stay for the night,” the creature declared. They then point to a navy green shack. “It’ll be protection from the storm. The wind is stronger up here.”
“Alright, thank you,” Ray responded. He leads everyone to the shack before the windstorm reached the island.
A few minutes have passed. The wind had picked up. The van outside shakes around a bit, but not enough to topple over.
“Oh, my!” Svetlana exclaimed.
“They weren’t lying,” Riley stated.
“Hey, is that creature alright?” Ryan asked. He looked out the window to see if the creature is alright. It's lying on the ground. Its fur is blowing around in the wind. Outside, the sky has changed to a color representing a deep shade of mauve. “Are we going to have to wait this storm out?”
“Yes,” Ray answered.
“We have no other choice,” added Tristan.
Images of the gameshow are still flashing in Flotsam’s head.
“Flotsam, are you alright?” Riley requested.
“No,” he replies.
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“When we were forced on that game show.”
“Oh… Okay.”
“It's just- How the fuck did the van become a submarine?! How the fuck did that phoenix get on?! And all those damn things those fucking commentators forced us to do. That's one of the worse things that happened in my life, under Lloyd getting murdered. Nothing beats watching Tracy die, though,” Flotsam ranted.
“I- I… I know,” Riley replies.
“I know I sound like a dick, but that was in the past. We're in the present. We got to keep moving forward,” Tristan explained.
The group members fall asleep one by one. Riley and Tristan are still awake. Flotsam is speaking in his sleep. “Stuxnet? Stuxnet, things will get better, man. Don't beat yourself up, please. I know, stuff like this happens, and they hurt.”
Tristan stares at Flotsam, quizzical at what he’s saying. He turns over to Riley. “You know him personally. What the hell is he talking about?” he asked. Riley covers his face and shakes Flotsam awake.
“Flotsam!” Riley tried to get his attention.
“Wh-what?!” Flotsam looked a bit annoyed.
“You’re talking in your sleep again.”
“About what?”
“Stuxnet.”
“Oh,” Flotsam reacted, sullenly. “I can’t escape my past, can I?”
“Your past? What?” Tristan asked.
“I don’t know how I’ve never talked about him. I bet I have, but I doubt you remember,” Flotsam responded.
“I’ve only known you for half a decade, man. I don’t really tend to pay attention,” Tristan noted.
“Anyway, before this whole apocalypse shit, I was an avid adventurer. In fact, Riley and I have gone on adventures together. Well, there was a friend I had, named Stuxnet. He was my best friend. We went to so many places. We made it our job to explore the world. We were really close…” Flotsam paused, not prepared to continue. He took in a deep breath.
“I had a girlfriend at one point. He had a wife. I was in a relationship with someone named Tracy Stewerine. He was married to Ronda. They had a kid, a daughter. Tracy and Ronda also liked to explore as well. We had a coordinator. His name was Lloyd…”
“One day, we got home from a journey we had in Europe, like the Slavic area. I think, was it Slovakia? I don’t remember anymore. It was well over a decade ago. Something was wrong, but we didn’t know it. Tracy contracted a disease. A fast-acting one, too. She had to go to the hospital. She died there, and it wasn’t by the disease. It was by an allergic reaction to an anesthetic. I watched her die. I’ll always remember her last words. ‘How the hell did this happen?’” Flotsam covered his face.
“It just got worse. Lloyd said some dumb things and got death threats. Ronda and Stuxnet’s child was four at this time. I was struggling with Tracy’s death; everyone was. Then Lloyd got murdered. Ronda saw it all. He died in her arms.”
“Jesus,” Tristan reacted.
“Stuxnet fell into a deep depression. We tried to get him out of it. Nothing worked. He was found dead from suicide back in 2014.” Flotsam continued.
“I was the one that found him,” Riley added. “There had been a blizzard. Flotsam, Ronda, Kat, and I sanctioned in my house. We didn’t hear from Stuxnet for days. He went somewhere before the blizzard hit. I went to his house when the blizzard started to die down. I saw his car was just haphazardly parked in his driveway. The front door was oddly unlocked. I looked around the house, and I heard this crackling noise. It was coming from the bathroom, and I knew instantly that he did something rash. I had to break down the door. I saw him in the bathtub. He electrocuted himself, on top of cutting himself, I think,” Riley added.
“Holy fuck. Okay, yeah, that’s fucked up.” Tristan reacted. “Are you guys alright?”
“We've had a lot of close friends die, even before the apocalypse. Things at one point went downhill. We and Ronda drifted apart at one point,” Riley replied. “Jackson, Conner, Zachary, Hudson, Kimberly, Royland, Ethan, probably more that I’m forgetting.”
“And who are they?” Tristan asked.
“I will talk about them some other time,” Riley answers.
“Okay then,” Tristan replied.
Ray wakes up. “Are y’all okay?’ He asked the awake trio.
“Yeah,” Riley responds
Ryan wakes up, quoting a movie. “Good morning, Vietnam!”
“We’re not in Viet-,“ Ray stops himself. “Did you sleep well, Ryan?”
“Yeah, I’m alright,” Ryan answers.
“Okay, that’s good,” Ray comments.
“Has the windstorm stopped?” Ryan asked.
Ray looks out a window in the shack. “No.”
The sky is still a deep shade of mauve. It is still nighttime. Alas, the day and night cycle is longer in the dimension they're in right now. The blue creature is still sleeping outside. The windstorm is still going at it strong. It's amazing that the creature hasn't blown away in the windstorm, but it seems they can manage it well. Ray and the group wonder how long the day and night cycle is in this dimension.
Svetlana wakes up. She sits up, puts an arm across her legs, and stares at the four that are awake. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Just waking up, y’know?” Ryan replies.
“What universe is this even? Is it still nighttime?” Tristan asked. Brandon stirs awake as Tristan was speaking.
“Well, when we arrived on the island, the sky was orange. When we entered the shack, the sky turned a deep shade of mauve; basically, a dark, pale shade of purple. Also, the windstorm is still going on. It must still be night,” Ray deduced.
“Well, I’m not going back to sleep,” Tristan replied.
“You don’t have to,” Ray responded.
“I’m surprised the van hasn’t toppled over,” Svetlana commented.
“Since when have you been awake?” Tristan questioned.
“The van is heavy, to be fair,” Ray noted.
“You can only imagine how heavy that creature is out there,” Tristan remarked.
“Don't we still have that dimension identifier?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah, it’s in the van,” Ray answered.
“Hm… That isn’t a good thing,” Brandon reacted.
Misty suddenly speaks. “Hey, is, uh… Are we going to wait the storm out, er... is someone going to go out there to retrieve it?”
“When the hell did you wake up?” Ryan asks.
“Long enough to hear about the storm,” Misty answered.
“Anyway, with what you said about going out in that storm. That seems stupid, even for me, to do,” Svetlana states.
“I’ll do it,” Flotsam announces.
“What?” Svetlana reacts.
“Look, I know that I am terrified of birds. That game show fucked me up. There's nothing I can do about that now. It doesn't mean I'm not going to be a coward all the time. That doesn't define me. I used to be a worldwide explorer. I traveled across almost all the continents. I've been through natural disasters. I've been through storms. This apocalypse is not the only apocalypse I've had to go through. Do you honestly think some wind is going to stop me?’
“I highly doubt you'll be able to withstand that fast of wind,” Svetlana interjected.
“You're likely correct, but it's not going to stop me,” Flotsam replied.
“This is fucking stupid, but I can’t stop you,” Tristan comments.
Flotsam opens the front door to the shack. A bit of wind comes in the shack. He struggles to close the door but manages to do so.
He holds onto the doorknob. He looks at the van. He thinks to himself: "all I got to do is get to the van."
He takes a deep breath. The air is cold, but not frigid. He lets go of the doorknob and makes a break for the van.
He's almost instantaneously fighting the current of the wind-flow. He goes to the ground a few times, but he manages to always regain his footing. That is until a stronger gust of wind picks him up, sending him slamming into a tree.
He lets out a pained shout. He slides down the tree. The tree is actually in a position where it's stopping him from continuing to be blown backwards. Flotsam, however, is hellbent getting to the van, so he regains his senses, and returns to making a break for the van.
His yelp of pain alerted the blue creature. They looked around until they saw Flotsam running through the windstorm, struggling to keep his footing.
Another strong gust of wind comes, sending Flotsam backwards. The creature runs for Flotsam. Flotsam grabs onto a bush, but it's not enough to keep him stationary, for the wind gust is strong, and he's blown backwards again. The creature manages to grab Flotsam before he soars off the island.
“What are you doing out here?!” the creature demanded.
“I just wanted to get the dimension identifier!” Flotsam replied.
“The what?” the creature asked.
“It’s in the van,” Flotsam answered.
“You ran out in a windstorm. That’s not a smart thing to do,” the creature stated.
“I’m sorry!” Flotsam reacts.
“He went far, didn’t he, Ray,” Ryan commented from inside the shack.
“Yeah. Still a stupid move, Ray responded.
“You should really go back to the shack,” the creature tells Flotsam.
“How though?” Flotsam asks.
“Fair point. I guess I could bring you back to the sh-.” The wind gets strong enough to move the creature. “Oh no.” They run to the tree that Flotsam collided with. They laid down in front of it and held onto Flotsam to protect him from being blown off the island.
“Hey, that creature is holding Flotsam,” Brandon pointed out.
“They, a… They look scared,” Svetlana comments.
“The storm has become more violent. Look, the van is shaking more,” Ray states.
“God, I hope it doesn’t topple over,” Tori mutters.
“We all do,” Ray adds.
Meanwhile, back outside the shed, Flotsam and the creature are still against a tree. “Are you okay?,” Flotsam asked the creature.
“The wind was able to even move me around. It's not safe for me to even get to the shack, and I still need to sleep,” the creature replies.
“O-Oh,” Flotsam reacts.
“I can protect you from the storm like this,” the creature states.
“Alright,” Flotsam answers.
“It's still nighttime. Windstorms tends to happen more at nights.”
“So, you're just going to sleep again?”
“I have to.”
“Okay.”
“I'll keep you safe. I'm sorry this is really awkward.”
“It's fine. Sleep if you need to.”
The blue creature falls back asleep. Riley stares out a window, wondering what the hell is going on. He starts sending Flotsam messages.
Riley (at 8:32 A.M.): What are you still doing out there?
Flotsam (at 8:36 A.M): The storm picked up. It's not safe for the two out here to be walking around. We can't get to the shack at the moment.
Riley (at 8:37 A.M.): Did the creature fall asleep again?
Flotsam (at 8:37 A.M): Yes.
Riley (at 8:38 A.M): How long will you be out there?
Flotsam (at 8:40 A.M) I don't know! Don't come out trying to get me back in the shack. It's dangerous out here. You probably saw how I was almost blown off the island.
Riley (at 8:41 A.M.): Yeah, alright. That was a stupid thing to do, by the way, going out in a windstorm.
Flotsam (at 8:41 A.M): I know. I'm still in pain from colliding with the tree.
“Well, he's going to be there for a while, until that creature wakes up, and the storm subsides,” Riley tells everyone in the cabin.
“How long are the days and nights in this dimension?! Gee!” Tristan complains.
“It's very interesting. We're not really used to this stuff,” Brandon comments. He jots down notes in a notebook he's been writing in detailing all the dimensions the group has been to. "This dimension has an abnormally long day and night cycle than we are used to," he writes in the notebook.
“Even that creature struggled to get to the tree,” Tori pointed out.
“Yeah, it’s worrying,” Ray replied.
“The creature was fast enough to catch Flotsam before he sailed off the island. He was nearly off the island when the creature caught him,” Brandon stated.
“Hopefully the creature isn't evil,” Ryan prayed.
“Hope so too. I think they are benevolent. I think it's safe. I mean, it didn't let Flotsam fall of the island, and they warned us about the windstorm,” Svetlana explains.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Ryan answers.
Some hours have passed. It's almost two in the afternoon, in the time that the group is used to. The sky outside is slowly starting to change back to orange. The day is finally arriving in that dimension.
The blue creature is still sleeping. Flotsam eventually passed out as well. The windstorm is still going on but has become weaker. Soon, it'll be safe to walk around out the shack again, but it's still not safe yet.
The sky is now orange. It is morning in the dimension. The creature finally stirs awake. They notice they are still holding a now sleeping Flotsam. The windstorm has more or less subsided. They get up carefully, in order to not wake Flotsam up, and make their way to the shack. Svetlana opens the front door of the shack, and her and Brandon help bring Flotsam inside the shack.
“Hi, uh, here's your guy,” the creature greets the crew.
“Yeah, thanks. His name is Flotsam. He was trying to get an item from the van. We wanted to know what dimension this is. We have a dimension identifier,” Ray explained.
“Ah, okay” the creature responds.
“He couldn't wait, apparently, for the storm to dissipate,” Ray mutters.
The creature looks over to the van, and then back at Ray. “He did get far, I'll give him that, but he was not going to get to that carrier,” the creature states.
“Well, either way, thank you for protecting him there,” Ray replies.
“You’re welcome,” the creature answers back. “It’s safe to go out now, by the way,” the point out.
