Zak opened his eyes and found himself in a strange space.
He looked around everywhere: one person here and there who had been dragged inside the portal was also just getting up.
The buildings, cars and everything absorbed was here, just in a miserable state due to the bulging of things being sucked in, probably.
The place now was weird…
The sky was gray with a dark bluish tone, similar to a gradient, and the floor don’t even mention it: it was flooded with water that reflected the dark space and that, for some reason, we could walk on top of.
“Hey, are you okay?!” a boy asked from far away while approaching with two more.
“Shit, this is crazy, right?” one of them mentioned.
“And who were these guys?
He didn’t know them, he’d never seen them in his life.
They were probably paranoid and their way of dealing with that was communicating with other survivors.” “It’s not like he hadn’t done the same.
After all, this was taken from a science fiction movie…
What happened to the world where he lived?
What happened??” Zak growled bitterly.
“Neither do I know what this place is, but whatever that hole was brought us.” “Exactly…
Hey, aren’t you scared?” the boy asked.
“Am I scared?
No, I’m terrified” he mentioned.
“We should go see more survivors” one opined.
The three nodded while they got ready to keep advancing.
But one of them stopped and turned his head, addressing Zak.
“Are you coming?” Zak thought until he received consciousness.
“No, thanks” he answered in a sigh.
“I don’t understand how these kids can be so calm.
Don’t they miss their mother or father?
Or some relative or important person?
No…
My whole life went to shit from the moment I fell.” He stopped to look at the place and then lowered his head again.
This whole weird place…
This wasn’t like he expected.
He was supposed to be on the bus leaving the city by this time.
Zak sighed while hugging himself, clearly fed up with every absurd event that happened to him.
What else was missing?
While Zak kept thinking, out of nowhere a scream was heard in the distance.
Zak raised his head and in that instant his eyes opened wide.
A kind of large crimson creature, with an enormous mouth and sharp teeth, grabbed a person with its two arms and split them in two while eating the torso part.
The creature had marks that looked like white veins running through its whole damn body.
It didn’t give him time to react before more of these nightmare monsters came out en masse from a hole and began to devour people who tried to run miserably.
Zak was paralyzed seeing such a horrible scene, he even wanted to vomit.
But, despite the fear, he gritted his teeth and ran in the opposite direction.
Where was he going to run?
The space where he was weird and wherever you went it seemed like an infinite path.
He kept running while, every so often, he turned his head to make sure those things weren’t following him.
But he tripped…
He didn’t trip over something, but over the horror of seeing how giant scaly crimson hands, dripping blood, came out of the floor and began to pull people down.
“This floor wasn’t safe.
Shit, I must advance toward a structure where I can take shelter,” Zak thought while analyzing his surroundings and managing to see a ruined building in the distance.
Without waiting, he ran toward it while hearing screams and the sound of blood splattering in the background.
It was a slaughterhouse!
He finally reached the building and began to climb it because it was lying down.
When he turned to see the situation, his pulse sped up seeing how those things, like a whole swarm, ran toward him.
They had killed everyone!
Only he was left.
Zak, witnessing that scene, was horrified seeing those beasts running toward him.
He was sweating cold and in shock.
There was no escape.
He turned and kept running through the building while climbing it more and more.
Finally he reached the top, where he could only see a wide emptiness that expanded infinitely in front of him.
He took the microchip out of his pocket in his left hand, while thinking that it must be useful for something.
But before he kept thinking…
While he turned, he didn’t have time to react before one of those creatures had reached him.
“Ahhh!” Zak’s scream rang out while a large jet of blood fell to the floor.
Zak fell to the floor clinging to his great loss of his left arm while writhing in pain.
In front of him there was a creature about three meters, extremely strong and with red eyes like an uncontrollable beast.
His arm had been devoured.
But in that instant the monster began to glow until it swelled and exploded…
A small crack, enough for him to enter, opened in front of his eyes while he was still writhing in pain.
He saw and heard how those things ran at great speed toward him.
He gritted his teeth, got up and jumped toward the crack despite the pain.
