When I was still in middle school, my math teacher once told me that I’d end up in the sewers if I kept phoning it in during class.
I mean, I guess he was right.
It was around 5 AM when we landed in Staten Island. The flight over was pretty quiet, with both Luke and Armin holding expressions that I knew all too well. It was the expression that one might make when they weren’t quite sure what was going to happen next.
“This is as much as I can help you,” the pilot said, as he tried to hide the weary expression on his face. We nodded at him as he prepared to take off. He didn’t seem enthusiastic about sticking around to see what would happen next, and I couldn’t blame him for that. Losing a friend In Colt couldn’t have felt too good either.
We only had to wait for about ten minutes to be picked up. Four vehicles (all different makes and models), pulled up, with a taller blonde woman coming out of the lead car. Her face seemed to be frozen in a perpetual grimace as she walked up to Luke.
“What the hell have you done?” she said through gritted teeth, looking just about ready to break Luke’s other arm on the spot. “I thought you knew how to follow simple instructions.”
“Yeah?” Luke responded, holding a similar expression to hers. “And I thought you knew how to recruit people. Your guy Visser was a fucking mole, Valerie.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” She said. “Are you sure?”
“The motherfucker turned on us and then started filming the attack,” Luke continued. “He also killed Colt, so yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure.”
Valerie’s expression suddenly changed as she muttered something under her breath. And then she looked over at me. “He’s the new guy, right?”
I nodded in response.
“And Colt’s the only one dead on our side?” She asked.
“Yeah,” Luke responded.
“Good,” she said. “I guess we broke even. Time to go to Manhattan.”
She turned, heading back towards the vehicle.
I looked over at Luke, who just smirked. “Wouldn’t get on her bad side.”
We drove from Staten Island deep into Manhattan, before finally arriving at an unassuming-looking Chinese restaurant.
“Lemme guess,” I said as we pulled up. “Another secret CIA base?”
“’Don’t sound so surprised.” Luke said as he hopped out.
At that point, I suppose nothing should’ve surprised me at all.
We passed through the main dining area, before descending into the basement to find about thirty armed soldiers/agents getting geared up.
“Is this everybody?” Luke asked.
“Just about,” Valerie responded. “Except for Gustafsson. He’s in the freezer. Had a hell of a time getting him over here.”
“Gustafsson? Is that the secret weapon you guys were talking about?” I asked.
“Last resort,” Armin clarified. “And yes.”
Marcus Gustafsson. He was a 6’7 Swedish-American SOG agent who opted to join the fight against Kane. As with everybody else, he was given a dose of the serum. However, his body’s response to it was a bit different from everybody else’s.
His strength and speed were elevated to ludicrous levels, far surpassing even Colt’s. Couple that with his massive frame, and he was essentially a human wrecking ball.
Those boosts came with a drawback though. In exchange for his physical prowess, his mind degenerated into something comparable to a primal beast. If anybody were to stand in front of him, they were getting bulldozed, regardless of who they were. There was only one feasible way to control him, and that was by putting him into freezing temperatures. When that happened, he was capable of retaining some degree of his old self. Some degree of sanity.
“If we take him out, we’ll only have about thirty minutes until he loses control again,” Valerie continued to explain. “That means we’ll have to work quick.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Luke responded. “We only have to cover the entirety of lower Manhattan’s sewer system.”
“Just get it done,” she said. “You know how important this is. Don’t fuck it up.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to tell me that, alright? Focus on yourself.”
She shot him a glare before walking away.
“Jesus…” Luke muttered, shaking his head, before turning to me. “But she’s right. This is important,” he said. “It’s also very dangerous. You’ve survived so far, but I really couldn’t tell you what’s about to happen next. If you want to back out right now, then that’s fine. Your choice. With all that said, are you still coming with us?”
I already knew that the question was nothing more than a polite gesture. I could tell that I really didn’t have an option at all. I was already in pretty deep, after all.
