The roads started to turn from concrete to a blueish hue of sand.
"I'm almost here..."
The vehicle kept moving quickly, crossing sign after sign. Coming up ahead, I saw a sign reading...
"Caution, you are now about to enter Solvex. Only a few people return after entry."
I ignored it; after all, what's the worst that could happen? I'm only here to find any unusual activities.
After a long five-hour drive from the ADI office to Solvex, I was finally here. What stood in front of me was a huge thick gray gate guarded by approximately 150 soldiers. It was clear that the incident that happened with the 6 poor venturers, struck a signal to the residents of the other cities to highly guard this area. There was definitely no way for me to get in, I had to sneak my way in.
"Hey, kid!" Shit, one of the soldiers was calling me, so I thought. I turned around to see a guy in a camo military suit, with his mask covering his face. His frame looks to be wide and muscular. I couldn't mess around with him. "Shit, what should I say."
"State your presence here in Solvex!" He yelled wanting an answer. I had to think of something quick, or I might be taken as a prisoner.
"Oh hi sir, I wanted to visit here for my investigation I'm doing about the Aether burst" I replied. The soldier talked through the intercom, talking about someone special visiting here. At first, I had no idea what person they could be talking about, but then the soldier said my name "Wayne, is that the name?"
"Alright sir, I'm sorry for being rude, you're allowed to go in," the soldier informed me, with a posture like he was saluting me or something. He guided me to the entrance of the gate, where, I got bombarded with a lot of security checks and face IDs.
Must've been part of the new protection enhancements.
After the longest ten minutes of security checks, I finally get escorted to the final gate, the door gate read...
"The Solvex Wastes"
"Be careful out there, Mr. Wayne," the soldier said to me before I stepped into the vast desert.
"Thank you, I will," I gracefully responded before I entered the Solvex. But I wondered, why did they let me in? Anyway, I walked toward the gate, and each step I took sounded louder. Right before I took my last step to the gate, I overheard two of the soldier's conversations.
"It's rare to see Arthur sending one of his detectives to Solvex, knowing the dangers himself." So it was Dr. Knight who allowed me here huh? But how did he know I was going to end up here? I took one more step to the gate, and it opened, smoke coming out of the opened gate. There it was, the beautiful Solvex Wastes. Some people might call this place a wasteland, as there is little to no building viewable here, and just salvages of a failed experiment here. But the blue crystalline sands and the evening sky make this place wonderful to visit.
I couldn't go too far in, as once you get over five miles in, unstable wormholes and radioactive gas from the abandoned experiment fill the sky. It would be a problem if the incident occurred over those ten miles, then I had to wear a gas mask and be careful of the wormholes.
I kept walking, looking at the majestic scenery, but also trying to look out for some clues on where the bursts could originate from. I kept track of the distance I walked, carefully monitoring how many miles I walked. At this rate, I would've at least walked around two and a half miles by now, and still not a single sight of any bursts. I walked for hours and hours, searching for any evidence that the bursts were created by someone or something. The sky turned dark, almost pitch black. I needed something to drink, my thirst was quelching. Suddenly, the ground started to rumble. "Could this be it, the BURST!" I screamed to myself, thinking it was a burst. I could now finally examine where the bursts were coming from. Right when I started focusing, My eyes flashed, and something was appearing from the sky.
It was a wormhole...
Wormholes are unstable natural disasters that take place only in Solvex, usually when you're farther than 5 miles, and they suck explorer's up and send them to random locations in the desert, usually in the treacherous zone.
But why is a wormhole appearing this close? I was only three miles out from the gate. I quickly ran away from the wormhole, running faster than I ever did. It was too big to outrun, but I still sprinted. I didn't realize this, but I was on top of a huge cliff, and I was running straight to the edge of it. At this point, I had to jump, hoping there was something underneath to protect my fall. I jumped with all my might and quickly looked down. It was just a bunch of sharp-edged rocks.
I closed my eyes and prepared for my death. A few moments passed by, but I didn't feel any impact. I open my eyes back up, finding myself floating midair. I screamed as loud as I could, but it turned out that I was getting sucked by the wormhole. My body stretched into the wormhole, hurting in the process like I was getting spaghettified as you see in the sci-fi movies where people get sucked into a black hole. At the last second, my body quickly warps into the hole, and my mind completely blanks out. Time feels like it's going faster like I'm time traveling.
"I think it stopped," I whispered to myself. I opened my eyes back up, and I saw myself freefalling in the air. This is going to hurt, but there's just sand beneath me. I braced for the impact, and I SURVIVED. I got back up and wiped all of the sand and dirt stuck to my shirt off. Now, I just needed to find where I was in Solvex. I looked around, but I couldn't get a good view.
It was pitch black. I checked my watch, and it showed 9:23. The wormhole sent me three hours in the future. This is bad; if I don't find out where I am in the desert, my life could flash before my eyes. When it turns after 8:00 in the night, that's when the deadliest monsters show up here, even stronger than all of the Neophytes.
I needed to get out of here!