Anyway, if he stayed still he would die right there, although he wasn’t sure if he would survive with a missing arm in full hemorrhage.
A bright light blinded him while he felt his body stretch for a moment.
A warm light illuminated his face while it seemed there was no wind…
The light of what seemed to be a sun hit so hard that Zak had trouble seeing.
But he was still there.
The pain of his lost arm was so horrible that Zak was already considering dying or having let himself be swallowed by the creatures; that way his death would have been instant.
Instant?
Zak thought hard.
Those things tore people apart leaving them to agonize and then devour them.
That had nothing instant about it.
Zak, unable to stand it anymore, fainted.
“Latest news.
In the central park of Wiridh a catastrophe occurred that unfortunately ended with many civilians and serious damage to nearby infrastructures, leaving the whole city like a war field” a journalist said from a helicopter focusing on the enormous crater in the middle of the city while a curtain of smoke dissipated.
Wilse, in the middle of the crater, began to mobilize his troops.
“Quick, everyone move!” One civilian here and there had been saved from being sucked in, but gravely injured.
The sound of ambulances making their way while helping the injured.
Wilse, approaching the center where it originated, saw a scene that left him very confused: an enormous hole that the portal had left.
“What the hell…” he whispered.
The sound of the heart rate monitor rang while footsteps were heard.
“Mmmh…” Zak made a weird sound while he didn’t want to wake up, remembering those Sundays where he used to sleep late.
Was it all a dream?
Zak had to confirm it while getting up suddenly.
“Eh!” He opened his eyes completely while looking around.
He was in a kind of infirmary with a few machines connected for someone who lost his arm.
He immediately directed his gaze to his arm and observed the little that was left of his bandaged arm.
Somehow the feeling of not having an arm was horrible…
Losing the opportunity to do things you used to do easily, now reduced to this…
He lay down on the bed while a tear from his eye fell.
He didn’t care where he was now; the important and sad thing was that he lost his damn arm.
The sound of the door opening rang while he watched a girl enter.
“Oh, you’re awake.” “Eh?” Zak got up again while watching the girl with brown hair and classic brown eyes, while wearing nurse attire.
But…
She had two antennas!
He blinked several times while rubbing his eyes, making sure he was seeing the girl with two antennas correctly that apparently worked as ears.
“Hey…
why do you have those two antennas on your head?” he asked.
The girl laughed slightly while answering: “How funny, they’re my ears.
Do you like them?” Zak confirmed his suspicions: they were her ears.
But…
he didn’t understand how he had been saved, why the hell it was like that.
Worse yet, that confidence in her voice was like she was telling the truth and not like those cosplays he sometimes saw around his area.
“You’re weird.
Well, they found you lying in the field of someone very famous in the city and well, they called emergencies and they came to you.
But that’s not the problem…” the girl paused approaching Zak while looking at him.
“One way or another you don’t have ears…
We analyzed you quickly because well, you were unconscious…” The girl looked at him with curiosity.
“My ears?
Puff…” Zak was still stunned by the situation and everything that was happening.
First his building, second an attack or conspiracy, third he entered through a portal, saw many people die and now here with a girl who had antennas as ears.
What the hell was all this??
“Where am I?
And why the hell do they wrap my arm as if my damn arm isn’t something serious!?” Zak asked half desperate.
“Calm down.
Your wound isn’t that serious and you’re in Meros hospital” she answered.
“Not that serious!?” said Zak stunned by the girl’s lack of consideration, but somehow his arm wasn’t bleeding.
What the hell?
Why my arm…
they just closed it well and bandaged it as if it was nothing?
“Yes, not that serious.
And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t raise your voice, it’s annoying” the girl said calmly.
“Otherwise I’d have to put you to sleep again because you’re being a bit…
arrogant and that affects the other patients.” “How can I not be scared if my damn arm doesn’t bleed and worse yet I lost a damn arm!” Zak retorted.
The girl sighed while approaching a panel that had a button next to it.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Following that, she pressed it.
Zak began to blink several times while feeling his body relax and calm down to such a point that it seemed he was falling asleep…
“No…” Zak murmured.
To finally close his eyes…