And if the world really was at stake here, then they needed all the help they could get.
I nodded and shook his hand. In some strange way, it felt like my fate had been sealed from the very start regardless.
We were headed into the sewers.
We split up into ten groups in order to cover more ground. I was with Luke and Armin, of course. The plan was simple in theory. We just had to locate where the robot aliens were being kept and eliminate them all. If we ran into Kane himself, then we needed to radio Valerie, lure him towards a rendezvous point and shoot him with our last bullet. From there, we’d have to neutralize the remaining bots and organize a scrub of any trace of their existence.
And things became a little too overwhelming… we’d have to resort to unleashing Marcus.
I didn’t say it’d be easy. Just straightforward. I could think of about a hundred different ways this could go south quick. Nevertheless, this really was our only shot.
As hard as I tried to mentally prepare myself for our descent into the murky tunnels, I still couldn’t stop myself from gagging as we waded through the calf-deep river of who-knows-what. Luke and Armin weren’t even trying to suppress their amusement at my discomfort.
“Is this funny?” I asked. “Does it smell good to you guys or something?”
“We’ve been through a lot worse,” Armin responded. “This really ain’t much in comparison.”
“You wanna hear some stories to pass the time while we search?” Luke asked.
I didn’t take him up on the offer. I had to focus on not throwing up instead.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, we came across one of the creatures, which caused me to flinch as the light attached to my rifle illuminated it. Thankfully, it was dead. It also seemed to be different from the ones we’d encountered in Russia. More gruesome in appearance. It was about twice the size, so big that it nearly blocked the entire tunnel. It was also covered in what appeared to be… boils. Large, pulsing spheres that were fighting for space across its torso.
Luke walked forward cautiously before quickly turning away, his hand clamped over his nose.
“Jesus…” he muttered. “It smells like death.”
Armin grabbed a knife off of his belt and stepped forward.
“What are you doing?” I asked him
“I just want to know what we’re dealing with here.” He responded.
He chucked the blade at one of the boils, causing it to burst open. I couldn’t stop myself from puking a little bit in my mouth after seeing what came out of it
These… things began crawling out. There had to be dozens of them, all about the size of a large rat. They looked like spiders at first, but as they crawled closer to me, it became evident that they were just smaller versions of the creature.
It looked like something straight out of hell itself.
“Fuck me,” Luke said. “Weren’t these things supposed to be robots?”
He looked around, before stomping on one of the creatures and completely pulverizing it.
“I don’t see any wires here.” he continued.
I looked back at the creature, watching as the boils started to bulge and thrash, as if the monstrosities within were getting ready to hatch at any moment.
“Biotechnology,” Armin said. “Real taboo subject. It makes sense, though. Why build robots from scratch when you can just breed the organic matter and modify them at maturation?”
He seemed to know quite a bit about the topic.
“But still,” he continued. “I suppose this complicates things.”
Since the creature was blocking most of the tunnel and we didn’t want to risk accidentally popping another one out, we took a different route in order searching.
As noon began closing in, we still hadn’t managed to find anything else of note. I could tell that Luke and Armin were getting worried, although they were doing a good job of hiding it. My mind began drifting, conjuring up images of these creatures running amok in Manhattan. How would people react? How the hell would the world respond?
My thoughts suddenly halted when I started feeling something below me.
It was rumbling, coming from beneath our feet. It didn’t take a genius to realize what this meant.
The creatures weren’t being held in the sewer tunnels; they were being held underneath them. And it seemed as if they were already on the move.
We were ten minutes away from noon, so we didn’t exactly have the time to propose an extensive plan. We simply had to act. Armin pulled out something that looked like a large block of C4, before planting it in the water. He detonated it, causing the water to flow into the hole that had been created. I could see another tunnel beneath, as the rumbling continued to increase in intensity. Armin tossed a flashbang and we hopped down. There were no soldiers waiting for us, but what we found there was startling regardless It wasn’t just another sewer tunnel. It was a hallway. One that looked like it could’ve been plucked out of any office building.