My breath started to get heavier and heavier every time I took a step. I was definitely in the heart of the treacherous zone. I didn't even know which way was back to the base. My heart started to burn, and my eyes started to itch. The radioactive gas was getting the best out of me. I guess this was it, this is where my life ends. I kneeled to the ground and just stayed there in silence, pretending like someone was going to rescue me.
That's when I heard the ground rumble again. Could this be it? The outburst again was happening. I felt the waves of the burst vibrating against my knee. It gave me hope that I was close, but I didn't have the energy in my weak body to keep moving forward.
The rumbling started to get more intense by the second. Was this supposed to happen? The sand started to glow a vibrant neon blue, it looked majestic, but I began to see lines across the sand. It was moving like a snake, like in an S pattern. The sand started bulging, something was coming out of the sand. My heart skipped a beat, the bulge got bigger, it was a monster.
I blinked my eyes once, then twice. There it was, the humungous turquoise blue wings came out of the sand, with its blue metallic body rushing through the air, and its long tail swooping down on me.
The tail hit directly on my chest, flying me backward. With such ferocious strength, the tail ricocheted me of a group off rocks to a dune. I tried moving myself back up, but the impact broke my ribs and parts of my spine. I could barely breathe from the gas, and now the tail hitting me straight in the chest. I was losing too much air; I was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen. I heard legends of this dragon. It was the last of its kind. They used to call it the "Aetherionyx," the dragon fueled by Aether energy, with its core of more than 500,000 pixels. No one was a match for this dragon, not even all the Neophytes combined.
The dragon rushed toward me, using its wings to propel itself at great speeds. I had many bruises around my body and a huge cut around my core, making me lose a lot of blood. The tail of the dragon has sharp needles that could easily cut through bone and at the end of the tail, was a claw with sharp nails, able to puncture almost anything. I saw the dragon rushing at me, and it used its tail to grab me up in the air. It seemed like I was flying with the dragon. The sharp needles poked all around me, stabbing me. It slowly constricted me like a snake, until I was fully immersed in the tail.
For the final blow, the dragon squeezed me using its tail, crushing all the bones in my body. I could hear and feel the cracks of the bones, POP, POP, POP. I screamed to death, hoping someone would hear me, maybe even Arthur. But I thought to myself, why would he even save a useless human? God damn it, I used all the strength I had left to resist the squeeze, screaming with all my might, and at a certain point, the dragon roared and let me go, making me fall into the piles of sand.
I was coughing out blood, not being able to move my body. The dragon wasn't finished yet, rushing face forward with its claw aiming directly at my chest. I close my eyes, and I feel the claws going into my chest. I open my eyes and see the blood rushing out. It was a pool of blood right beside me, mixing with the blue sand. The dragon took out the claws inside me, making me suddenly lose consciousness.
Am I dead?
My eyes suddenly open back up. "Where am I?" My vision was blocked out with blood dripping onto my eyes, I was still alive. I looked down at my body, which was still soaking with blood, but I was breathing normally now. I realized I was wearing a gas mask now, which I didn't have before. I heard distant battle cries and the roar of the dragon. I start crawling toward the noise, and I see a person, fighting the dragon, all by himself.
"No way," I said in shock.
How is he fighting Aetherionyx all by himself? He for sure wasn't one of the Neophytes, as I hadn't recognized him at all. The dragon rushed straight toward him, but with one punch, the guy sent the dragon flying backward, making it unconscious. He ran straight toward me.
"Ahh good, your alive. We need to get out of here quick." He quickly said grabbing me and running away from the dragon.
"What? Who are you? Where are you taking me?" I could barely talk, but still questioned him.
"I don't have time to answer your questions. Just shut up and follow my lead."
He summoned a portal with what looked like to be a disc he threw on the ground. He threw me inside grabbed the disc back and entered with me.
"Is this the kid?" A lady behind me stared down at me for a good few seconds, examining my bruised face.
"Yeah, he looks like he's the one."
Medics lifted me from the ground and put me on a stretcher. They started pulling out tools, and a needle, and inserted it in me.
My vision started to get blurry, and I got put to sleep.
2 Hours Later
I eavesdrop on their conversation...
"The operation is done ma'am, we inserted the special link inside his head and fixed up all his injuries."
"Good, wake him up and bring him to me. I'll be waiting in my office."
They woke me up and escorted me to her office, where the doors opened automatically. She was there, facing a big screen, with cameras all over the city of Aetherion and Nyx. My eyes were still bruised, so my vision was partially gone. The guards let go of my hand, and they handcuffed me with big chains, and left the office.
Her office smelt good, with a floral scent to it. It was also visually appealing, with big blue screens everywhere, and a huge O-shaped table in the middle.
"So you must be Wayne, right kiddo?" She sounded like she was way older than me. What could they possibly want me here for?
"Yes that's right, I'm Wayne."
"Wayne, with no last name. You're 17 years old working in the ADI, and you have a special case, and came to Solvex."
"Who in their goddamn mind, would come to Solvex, travel farther than the five miles, and risk almost dying, just to solve a case that was supposedly given out by no one other than Arthur Knight?"
