MrLux

Welcome to the revisited first chapter. I completely rewrote this chapter but kept the general direction the original was going but changing to changes in lore and plot. If the next chapters have [Pending Rewrite] on the title, be warned that I still haven't changed them as I did with this one, so basically expect the quality of the writing to drop immensely after this chapter.

Anyway, if by any change you would like to see how the original chapter was, it was awful, maybe to see how much it changed or I don't know why, you can see it by clicking Here

By the way, if anyone can tell me from where the reference of a certain phrase in this chapter was taken from, I'll give you an internet cookie

[01 of August of 2020]

After staying awake the entire night playing one of my favorite sci-fi games, I was sleeping so deeply that almost nothing could wake me up, not even my alarm that I had set up at the start of the prior month to remind me that it was the day I would be returning from school break could wake me. I was sleeping like a rock.

"Marcos Leandro Nahala, wake up this very instant or else you can say goodbye to your loved computer" My mom shouted and caused me to jump off the bed as if I was suddenly shocked awake.

The jump made me hit my head on the shelf I have right on top of my bed. I fell back down on my bed groaning in pain as I placed my hand on the spot where I hit my forehead and began rubbing it.

“It’s half past six already, get up and get ready quickly or you’ll lose the bus. I can’t take you to school today, remember?” My mom said before leaving my bedroom and getting ready for a work meeting she has.

With my head still throbbing, I got up from my bed and began walking towards the shower. The only thing that kept me awake in the shower was the pain in my forehead as I didn’t get more than three hours of actual sleep. After the shower I put my uniform and went to the kitchen to drink three cups of coffee for me to wake up and not fall asleep on the bus or in the school, I ate something that my mom had placed on a plate for me, but I was so sleepy I didn’t even knew what I was eating, I just picked it up and ate without thinking.

I grabbed my backpack which I had already made a few days prior and exited my house and power walked to the bus stop, only to see it already leaving. My eyes went wide and I began to run after it.

“Wait! I’m here” I shouted, but to no avail, as the bus was already way too fast for me to catch it by foot. 

“... Shit” I said before sighing. I grabbed my phone in my pocket and looked at the time. “Ok, I still have half an hour, I might just make it if I run…Man, I didn’t want to get all sweaty this early as I’ll need to stay with the dirty uniform until I get home…”

With another sigh, I began running the sidewalks and navigating the streets of São Paulo. Even if the rush hour was usually six in the morning, the traffic was so heavy there were still areas where the traffic just didn’t flow and a lot of the streets were packed with vehicles. Even managing to save a few seconds with each time the traffic was jammed on a crosswalk, it still took me almost an hour to reach the entrance of my school and by that time I was drenched in sweat and my lungs were burning as I gasped for air.

I didn’t simply walk inside the school before catching my breath because the main gates were already closed as I missed the start of the classes and needed to enter through the administration doors, so before coming to a room where I would need to talk with the secretary I was trying to regain my posture.

After five minutes I was well enough to enter. Just as I imagined, I had to talk with the secretary as to why I was late and why I was covered in sweat, but at least they were understanding and after writing my name on the book where they register all who get in late or leave early I was allowed to get to my class.

I walked to the corridors of the school with my legs burning, the pain was finally getting me as the adrenaline rush was settling down. The day didn’t even begin properly and I was already envisioning my comfortable bed where I would lay quietly and cover myself in pillows as if it was a pillow cave as all the pain I was feeling at the moment would simply evaporate from me and disappear into thin air.

Thinking about the end of the day already I made my way to the door of my classroom, where I could already see everyone sitting on the desks through the door window. I arrived at the door and placed my hand on the knob and turned it to open, already going to apologize to my teacher.

“Sorry, I’m la-...” My words were cut short as I suddenly felt something massive in the floor of the classroom, but before I could even think a blinding light hit me dead in the face, causing me to fall over my backs as the light exited my classroom like water leaving a dam.

My vision was white with all the light coming from the room and only after several seconds my vision got well enough for me to be able to see again, there were still dark spots on my vision, but not so big I couldn’t see. I got up and looked over at the door, or better, where once was a door.

My mouth was open like that of a fish as I stared at where once was my classroom. Instead of walls, door, floor and ceiling of what would be a normal room, there was nothing there, literally nothing, it was like a black hole appeared out of nowhere and made the entire room its home. I felt something in my guts as I looked over the sphere of nothingness that was my classroom, the feeling was the same when you’re watching a horror movie and know there’s a scary scene coming right up. The moment my eyes caught cracks starting to form on the surrounding walls, ceiling and floor I tried to bolt out of there, but the floor where my foot was on suddenly collapsed into the nothingness and I fell. My foot that was standing on the part of the floor that collapsed fell into the nothingness as well and the moment it touched the emptiness was like billions of molten needles were piercing my foot.

I screamed in pain and pulled my leg as I looked over and the sight made the blood drain from my face. Everything from my ankle below was simply missing, and the blood that was falling from the wound simply disappeared the moment it touched the cracks. I felt deep inside me that whatever that was, it was dangerous and that I needed to get out of there as fast as I could.