We were all in disbelief as we walked forward, staring at the inexplicable sight around us.
We began hearing footsteps coming from the corridor behind us only moments later. It was no mystery what the source was. We’d made a hell of a lot of noise coming down. I raised my rifle just as a group of soldiers turned the corner. I opened fire, but none of them even flinched in response. Of course. They were all on the serum. I glanced down at my watch. Five minutes before noon, and from the sound of it, an entire army of robots were marching beneath us.
“Let’s go!” Armin yelled. I turned around, watching as him and Luke began running. We scrambled through corridor after corridor, trying feverishly to find another way down while evading the soldiers simultaneously. The pressure starting mounting as they began converging on us at seemingly every corner.
As hard as we looked, there didn’t seem to be anywhere for us to go. Not that we had much time to begin with. We soon found ourselves in the middle of an intersecting corridor, being boxed in by soldiers in every direction. They weren’t shooting at us, or even running. Instead, they approached us calmly, almost as if they were robots themselves. I suppose they didn’t need to rush. We were completely trapped.
“Fuck it,” I heard Armin say. I looked over at him, watching as he pulled out another block of C4.
“What the hell are you doing?” Luke asked.
“If it worked once, it’ll work again,” Armin continued. “Brace yourselves.”
He planted the explosive right beneath our feet and detonated it. I could feel a surging pain overwhelming my entire lower body as the floor broke beneath us, causing us to fall deeper into the strange underground complex.
I’m not sure how far we fell. It had to be at least a few dozen feet. Possibly a lot more. My head continued to ring as I tried to regain my bearings, looking around to see that we’d fallen into some sort of lab. And the more I looked… the more bizarre things became.
The place was massive. Almost too big for me to comprehend how it could’ve been built. There were rows upon rows of glass chambers, filled with all matters of grotesque creatures.
I looked over at Luke, who also seemed completely dumbstruck by the sight. Armin was fidgeting with the radio, likely trying to call Valerie.
“I can’t reach her,” he said. “I guess these don’t work this far below ground.”
“Of course they don’t,” Luke grumbled. “We have to find a way out of here.”
Armin shook his head. “No. We have to finish the mission. We need to find and kill Kane.”
“What are you talking about?” Luke responded, clearly floored at the thought of it. “The invasion’s already started.”
“Does that Change anything?” Armin responded. “We still have a job to do.”
“C’mon man,” Luke said. “Let’s find a way out of here. Then we can regroup with the rest and come up with a better plan. There’s nothing we can do here.”
Armin seemed to hesitate for a moment, his expression showing signs of apprehension. But in the end, Luke’s words didn’t deter him. He ran off by himself before either of us could say anything else.
“Fucking hell…” Luke muttered as he grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”
“Aren’t we gonna go after him?” I asked.
“Do we have the time?” he responded. “The guy’s made up his mind and we have our own asses to save.”
As wrong as it felt leaving him behind like that, I decided to follow Luke. I suppose he was right. This mission was over.
Still, the chances of us making it back to the surface didn’t seem so high. Also, what would be waiting for us once we got up there? Noon had already come and passed. I could only imagine the chaos that was already transpiring.
As we ran through the seemingly endless lab, I could hear footsteps chasing us once again. We finally reached what seemed to be the end, only to be met with another adjacent corridor, this one lined with rows of metal doors and panels of glass in between. I glanced into a few of them as we ran, seeing people in heavy medical gear wielding massive tools, staining the walls with the blood of unknown specimens. This whole operation clearly went deeper than Luke or I, or anybody on the outside could’ve imagined.