“Alright,” Tori replies.
“Hey, Flotsam!” Ryan calls out.
Tristan gets annoyed by this. “Dude, he’s slee-“
Flotsam wakes up. “What?”
“How did the tree feel?” Ryan asks.
“Ryan…” Flotsam sighs. “Don’t. I’m still in pain.”
“Oh, the windstorm’s over now, Flotsam,” Misty announces.
It takes a bit for what Misty said to register in Flotsam’s brain. “Nice,” he eventually replies.
Everyone proceeds to walk out of the shack. “Why are the nights so long?” Misty comments.
“What?” the creature reacts.
“We're used to a shorter day and night cycle than in this dimension,” Brandon explains to the creature.
“Oh, I see,” the creature replies. “So, what brought you here to this dimension?”
“I'm not exactly sure how we got here in this dimension, but we've been dimension hopping for years. I and Ryan have been dimension hopping for eight years together. We've been trying to find the source of what's causing an inter-dimensional apocalypse so we can stop it. Yes, we are slow, but we don't know where to look,” Ray answered.
“What’s the apocalypse?”
“It mostly seems to be the ol' classic zombie apocalypse, in the more human-like dimensions, but we've seen it happening in more non-human dimensions,” Ryan tells the creature.
“I've been thinking that phoenixes, which have been appearing randomly in dimensions for some years now, have something to do with it,” Misty theorizes.
“That’s worrying,” the creature responds.
“Yeah,” Tristan agrees.
“I'm going to try to start the van,” Svetlana announces. She runs to the van. She enters it, and she tries to start up the engine. Because of the power of the plot, it... works? Okay then.
Another blue flying thing lands on the island. It's a darker shade than the one the group has been talking to. They are in an aggressive position. Their eyes, which are purple, seemed to have become pale. Ryan turns to see the new creature. “That’s not good,” Ryan comments. He staggers on his feet as he’s being stared down by this new creature. Quickly regaining his senses, however, Ryan books it, and the creature gives chase. It quickly catches up to Ryan and tackles him. Svetlana pulls out a semi-automatic, leans out the window, and fires multiple times at the attacking creature. The creatures falls down on top of Ryan, pinning him. “Help, please. This thing is heavy. Very... very... heavy,” Ryan calls out. His voice is muffled from being buried underneath his attacker.
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” the uninfected creature runs over and pulls the attacker’s body off of Ryan. They look down at Ryan. The creature that tackled him had scratched him, but it wasn't deep enough to be fatal. The scratch happened when he was tackled. It still hurts him like hell. “Oh, that’s not good…”
“Ugh... I'm in pain.” Ryan winces as he tries to move. Ryan tries to stand. It takes a while for him to stand. He looks over to the uninfected blue creature. “Can... you carry me to the van, please?” Ryan asks.
“Yeah, no problem.” The uninfected creature picks up Ryan.
Then a few more flying creatures surround the island. Svetlana yells for everyone to get in the van. Everyone gets to the van. The uninfected creature hands Ryan over to Ray and Tori. They then climb on top of the van. Everyone else that wasn't already in gets in the van, as the other creatures land on the island.
Svetlana drives off the track the van was on, shaking the van, and the uninfected creature on top of it, around. She steers around the tree on the island, and rams into an infected creature careening them off an island. The van goes soaring off the island, but a portal opens up, and they are sent to a different dimension.
The van is sent through the portal again. The crew crash into a mall complex. “Who wants to get anything from Macy's?” Ray joked.
“What?” Tori reacted.
“Fuck... Get the antiseptic,” Ryan ordered.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Tori rushes over to Ryan to clean his wounds and patch him up.
“Mmmmfuck.” Ryan breaths through his teeth, trying to ignore the pain, but failing at doing so.
“Why are you complaining?” Tristan teased.
Ryan gave Tristan a death stare. “I got fucking scratched in the back, Tristan!” Ryan snarls.
“I’ve seen wo-.“ Tristan gets interrupted.
“Will you just shut the fuck up?!” Ryan shouts.
“And I was sent careening into a tree,” Flotsam added.
“Yeah, but you went out in a windstorm. I didn't get a god damn choice on what happened to me,” Ryan replies.
“Fair point.” Flotsam goes quiet.
Ryan is crying a bit from the pain, but he's handling it better than what most people would think. “Are you alright?” Svetlana asked.
“I’ll be alright eventually,” Ryan answers. “It just hurts like a bitch. We have to go, though, because we’re in a new place now.”
The group exits the van. The blue creature crawls through the hole the van had caused. “What is this?” the creature questioned.
“It’s a mall,” Ray replied.
“Which is?”
“Do you know what a store is?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Now put multiple stores in one building. Now you have a mall,” Ray explains.
“Hey, is there something we call you?” Brandon requests the creature.
“Uh… I guess,” they reply.
“Lincoln!” Ryan suggests excitedly, before groaning in pain from the scratch wounds. “Shouldn’t have said that so loud.”
“If that's what you want to call me, then that's fine,” Lincoln responds.
“Remember where we parked the car,” Svetlana states.
“Or, y'know, you could ride it around. Having it in the commons is way easier to find it,” Ray insists.
Svetlana gets a smile. “I always wanted to wreck shit up in a mall.” She drives through the Macy's store again until she breaks through to the lobby.
“Don’t destroy the van! It’s a bitch to rebuild!” Riley complained.
The group leaves the Macy's. Brandon and Misty grab some clothes. Brandon threw a coat towards Tristan. Tristan quizzically stared at the faded, dark brown coat.
Out in the lobby, there is a big fountain. Not the biggest imaginable in a mall, but an abnormally big one either way. Lincoln runs to it and jumps in the still clean water. The group watches as he rolls around in the fountain.
“Alright, you can do that, I guess,” Ryan reacts.
Some seconds pass, and he gets out of the fountain. He drenched the floor nearby with water. He shakes the water off, putting more water on the floor, making a big tripping hazard. “Alright, I’m good,” Lincoln announces.
“… Okay,” Misty responds.
The group hears commotion coming from a store down a hall. They brandish their weapons, and cautiously approach the noise. They thought it was coming from the main floor. That is until someone goes flying out of a store on the second floor, and falls to their death, if they weren't dead already. There's a few gunshots, and other commotion sounds. Someone eventually comes out of the store and goes out onto the balcony. They are in what could only be describes as a punk outfit.
“Hell-.” Ray gets shot at, but he manages to dodge. “Wait, we’re not going to attack you!”
The lady hesitates for a few seconds, as if to comprehend what Ray said. “Okay, she replied. She slides down a handrail to a set of escalators, and she approaches the group. “It's nice to see someone, let alone, a group, that doesn't want to kill me for once. Nice to meet you. My name's Monica. Monica Vescovich.”
“Hello there, Monica. I'm Ray. Ray Vantair,” Ray greets her.
Monica spots Lincoln. ”What in the hell is that?
“We don't know, but that doesn't matter,” Ray states.
“They are Lincoln,” Ryan answers.
“Are you a punker?” Misty asks Monica.
“I wonder how you noticed that,” Monica teases, before switching up her tone to a nicer, quieter one. “Yeah, I used to be in a band. I was the drummer for the band, Chasing Something Obscure. We recorded five albums before we all went our separate ways.”
“How are they doing?” Brandon asked.
“I hope they're fine. Last time I knew, they were all alive. They're not with me, though. I've been alone in this mall, fighting bandits. I've been living in this mall, for fuck's sake,” Monica replies.
“Ah, I see. Well, that’s a shame,” Brandon responds.
“Hey, it’s not like they’re dead or anything,” Monica reacts. “I hope their still alive. I miss them quite a bit.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Brandon states.
“Yeah, I know,” Monica replied. “There was a female vocalist, and lead guitarist. There was a male rhythm guitarist. There was a male bassist. And then there was me; the drummer.”
“Ah, interesting,” Brandon comments.
“Anyone here know how to play instruments?” Monica asked.
“Electric guitar,” Riley answers.
Monica snaps her fingers. “Nice!” She looks around and spots the group’s vehicle. “So, you have a green van?”
“It jumps dimensions,” Ray mentions.
Monica stares at Ray, confused. “What?”
“Don’t question it. It’s weird,” Ryan notes.
“Anyway, there's like... forty-five fucking stores in this mall,” Monica declares.
“Jesus,” Flotsam shutters.
“It's three floors. Fifteen stores on each floor. There's a fucking indoor water-park,” Monica describes.
“What… the fuck?” Ryan murmurs.
“I have a love/hate relationship with this mall. I usually hate it. You get those moments, though, where you think, ‘okay, this is nice,’” Monica detailed. She looks at the floor. “Tah. A year in this mall. Jesus Christ.”
“What the fuck? You've been in this this mall for a year?!” Brandon replies.
“Yeah!” Monica answers.
“That sounds like hell. Fuck mall,” Svetlana comments.
“It’s definitely an experience,” Monica responds.
“I drove through the Macy’s twice!” Svetlana states.
“Nice!” Monica cheers.
“I never got to go to a water-park,” Ryan mentioned.
Monica, Brandon, Flotsam, Misty, and Ray looked at Ryan. There's a moment of silence. “Where’s this water-park?” Ray asked.
“Uh… It’s in the left wing,” Monica replied.
“A'ight. Everyone in the van. We're going to that water-park,” Ray announces. Everyone gets in the van, except for Lincoln. Svetlana starts driving inside the mall. Lincoln follows the van.
“There is way more space in here than I thought there would be,” Monica comments.
“Yeah, it’s strange,” Ray responds.
“You have a TV in here?!” Monica exclaims.
“Yep. There's a built-in VHS,” Ray states. He opens a box on the floor and pulls out some videotapes. “We have Ghostbusters, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Breakfast Club, Poltergeist, and the first three A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, as well as Wes Craven's New Nightmare. We have a few more tapes than just those.” He puts the videotapes back in the box and closes the box.
Svetlana turns the van into the left wing of the mall, and they see in the distance the indoor water-park. “Whoa, is that?” Ryan muttered.
“Yes,” Ray replies.
Svetlana parks the van in front of the water-park. Everyone gets out of the van, while Lincoln just climbs off of the van.
“This is the water-park. I'm a-fucking-mazed that the water system still works,” Monica stated.
“Wow…” Ryan stares at the park, amazed.
“I also don't know who's cleaning it, but it's constantly being cleaned. I don't know who would want to run a mall during a fucking apocalypse, but someone clearly is,” Monica continued. “Are you planning going down the slides?”
“Yes,” Ray answers.
“Alright. Just stay safe.”
Brandon opens a bottle of Champaign, and drinks it by himself. Flotsam and Misty talk to each other. Riley and Monica discuss musical topics. Svetlana attempts to get through an obstacle course set up in the pool. Tristan is just standing by the pool. Lincoln jumps into the pool, splashing Flotsam, Misty, Tristan, and Svetlana, causing her to fall off the obstacle course. Ray, Tori, and Ryan climbed to the top of the funnel slide. “This is high,” Ryan observed, with a tinge of nervousness in his voice.
“It’s a slide, Ryan,” Ray responded.
“Time to go down, bud,” Tori encourages.
The trio ride down the slide. Ryan held onto both Ray and Tori while they went down. Ryan didn't expect they would go down so fast. When they reach the end of the slide, Ryan is out of breath from the ordeal. The trio start to laugh. When they calm down, Ryan starts to speak. “Why did my parents never bring me anywhere fun? It was always just family. Then the apocalypse hit, and they abandoned me.”
There’s a quiet moment between the trio. “I'm sorry... your parents didn't give a shit about you,” Ray tells Ryan. Ryan doesn’t respond. “You of all people deserved to have a childhood. I'm sorry that Amber took that even further away from you,” Ray continued.
“Everyone in this group is more family than I ever had,” Ryan replies.
“I used to be a bit calmer, more nicer when I was younger. I was still a fighter, and tomboyish... Then Aaron killed my cousin, Hudson, and my friend, Virgil. Hudson's death snapped me. I already had to deal with years of seeing my younger siblings be bullied for being Siamese twins. Heh, god, people will find anything to make fun of you for,” Tori explains her past before focusing on Ryan. “Ryan. No matter what, even though you can fight, we will be by your side.”
Ryan smiles and hugs Ray and Tori. They hug him back.
The trio get out of the pool with help from Lincoln. “You three good?” Monica asked.
“Yeah,” Ray responds.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yep!” Ryan exclaims. “It’s higher than I thought it would be, but I’ve been in higher places.”
“Gah, I haven’t been at a water-park in years,” Tori comments.
“God, my parents were fucking terrible. They never let me be a kid,” Ryan states.
“Damn, sorry bud,” Monica reacts.
A few hours pass. The group (excluding Lincoln because he stays up for like twenty-four hours, and sleeps for twenty-four hours), get prepared to sleep. Svetlana parks the van in a dark corner of the mall. Everyone (but Lincoln) falls asleep.
It is now morning outside. Lincoln is asleep outside of the van. Ray is watching over Rayan to see if he's alright. Brandon is watching A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Tristan is watching the movie as well, and he's just confused. He doesn't understand what's going on in it. Svetlana is listening to Boston.
