FOR MY LITTLE FAN BASE AND FOR THOSE WHO READ MY BOOK TILL NOW: THANK YOU. AS I SHARE MY PAIN, AND THE PAIN OF THOSE I HOLD DEARLY, IN WORDS—MY NAME IS MICHAEL OZOR. AGAIN, THANK YOU AS YOU READ THROUGH THE HOLLOW VEIL...
As my eyes were greeted by a sky that resembled the cosmos itself—filled with negative, positive, and every kind of energy imaginable—the expanse above was the definition of unique. It twirled in whirlpools of disaster and chaos, as if an artist had reached dizzying heights of ecstasy while painting. It was the wasteland of an artist's twisted dream.
And it wasn't just the sky.
As I stared into the oblivion, six-winged birds roared with the force of lions. It was the beauty of an abomination. The ground I stepped upon was mapped with deep, jagged cracks that bled. The earth itself is in pain. The colossal trees made man-made skyscrapers look entirely inferior as they towered toward the heavens, making the Amazon rainforest look like a light comparison.
As deep as my own hollow veil was, the sight of what humans called a wasteland began to fill the emptiness inside me. For the first time, for reasons unknown, I felt at home. Was it some special power? Is this what the others felt—the ones who never came back? I wondered. Michael wondered. I was truly lost in this chaos, in this terrifying beauty, in the sheer freedom to die or live in a world that felt simultaneously like a part of me and further away than planets millions of kilometers across the void.
"FOR READERS: WELCOME TO THE WASTELANDS."
The land of the unknown. As Michael stared deep into the massive oblivion that resembled an unmappable cosmos, a voice violently knocked me—knocked Michael—out of his thoughts. My ears rang with a familiar, commanding tone.
"Welcome to the Wastelands. Using a special medium, we have been able to enable communications with all of you—able to see you, feel you, and feed you objectives as you explore, Emoxians. For this is your president, principal, whatever you want to call me now. Your first objective is simply to survive the first day. Now that you are out of Emox, your sense of time will be thoroughly messed up. First piece of advice: nothing in the Wastelands likes you. Including yourself."
And with that, Bola's voice faded from Michael's ears.
Michael, having briefly indulged in the unimaginable, terrifying glory of his new surroundings, switched instantly into survival mode. He noticed there was no sun, meaning traditional timekeeping was useless. But Michael had trained to the point where his body acted as a biological clock; having slept at the exact same time every day for a whole year, throwing off that rhythm would make him sluggish. He would exploit that internal metronome to create his own clock. First, he needed a sense of direction amidst the scattered chaos, and then he could focus on food.
Surrounded by towering, grotesque trees, he picked a direction at random and began to walk.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the nightmare.
"AGHHHHHH!"
Iyi screamed as he sprinted for his life, being aggressively hunted down by a two-headed lion the size of an elephant, sprinting with terrifying, unnatural speed. Luckily, Iyi's unique ability allowed him to copy the traits of others. He channeled Lere—his former roommate, whose power granted him bursts of super-speed fueled by physical pain.
Iyi's eyes flashed as he muttered his activation, "As I envy the world in pain, shall I use the gift of others as my gift."
Instantly, the same blue streak of crackling energy that always surrounded Lere enveloped Iyi. He tore across the ground, the earth breaking apart beneath his boots as he launched forward. But the moment he moved, a chilling realization hit him: the beast was already waiting directly in front of him.
He swerved, darting in a different direction, but the colossal creature instantly vanished and reappeared right in his path again. He was moving too fast to stop, too fast to think.
Suddenly, the beast spoke. "Humans from Emox... foolish as usual."
Iyi's face shifted instantly from panic into sheer despair as a massive, heavy paw impaled straight through his chest. The creature didn't even bother to eat him; it simply pulled back and turned away, treating Iyi as nothing more than an insignificant bug crushed beneath its heel.
As darkness crept into the edges of Iyi's vision, a terrifying, distorted presence flickered behind the wounded boy's eyes, a voice snapping into the space left behind:
"YOU DARE WALK AWAY FROM MY HOST BODY?"