We ended up running into another group of soldiers, who were storming right towards us from the other end. This time, there was no way of evading them. We were stuck in the middle of the corridor with nowhere else to run and no more C4 left to detonate. Even if there was another level below us, I doubted that I wanted to see what was there. We just had to face them head-on. I ran forward in an attempt to force myself through but was immediately pushed back, the impact leaving me gasping for air. As I scrambled on the ground, I could feel an immense pressure wrapping around my neck, almost as if I were being strangled by a python.
I didn’t stay conscious for much longer after that. When I finally came to, I found myself sitting on the floor, my arms and legs bound by some kind of metal restraint. I tried struggling, but they wouldn’t budge. I looked around, seeing just about everybody else in there with me. Luke, Armin, Valerie, and a larger, extremely beat-up man who I could only assume was Marcus. Even our ‘last resort’ had been captured.
We really never stood a chance, did we?
I made eye contact with Luke. And then Armin. I knew that we were all thinking the same thing. This was nothing short of a complete and utter disaster.
The rest of the room was pretty much empty, which was strange, since it was apparently large enough to hold upwards of fifty people. I had to wonder how much time and effort went into building a place like this. I could see a few soldiers guarding the exits, but no security beyond that.
I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t just killed us.
We must have just sat there in silence for about fifteen minutes before somebody else finally walked in. It was a man of average height and extremely muscular build. Everybody else seemed to recognize him, as they stared with wide eyes and flared nostrils.
As I would soon come to find out, this was Kane. The man behind all of the madness. He gave off a bizarre energy as he walked towards us, with his care-free movements and impossible-to-read expression.
I wasn’t sure if I was just going crazy, but I knew that I recognized him somehow. But I couldn’t quite place where those memories may have stemmed from.
“Why don’t you just kill us, Kane?” Valerie said. “There’s no chance in hell we’re joining you.”
“Because that wouldn’t help anybody,” he said, stopping a few feet away from us. “You never gave me a chance to explain my intentions.”
“That’s something you have to earn,” Armin spoke up, his voice saturated with rage. “And you lost that when you started murdering people.”
Kane glanced over at him, before shaking his head. “They wouldn’t listen. I tried reaching out to them and they refused hear me out. But I’m a patient man. I’m willing to give everybody here another chance. I’ll explain why all of this is necessary.”
He paused for a moment, clearing his throat.
“The first thing you need to know is… I’m not from this time. I’m not from a time where everything was alright. Where anything made any sense. I come from a time of strife. From a place of absolute horror. I’m from the future.”
“Oh, c’mon!” Somebody shouted. “Fuck off, you expect us to believe something like that?”
Kane didn’t flinch at the outburst. He just continued speaking.
“It’s a substantial assertion, I understand that,” he said. “One that requires proof behind it.”
He reached into his pocket, taking out a small, rectangular device that almost looked like a pistol magazine. He pointed the device at the ground, before firing off some sort of projectile. It looked like a metal circle, quickly expanding upwards and forming what almost looked like a large oval-shaped mirror.
“But I have the proof with me,” he said. “I’ll show you the future.”
The glassy substance within the “mirror” began morphing, before we all found ourselves looking at an unfathomable scene. At that point, I had to wonder if I’d been hallucinating the whole thing. Perhaps this was one long, visceral fever dream. From CIA conspiracies to alien robots to some alleged time traveler that I vaguely recognized, none of it could possibly be real.
But if that was the case, then why wasn’t I waking up?
I continued staring at whatever was unfolding in front of me. What was supposedly our “future”. It looked like Earth, but just barely. It wasn’t even apocalyptic in the traditional sense. It almost looked like another world entirely. There was a forest, but the trees seemed to be much larger than they should’ve been. As I looked closer, I realized that the wood was covered in veins and that the leaves had teeth, biting at these bird-like creatures that flew a bit too close. The mountains in the back had thick black smoke billowing out from the peaks, while a gargantuan entity lurked behind them, its colossal tendrils wrapped around the base. Grotesque creatures larger than airplanes populated the neon sky, while the lake below seemed to bubble with the activity of obscured monstrosities.