“Y'know...” Monica starts to speak. “Living in a mall is very lonely. I mean, it's a big ass building, and you're alone most of the time, because of the apocalypse. I'm living in a market dystopia that the founder of the concept of malls saw as a utopia.”
“Malls are fucking terrible, though,” Riley answers/
“Yeah! Oddly, it's a good place to be in an apocalypse. Also, a bad place to be in the apocalypse,” Monica notes.
“I always saw malls as chaotic places. It always feels like a lawless wasteland, but with crowds of people everywhere you turn. It’s claustrophobic, honestly,” Riley states.
“You live in a van.”
“At least it gives us as much space we need from its anomalous properties.”
“I mean, You’re not wrong about the lawless wasteland thing. This mall is literally a lawless wasteland.” Monica looks out a window. “I found where they had the intercom setup. Y'know, where they play music over the speakers. All that stuff. They had some good albums. Speaking in Tongues, The Stranger, Cosmic Thing, Rumours. One of them actually surprised me. They had 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day somewhere in there. I played that entire fucking album over the intercom and danced around in the lobby. It was awesome, but eerie as fuck. Also, The Last of the American Girls song. That's what it feels like in this damn mall,” she describes.
Ryan wakes up. He groans in pain as he sits up. His back is scarred. He takes a deep breath and he breathes out slowly. Ray looks at him, worried. “You okay?” he asks him.
“Uh, I could be better, but I could be worse,” Ryan replies.
“Alright,” Ray responds. “You're going to be in pain for a while from that scratch.”
“Yeah, that sucks... How's Lincoln doing?”
“He’s still sleeping out there.”
“He needs somewhere to sleep. I don't want us to accidentally abandon him in this mall if we dimension hop. Do you think he could get in the van?” Ryan asks.
Ray scratches the back of his neck. “It’ll be a tight fit.”
“May we at least try?”
Ray goes quiet for a moment. “Yeah, we can try.”
Ray and Ryan get out of the van. They approach Lincoln. Ryan sits down and gently shakes Lincoln. He stirs awake. “What do you n-. Uh. Hey there, bud. What's going on?” Lincoln reacts.
“Do you need somewhere to sleep? We don't want to accidentally abandon you here if we dimension hop,” Ryan asks.
“I don't think I would fit in the van,” Lincoln replies.
“There are two doors that open up in the back. Maybe you could fit through. The van is way bigger inside than you think. It's worth a try,” Ray notes.
“Okay, I guess,” Lincoln responds.
Ray and Ryan open the back doors to the van. Lincoln looks inside. He climbs in the best he can. A few of the group members help Lincoln get in. He is successful in doing so. He thanks them and finds a place to lay down. “That actually worked,” Ray commented.
“Alright, hope he sleeps well,” Ryan mutters. They shut the back doors of the van. “
“I'm sorry you never had a childhood. You deserved one, and your parents never let you have one,” Ray tells Ryan.
“I…” Ryan’s voice trails off.
“And I'm sorry that Amber was such a bitch to you. How did she hide that abuse she was doing to you for that long?” Ray asks.
Ray tenses up. He looks up at Ray. “I was afraid to speak up,” he answers. Ray goes quiet “I believed if I did, things would get worse.”
“Ryan…” Now it was Ryan’s turn to go quiet as Ray spoke. “You didn't need to wait that long. We could've helped you. We could have stopped that earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” Ryan answers.
“It's okay, Ryan.”
“You're the only father I really knew. You were there when I was twelve, after my parents abandoned me. You've been here for me for a decade. I'm twenty-two now. You taught me how to defend myself. You showed me there were good people out there. I finally got to go to a water-park. To hell with my parents. You and everyone in this group are my family.” Ryan breaths grows uneasy. Ray hugs him and he hugs him back.
“Ryan, you were a good kid. Sometimes you were a hassle, but that doesn't make you a bad person. We all have are moments where we get a little annoying. It happens. That doesn't make us bad. It makes us flawed. It's better to be flawed than to be perfect.
You're a good person, Ryan. Don't let whatever your parents did to you affect you. Don't believe whatever Amber said about you. We are all here for you,” Ray consoles Ryan.
Ray and Ryan enter the van. They see Lincoln is laying down somewhere. Ryan smiles.
Flotsam wakes up. He sees that Lincoln is next to him. He freaks out a bit but calms down quickly. “Oh, what the fu- Oh... Hehehe... Okay.”
“I think Dream Warriors should have been the last Nightmare on Elm Street movie,” Monica discusses.
“I would agree, but then we wouldn't have Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Get rid of all the shit after Dream Warriors but keep Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Part five was a fucking joke,” Brandon adds on.
“Part five was terrible,” Monica agrees. “Anyway, over there is a "spiritual" store. Don't know how much I believe in that stuff, but there was this art piece of a wolf that looked fucking awesome, and one of a dragon that looked fucking awesome. Many times, I thought of taking the pieces, but I stopped myself every time. I already essentially live in the mall, so I can go see the pieces whenever I want, as long as they're there,” she states. She looks over to Svetlana. “Drive to the main wing.”
“Okay,” Svetlana replies. Svetlana drives out of the water-park section of the mall and drives down the left wing. Monica points out the store she was talking about.
“There it is. "Spirit Mine". I-I don't know how people think up these names,” Monica points out.
“There is a Dick's Sporting Goods store there. Insert your joke here. There's a gun store over there. Don't bother looking in there; it's already been looted to hell and back. God, so American that that's the case.
There's a comic and memorabilia store. All I grabbed were some monster figurines, y'know, like the classic kaiju creatures. That stuff. I almost grabbed a comic called The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. I decided against it.
In the main wing there's a Barnes & Noble. In there I found The Martian, grabbed that. I found a book on the Black Dahlia, grabbed that. I found Twilight, burned them. I found a book on conspiracies, grabbed that. I found some books on World War II, grabbed those. I found some Harry Potter books. I left those alone. Oddly, the fourth entry was missing. I found the 39 Clues books, I grabbed all of those. I grabbed some other books as well.
They actually have a record store as well. They have some great shit in there. Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush, R.E.M., Metallica, Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, Tool, B-52's, Billy Joel, American Football, Three Days Grace, Avenged Sevenfold, We Lost the Sea, Green Day. They even had stuff from Motorama, which surprised me. I had a field day.”
“Those are really good artists,” Riley comments.
“It's weird seeing stuff that the band I was in out in the wild. Seems that a lot of people like our first and third album the most out of the five we did,” Monica states.
“Our first album had a cover art of a fire in a field. I-... When I was a kid, I would always see this fire in the field behind the garage. It was a small fire. Whenever I got close to the fire it would inexplicably disappear. I don't know why. I will never fucking know why. I got a few photographs of the fire, and a few videos on tapes of it.
I and my friends would always joke about the fire. Vanessa decided it would be cool if we made our first album themed around that fire. We called that album ‘The Mystery of the Flame.’” She reaches over to Svetlana. “Hold on. May you stop the van for a moment? I need to grab a few things.”
“Alright,” Svetlana responds. Svetlana stops the van. Monica runs out and goes to a room in the mall. A few minutes later she returns with a heavy duty bag of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, a record player, a cassette player, and an 8-track player.
“Sorry about that. I'm back.” Monica pulls out a vinyl copy of “The Mystery of the Flame”. “We used one of the photographs I took of the fire as the album cover. There's a VHS in here. I keep my videotapes from that era on me. They're in my backpack. Hold on, I'll put one in.”
She takes her backpack off and puts it on the floor. She opens her backpack and pulls out a videotape. She goes to the VHS player, takes out A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, hands that tape over to Brandon, and inserts her videotape into the machine.
The tape starts to play. There is the sound of people chanting the "Happy Birthday" song.
“That was of my sister's birthday party. She was seven.” She fast-forwards the tape, then looks over at the T.V. hanging from the ceiling. “That was a random scene I and my friends recorded.” She repeats this process. “That was a road trip. I would just record random things. She repeats the process again. I don't even know what I was recording there.” Eventually, she gets to the part of the tape that she wanted to show them. “Alright, here we are.”
The tape shows a scene of a young Monica walking in the backyard of her childhood house. She walks to the field behind the garage. The field was big. She didn't live on farmland. She lived in a small city.
A young Monica speaks. "So, there's this fire I keep seeing in the field out back. I don't understand it. It always disappears when I approach it. Hopefully I can capture it on video here right now."
She walks out to the field. There is a fire going on far off in the distance. She stands there. The camera zooms in on the fire. "There it is," a young Monica reports. "Now, when I walk closer to it..."
She proceeds to approach the small fire in the field. It suddenly disappears when she gets to a certain point. "See what I mean?! I don't get this," a young Monica comments.
She proceeds to turn around. She starts walking back to the backyard. The videotape shifts to a different scene of Monica on a train with her family. Present day Monica walks up to the VHS player and stops the tape.
“What the fuck?” Brandon reacted.
“Yeah, I don’t have an explanation either,” Monica replies.
“How old were you when you recorded that?” Riley asked.
“I was nine, I think,” Monica responds.
“God damn, that was weird,” Misty mutters.
Monica sighs. “Yeah.”
“So, throughout your childhood, you were haunted by a fire in the field behind your house?” Ryan noted.
“Essentially, yes,” Monica answers. Ray scratches his head. “Yeah, I know, it's fucking peculiar,” she adds on.
“And you never got an explanation for it,” Ryan comments.
“No, and I never will,” Monica states.
“How the fuck does such a thing constantly happen?” Brandon muttered.
Misty covers her face. “What… the… hell?”
“This is some Stephen King shit,” Flotsam replies.
“Who’s Stephen King?” Tristan asks.
“An author,” Monica answers.
“Life is stranger than fiction. The fact that you have that on footage. Oh boy,” Riley comments.
“Um... Anyway. Let's continue,” Monica suggests. Svetlana continues to drive. “There's the Macy's you smashed through. There's a Subway. Depressing it's not opened. I mean, food gets stocked here still, so I can make stuff. I don't know who keeps stocking this place, but they're my goddamn hero for doing so.”
“It's just- I mean-.” Monica chuckles. “Who would want to keep this place running? Obviously someone, but who?” She does a sigh. “Alright, were about to be turning on the right wing.
“I feel like there will be people there,” Ray states.
“Yep,” Monica replies.
As Svetlana turns to the right wing of the mall, down the wing, there are four vehicles. They have weapons on them, and they look to be a bit armored.
“Fucking bandits,” Monica snarls.
“Good. It was getting boring around here,” Tristan remarks. Tristan opens the side doors. He presses a button, and a machine gun deploys on the right side of the van. The bandits start firing at the van, whilst the drivers of the vehicles drive closer to the group. Svetlana drifts the van, giving Tristan a good vantage point of the vehicles to shoot at. “Hahah! Nice!” He starts firing at the vehicles via the machine gun. One of the vehicles succumbs to all the damage and explodes. “Not so armored without a machine gun, now are you?!” Tristan starts laughing maniacally.
Brandon grabs a gun and climbs over the passenger's seat. He fires at one of the vehicles a few times, eventually hitting a driver, causing that car to swerve and flip a few times. Ray grabs a grenade, pulls out the pin with his teeth, but hesitates throwing for a few seconds, until he hit the grenade against his left hip to activate the mechanism, and he throws the grenade to the car that flipped, and when the grenade goes off, the car explodes.
Svetlana corrects the van, and gets a few kills herself by firing at a car whilst using a semi-automatic; the same one she used to save Ryan from an infected creature in the previous dimension the group was in. That car slows down.
Tristan fires at the last vehicle's wheels, making the car go to a halt. Bandits start getting out of the vehicles. Svetlana proceeds to ram into one of the vehicles, sending it flying a bit, probably killing a few bandits in the process. Svetlana spots a hole that bandits probably got in from, and swiftly drives through it, exiting the mall.
Svetlana drives away from the mall. Monica gets struck with a realization. “I'm... actually leaving the mall. Heheheh...”
“Bandits best learn to never mess with the Slavic Soldier!” Svetlana shouts.
“I lived in that hellhole for a year. Holy fuck… Uh... I don't know what else to say. I guess... thank you for getting me out of there,” Monica thanks the crew,
“No problem,” Svetlana answers.
There's a moment of silence. Svetlana pulls onto a road. The group look around the scenery. Trees behind forlorn, broken houses. Power lines lining the roads; a few wires are on the ground. They could only see a few cars. A red corvette, an old Studebaker, a black truck. Ever so slowly, the mall leaves their point of view.
A portal opens up. “Let’s go,” Svetlana states as she drives into the portal
A portal opens up in a different dimension. The van goes through it. The group sees they're in a cave. Even in the van the air feels cold. There is an entrance to the cave. To get out of the cave they have to drive up a long hill. That's easy enough. A meteor must have caused this cave to form. There's a few trees and patches of grass growing in the cave, somehow. At the back of the cave is a small pond. Most likely it's there from rainwater entering the cave and trickling down the hill to the back of the cave.
The group gets out of the van. It's much more colder out of the van. Lincoln slides out of the van via the back doors.
“Holy shit, it's cold out here. I guess that why this thing exist,” Tristan comments. He proceeds to put on the coat that Brandon threw at him whilst in the previous dimension.