I began dragging myself through the floor as I screamed in pain, but one of the cracks appeared right beneath my arm as I moved it, causing me to dip my arm into it. I witnessed as my arm dissolved into nothing and the pain that was like my skin was set ablaze by lava invaded my mind and all I could see and feel was blinding pain. When the cracks got my leg, it just added to the pain I was already experiencing. I almost blacked out but managed to keep my senses enough to see the floor beneath me cracking and everything went black.

…

….

……..

How long was it that I was able to sense anything besides agonizing pain? My sense of time was thrown out of the window the moment I felt my body dissolving into nothing, was it months, years or mere minutes? I couldn’t tell, the only thing that I could tell was that the only thing on my mind during all the time since then was pain.

I heard a voice in my mind and at that exact moment all the pain I was feeling was gone like it was never there to begin with. Everything was dark, so dark that it threatened to consume all of existence. I felt that the darkness saw me like an abomination that needed to be extinguished.

The voice spoke with a cold mechanical voice, like a computer stating facts. It was both female and male, and at the same time it was neither. My mind couldn’t properly comprehend all the facets the voice was speaking and just mashed them together.

The voice spoke as my mind was starting to recover from the pain, only for me to begin feeling something grabbing me, and unlike when someone just grabs my hand or arm, I felt this thing grabbing something so personal of me that I would say it was grabbing my soul.

My mind after that point was just a blur as I felt an agonizing pain again and at the same time a warm sensation that resembled the one a mother gives when she hugs her children and a cold sensation that embraced me as if it was waiting for me for untold years.

I heard the voice again and this time I felt something probing my very being. It was a weird sensation, so weird and probing me so deep that I wanted to know what it was and what it was doing. I tried to probe it back, I don’t know how exactly I did it as I wasn’t totally awake at the moment.

As I continued probing the thing, I hit another thing. It wasn’t actually a thing, it was more like a sensation that was wrapped all around me like a rope and was pulling me to somewhere. Trying to exame the thing made my mind be pulled out from whatever I was at the time and into another thing, but after my mind came back the only thing I remember from where it went was a sensation, a sensation so strong that made me want to not be whatever that thing was. I didn’t understand the sensation at all, the only thing I knew was that I wanted to be anything but the thing I saw when my mind was pulled away from me.

My mind once again went black.

I regained my senses after an unknown amount of time had passed. It was dark, completely dark, and my body felt weird, like I was in a fetal position, but there was something wrong and I couldn’t properly put together what it was. I noticed that my eyes were closed and tried to open them, but to no avail. I sensed that my eyes were open, but the darkness was still surrounding me like a giant monster. I felt my heart begin to race as my breathing began to increase and my anxiety shot through the roof as my mind went back to that all consuming darkness, even if the darkness that wrapped around me was different from that all consuming darkness, it didn’t matter for my mind.

Even worse is that I felt the air getting thiner and thiner with each breath I gave, only fueling my anxiety more and more. I began to struggle to get out of whatever I was inside, but whatever it was, was all around me and my body wasn’t responding as I remembered.

I was just wiggling back and forth with every muscle I could wiggle, trying to escape my prison but I was getting close to no success. I was about to give up as the air was so thin now that my mind was getting dizzy, but after putting all my remaining forces in my arm I heard a cracking sound and some light shone from underneath my head, around where my arm was, and air filled the place where I was. I took a deep breath of fresh air as it filled the place and it somewhat relieved me of some of the anxiety, but it was still breaking through the roof.

I began pressing my arm that made the cracking sound on the hard surface of the place I was and the cracking sound only grew and with a final push my arm finally escaped the confinement. After I had already broken through a piece of the hard wall, breaking the rest was easy as I just applied force near the broken part and it broke even more. After breaking enough, I pushed my head and tried to extend my legs and arms, which were already out as I was feeling a breeze sweep over them. As the walls were already so cracked, my head popped right through it, making my eyes burn as they went from complete darkness to a blinding light. I instinctively closed my eyes and because of the way my body was, I toppled backwards, causing the place where I was trapped to break and free me completely.

After my eyes grew used to the light, I managed to open them only for me to realize I was seeing colors I’ve never seen before in my life all around me. As I looked around I noticed I was still upside down and in a forest of some sort. I twisted my body to try to get up, but the only thing I managed to do was to fall face first on the grass. In front of me I saw a piece of what appeared to be the thing I was trapped inside.

The piece was covered in so many colors that I didn’t know the names, but they were so dark that calling them black wouldn’t make a difference, the only two colors that were visible were an emerald green color and a deep blue color. I tried extending my arm to grab it, but when I caught sight of my arm I froze on the spot. What I was seeing wasn’t my arm, but that of a reptile, covered in white scales and white claws.

I opened and closed my hand, and seeing the reptile paw do exactly that made my eyes go wide. I began to turn my head slowly and what I saw made me gasp.

Dragon. It was all that passed through my mind as I saw what should be my human body.