“It may be hard to accept, but it’s the truth. This is a recording of our future,” Kane said. “I was sent back with one purpose and one purpose only. To prevent this at any cost.”
“We need a united population,” he continued. “The way the world is right now, with its superpowers at odds and countries locked in perpetual conflict won’t cut it. And it’s only going to get worse from here. We won’t be ready for the real invasion. We need a unifying event to save us.”
I could’ve guessed that that’s where he was going with it.
“You can hate what I’ve done. It’s justified. I understand. But just know that all of my efforts have been for the greater good.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Kane spoke with an air of confidence that couldn’t have been denied. His words had conviction behind them, his tone unfaltering the entire way through. The evidence he was presenting was also undeniably significant. Was he right? Were we on track for a future as horrific as the one he was showing us? Could it be helped if we joined him?
As convincing as it all seemed to be, there was one thing that I couldn’t shake. A feeling deep within my psyche that told me all of this was wrong. That the man standing in front of us was absolutely not to be trusted.
Where had I recognized him from? On top of everything else, this was starting to drive me crazy.
Kane began walking around, intently scanning our group, looking for a shift in attitude.
“I know it feels like I’ve betrayed you all, and I’m sorry for it,” he said. “But there are some things that simply need to be done.”
Soon enough, he made his way over to me and stopped. Had he recognized me first?
“A new recruit?” he said, looking down at me. “I suppose I don’t have the same kind of history with you. I’m sure everything your comrades have told you about me came from a noble place. But I’m just trying to save life as we know it for the future generations. What do you think? Are you with me?”
I looked up at him, staring into his eyes directly for the first time. And that’s when I figured it out. I realized where I’d recognized him from.
It was unmistakable. One of his eyes had likely been injured in the past, leaving nothing but a milky white behind. The sight of it had triggered a memory so repressed in the back of my mind that I hadn’t thought about in years.
I nodded my head. “Yeah. I’ll join you.”
Kane got down on a knee, getting eye-level with me.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“This is important,” I responded. “I want to fight for the future.”
He smiled. I could tell that he hadn’t recognized me at all.
“Thank you, my friend,” he said. “Soon enough, you’ll know that your decision was the right one.”
“What the hell are you doing?” I heard Armin shout. “This is a trap! He’s not telling you the truth!”
I ignored him, continuing to look forward instead. Kane went ahead and loosened my restraints, before holding his hand out to me. I accepted and he pulled me up to my feet, patting me on the back.
“Your descendants will thank you.” He said.
I stepped past him, walking towards the strange mirror world.
“Can I ask you a question?” I said.
“Of course,” Kane replied, walking over to me.
“Why can’t you remember me?”
Before his expression could even register the confusion, I grabbed him by the neck and sent us both crashing into the mirror. We fell through, hitting dirt as we did so. As I’d expected, he wasn’t showing us a recording of the future at all. This was something else entirely. As we scrambled on the ground, I saw the device fly out from his pocket, landing on the ground a few feet away. This also ended up closing the portal entirely.
“No!” Kane screamed. “What the hell have you done?”
I leapt up and tried grabbing the device but was pulled back down and slammed by Kane. He really was strong. But I couldn’t let him win.
We continued to fight, although it gradually devolved into a one-sided beatdown. I may have bitten off more than I was able to chew with this guy. He ended up cracking me across the jaw with a vicious elbow, which caused me to black out for just a moment. I fell to the ground, stars now littering my vision.
Kane stood over me, his face twisted into a spiteful grimace.
“Who the fuck are you?” He asked.
I really couldn’t believe that he didn’t remember. What was one of the most disturbing moments in my entire life must’ve been par for the course for him.
My encounter with Kane happened early in my “career”, back when I was a little bit more optimistic about my future. I was in France, where I’d just been paid for a contract and was riding high on my emotions. I just needed a few more paydays and I’d be good. Then I could move on to bigger and better things.