Ryan shivers uncontrollably. He had a coat, but it was destroyed last year. “T-this i-.”He chuckles. “…is like M-Michigan weather.”
“How is it not snowing out there?” Ray comments.
“I don't have a coat anymore; it broke,” Ryan states.
“I have a spare jacket, but it's thin,” Monica mentions.
“Please,” Ryan begs.
“Alright,” Monica replies. Monica proceeds to pull out a jacket from her backpack, and she hands it to Ryan. He quickly puts it on. It's big on him.
“Thanks!” Ryan chirps.
They start walking around the cave. On the walls are drawings, but not of a primitive manner. Some of the drawings are at graffiti levels of detail. One is a straight up mural of what looks like a neighborhood. “What the hell are these doing in a cave? This is straight up Detroit and Chicago level of graffiti,” Monica wonders.
“This one looks like a neighborhood,” Misty comments.
“This must be a tourist spot. I don't blame theme. There are trees growing in this cave,” Ray points out.
“T-there's a p-poem on the wall,” Ray states. “Fuck, it's cold,” he thinks to himself.
At the center of the light
There is the dark
No matter what we do
We can't split them apart
Both help in their own ways
Don't be afraid of either
The things in the shadows
Can guide you through
And out in the light
A path shines out bright
Guiding you
Where you need to go
And the shadows will follow
Acting as your psycho-pomp
Through the paths of life
There is beauty in light and dark
“A peculiar, yet uplifting poem, to say the least,” Svetlana comments.
Ryan falls. “I can't.” He laughs quietly. “It's too fucking cold. Even the van is cold.” Lincoln runs to Ryan and pick him up. “Hi, Lincoln.”
“You’re freezing,” Lincoln replies.
“Sorry,” Ryan responds. Lincoln holds Ryan to his chest to try to warm him up.
“I should have grabbed another coat back at that Macy's. I wasn't thinking,” Brandon states.
“We should probably get out of the cave,” Riley demanded.
“Yeah,” Flotsam agreed.
Svetlana runs back to the van and enters the driver's side. “So, we're just going to drive this out of the cave.”
“I guess,” Brandon replied.
Lincoln carries Ryan as Svetlana drives up the long hill to get out of the cave. Everyone eventually reaches where Svetlana is. “You couldn't wait for us to get in the van?” Brandon complained.
“Sorry. Had one thing on my mind,” Svetlana responded.
“Look at the cave, though,” Misty pointed out.
“Yeah, it's a beautiful sight, if a bit vandalized,” Tori commented.
“This is a sight to behold,” Ray murmurs.
“I have a camera in the v-.“
Something small jumps into view, causing Brandon to jump and roll back down the cave. “What are you doing here?!” someone shouts.
“Ah, god damn it! Fuck! Shit! Tits! Bitch! Cocks!” Brandon keeps say expletives as he continues rolling down the cave. He then sees he about to roll into the pond. “Ah, mother cum tits!” He rolls into the pond.
Tori goes to the ground, crying from laughter. She wheezes. “I can't fuckin' breathe! That's goddamn hilarious!”
“Get up,” Tristan orders.
“Fuck.” Tori tries to take a deep breath, but she chokes because she starts laughing.
“You're going to asphyxiate yourself from laughing so much. Calm down, Tori,” Riley demands.
Tori wheezes again. “Holy shit!”
“You better not be infected!” the mystery person yells. Their eyes are red.
“No, we’re not,” Ray answers.
“Oh, okay,” the person reacts. They look over to Tori. “Why is that thing laughing so hard?”
“Sorry, just…” Tori takes in a deep breath. “Brandon rolled down the cave!”
“Oh yeah, the crater cave,” the person responds.
“Who are you?” Ray asks.
“I’m Whitticus,” the mystery person replies.
“You’re quite small,” Flotsam comments.
“I’m nine,” Whitticus answers.
“Uh, t’ah-. Oh.”
“You’re brandishing a weapon,” Tristan noted.
“I’m sorry. I’ll put it away,” Whitticus apologizes. He puts away his short sword. “You always got to have a weapon on you,” he states.
“I think I’m going to like this kid,” Tristan thinks to himself.
Brandon eventually gets back to the group. He's soaked in water from rolling into the pond. “At least I got my cardio. Now I'm fucking freezing.” Ryan is holding on to Lincoln. Brandon looks over to Whitticus. “Hello, whoever you are. Wow, you are small,” Brandon greets.
“Their name is Whitticus,” Riley replies.
“Hi,” Whitticus also greets.
“How are you doing, Whitticus?” Misty asks.
“Oh, you know. I’m just getting through the days,” Whitticus responds.
“Are there people you are supposed to be with?” Ray questioned.
Whitticus goes quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
“You sounded hesitant there,” Tori reacted.
Whitticus’ eyes turn blue. “I had to kill my last friend. He got infected, and he was turning on me. I still can see his face as he was terrified to die,” he explained.
“Oh, I'm sorry, kid,” Ray responds.
“Where…” Tori rethinks what she wants to say. “Do you have a family left?”
Whitticus stays silent for another moment. “No.”
“Sorry to hear, bud,” Flotsam reacted.
“That’s a heavy burden to bear,” Lincoln noted.
“For like a couple of weeks I've just been on my own,” Whitticus announces.
“Uh, do you need to eat something?” Monica inquired.
“Yes,” Whitticus replied.
“Okay,” Monica responds. She pulls out an energy bar and hands it to Whitticus.
“Thank you!” Whitticus exclaims. His eyes turn green. He tears at the wrapper and takes a bite out of the energy bar.
“How much do you have in that backpack?” Brandon interrogates Monica.
“I lived in a mall for a year. I stock up on things,” Monica answers.
“Fair point,” Brandon responds.
“Did your family abandon you?” Ryan asks Whitticus.
“No, they died.”
“Oh, okay. My parents couldn't care more about me. They just straight up left me to die. Ray saved me, and basically raised me,” Ryan explained.
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Whitticus replied.
“At least you had a family that cared. My family didn't care about me. I consider this group my family,” Ryan went on.
“Oh…” Whitticus went quiet again. “Uh… If you guys aren’t infected can I tag along?”
“Go ahead,” Tori states.
“Thanks!” Whitticus reacts as he smiles.
“May I ask, why is your planet so cold?” Ryan asks.
“We’re kind of far away from the… star?” Whitticus responds.
“Okay,” Ryan replies. “I guess that makes sense.”
Whitticus looks around the scenery, scanning the area for any horde coming their way. He doesn't see anything. He heaves a sigh. “Be on the lookout for hordes,” Whitticus mentions.
“Oh, we have a ton of practice on that. I and Ryan alone have been looking out for hordes for a decade now,” Ray points out.
“Okay,” Whitticus responds.
“I mean, you still got to be careful. They can sneak up on you. We can't let our hubris get the best of us,” Ray continues.
Whitticus climbs up a tree kind of precariously. Tori yells out for Whitticus to be safe. Svetlana finally gets out the van by climbing out of the window for she refused to exit like a normal person.
Whitticus studies the area again, now with a wider range. He spots a crowd far off in the distance. He climbs back down the tree. “There's a crowd far out in the distance, so yeah, we got to watch out for that,” he announces.
“Alright,” Riley replies.
“What is that?” Whitticus points at the van.
“It’s a van,” Ray tells him.
“What’s a van?” Whitticus asks.
“It’s a vehicle. It’s a form of transportation,” Svetlana explains.
“It’s a special one. It jumps dimensions,” Ryan adds on.
“Dimensions?” Whitticus replies, confused.
Now it’s the group’s turn to go quiet. “It’s a confusing topic,” Riley states.
“Do you know what a vehicle is?” Tori questions.
“Like a train?” Whitticus responds. He earns a nod from Tori. “That’s all we have here,” Whitticus adds.
“Ah.” Tori nods her head again
“You ever have a warm day on this planet?” Ryan complains.
“I guess… I don’t know,” Whitticus replies. He glances over to somewhere. “There's some train tracks over there. We can go there if you want. The crowd, though, was a distance away from the tracks. You have a big group, though. I imagine we can manage it.”
“Alright,” Brandon replies.
Svetlana goes to run to the van, but Ray stops her. “I’ll drive,” he states.
“Okay.”
Mostly everyone gets in van. Whitticus questions it still. When he gets in the van, he notices a change of temperature. It's warmer than outside, but it's still a bit cold. “So, what's the direction of the train track?” Ray acts. Whitticus points to somewhere off in the distance. Ray proceeds to drive in the direction Whitticus pointed towards, carefully driving around trees and such.
“I kind of saw something earlier that kind of looked like this van, but it had a different shape,” Whitticus mentioned. Upon hearing that, Ray heaves a sigh because he knows what that means. Trouble is brewing. “What’s wrong?” Whitticus inquiries.
“Let's hope we don't run into them,” Ray mutters. Ryan stares at him, a look of worry painted on his face.
They see the train tracks. Monica, Brandon, Whitticus, and Tristan exit out of the van, and walk to the tracks. “So, where was that crowd?” Monica asks.
“Way off in the distance,” Whitticus answers.
“Do the trains still run?” Brandon questions.
“Occasionally,” Whitticus replies. “There are still survivors around, but safe cities and town are few and far between, you know?”
“So, train is your world's only form of transportation?” Flotsam queries.
“I-I g-guess? It's our main one that I know of, and it's the only one I know of,” Whitticus responds.
In the distance, there is a faint horn blaring. Tristan looks down the tracks. He think he notices something. Tristan says something to Brandon. “Give,” Tristan orders.
“What?” Brandon reacts.
“I need to use the binoculars really quick,” Tristan presses.
“Uh, okay?” Brandon hands over his pair of binoculars to Tristan.
Tristan looks down the track. He sees that a beam is missing. He looks up and sees a train in the distance. He slams the binoculars on Brandon's chest, as he freaks out.
“Argh! You could've just-“
“Everybody back in the van! The train is about to fucking crash!” Tristan shouts.
“C-crash?” Whitticus reacts. Tristan grabs Whitticus and runs back to the van. “Wah?!”
“Ray, drive away from the tracks!” Tristan demanded.
The train reaches the missing beam. It derails as Tristan expected. Riley notices Monica is still outside, running to the van. One of the train carts are flung towards the group. Riley tells Monica to jump. She does so, and Riley grabs her right arm, and he pulls her in the van, as Ray turns the van, and drives the van backwards, avoiding the train cart. The rest of the train carts that were ahead of the train cart that flew pass them, continue going down the track for quite a distance. The other carts have already stopped by then. “Oh, my fucking god!” Monica yells.
“Holy shit!” Riley shouts.
“God fucking damn,” Tristan whispers.
“What the fuck?!” Tori reacts.
“How the hell did I dodge that?!” Monica exclaims.
“What just happened?!” Whitticus cries.
The van goes to a halt. The group slowly gets out of the van. They look at the wreckage. “Are there any survivors?” Misty wonders.
“Look in the windows. Is there anyone moving?” Flotsam notes.
They look at the carts. There are figures still moving in the carts. One of the figures starts to beat on one of the windows until it breaks. The figure crawls out of the train cart. Whitticus stands back. “That's not a person anymore. That's an infected,” he states. More start climbing out of the window. When they get to their footing, they charge at the group. Whitticus pulls out his short sword and goes into a stance. “Come on!”
One of the infected charges towards Whitticus. He slashes at them with his short sword. Riley fires at said infected, taking them out.
Svetlana goes to grab her semi-automatic. Misty pulls out two pistols and fires at an infected. Lincoln puts Ryan on his back, and scratches at an infected, incapacitating it. Ray shoots another infected. Tristan stabs another infected, bringing it down, and then he stabs it in its head. Svetlana returns, and empties a clip, killing four more infected.
Then someone is heard screaming further down the track. Not every cart detached from each other. Some were connected with each other still. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck! How am I going to get out here?!”
“I think someone is stuck in one of the carts!” Riley yells.
“Ah, fuck! We need to check!” Brandon states.
The group make their way over to where the shouting is coming from. Infected are still climbing out of windows. Some even go out of the front doors of the carts. Whitticus takes down another infected. Monica takes one down by throwing a knife into one of the infected's head. Ryan holds onto Lincoln as Lincoln runs ahead of the group, knocking over a few infected, which the group proceed to take out. Lincoln stops at the front cart. “The voice is coming from over here,” he points out.
Around the cart are a group of infected trying to get to whoever is inside. Misty fires at some of the infected. Ryan gets an idea. “Hey, Lincoln. Put me on top of the cart. I'm going to try to get that person out of there. Does anyone have something I could use to bash in a window?”
Monica pulls out a baton and throws it to Ryan. He catches it. “Thanks,” he reacts. “Okay, Lincoln.” Lincoln carefully puts Ryan on top of the cart. Ryan proceeds to smash in a window with the baton, scaring who is inside. He reaches inside, but almost gets stabbed by the scared individual. “I'm not trying to hurt you. I just want to help you,” Ryan tries to comfort the individual.
“Oh? Okay? You're not infected?” the individual asks.
“No,” Ryan replies. The group is still fighting the packs of infected. The door to the train cart starts breaking down. “Now, come on! They're going to break through any second!”
