Chapter 2: Do I Live In This Place
Crack!
A loud shattering sound was heard in the ears of every creature on the face of the earth. If anyone had been in a time before this destruction, they would have thought it was the sound of ordinary glass breaking, but unfortunately, that wasn't the case at this moment.
Every creature still alive on this earth raised their head to see something unbelievable. The sky held terrifying cracks.
No one understood what was happening. Was this reality? Or was it just an illusion? But if it was an illusion, why was it appearing before everyone's eyes? And why did it look so realistic?
The animals began roaring and wailing in every corner of the world, as if they knew what was going to happen, as if they were warning humans of something. People panicked, especially after this strange reaction from the animals.
You must know me by now. I am one of the fortunate inhabitants who managed to survive this catastrophe, and I am the one who considered myself both lucky and unlucky at the same time. My misfortune lies in losing all members of my family during the nuclear bombardment.
You must be wondering how they died while I'm still alive. Actually, this is the luck I'm going to talk about. As usual, I was studying in my room when a friend of mine called and told me he wanted me to go with him to explore the old underground catacombs. You might be surprised why he invited me to do such a thing at that time, but this was actually normal for us. We always explored these tunnels, but we never ventured too deep for fear of getting lost inside.
These catacombs had existed since World War I, built for hiding from enemy eyes. After the war period ended, they were abandoned and no one cared about them anymore, except me and this friend.
This time, my friend challenged me to go in alone and go deeper than we had last time, and he said he would set a timer to calculate the time it would take me to go in and come back.
I agreed to the idea, and he pressed the button and started counting:
1, 2, 3... 3697.
It took me more than an hour to manage to go in and out, which could be considered a record for a first attempt. I thought I would request another try after finishing, as the pitch darkness inside made me stumble with directions. But who would have thought I wouldn't be able to try again? In fact, I wouldn't even be able to see anyone in the city I lived in.
When I emerged from the dark tunnel, I saw a horrifying scene.
Splotches of blood, shattered buildings, the ground literally destroyed. I don't even know how I didn't feel anything while all this was happening while I was underground. It seems I went so deep that no kind of tremors from the nuclear bomb explosions could reach.
In my shock, I could only think of my family: my mother, my father, and my sister. I quickly headed towards my house; I even forgot about my friend. All along my way, I didn't spot any sign of life; there was only dust and some blood staining the ground. Not a large amount, just droplets distributed everywhere.
I was running, looking left and right, praying that no harm had befallen my family and my home. It seemed illogical, but I didn't want logic at that moment; I just wanted them to be okay.
I made my way to the city center; my house was there. When I arrived, I found everything shattered. The neighborhood I lived in had been completely leveled, except for one place, and you must know who I mean: "my house." Yes, my house. But what seemed strange was that my house had disappeared. Not in the sense that it was shattered or vaporized by the bombs, but literally disappeared, as if it had never existed. The place where my house used to be was just empty land.
Let's assume the house was uprooted from its place and moved elsewhere. Then, why was the ground still flat, bearing no signs of uprooting?
This made me doubt. Do I really live in this place? Is everything I've been through just an illusion? Do I even have a family? Was that friend real or just a figment? Am I insane?
And in my state of despair and confusion, I heard a familiar sound:
Cracking!
A sound I was used to hearing when glass or kitchenware shattered, but this time it wasn't that. I looked left and right, and I didn't spot anything. I raised my head and looked at the sky, and I saw a terrifying scene.
The sky had cracked. I didn't believe it at first, but what made me believe it was that a bird passed through the crack and never returned.
I didn't feel reassured by this situation and tried to retreat, but to where? This scene was in the sky, and I was on the ground. No matter how much I ran or hid, it wouldn't help. So, I gathered my courage and stayed watching this horrifying spectacle.
---
Crack!
Boom!
A sharp explosion occurred inside the crack, and a terrifying scene unfolded. A giant eye, as large as the sky and the earth, opened from the other side and began looking left and right as if observing the state of the whole world. Signs of anger appeared on the eye, with many red and terrifying veins bulging out.
Then, a hoarse and extremely terrifying voice was heard, reaching the ears of every living being on earth:
"Useless ones."
These two words came out, and the terrifying eye closed and departed.
But after that, something even more horrifying happened. The sky began shattering more and more, in the form of various holes: some small, some large, some medium, and so on.
People couldn't identify these strange holes, but what they agreed upon was that they resembled wormholes, or what are known as space-time gates, as they might transport whoever enters them to completely different times and places.
---
I hadn't expected something fantastical like this to happen. Modern science had confirmed the impossibility of living beings existing outside planet Earth, but what is this that I just saw?
Yes! I saw an eye, an eye ridiculously huge. I felt as if the earth were a speck of dust in front of it, but... there is no 'but.' I was calling myself insane just moments ago, and what refuted that idea was this eye and what happened afterward.
"Useless ones!"
The eye spoke, or rather, the owner of the eye spoke, in a harsh and frightening voice and words.
I felt immense pressure that almost crushed me at that moment. The sound of this thing alone was terrifying to the extreme. I froze in my place, and I also felt some astonishment as if I were asleep for a moment. When I regained my awareness, I found the eye had left. But what happened next was the worst.
Strange holes opened in the sky and the earth. They were holes radiating with shifting colors, some dark and gloomy, others light and almost invisible.
I felt as if I had seen such holes before, but that was in fantasy stories. Fantasy can't become reality, right? Or so I thought. But then I remembered the cracking sky, that terrifying eye, and now this. So, there is nothing preventing these holes from being portals connected to other planets and civilizations, which might cross over and invade an earth in a pitiful state.