Chapter 33
A world appeared immediately.
This world was unlike anything any human had ever seen before.
It had a certain wrongness to it.
It felt and looked otherworldly.
The sky wasn’t blue. Instead, it was a mixture of different colours, almost like the colours of a rainbow but much, much darker.
It didn’t rain water, nor were the clouds white.
It rained acid.
The clouds were dark green in colour, hanging ominously across the strange sky.
Different strange beings could be seen.
Their forms and features were obscured, like a blurred-out memory or an image censored out on a website.
These beings looked short—almost like five-year-olds in height.
Though their faces were blurred out, they radiated a sense of danger.
Mystery, even.
A hand stretched out, reaching to touch one of these short beings.
But before the hand could reach it, cracks appeared.
Fractures spread across reality, making it seem like a higher being had deemed the world irregular... a mistake, even.
And was attempting to erase all its mistakes.
The cracks in reality deepened.
The hand which was reaching out wanted to scream, wanted to speak, but found itself unable to say a word.
Like a Shadow of some sorts.
Then—
Crash!
It sounded like a mirror had shattered into a thousand pieces.
The world vanished, and instead, another image appeared in view.
Strange moth-like creatures hovered in the air like butterflies.
They seemed harmless, as if they couldn’t hurt a fly.
Yet the world and the atmosphere felt all too eerie.
A certain chill and feeling of dread remained in the air, enough to make a person want to run far, far away.
Something was even crawling on the ground.
Unfortunately, the thing couldn’t be seen, but it could be felt.
It was coming from the North.
Crawling down a mountain which was about twenty metres away with such astonishing speed that the hand which was connected to a body felt the body’s heart beating loudly.
A distance of five metres was crossed in a split second.
Run. Run. Run.
Was all the hand belonging to an unknown individual could think.
But how was it supposed to run?
Its legs were pinned to the ground by chains which, at their ends, held thirty-kilogram stones, pinning this individual to the ground.
Even if they wanted to run, they couldn’t.
Trapped.
That was what they were at the moment.
Help. Help. Help.
The individual wanted to scream, but the words weren’t coming out.
They could feel the strange creature drawing closer and closer with each passing second.
They couldn’t see it, but they could feel like the thing was underground as the earth was being torn open, kicking into the air like a bunch of tiles.
Dust was being thrown into the air.
The individual looked around, scanning for anything that could be used to save them.
Unfortunately, nothing was in sight.
No beings, no creatures, no weapons.
Nothing to help them at all.
They were practically stuck with no escape route in sight.
Just awaiting death.
"Asher...."
The chained individual could hear a distant voice calling out to them, but they couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from.
Even though they were in an open space, the voice was bouncing around like they were in a cave.
Choosing to ignore the voice, they turned to look for the strange creature rapidly approaching them with terrifying speed.
But to their greatest surprise, it was nowhere to be found.
They couldn’t feel its presence.
Not in the slightest.
Strangest of all, the earth was peaceful, with nothing disturbing it from underground.
The individual was greatly confused when his name was called again.
"Asher...."
Asher frowned as the voice bounced around, and he couldn’t locate where it was coming from.
"Who-Who-Who knows me? Wh-What do you wa—"
"Asher...."
This time, the voice became firmer, more grounded, like the person was desperate.
Desperately trying to reveal his presence and pull him out.
But pull him out of what?
Was he stuck?
Looking down at his chained legs, well; he was definitely stuck, yeah.
But no.
It didn’t feel like that was the intention of the caller.
It seemed like they were trying to pull him out of something.
But out of what?
Was he in a trance?
Looking around, the world did seem different from what he was used to.
Lifting his head to gaze at the sky, he saw how dark it was.
Yet when he glanced back down, the world was thrown in light.
’Huh?’
Looking up again, it was dark.
Like it was nighttime.
As he was taking his gaze back to the ground, he felt that same strange creature again, and this time—
His eyes widened in pure, undiluted horror at what he could feel.
The strange creature was right beneath his feet.
Then—
Booom—!
It burst out of the ground.
Earlier, the boy could only feel it.
But now, he could see it as clear as day.
Tons of brownish tentacles shot out of the creature’s mouth.
A mouth that looked like that of a starfish rushed towards his body with blazing speed.
"ASHER!"
The call came back much louder than before.
And then, a world of physical pain.
....
"Huuuuuu—!"
Asher gasped so loudly that even the air seemed to shudder as he sat upright, as fast and straight as a bamboo.
His breathing laboured like someone who had run all around the world without stopping.
His body and even bedsheet were drenched in so much sweat that he was even doubting if it was really sweat or something else.
But he couldn’t smell any foul odour, so it meant that it was sweat....
His sweat.
His body tensed up as his mind was yet to process his surroundings properly.
But when he blinked, he realised that his family were standing around him with worried looks on their faces.
They were also drenched in sweat for some reason as they looked at Asher worriedly.
The boy’s head turned towards his window, which was now filtering golden sun rays into the room.
He blinked confusedly.
"It’s-it’s morning already?"
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