“Yeah, yeah!” the person reacts.
They start climbing up the seats that are now at a ninety degree. The door finally caves in and a few infected climb in. The uninfected lady, who you can tell by her voice, reaches out for Ryan. He gets a hold of her hand, as the infected reach out to grab her. He pulls her up out of the cart before they can grab her. Ryan and the lady quietly laugh to release nervous tension.
“Th-thank you.” The lady suddenly hugs Ryan, who wasn't expecting that. Ryan hugs her back, visibly confused while doing so.
“You're welcome,” Ryan replies. “Uh, Lincoln. I got her out. We're getting down.
“Okay,” Lincoln responds. Ryan and the lady jump off the train cart, and Lincoln catches both of them.
The group takes out all of the remaining infected in the area. Brandon threw grenades in the train carts to be safe.
“Alright, we need to go back to the v-.“ Ray gets interrupted by a vehicle pulling up. An RV. The group goes silent.
“No, no, no, no…,” Ryan murmurs.
Somebody exits the RV. They do a slow clap. “I'm impressed. You survived that bullshit.” They look over to Ryan and grin. “Hi, Ryan.”
“A… A… A… A…” Ryan staggers to get a name out. The other person laughs. “Amber, you fucker!” Ryan bellows.
“I thought our action would have taken out our little ‘stalker.’” She looks over to Whitticus. “We know you saw us.”
Ryan charges at Amber. “Don't you fu-.” Amber launches out a ball of water towards Ryan, sending him flying backwards.
“Anyway-.” Amber gets interrupted by someone else in the RV.
“Aren’t we taking-.”
“Shut up, Lane!” Amber orders.
“Okay,” Lane falls silent.
“Anyway. I don't feel like having a quarrel at the moment. You'll be seeing more of me later. Goodbye, Ryan,” Amber comments. She gives him one last smile.
“Don't you talk to me, you fucking cunt!” Ryan gasps for air, winded by the water ball.
Amber walks back to the RV and enters in it. Her team drives off.
“Ryan!” Svetlana runs up to him.
“I hate that fucking bitch,” Ryan mutters, crying a bit. Svetlana helps him up.
“Are you alright?!” the lady from the train asks.
“Not particularly,” Ryan responds.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”
“My name is Emmatina. I was the conductor,” she greets Ryan.
“Hi, Emmatina,” Ryan replies.
“We got to go to the van,” Ray demands.
“Alright,” Svetlana reacts.
Monica helps clean off Lincoln's claws. The group then goes back to the van, Emmatina following behind Ryan and Svetlana.
“This… is a van?” Emmatina questioned.
“Yeah. It's our mode of transportation we've been using for eight years. It jumps dimensions too,” Ray explains.
“Oh,” Emmatina responds.
Monica cleans off her hands. “I guess we're going to jump another dimension.”
“Yeah, especially now that we know that Amber and her crew is back,” Ray replies.
“I hate Amber... so much,” Ryan growls.
Everyone gets in the van. Ray gets into the driver's seat. He drives the van in the opposite direction of where the remains of the train is, running over an infected, and he drives alongside the track. There was a field not too far from the cave, and they drive pass it.
Eventually, they see a town in the distance. It looks empty, but it might have some survivors remaining in it. Whitticus stares down at the floor. His eyes turn blue.
“Are you okay, kid?” Emmatina asks Whitticus.
“That was my town,” Whitticus answers. He starts thinking of his parents, and his friends, all of which he's lost. He begins to cry. Emmatina hugs Whitticus, trying to comfort him. He looks up at Tori. “Thank you for letting me join your group.”
“No problem, kid,” Tori states.
Whitticus looks back out the window. “The apocalypse is all I’ve known. I was born years after it happened. The community tried to hold back the infected to let the citizens at least have a glimpse of a normal life, but it was all fruitless in the end,” he described.
“I’m sorry, kid,” Tori responds.
They continue driving alongside the train tracks. Ray turns on the radio.
“You're listening to Incidental Radio, RTWN 84.6; The only place that plays your inter-dimensional, incidental music,” a radio DJ announces. Tubthumping starts to play.
“Wow, this is incidental,” Ray comments.
Eventually, the song ends, and “Shut-In Tourist” by Band of Horses starts playing. Ray quietly sings to the song.
Every time you try to pick up just the pieces,
Feelin' bad for yourself.
Watchin' all the foreign cars or flags and breezes
From a window instead
From a window instead
From out of the van, you could hear the song playing from it
Find it hard to see the good or face the music
Looking backwards again
Over-sentimental staring half-way horizontal...
The van drives away from the view of the town, which is on a hill. A portal opens up, and Ray drives into it. The town, and the train tracks, go silent again as the van drives through the portal and the portal closes.
[Lyrical excerpt from Shut-In Tourist, written by Ben Bridwell and Tyler Ramsey (Band of Horses.) I know this may ruin the immersion, and I don’t really care. This is the end of the chapter, anyway.]
` A portal opens up in a barren town. The sounds of Band of Horses' song, "Shut-In Tourist", can be heard playing from the portal as the van goes out of the portal.
“Now, this next song might be important to someone. It's "City with No Children" by Arcade Fire,” the radio host announces.
Ray looks around the scenery as he drives down an empty road. “Oh... Oh fuck.”
The summer that I broke my arm
I waited for your letter
I have no feeling for you now
Now that I know you better
I wish that I could have loved you then
Before our age was through
And before a world war does with us
Whatever it will do
“You alright, Ray?” Misty asked. Ryan heaves a sigh and keeps driving. He stays quiet
I feel like I've been living in
A city with no children in it
A garden left for ruin by a millionaire inside
Of a private prison
“Ray, what is wrong?” Misty asked again.
“Ryan…” Ray looks over to him, like he trying to convey to him to tell the group something.
“This is our hometown,” Ryan tells Misty.
“Same dimension, too?” Misty questions.
“Well, I know how to find that out,” Ray replies.
“We could use the dimension identifier,” Flotsam points out.
“That is true, but we didn't have that at the beginning,” Ray states.
“Well, it says we're in Dimension 16,894,” Flotsam responds.
“Alright,” Ray reacts. “Got to love how accurate they are on their incidental music.”
“Yeah,” Ryan sighs. Ray keeps on driving.
“This,” Ray takes a deep breath, “feels like Muskegon, but it's... It still is, but it's just a ghost town.”
“Probably every district is a ghost town right now,” Ryan comments.
“Let's see if remember how to get somewhere,” Ray mutters.
Ray continues to drive. "Smile Like You Mean It" by the Killers is playing on the radio. He pulls onto another road, and drives down it for a while, until he turns onto another road. He's clearly trying to go somewhere.
He heaves a sigh as he spots where he's trying to go. An old, dilapidated, forlorn house. He pulls into the driveway.
“Isn't that?” Ryan asked.
“My childhood house? Yes,” Ray replied. “I'm amazed it's still standing.” Everyone gets out of the van. Ray walks up to the front door. “No one's here, but let's do the courteous thing first.” Ray knocks on the door.
No response.
“Alright,” Ray reacts. He pulls out a gun. “Just in case if anyone actually in there, and they're just being quiet.”
The door refuses to open by using the handle, so Ray kicks down the door. “Is there anyone actually in here?!”
No response again.
“Okay, just expect the unexpected,” Ray warns everyone.
Everyone enters in the house, except for Lincoln, who scouts the outside perimeter of the house. Light from out illuminates what it can in the house. The air inside is dust. In fact, dust is flying around from the door being kicked down. Monica coughs because of it. “Guess you don't rely on the dead to do cleaning,” Monica comments before she coughs again.
“I haven't been here for like decades. I don't remember the last time was here,” Ray states.
The group looks around. They are in the kitchen. The cabinets and drawers are orange, but you wouldn't really be able to tell so with the layers on everything. The countertop is dark oak, with a vinyl coating, with many layers of dust piled on it. Ray puts his hand down on the counter. Dust goes flying. His hand is now coated in dust. He proceeds to brush the dust off his hands “Wow. We're going to need to wear masks so we don't inhale all of this dust.” He pulls out a mask.
“Or ventilators,” Flotsam adds on. Flotsam and Riley already have ventilators on Monica is pulling one out of her backpack, while still coughing from dust. “History of adventuring. Always have one on you. You never know when you're going to walk through something like this,” Flotsam explains.
They head to the living room of the house. Ray heaves another sigh. He looks around. “The couch stayed at the same position I remember last seeing it. That chair seems different, but it's probably not. The last time I was here was probably a few months before the apocalypse broke out,” Ray reminisces.
Monica walks up to the entertainment table. The television looks to be a later model CRTV. On the shelf underneath it is a VHS unit. There's a cassette deck underneath it. On the lower shelf there is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System. There is a record player to the left of the CRTV. “You had a SNES?!” she exclaims.
“Oh fuck, I forgot that was there,” Ray reacts.
“How?!” Ryan yells.
“I don't know how. I just happened to forget it.” Ray responds.
In the bottom drawers of the entertainment table are boxes of trivial items, like pictures, letters, souvenirs, cards, like Uno, and the classic casino cards, Monopoly, a glass chess board, with glass chess pieces. There's also box with assorted cassettes.
What catches Monica's attention is a box of video cassettes. She pulls out the box and sees a VCR camera. “I have not seen one in a while,” Monica mutters. “Hey, Ray. This is going to sound weird, but I'm going to take this camcorder. Maybe we can fix it up and record stuff on it.”
“Okay,” Ray replies.
Most of the group leave the living room. Ray heads to what used to be his bedroom. “I was an only child. Many times, it got lonesome here.” He approaches the door and opens.
“Oh, the posters are still there,” Ray reacted. There's poster for Yes, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Billy Joel, Talking Heads, Blondie, and the Ramones still hanging up in Ray's childhood bedroom. “I left some posters so they could have things to remember me for. Didn't realize left way more for them to remember me for.”
“The Ramones! Hell yes!” Monica screams. “I got to say, Ray. You have a great taste in music.”
“Thanks,” Ray responds.
“Leaving things for people is a nice thing to do, depending on what you're living behind, of course,” Monica states.
“Yeah, true,” Ray agrees.
The bed is covered in dust. The room is the most dustiest in the house from not being used from the longest, and rarely, if not, never being cleaned.
Everyone gets out of Ray's room. Ray looks down the hall. ”I don't-.” Ray sighs. “I don't want to enter in any other room. It'll just be more depressing Especially my parents room. They're most likely long gone by now.”
“You don't have to,” Tori tells Ray.
“They were already middle-aged when I moved out. I doubt they survived for long. No one was here that time I saw this place,” Ray stated.
“Of course, you would grab the gaming console,” Flotsam complains.
“Obviously! It's an SNES!” Ryan replied.
“I mean, to be fair, would too,” Flotsam mutters.
“Hah! Hahah! Got ya, bitch!” Ryan vexes, [but it comes out more like "caught" than "got".]
“What's an SNES?” Whitticus asks.
“Ohohoh... You have a lot to learn,” Ryan states.
“Don't taint the kid,” Brandon orders.
“What do you mean? This is the perfect time for him to learn,” Ryan argues.
“Ryan.”
“I'm not wrong.”
“Ryan!”
“I will teach him. You can't stop me.” Ryan takes a deep breath. “So, it's a gam-.”
“Ryan! Now's not the time!” Brandon yells.
“Yes, it is! Anytime is the time!” Ryan retorts.
“Ryan, no!”
“Ryan, yes!”
“Oh my, God. These fucking imbeciles,” Tristan growls.
“I'm going to kick into hyperactive bullshit mode!” Ryan shouts.
“Don't you dare!” Brandon yells.
“AAAH!” Ryan screams, hyperactive energy taking control for a moment.
“Goddamn it, Ryan!” Brandon complains.
“What the hell is going on here?” Riley asks.
Brandon looks over at Riley, Ray, Monica, Tori, Flotsam, and Misty. “Uh, Ryan is-.”
“Let me teach him what an SNES is, goddamn it!” Ryan demands.
“You don’t need to yell, Ryan,” Ray states.
Whitticus looks up at Ray. “What's an SNES?”
“It's a gaming console,” Ray answers.
“Ray,” Brandon murmurs.
“Goddamn it, Ray! You had to steal my thunder!” Ryan complains.
“What's a gaming console?” Whitticus asks.
“Oooooooooo! Opportunity! Don't take this from me, Ray!” Ryan demands.
Lincoln keeps patrolling the perimeter of the house. He hears the group in the house shouting and making commotion. “What are they doing in there?” he wonders.
He starts to hear something driving off in the distance. “Someone's in the distance. Where?” He looks around the scenery but sees nothing. “What?” he mutters.
There is definitely someone driving around. There is this distinctive sound of a motor humming, but where is it coming from? Try as he might, Lincoln can't spot anything.
Back inside the house, the group is still up to their hijinks. Ray tries to calm down the situation. “Alright, everyone, calm down. Let's leave now.”
“I'm taking the SNES. You can't stop me,” Ryan demanded.
“Alright,” Ray replies.
“Hehehe. Yes!” Ryan celebrated.