"Ma'am, I don't know who you are. Where I am? But I can for sure tell you that I kept track of the distance I traveled and I did not travel over five miles. A wormhole suddenly sucked me in and brought me to the treacherous zone." I argued with her, hoping she would get convinced to let me out of there.
She laughed at me and turned around with her rolling chair, looking dead straight at my face, and crossed one of her legs on top of the other.
"You wanna know where you are? You are in the secret base, the secret organization of Project: Era"
"You people up there must have heard of the outbursts of Aether energy right? Well, it was us creating them. We are under Solvex right now, and you're about to experience the invention of quantumanium time travel." She smirked, planning something, something vile I bet.
I hold onto the wall, placing my hand over the spot where I got stabbed.
"So, you want to get out of here huh? Follow me."
I followed her lead, bringing me into the place where the machine was stored. Chatters of scientists filled my ears. They were planning something big. Something that could maybe end the world.
"Here it is, we call it the "Era Nexus""
"Anyone wanna volunteer to be the first test subject?!" She manically laughed, hinting that it was going to be dangerous.
"No? No one wants to try it. Then let's see, I guess I have to pick for myself!"
"How about you newbie!" She slapped my back, pushing me closer to the machine. "Don't worry, this will only take a minute." I saw her psychopathic smile; she wanted me to do it from the start.
"Hey! I don't want to do this shit!" I argued with her, refusing not to go into the machine, but she kept pushing me toward it.
She leaned in closer to me, "I'll tell you what, if you do this one thing for me, I'll allow you to return to your shit city once you get back."
My eyes opened fully. Does she mean that, or is it just a joke to make me go in it? At this point, no matter what I did, I wasn't going back to Aetherion anyway, so I just gave up on resisting.
"Heyyy, look who's finally returning!"
"Once I get back from this machine, you better release me." She stared into my rageful eyes, laughing at me.
"Yea sure we'll see." She grabbed my arm roughly, dragging me toward the machine. She swiped a keycard, opening a hologram, reading...
"New user: Welcome to the Era Nexus, serving as the bridge between time and dimensions, choose where you want to go!" The list of locations was long, but the lady knew exactly which one to choose. She scrolled down the long list of names. The names were just different eras, stretching from realm to realm. She finally stopped scrolling, choosing the button that read "Valara"
I don't know if it was just me, but I swore I heard the name Valara somewhere, maybe in a book or movie. The gate opened for me, presenting me with a rift in the middle, pulsing each second with its green colored aura surrounding it. The smoke inside rushed through my face, making a small breeze with a nice sensation to my face.
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, buzzing in everyone's ears.
"Ma'am, there's an intruder inside the building!!!!" A guy from the back yells to everyone, alerting all the guards. They take out their weapons and start getting in their formations, aiming the weapons straight at the door.
Suddenly, a large shadow swoops down from above. He takes out two of the guards, shocking the remaining guards. Scared, they start randomly shooting their guns, missing all of their bullets at him.
"Really, is that all you got." His deep voice startles me. It was Dr. Arthur. But how did he know I was here?
"Wayne!!! Get over to me!" He yells at me, getting my attention. I forgot that Dr. Arthur used to be a soldier fighting on the frontlines in every important battle we had.
I start running towards him, slowly but steadily. The injuries start getting back to me again. The pulsing sensation of the one stab wound I've gotten prevents me from running fast. I kept going, but then the lady quickly grabbed me from the hips and threw me inside the machine. Before I could react, the door closed on me. The handcuffs on my wrists unlocked, allowing me to stretch my hands.
"Ahhh, thank god, I'm finally free from all that annoyance," I smirked stretching my hands up in the air.
All the sounds coming from outside the room blasted my ears. I got a good stretch before I knocked on the metal door blocking me from all the mess happening from outside. Knowing Arthur, he was probably going to kill everyone there. He's the type of person to cares more about others than himself.
"Preparing to bridge in T-minus, 10 seconds!" A loudspeaker above me alarmed me. Bridge? What does that mean? The room started to shake, throwing me off balance. I heard a female voice from outside...
"Wayne, get ready to be rifted!!!!" She laughed as she was getting beaten to death. Something inside my head started to vibrate, giving me a headache. The pain inside my head caused me to kneel and hold my head.
"Argh, what's happening to my head?!"
A big screen in front of me started showing information about myself, showing my name and age. It said I was being taken to Valara,...
Difficulty: Maximum
Suddenly, the floor opens up, sending me falling through an endless loop, till I finally see a green rift, sucking me towards it.
I reached the rift, opening my eyes and getting a view of a massive world in front of me. The air smelled nice and nostalgic like I was in a medieval world. I turned around, and saw a massive clock, reading the time 10:00 in Roman numerals. I skipped to the future or I went back in time.
I turn around, looking at a majestic view of a forest, with colorful trees and a vibrant landscape.
"⍰�⸮ ﹖ ︖ ⁇ ¿ ‽ ?," I hear a voice coming behind me, speaking in another language.
Where am I?
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"In the face of the unknown, fear is inevitable—but it's the will to move forward that defines who we truly are."