I was walking through Paris at night, enjoying the crisp breeze and a nice expensive cigar. At one point, I turned into a completely empty street, which is where I saw her.
It was a young girl, maybe in her early twenties, walking by herself. Something that wouldn’t have been a cause for concern on its own, but the details made it quite alarming. She seemed to be wearing nothing but a torn hospital gown, and her movements were frenetic, almost as if she wasn’t quite sure where she was going.
She soon spotted me and began running over. I backed up just a bit, unsure of what to expect from something like this. Perhaps she posed no physical threat to me, but any and all risk was better off avoided.
In any case, I eased up as she got closer. She looked to be in extreme distress. She began speaking to me, her words coming out in a rapid and jumbled mess. My French wasn’t great to begin with, so trying to decipher what she was saying proved to be quite the task. However, I could make out a few key phrases:
“Help me please,” and “Save my brother.”
She grabbed my arm and began pulling me, trying to get me to follow her.
I was hesitant at first, but ultimately relented. I knew that this could end horribly for me, but the idea of being the hero gave me hope for some kind of catharsis. Maybe I could wash away all of the morally ambiguous things I’ve done with one act of altruism. I really did think that was how the world worked back then.
Eventually, she led me to what must have been the most decrepit building in the darkest corner of Paris. A place that looked so uninviting, even the most daring of ghost hunters would’ve avoided it.
“The basement,” she said, looking up at me with teary eyes and a petrified expression. She really must have experienced something horrifying in there. “He’s in the basement. Please hurry.”
Against my better judgement, I went in. The place looked like it might’ve been a store at one point, but I couldn’t have been too sure. The smell of mold lingered in the dusty air as I walked, hand gripping my pistol as I searched for a door leading down. It didn’t take me long to find it, and I began traversing down the rickety wooden steps, trying to make sure that I wouldn’t get clocked in the back of the head with an axe once I got down.
I ended up in a hallway, which felt strange, since it didn’t line up with the rest of the building’s aesthetics. This place looked newer and relatively well-maintained, as if it were actually still being used for something. I got to the end of the passage, where a locked door was waiting for me. I went ahead and kicked it down, revealing an even stranger sight beyond.
Another hallway, this time with metal doors and windows on either side. At this point, I began tensing up. It felt as if I was seeing something that I really wasn’t supposed to be. Most of the rooms were empty, evident from the fact their lights were off and I couldn’t see anything inside.
There was only one that wasn’t. Light poured into the hallway from one window near the end.
I remember my arms shaking as I got within a few steps, feeling the pressure in the air getting heavier every time I inched forward. And then I looked inside.
Through the window, I could see a bloody operating table with a young boy strapped to it. His stomach was opened up and it looked like a few of his organs had been removed and replaced with some mechanical counterpart.
And then, the man who was operating on him came into view. His face had been blurred out in my memory for so long, but I was seeing him clearly now. He was standing in front of me, both in my mind and in real life.
He saw me looking at him and gave me a sinister grin. One that was equal parts smug and sadistic. It was as if me stumbling upon his operation wouldn’t be a problem for him in the slightest. I could feel my arms raising instinctively, my mind screaming at me to shoot and kill him. I could tell that I was looking at an extremely dangerous individual.
I fired off three or four bullets through the glass, all of them hitting the man square in the forehead. But instead of dropping to the ground, his grin just grew wider. It almost looked inhuman. As if there wasn’t actually a man there at all. Just a primal force of destruction.
I remember backing up slowly, my limbs completely stiff from the shock. The man opened the door and stepped out, approaching me in a way that was disturbingly nonchalant. I tried getting up and running, but I didn’t make it too far. I blacked out after only a few steps and woke up some indeterminable amount of time later, face first in the grass and dirt.
My head was pounding as I got up, finding myself standing in a park near the hotel I was staying at. My phone and wallet were still in my pocket, so I checked the time to see that it was 9 AM the next day.