Ryan puts anything that is SNES related. Monica checks her backpack for everything. Emmatina keeps close to Whitticus. Ray is ready to lead everyone out of the house, when unexpectedly, the front of the house gets engulfed in flames. Riley, Misty, Svetlana, and Tristan watch as the flames cover up the windows. Flotsam and Emmatina go to the floor. Ryan turns to look at the window and freezes.
Ray runs to see what's going on. Upon seeing the fire just outside the window, he gets furious and stressed. “What the absolute hell?!” Ray exclaimed.
“I don't know,” Riley reacts.
“A... A... Am...” Ryan keeps stammering
Whitticus looks around, scared and confused. “What's going o-.”
“We'll tell you later,” Emmatina states.
“The house. They set the house on fire,” Ryan claims.
“Who are you talking about?” Brandon asks.
“Who do you think I'm talking about, you drunk nature narrator?!” Ryan shouts.
“I don't need the damn sass.” Brandon growls.
“Just shut the fuck up! Now is not the time to bicker,” Tristan demands.
“What's the exit plan?” Monica inquiries.
“Not the windows, that's for sure,” Svetlana replies. “Actually...”
“Do you want to die?!” Flotsam responds.
“Shut up. You clearly can’t tell what a morbid joke is.”
“Okay, everyone. Is it possible for you all to fucking focus?!” Tori asks.
Ray looks around quickly before getting an idea. “We'll have to go out the kitchen d-.” The windows shatter, sending glass flying towards the group. Riley, Svetlana, Ryan, and Tristan duck. Flotsam and Misty dive to the floor, Whitticus jumps backwards. Emmatina, Svetlana, and Brandon get glass shards sent into them. Ray, Monica, and Tori jump to the side to avoid the glass shards. The fire crawls in.
“Shit. Alright, everyone! Follow me!” Ray orders.
Outside of the house, Lincoln starts smelling smoke. Next he hears the commotion inside. That's when he sees the flames. “Oh... This isn't good.’
Lincoln goes to the driveway. The flames have engulfed most of the front side of the house. He can feel the heat of the fire from where he's standing. Lincoln knocks on the door. He calls out for them. “Hello, is everyone alright?”
Inside the house, Ray has gathered all of the group into the kitchen. “Alright, let's go.” He opens the door and sees Lincoln. “Whoa.”
“Hey,” Lincoln greets. “Everyone needs to get out. I'll be a wall to the fire.”
“But-.” Ryan tries to complain but gets interrupted.
“That should give everyone enough time to get out without being burned,” Lincoln explains. Ryan goes quiet.
Everyone rushes out. It takes them some time. The fire itches closer to Lincoln. By the time Whitticus gets out, the fire is barely touching Lincoln. Once Misty, the last person to exit, the fire is on Lincoln. He stands still, letting Misty get out of the way. Once she does, Lincoln gets away from the fire and rolls on the ground many times to stop the flames on him.
“Alright, I'm okay,” Lincoln states. He gets away from the house and joins the rest of the group.
“Who did this?” Misty asks.
“Isn't it obvious?” Ryan responds.
“No?” Misty replies.
“Them!” Ryan yells.
“Stop play the pronoun game, Ryan!” Misty demands.
Ray finds something on the ground a distance away from the van. It's a small board of wood. There's a note written on there with Sharpie. "Nice house, nerd." Upon reading it, he snaps the board in half.
“AMBER!” Ray bellows.
A few roads down, in an RV, Amber and Lane are laughing. Next to where Lane is sitting is a flamethrower. “Great job out there. You set that house ablaze,” Amber congratulates.
“Yeah, thank you,” Lane responds. They both do a fist bump.
“Even if some or all survived that, they won't be using that house anymore.” Amber laughs maniacally as she continues driving.
“Fucking Amber and her crew of cronies,” Ray mumbles
“What? Whitticus asks.
“Nothing, kid,” Misty stated, trying to distract the kid.
Ray scratches at his head and starts breathing heavily. Svetlana slowly approaches him. She puts a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. “I don't know what words to use, but-.”
“I've spent so many years at that house. Some blue bastard has it burned down. She can't even produce fire. What bastard on her team has access to fire?!” He covers his face and lets out an anguished cry. “Goddamn it!”
Ray looks over to Svetlana. “All the memories, Svetlana, er, most of, are just charred now. I can't get it back.”
“I... We need to go, Ray. There's nothing left to be done now, but to leave,” Svetlana explains.
“I know. It just hurts.” Ray takes in a deep breath. “Speaking of which, is everyone okay?”
“Well, that was a quick emotional cha-.” Tristan spots that Ray is actually crying. “Oh, uh... Never mind.”
“I just lost my childhood house, Tristan. Of course, I'm upset. I have something bigger to worry about. I want to know if everyone is alright,” Ray responds.
“I got shards of glass in me,” Emmatina answers.
“Same,” Svetlana adds. “I'll be alright. You know I've been through worse.”
Brandon: Yeah, there's some glass in my arm.
“Lincoln?” Ray asks.
“I got burned, but it's not enough to be life threatening,” Lincoln states.
“Alright,” Ray reacts.
“What do we do now?” Emmatina questioned.
“We have to leave,” Ray replied.
“I'm sorry about the house, Ray,” Monica tries to comfort him.
“It's none of our faults,” Ray noted.
“At least I saved the SNES,” Ryan points out.
Ray stares for a few seconds. “Yeah. At least you saved that. And at least everyone got out alive.”
“Take the good with the bad,” Monica comments.
The group enter the van. Ray drives off away from his house for the last time, as what remains burns away. “This is... Ugh... Brutal... Last time I'll ever go there. Fuck you, Amber.” Ray mutters.
“I'm sorry about the loss,” Svetlana whispers.
“There's nothing that could've been done,” Ray mentions.
Shortly after, a portal opens up. Ray drives into it, leaving his home dimension yet again.
[Excerpt from City With No Children was written by Win Butler and Arcade Fire. I used that song because it was thematic to the characters of Ray and Ryan.]
"You don't know who I am, likely. I don't know how many people I know that are still alive. For all I know, everyone outside of this high-rise is gone. I wouldn't be surprised.
There's only three of us here. I don't how longer we can last. They're always in pursuit. We can't ever settle down. They'll eventually burn up all our luck. Time is not on our side, but it's the best weapon I've got."
A portal opens up and the van goes out of it. They find themselves is a dystopian hellscape. Buildings are either destroyed, or in bad condition. There are billboards around. On said billboards show some form of robot, next to a slogan of, "work longer; take a soul." The robot looks like it would be tall. They look mauve in color, ala, a dark, yet pale form of purple. They have four arm-like appendages. There are a line of lights on the top of its headpiece. Only the torso is visible on the billboard.
Other things that are visible are banners, saying things like, "OVERTHROW THE ROBOTS", "THE ROBOTS MUST GO", and "DON'T TRUST THE MOTH".
“What the hell?” Monica reacts.
“What the fuck happened here?” Ryan wonders.
“Clearly some robot uprising,” Brandon comments.
“Holy hell,” Tori mutters.
In the distance, Ray spots a robot. They look at least nine feet tall from the perspective. “In the alley we go,” he states. He pulls into an alley.
“Robot uprising...” Flotsam is stuck on the thought.
“What do you think it meant to take a soul?” Emmatina asks.
“Kill, likely,” Svetlana replies.
“Oh boy,” Emmatina reacts.
Ray stops the van. He proceeds to turn off the vehicle. “Why did you stop driving?” Flotsam questioned.
“Right now, we can only drive the van when we absolutely need to,” Ray explains.
“Alright,” Flotsam replies.
Everyone gets out of the van as quietly as they can. They star walking around the alley. Riley walks near a door. It then swings open, and someone comes out, pointing a shotgun at Riley's eyes.
“Who are you?! Have you come to steal my mind?!” the mysterious person interrogates.
“No,” Riley responds.
“Wait... You're human, like me,” the person notices.
Whoever this person is, they're wearing a navy blue trench coat. In a pocket of the coat hangs out a chain-link of a pocket watch. They are also wearing dark grey khakis, and black dress shoes. “How can I trust you...” He sees Tristan and Lincoln. “…eclectic group of people?”
“We're from a different dimension,” Ray answers.
“Okay... That relieves me a little bit. You don't understand what's going on... Come inside,” the person offers. They let the group enter the building. Next to the door is a garage door. They also open that door for Lincoln, with the help of another person.
“That is a big crew,” another person said. They’re voiced sounded female-like. They look insectoid.
“Is that a moth person?” Flotsam observed.
Tristan starts to reach for a weapon. “It did stay to not trust the mot-.”
“No, stop,” Flotsam demanded.
“Don't listen to the banners, okay? I'm not bad!” the moth lady begged.
“Yeah, we got back-stabbed, and now no one trusts us,” the man added.
“Because I'm a roboticist, and they think that I caused this uprising, but I'm from a different dimension. Also, why would I want to make evil robots? That's against the law, and why would I even want to do that?! I care about robots. I treat them as if they were just regular people,” the moth lady explained.
“Who are you two?” Ray asks.
“Cartier,” the man replies.
“Jenny,” the moth lady responds.
“Well, I'm Ray. I- We could do roll call, but there is a lot.”
“Understandable,” Cartier chuckles.
“Who is here? This little robot appears, sounding a little tired. They are light blue, have two antennae, and has a rectangular design.
“That's a robot.” Tristan tries to pull out a weapon again. “Time to shoo-.”
Jenny jumps in front of the small robot, like a mother protecting their child. “Don't you dare!” she screams.
“Don't you even fucking think about it!” Cartier snarls at Tristan.
“What's happening?” the robot asks.
“Nothing, Ash,” Jenny assured. She turns to the group. “Okay, this is Ashley. I built her. She is like a daughter to me. She's kind and nice. She's not like the brute robots out there in the city,” she explains.
“Hello, Ashley, Ray greeted.
“Hi,” Ashley waved.
Jenny rubs her eyes and sighs. She looks over to Ashley, motherly worry on her face. Cartier looks at a pocket watch. “I still remember how this city was before all of this shit,” he states.
“Is that a pocket watch?” Brandon questions.
“It's not just a standard watch. It stops time,” Cartier replies.
“What?” Brandon reacts.
“Also, don't ask how, why, or who gave it to me. I refuse to answer,” Cartier adds on. “Also, don't touch it.” There’s a nasty tone in his voice.
“Okay, okay,” Brandon replies, having his hands in the air.
Cartier returns the stopwatch back to its designated pocket. “Still, it’s a heavy burden to bear holding this small, yet significant item. It already has a crack in its face,” Cartier stated.
“That is a very vague way to put things,” Brandon replied.
“You don’t understand the weight this object has!” Cartier exclaimed.
“It looks light,” Brandon responds.
“Oh, my fucking god,” Cartier muttered. “You’re not a sharp one, are you?”
“My field is in biology, not time,” Brandon shoots back. “I was a nature documentary narrator before everything went to shit.”
Cartier releases an annoyed sigh. “If this watch breaks, this dimension is going to be decimated. I’ll be trapped in time, and…” Cartier grows hesitant to keep talking. He stares at the floor. “And Jenny will die, and Ashley will be trapped in a dead universe.”
Brandon stares at him, confused. “What?”
“I found out one day that Jenny is actually supposed to die in her dimension. Someone kills her. She has mentioned this scientist and architect named Alek. Uh… Alek, from what I heard, isn’t the best person. From what I can gather, Alek kills her from jealousy because some other person Jenny loves.”
“Then why is she not already gone?” Tori interrogates.
“Because our dimensions are years apart. I’m actually years ahead of Jenny and Ashley’s home dimension,” Cartier answers.
“Ashley still has the mentality of a child that is her tween years,” Jenny adds. “Then we were thrown into this violent world and I know it’s been hard on her. Robots are after us. Humans are after us. We’re stuck in the crossfire of two sides that hate each other. One wants us dead, while the robots want to take me prisoner, all because I’m a roboticist.” She scratches her head. “I’m stressed. I’m fed up. I‘m scared. All of the above, y’know. But what I really am, above all else, is angry. How did both sides in this dimension manage to screw up everything? Why couldn’t they see each other as equal?”
The group stared at Jenny, shocked at her words. “Well, I have no idea how to respond to that,” Monica comments.
“All I know, the more I stop time, the more our dimensions get closer in time. And before you say that it’s three years apart, it goes by fast when stopped,” Cartier states.
“Well, damn, things got heavy. Holy shit.” Ryan nervously laughs.
That’s when everyone can hear an, albeit, distant, explosion go off. “Oh shit. They’re getting closer,” Cartier announces. He pulls out a weapon. It looks like some gun, but way more advanced than the group have seen. It’s actually something like a laser gun, or, well, more like a ray-gun.
“Is that a gun?” Svetlana asks.
“Oh, this? Yeah. I stole it from a destroyed robot. This little guy has an amazing power to it. Really strong lasers, man. I do have to let it cool down and charge it every so often, though. Still, the upsides outweigh the downsides, trust me,” Cartier replies.
“Are the big robots coming?” Ashley asks.