For the longest time, I couldn’t tell if what I’d experienced was real or not. Eventually, I settled on the latter. I thought it was better to just delude myself than consider the alternative.
However, I remembered one thing very clearly from that night. I knew exactly where the building was. The one that the girl had led me to.
I almost didn’t want to do it, but I knew that I had to. I needed to go back to that building and see what was really there. So that’s what I did. I ventured all the way back down those streets, feeling my unease mounting every time I got closer. I could almost see that girl running in front of me again.
If all of this was real, then where was she now?
Eventually, I made it back to the spot where the building was, half-expecting it to not be there at all. But that wasn’t the case. It was still there, now sealed off by police tape. The cops who were guarding the place eyed me curiously as I walked past. I almost considered asking them what had happened in there, but decided it was best not to.
Over the years, I gradually managed to purge that memory from my system. I convinced myself that there was absolutely no chance something like that had actually happened, and that it was better off forgotten.
It looks like I’d been wrong the entire time. But it’s also how I knew that Kane wasn’t telling the truth.
“I’ll ask again, who the fuck are you?” He spat at me.
As Kane continued approaching me, I was at a loss for what to do. The device was still on the ground behind him, but getting it was a secondary concern. I needed to prevent him from snapping my neck first. Fighting him directly was obviously out of the question, so I needed a more creative approach.
But what? What was I supposed to do here?
As I tried backing up away from him, I felt a sharp pain hit one of my arms. I looked down, seeing that some kind of insect had burrowed its way up from the dirt, and was now gnawing away at my skin. Not long after, I began feeling something shifting below me. The insect that had bit me – a worm-like creature, began growing longer and longer as it rose up from beneath. After only a few seconds, it’d become taller than an adult male, showing no signs of slowing down either.
And then, the ground itself began rising up. That wasn’t just some insect. It was attached to something much larger, and we were right on its back.
Dozens of worm-like appendages began shooting out of the ground as the creature decided to stand up, understandably pissed off at our presence. It started moving, causing both Kane and I to stumble as it did so. On top of that, the creature’s appendages began lunging at us, gradually chipping away bits of our flesh. I stood up, took my knife out and tried to intercept some of them with my blade before they could bite me further, which proved to be a task more difficult than I could manage.
I could hear a deep growling from below, feeling the vibrations at my feet simultaneously. This thing must have been bigger than the white house. There was enough room on its back to play a few rounds of golf.
I looked over at Kane, who seemed to be handling the appendages easier than I was. I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was probably familiar with the creatures here. One of them wrapped around my ankle, before nearly dragging me off its back entirely. I managed to cut it off just before that could happen. I looked down at what was beneath, seeing much larger appendages lurking below, their mouths wide open and lined with knife-like teeth, presumably waiting to snatch us up as we fell. I scrambled away, a shiver overwhelming my body at the thought of it happening.
However, I also realized something in that moment. In order to beat Kane, I just needed to use my surroundings. Easier said than done, but that was my only chance. I got back up, looked him dead in the eyes and ran right towards him, ignoring the pain from the relentless bites in the process.
He saw me coming and threw me to the side, pushing me closer to the edge of its back as he did so. However, that’s exactly what I’d expected him to do.
Kane was already preparing to charge back at me. I stood, as if I were getting ready to meet his charge with a rush of my own. He moved first, as I waited for a few seconds before moving myself. I could see the rage in his eyes as he got closer to me. He wasn’t thinking rationally anymore. Otherwise, he likely wouldn’t have fallen into the trap that I’d set for him.
If we collided head-on, then there was no doubt that I’d be the one who’d get bodied off, so I wasn’t going to do that. Before we could make contact, I quickly moved to the side, putting my foot out just far enough for him to trip over it. He was moving so fast that he could hardly react in time. I watched as his body flew forward, stumbling downwards and out of view. I didn’t let myself breath until I heard him screaming. It must’ve been the deepest breath that I’d taken in years.
But I wasn’t done yet. I began looking around me, searching for his portal device. I knew that I wasn’t getting out of here without it. I spotted it at the other end of the creature’s back, getting dangerously closer to falling off with each step that it took. I ran over to it, managing to grab it just before that could happen.
I looked over the device and saw an array of buttons and switches, none of which I could possibly comprehend the function of. However, there was one button at the center that was clearly larger and more distinguished from the rest. Before I pressed it, my mind began running down the list of things that might happen. There was no guarantee that this would take me back, that this would even take me anywhere better.
I looked up, taking in the apocalyptic hellscape around me. In some ways, it was quite beautiful. I’d never seen a sky with that kind of color before. It was almost mesmerizing.
Nevertheless, I sure as hell knew that I couldn’t stay.
I pointed the device down, before pressing the button. To my relief, another mirror-like portal began materializing. As I prepared to move through it, the creature suddenly stopped moving. It fell to the ground with a large thud, causing me to land on my ass. All of the appendages stopped bothering me as well.
Was it dead? I thought to myself.
I could hear something coming from behind me. Something that sounded like labored breathing. I turned around, coming face-to-face with one of the most horrific sights I could’ve seen at that moment.
It was Kane, covered in bloody bite marks. There had been a large chunk taken out of one of his arms, while a portion of his skull had been exposed at the top. He began limping towards me, his expression so demented that I couldn’t even meet his eyes with my own without feeling complete despair.
“You thought that would be the end of me?” he said in a raspy growl. “I won’t stop. I’ll never stop.”
I stopped thinking about what might be on the other side, turning my back on him and jumping through the portal. I could feel cold wind biting at my battered skin as I did so. I found myself standing in freezing drizzle along a rocky beach shore.
I quickly pressed the button again, closing the portal behind me just as Kane was getting to ready to make it through as well.
It was finally over. Despite the excruciating pain that I was in, my lips curled into a grin and I began screaming into the wind. This was my moment of catharsis.
I looked at my surroundings, seeing no signs of any creatures around. It did seem like I was on Earth again. I began walking, trying to find my way back to some sort of civilization. However, my body had pretty much reached its limits. I passed out before I could make it anywhere.
Thankfully… somebody found me before I could freeze to death. I woke up in a small wooden cabin, basking in the warmth of a space heater placed right next to the bed. My wounds had all been bandaged up, and there was a nice, savory scent lingering in the air, which caused my mouth to water incessantly. I wasn’t quite sure how long it’d been since my last meal.
I sat up and looked around, spotting a woman, probably in her early thirties, cooking over a stove just a few feet way from me. She saw me looking over and smiled.
“Oh good,” she said. “You have woken. Are you hungry?”
She had an extremely strong accent, which I recognized as Icelandic. I guess that’s where I’d ended up. Even though I tried controlling myself, my manners were pretty much non-existent at that point. I slurped up five bowls of that stew without a care in the world.
The woman didn’t seem to mind, though. She didn’t ask many questions either. I could appreciate that.
“Oh,” she said as I put the bowl up to my mouth and scraped the last pieces of fish into my mouth. “This is yours, isn’t it? I found it lying a few feet away from you.”
She was holding the portal device. I’d nearly forgotten about it. I thanked her and put it into the drawer beside the bed.
It’s been a few days since she found me. Even though she said that I could stay here for as long as I’d like, I don’t plan on bothering her like that. Using her laptop, I’ve done some research, and I’ve concluded that this is not the same Earth that I left behind. It’s similar, but not identical. A few key details have all but confirmed that.
Back in my world, Kane has already started the invasion. And even though he’s dead, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t running that whole operation alone.
Hell, I can’t even be sure that he is dead.
I’m not gonna take the easy way out and stay here for the rest of my life. After all, I still have a mission to accomplish.
That might take some time, though.
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Credits
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