“It’s possible. We have to think of an escape plan if they get here,” Cartier answers. He climbs up a ladder to access a roof access and opens a latch. He observes the cityscape, witnessing giant machines inching closer. The ground starts to shake, forcing him to slide down the ladder. “That plan needs to come now, guys.”
“We have a van,” Ryan answers.
Cartier laughs loudly. “You think that is a good idea with massive robots running around? Don’t make me laugh.” That’s when the shaking gets stronger. “Son of a bitch.”
“Wait, this doesn’t mean they found us, right?” Ashley begs.
“We can’t know that for certain,” Cartier states.
Another explosion goes off. This time it was really close. The group start hearing a bellowing, demanding voice. “COME OUT, MOTH. WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU.” Another explosion goes off.
“They’re firing at the buildings,” Cartier points out.
“They know we’re around here, Cartier,” Jenny states.
“I know that,” Cartier snarled in nervous tension.
“They’re going to find us! They’re going to find us!” Ashley cries.
“Hey, no, Ash, please. We’ll keep you protected, I promise,” Jenny reassures.
“Trust me, the van is not as bad an idea as you think,” Ryan notes.
“It’s a van. Those are beast machines out there. It doesn’t have anything on them,” Cartier argues.
“We have rode this through hordes of zombies, flocks of phoenixes, floating islands, a mall, and a fucking ocean. And not to mention we dodged a derailed train with it. I’d say our van is more than sufficient against giant, killer robots,” Svetlana replies.
Cartier stares at Svetlana, annoyed by her comment. That’s when an explosion rings so loudly through the building. The entire place shakes. He can hear rubble falling. “Alright, fine. We’ll go in the van.”
That’s when the robots hit the building. A hole in the wall and ceiling reveals the giant robots staring down at the group. “SOULS DETECTED. SURRENDER NOW OR FACE A PAINFUL EXPERIENCE!”
The prideful fool the kobold is, Tristan steps forward to threaten the robots. He unsheathes his dagger and stares up at the massive robots. “Hell no, we won’t surrender to you!”
“SO, BE IT,” one of the robots bellow. They point a massive laser gun towards Tristan and the group.
Quickly observing the hopeless situation, Cartier realizes what he has to do. “Goddamn it!” he complained as he quickly pulled out his stopwatch. He presses the button on the top to freeze time. Even though it’s not there, he can hear the ticking of a clock in his brain. What he can see is a beam going towards Tristan, so he picks him up and moves him somewhere else. “Why is he so light?” he wonders. Next up what he does is that he fires at the robots with the gun he stole a long time ago. He ends up having to move Flotsam, Tori, and Emmatina as well. He looked over to Lincoln and said ‘fuck it’ in his mind from trying to move. He then proceeded to press the button on the stopwatch to resume time.
As time resumes, lasers go flying past him. Lincoln looks around, wondering what lasers even are. “Alright, out the big door!” Cartier demands.
The group ran out of the building, with Cartier, Jenny, and Ashley following them. “We need to high tail it out of here,” Ray orders. After everyone gets in, which comes close because of Lincoln, Ray turns on the van and speeds out of the alley.
“Had to be giant fucking robots, huh?” Riley complained.
“Unnatural fuckers!” Brandon growls. Ashley whines and hides behind. Svetlana smacks Brandon. “Ow!”
“That was pretty damn insensitive. We have a robot with us,” Svetlana declares.
The road shakes while the giant robots destroy the building the group fled from. “Do you know any other safe places?” Misty asks.
“Not really, no, especially since everyone wants us dead,” Cartier answers.
“There has to be somewhere we can go,” Jenny states.
“We have company, and they’re pissed off, man,” Ryan points. After he says that, the crew hear the sounds of lasers flying past the van.
“This is one hell of a fucking night, isn’t it,” Ray comments.
Tristan redeploys the machine gun for the van and starts firing at the massive robots. “What the hell are you doing?!” Cartier interrogates.
“Being war-smart. Do you want them to catch us?” Tristan replies.
“Of course not, but this is dangerous!” Cartier states.
“I love action. You’ll learn that about me really soon,” Tristan responds. The crew hear an eruption as a robot falls down, dismantled by the bullets shot at it.
“I already had to save your ass once. I don’t want to have to do it again,” Cartier mutters.
“What was that?” Tristan demanded. He stops firing at the robots and stares at Cartier.
“Back in the building when you talked back at the robots, I had to stop time to move everyone out of the way of lasers, and time is not on my side, nor on Jenny and Ashley’s side.”
Tristan thinks over the words. “So that’s why I was confused at where I was.”
That’s when, unexpectedly, a laser sliced through the ceiling of the van. Angled at a decline, it went through someone’s chest. There was a loud, pained gasp, as someone then fell to the floor.
“Flotsam!” Riley bellowed. He tried pulling him up to his feet, but Flotsam kept slipping, too weak to get a footing. He just started weakly chuckling. “Flotsam, speak!”
“Holy shit, Flotsam!” Tori saw Flotsam’s shirt starting getting wet with blood. “Wait, fuck, I’ll get the Neosporin, the bandages, the rubbing alcohol. Just wait!”
“I don’t think that’s going to w-.”
“Shut up, Misty!” Tori interrupts.
Flotsam is staring up at Riley, confusing him for someone else, delusional from what’s happening. “Hey, Stuxnet. You want to go on another adventure?” With a chuckle, he collapses in Riley’s arm, succumbing to the attack.
“Flotsam!” Riley howls. “Goddamn it, fuck! No!”
“What the fuck happened back there?!” Ray demanded.
“The giant robots out there shot Flotsam!” Brandon replied.
Tori comes back holding a bottle of Neosporin, a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and bandages. “Wait, did he-.”
“He’s gone.” Riley drops Flotsam’s body to floor. “He’s gone, Tori.”
“Son of a bitch!” Tori throws the bandages to the floor.
“I told you they’re a menace!” Cartier comments.
“Shut the fuck up, Cartier!” Tori snarls.
“Keep driving, guys!” Jenny shouts.
“I was planning on it!” Ray calls back.
“Damn it! That was our adventurer!” Tristan complains. This earns a death stare from Riley, who is crying from the loss of a close friend.
“You really need to fucking learn social cues,” Riley sneers. “Someone’s died. A person. Someone from my youth, my history, Tori’s history. He’s gone, and you just want to make a jab? Fuck you.”
Tristan stares at Riley. “We’ve lost people before, Riley.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s too soon,” Riley mutters.
“There has to be somewhere to hide. There has to be!” Jenny cries.
“Don’t you remember that we’re wanted by both sides?!” Cartier yells.
“I know, Cartier! I’m not stupid!” Jenny replies.
“I just don’t want to lose you!” Cartier cries. “We don’t know who these people are! I don’t even know if we can trust them! We’re being chased by giant robots that want me dead, and you prisoner, and they’ll likely try to indoctrinate Ashley into their ways! You know she doesn’t want to hurt anyone, so they might destroy her! You and I don’t want that! And not to mention, we just watched someone die because of those robots, for fuck sake!”
Riley, Tori, Misty, Tristan, and Jenny stare at Cartier. “I… I mean… I just… I can’t. Let me just focus!”
“Cartier?” Jenny asks.
“Please, just.- I need to focus,” Cartier responds.
Ray keeps staring at the road and the mirrors to see the robots. He’s able to swerve the van onto another road before one of the robots are able to fire at the van again.
“There’s bridges and tunnels, right, Cartier?” Ashley asks.
“Yeah?” Cartier replies.
“And there were trains that would go underground, right?”
“… Yeah. I remember using the subway back in the day.”
“Do the trains run anymore?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Alright, then. Where is the nearest subway tunnel. It’s our best chance to escape those evil machines.”
“But there’s people down in the tunnels!”
“It’s better to be down there than up here.”
Cartier stares at the floor of the van. He starts thinking of routes and roads. He looks outside to see the general area where he’s at. He is thinking about a plan.
“Turn on Jars St. Past five roads then pull on Hart Ave. Somewhere on the right side, there should be stairs that go down to the subway system. I believe this van should be able to fit in the tunnels,” Cartier instructs.
Ray follows the instructions, drifting onto Jars St. and barrel down towards Hart Ave. Cartier points out the opening where stairs go down. Ray swivels the van and the right angle to drive down the steps, leading the crew into the subway tunnels.
“Did we lose them?” Misty asks.
“I’d say so. They can’t even fit their big ass shoulders into the tunnel entrance!” Ryan observes from the back windows.
Cartier collapses on the loft. He heaves a deep sigh. “I’m sorry you lost your friend, guys,” he states.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Riley mutters.
“We’re losing everyone we know from home,” Tori comments.
Tristan looks away from the mourning friends. Something about how Tori worded her comment made Tristan think back to some time in his past. His face is in a scowl, yet there is a tinge of shame and sorrow. Ryan notices this subtle signal, but he doesn’t bring it up.
“I know people hide down here,” Cartier states.
“It doesn’t mean we’ll run into them,” Jenny retorts.
“But we could!” Cartier fires back. These places are narrow and echoey. Anyone can hear-.”
Ray stops the van and turns to face Cartier. “Hey, man. Could you stop being a pessimist for one fucking second?” he snarls. “So, what if there are people down here. If they attack, we’ll handle it. Before you try to bring Flotsam’s death in here, we’ve been at this for eight years, jumping from dimension to dimension, handling hordes of zombies, flocks of phoenixes, godawful people, and horrors you can’t even think of. My goals have always been to stop this inter-dimensional apocalypse, but above all, I’ve been trying to keep everyone safe, and it’s an impossibility to save everyone, but you better damn well believe that I’m hellbent on trying my best at it.”
Cartier goes quiet. In fact, everyone went quiet. Cartier starts fiddling with his pocket watch. Ashley sits down behind Jenny. Riley and Tori are still wrapping their head around Flotsam’s death. Monica just has a blank expression. Misty is rubbing her eyes Tristan is still thinking about his past. Ryan keeps watching Tristan, before scratching his and turning away. Svetlana slowly cracks her knuckles; it’s some form of a nervous habit. Brandon takes a sip from a bottle of alcohol, then puts it down and interlocks his hands. Lincoln is stuck watching the grieving friends. Whitticus and Emmatina just stay silent.
Ray keeps on silently driving through the metro tunnels.
Monica breaks the silence. “Alright, we need to do something. We can’t just stay silent. It messes with our heads, and I should know that.”
“What are we supposed to do?” Misty asks.
“Anything but this. I know it sucks losing a friend. I lost all of mine. I don’t know if their alive. I hope they are. They probably think the same thing of me. Still, if we just wallow in this, we’re not going to get anywhere. Of course, friends are really important to us. I really needed a friend in that mall, that I think I galvanized that janitor in my head. And I know losing a friend is hard, and moving on is harder, but we need to keep going in a literal sense for this mission. Keep the memories of him alive, but we can’t let his death stop us in our tracks,” Monica explains.
“Don’t put in a train pun,” Tristan complains.
“Thanks, Monica.” Tori is looking up at her from the floor of the van. Despondency is still labelling her face.
“No problem, Tori,” Monica replies.
“I remember back in the military all the people that I was with in my battalion. In the war I watched over half of us die. Um, that was a lot of friends I lost. We managed to win the battle that day, but I still think about them. Nadia, Sylvester, Mikael, Lidochka, Dan, I know they all died. I still think of them. I sometimes have war dreams, but I’ve had them enough times, and I’ve practiced with lucid dreaming, so when I have one, I can control it and go buck wild. I make a nightmare turn into a fever dream. It doesn’t stop the memories, though, of the lives I saw end in the war.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Whitticus reacts.
“Why should you be sorry, kid? You didn’t cause the war back at my home. And about that war, I don’t think it’s done. There was a cease fire because an important holiday was coming up. It was becoming the time where the sky changes, and this amazing light show happens. The sky gets all rearranged. The nebulas all swivel beautifully. If I could show you all it, I would. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen,” Svetlana responds.
“Was it like a rare event?” Whitticus asks.
“No, it was actually annually. We worked our years around it,” Svetlana answered.
“That’s really strange,” Whitticus comments.
“Yet, you’re world is like 30,000 miles away from your sun than ours are!” Ryan adds on.
“Ryan!” Ray snarls.
“Sorry! I can still feel chills from that world,” Ryan replies.
“I was watching the light show years ago. I would always watch it every year. That’s what I was watching when I disappeared. It wasn’t my choice, something brought me to a different world. I’m likely labelled MIA back at home. Let it be known, I was not found by the group in my home dimension. I was somewhere else, stuck in this apocalypse,” Svetlana states.
“Why did the war happen?”
“Land, resources, politics. What other reasons do wars happen?” she replies. “I know a few that should still be alive. Dmitry, Aleksey and Gavriila were still alive when I disappeared. I bet they think I was killed in action or taken as prisoner.”
“But you’re still very much alive,” Emmatina states.
“I know,” Svetlana replies. “But they don’t know that, and I don’t know how they would react to everything. Think about what they would think if they found out that I was still alive and in a new group that is trying to stop an inter-dimensional apocalypse. I don’t think they would understand. I mean, how could they?”
“Do you think a war would go on for a decade?” Cartier asked.
Finally, Tristan starts speaking up. “Cartier, my home is war-ridden, too. It’s always been like that. There’s been a bitter rivalry for decades. A lot of people die in every village and only a handful survive each time. War is hell and we can never find a way to stop it. I was a tribal warrior for most of my life. Am I proud of it? Not entirely, even if I have pride for my tribe. And once the apocalypse hit, heh, it just got worse.”
“War is hell, yep,” Svetlana comments.
“Would you ever go… back on the battlefield?” Whitticus asks.
“I… I don’t know,” she responds. “If it was to free my friends from the battlefield, then, yeah, I would. But do I really want to make them suffer through an apocalypse just so I can save them from the war? That is if they even are still alive, after all.”
“I wonder if there are any resources left down here,” Cartier wonders. “Everything’s been probably looted already, though.”
“There were stores down here?” Misty asks.
“Well, of course. Do you see how massive this city is? It was bound to be full of kiosks at one point,” Cartier replies.
“Maybe we can check one,” Monica suggests. “I’ve been in many stores to know people miss shit.”
“But this apocalypse has been going on for a year.”
“And I was in a mall for a year.”
“Doesn’t really compute.”
“If we can find one that has medical supplies, that would be nice,” Brandon states.
Tori sighs. “Yeah…”
“Red plus signs usually mean health, right?” Ashley asks.
“Yes?” Cartier responds.
“There’s a sign over there,” Ashley points out.
“Huh. So, I guess there is,” Cartier reacts.
And so, Ray drives over to the health kiosk and pulls up near to it. He equips a gun just to be safe. “Alright, let’s check this place. Be alert; we don’t know if anyone’s in there.”
Cartier grips on the laser gun he took from a robot. “Ashley, behind me,” he orders. Ashley proceeds to stand behind Cartier, as Jenny stands next to her. Misty holds onto a revolver, spinning the clip. Brandon is holding a bottle, ready to smash it across someone’s head. Tristan brandishes his spear. Ryan pulls out a handgun. Lincoln and Emmatina stay near to him. Whitticus holds his short sword. Monica keeps a hand on her gun, ready to bring it up at any moment. Tori and Riley stand by each other, both holding a weapon. Tori is more of the sneaky one, brandishing a rope of some kind, ready to strangle someone. Svetlana carries a semi-automatic in her hand. Ray, Ryan and Lincoln turn the corner into the medical kiosk.
“Don’t step any close-.” Someone tries to threaten the trio, but when the rest jump out, they freeze up. They were shakily holding a gun, pointing it at Ryan. There is a figure behind the man holding the gun. They are on the floor, holding onto their legs.
“Hey, put the gun down! We’re not-.“ Ryan, however, is fired at before he can finish his statement. A bullet goes through his hand, but he already has big holes in both his hands, so it ends up not having any effects. The man and Ryan end up staring at each other awkwardly. The man readies himself to fire again, but everyone else ends up jumping out. Overwhelmed by the number of people, he puts the gun down and starts begging the group not to hurt him and the other person with them.
“Who are you?” Tori demands.
“Garaks,” the man responds.
“Garaks?” Cartier reacts. “That doesn’t sound human at all.”
“Because they’re not,” Brandon chimes in. He points out that the man has four eyes.
“Is that what you all are? Er, what most of you all are? I’ve heard people say human, but it’s not really registering well in my head,” Garaks commented, as he rubbed his eyes. The group then sees he has four arms as well. They also have a long, bony tail, and what appears to be spikes on their shoulders. They have scales all over their body, and tendrils growing out of their face. They seem aquatic in nature, as well, yet are somehow fine out of water.
“What are you, then?” Misty asks.
“I’m a Nivid,” Garaks replies.
“Who’s the other one?” Misty continues.
“That’s my son, Narekos. Those robots out there attacked and we fled down in this caves.”
“It’s not a cave; it’s a subway system,” Cartier corrects. “Do you not have trains where you’re from? I know you’re not from this dimension. I’ve never in my life heard of a Nivid.”
“Well, we have conveyors, ziplines, tunnels, halls, elevators, but I don’t know what a train is,” Garaks answers. “Anyway, those robots out there shot my son in the leg a couple of days ago. We were told about this health kiosk, and I tried my best to help alleviate his pain, but he’s still in deep agony. I’ve been able to find bandages and medicine, but I’m afraid that this stuff won’t react well with our species.”
“What’s your type of medicine?” Tori jumps in. “I’m the group’s main medic here. I should be able to help.”
“Plants,” Garaks responded. “We use plants.”
Tori thinks over the response. “So, aloe vera,” she concludes.
“Aloe vera?” Garaks questions.
“Let me see what medication you grabbed,” Tori insisted. She walks over to Garaks, who stares down at her, towering at seven feet tall. He hands her bottles of medication. One is a bottle of liquid aloe. She raises it up to show Garaks. “This is aloe vera. Aloe is a plant. This is all plant based medication in here. I don’t know I aloe is found in your dimension or not, but if you say the you use plants for medicinal properties, this should help out your son.”
“Alright, well… Please help my son. I don’t want him to suffer,” Garaks begs.
Tori approaches Narekos, holding the bottle of aloe vera medicine. She sees that Narekos is about 4’8 feet tall. He’s holding onto his left leg, which is wrapped up in bandages. There’s discoloration around where there must be a wound. “Hey, kiddo. I need to get to your wounds, so I have to unwrap these bandages,” she tells Narekos.
“But that’s going to hurt!” he whines.
“I understand that,” Tori states, “but this isn’t going to just seep through the bandages. You’re going to want to have the medication on the wound.”
Narekos hesitates, before letting Tori go along with her plans. She unwraps the bandages to see that Narekos’ leg has a giant hole right through it. Looking at the gaping holes, she sees a dark green substance seeping out. “Does anyone have some gloves?”
Monica walks over to Tori and takes off her backpack. “I swear, you have something for every occasion in there,” Tori comments.
“At this rate,” Monica jokes, and she sifts through her backpack for surgical gloves. She finds a pile and hands Tori a pair. She slips on the gloves and opens the bottle of aloe vera medicine.
Tori pours the medication on the gloves and rubs the medication onto Narekos’ wound. Narekos whimpers from the open wound being touched. He takes sharp breaths to try to calm down. Much to Tori’s surprise, the wound starts closing up. The aloe vera medication seems to be really effective for Narekos. “What the fuck?” Tori utters under her breath in confusion, watching as the wound closes up. “Alright, kiddo, the other side now,” Tori orders.
Narekos shifts his leg to the other side. Tori pours more aloe vera onto the gloves and rubs the medication into the other open wound. She waits for the wound to close up before she redoes the wrapping of the bandages around Narekos’ leg. She then discards the gloves carefully, in order to not have any blood get on her. “Alright, kid. You should be okay right now. You’ll still likely be in pain, but at least you’re healing now,” Tori states.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Narekos responds.
“No problem, kid.”
Tori stares at the tiled floor, in confusion. “That was just like when Amber would heal people. It was almost instantly working,” she thinks to herself.
Narekos reaches out for assistance, and Tori helps him to his footing. He holds onto Tori as she starts to walk over to Garaks. Garaks holds onto his son. “You’re okay now!” he exclaimed.
“Well, not completely,” Narekos replies. “It still hurts to walk a bit, but at least I’m healed now.”
“I see, I see,” Garaks reacts. “What do we do now?
Cartier kept on peering out of the kiosk, worried that bandits would come to existence and start storming them. It seems that no matter what report of safety, he can’t be satisfied. “We have to go. We can’t stay here for so long,” he demands. Cartier snarls, looking at Tori as he makes his statement. Tori, for how annoyed she's getting from Cartier, wakes a deep breath and sighs.
“Yeah, we should get out of here, now,” Tori agrees. “Let’s go. We should go now, everyone. No time to waste.” She keeps Narekos on his feet and starts walking over the van.
“Wait, don’t move!” Cartier whispers. “I hear something echoing down the tunnels.” He looks over to Ray. “I know what’s coming, man. They’re coming, the bandits.”
“Get behind me, Cartier. Everyone, stay in the kiosk, but stay close. Just stay out of sight.* Ray leans against the entryway of the kiosk. “Here’s my idea. We might not have enough time to get everyone in the band when those approaching people turn the corner. When I jump out, everyone follow me. We’re not going to the vehicle. We’re going to intimidate them. I mean, look at our team here. It’s very eclectic and massive. Uh, but Tori, stay with the kid. And Cartier, Jenny, and Ashley, I would suggest staying in here.”
“Got it,” Tori replies.
“No, I’m going to fight.” Cartier proclaims.
“We’re not going to fight them, Cartier. We’re going to intimidate them.
The group can hear voices getting closer and more intelligible. “It had to have come down this tunnel, guys! Everything was rocking from over here. Did a machine get down here?” a voice says.
“How is that possible?!” another one shouts. “The subway entrances are way too small for them to climb into.”
“I don’t know, man! Maybe they made smaller robots or something to infiltrate the tunnels.”
Another voice starts speaking. “That’s a van. Someone’s down here. In that kiosk. They have to be.”
Ray looks at the group and he gestures a countdown from three. Once at zero, they all jump out of the kiosk, except Tori, Narekos, and Ashley. They shock a trio of three bandits, who all have weapons drawn. So do Ray’s team. Well, Lincoln is his own weapon, to be fair.
“What the hell is that?!” one of the bandits bellow upon seeing Lincoln.
“I’m going to have to get used to this, am I?” Lincoln comments.
“Now, back away, bandit. You are way outnumbered and overpowered in this situati-.”
Ray get interrupted by one of the bandits. “The moth!” They try to shoot Jenny, but Cartier fires a laser at them, purposefully missing, to make them afraid.
“Look at me,” Ray orders. The bandit cautiously looks up at him. “What are your names?”
“Stephen, sir. The other two are Darla and Maddie. My sister and a friend of hers,” the bandits answers.
“Don’t warm up to them, Ray! I know what little crew they’re from! The same one that threw Jenny and I under the bus!” Cartier shouts.
“Cartier, please! Don’t get us killed!” Maddie cries.
“Do you think it was our idea to have you take the fall? We weren’t the leaders! We broke away from them!” Darla exclaimed.
“Your brother tried to shoot Jenny!” Cartier snarled.
“You have to understand our point of view, Cartier! There are killer robots roaming around! We’re all paranoid down here! And being a roboticist right now is not a good thing,” Darla retorts.
“Do we take them with us? They look young. Then, however, that would be eight new members to the team. Will we be able to keep track of that?” Svetlana asks Ray.
“Wait, I have to think about this real quick,” Ray responds before turning his attention towards the trio of bandits. “How old are you three?”
“The oldest is Maddie, she’s seventeen. Darla is sixteen. I’m fifteen,” Stephen replies.
“What is a trio of you kids doing roaming around in subway tunnels acting like bandits?! This is dangerous! And not to mention the situation of this dimension,” Monica comments.
“We just needed supplies, ma’am!” Stephen cries. “We’ve been running low! We were desperate!”
“Alright, stop shouting. Do you want more to come here?” Tristan demands.
“N-No,” Stephen replies.
“Is it okay to come out?” Ashley asks, peering out of the kiosk.
“Ah! A robot!” Maddie screams.
“Do not!” Cartier yells.
“We won’t! We won’t!” Darla reacts.
“We can get you kids out of here. The next place might not be safe, but at least we can help you three to escape this place.”
“Ray!” Cartier protests.
“No,” Ray stops him. “Don’t even.”
Suddenly, Stephen runs up to Ray and hugs him. “Thank you, man! I don’t want to keep wandering these tunnels. I know we have a map, but I still feel like we were lost. And, who knows how long we would be able to last down until those robots up there find a way to infiltrate the tunnels,” Stephen laments.
“No problem, kid,” Ray replies. He then turns to the rest of the group. “Alright, everybody, let’s get in the van. It’s time to get out of here.”
“What about Flotsam?” Riley asks.
Everybody goes quiet. Most of the newcomers don’t know what is going on. “I’ll take care of it,” Tori replies. She hands Narekos over to Garaks and walks to the van. When she enters the van, she picks up Flotsam’s lifeless body and drags it somewhere to the van that only a few people knew about. Both somewhere inside the van, and yet not.
After a few minutes pass, she steps out of the van, wearing a new pair of clean clothes. Cartier, Jenny, Ashley, Garaks, Narekos, Stephen, Maddie, and Darla are confused about this sudden change, but the others in the group already knew what Tori did. “Alright, it’s taken care of. We can go now,” she announces. She makes her way back over to Narekos and helps Garaks carry him to the van. Ray, Monica and Ryan help Lincoln crawl into the van. Everyone then climbs into the van.
Svetlana is already in the driver’s seat. When everyone gets inside, she revs up the van’s engine. “Let’s get out of this shitshow,” she comments, with a little chuckle escaping.
Svetlana drives down to the next tunnel. A portal opens up, surprising the trio of bandits. “That can’t be a vortex, r-right?” Stephen questions.
“Oh, it’s a portal, actually,” Svetlana states.
“That can’t be possible!” Stephen declares.
“Oh, heh, but it is,” Svetlana answers, as she drives the van through the portal, and the crew escape the robot infested dimension.
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.”