CHAPTER 1

Your eyelids flutter, light spills in from the outside. You begin to feel. You feel like you're waking up for the first time. That cannot be right though. You've woken up on days just like this tons of times before. Even exactly like this, you're sure of it.

Except...something is different. Your body aches and not in a way that is familiar to you. Your entire body shakes with a new fear that everything is wrong. You slowly sit up in what you now know isn't your bed. You look around to see what isn't your window spilling light into what isn't your room. You know that it isn't yours, but at the same time you don't really remember what your room looks like.

You swing your entire body across the bed. It cries out in pain as it feels like you were run over with a dump truck which then pulled you into its heap of garbage. Surely whatever life you lived was a healthy one? Then again, with your luck you probably hit the gym a little too hard last night and decided to binge on fast food afterwards.

You stand up and lean against the bed to prevent from falling over. You notice you're wearing a one piece white suit that even covers your feet. You're reminded of pajamas that small children would wear to bed. Once you regain your balance you look around. There's a wardrobe at the far end of the room that is closed tight with some weird handle that looks far too ornate to actually be usable. On the other side of the room there's a tiny mirror hanging up on the wall. Other than that the only other thing in the room is the door standing in-between them. It is made of a black colored wood that rises up near the ceiling, stopping just before the intersection of the wall. It is certainly taller than any door you've ever seen.

At least, you assume.

You walk over towards the wardrobe. On closer inspection you see that the handles are actually carved into the shapes of elongated dragons swaying into an arch. There is an ineffable amount of detail placed into the carving as you can see the individual ribbings on the dragons' chests. On the face of the wardrobe there are markings carved.

You have no idea what it means. Damn.

Irritated, you try again to open the wardrobe, it doesn't move. You've now become so determined to open this wardrobe that you pull on it with all of your might, sticking your foot up against it as leverage so that you may unlock its secrets. You don't even care what is inside anymore, not as much as you care that it has denied you carries your energy to open this godforsaken wardrobe-

It does not open.

You let go of the handle, defeated and make your way to the mirror. You nearly faint when you see your reflection. That's actually a lie, you aren't that prone to fainting, thankfully. You are still surprised by what you see, however. It isn't your reflection, but that of a man who is pushing forty. You are bummed, to say the least. You aren't even that good looking. He has short hair kept close to his head.

It's darker in color than you are used to.

Then again, that could also be dirt mixed in because you look like you haven't been clean in a good long time. His eyes are also darker than you're used to, the iris is almost pitch black.

It makes you think you look like some hybrid between a man in his mid-life crisis and a Lovecraftian monster in disguise. You have no memory of your life, yet something screams that this isn't your face. It is a feeling that you know deep down inside. It puts you off when you look directly at it. Your mind begins racing. Just what does this mean? What happened to your body, your room, your life? There are so many questions racing through your head that do not have answers.

You know one thing and that is you aren't going to find any answers by walking back and forth or by going back to sleep. You know that answers for what happened to you must be outside, right? Surely there wasn't anything else you can do by staying in here. Going back to sleep seemed like a reasonable option, but you have a feeling that wouldn't be such a good idea after all.

You step over to the door and grasp the comparatively boring handle, taking it into your hand and turning it to the left. It opens easily and you step outside. You see towering buildings that seem to tear at the sky. Hooks and claws scratching for their makers. They reflect the purpley light of the sky across a blue-tinted street. Bright in the sky is an orange-almost-white ball that must be the sun. It's a lot more vibrant than you have ever remembered. The sudden overexposure of color doesn't stop bothering you.

What normally would be tar and concrete in front of the small shanty that you have come out of seems to be replaced with a sort of glass-looking substance. It's translucent as far as you can see and if you look below you can see almost a million reflections of the glass in on itself. It makes your eyes spin and your head hurt as you try to focus on each individual reflection.

You take a step out and feel the weird friction on the glass road as your covered feet step on it. For a few seconds it is really hot but then immediately after it cools down. You also see there is a light that shines when your feet make contact that highlight your figure like a two-dimensional outline. It follows your feet as you move around, tracking your every step.

On the other side of the street you notice a creature you've never seen before. It looks almost like a giant cricket. If you looked almost Lovecraftian then this thing took the cake. It stands a few feet taller than you, probably around seven or eight feet tall. It has long stalky legs that meet an abdomen that seems to be covered with a sort of wax. It has a pair of wings folded up on its back and its arms end in what look like sharpened claws. Its head is the only thing really unlike a cricket's. It is oblong and segmented, you can almost make out three beady eyes right in the center of its head. You'd be lying if you said it didn't creep you out. You feel a deep fear inside of your core. What kind of mad world did you wake up to? Is that thing responsible? Is it here to kill you?

You know one thing, and that is you aren't going to let it get that chance. Without a second thought you run towards the creature, your feet pounding against the weird glass. It seems to see you as it stops in its path, looking at you with a blank stare. You seem to have caught it off guard as you jump onto it and begin reeling back your fist. The first time you strike the creature's face it hurts your hand a bit. You recoil, but only slightly. It lets out a small sound as it flinches back and latches its arms out towards you. Lucky for you, its arms seem to be too long to grab you with enough strength to pull you off. You aren't going to let this thing take down your confidence. You pound on it once again, this time your knuckle catches its central eye and you can feel a juicy substance pouring onto the back of your fist.

It cries out a sound unlike you've ever heard as it struggles with you on it. You smile wildly as you keep on punching over and over, letting speed take priority over power and letting the rage over the unknown take over you. It is unable to swing you off of its body, it flails viciously yet unfortunately in vain.

You swing your leg down into the back of the creature's leg, you can feel your leg pierce the hide of its leg easily. A purplish liquid, presumably its blood, spills out onto the ground below as it screams in agony. You slide your foot out of its leg which empties it of even more blood as it paints your suit with violet. It finally manages to use the brunt of its strength to shake you off as its shrieks pierce the sky. It kneels down and grasps as its now useless leg.

It looks up to you with a pained expression. You hear the guttural voice call out, "Hath dagon etet?! Sabattat ercoc!"

You don't let the creature's pain dissuade you from your mission. You walk up to the creature and stare it down. You look at this creature that used to be taller with a sense of superiority. You pull back and punch it in the face hard. You can feel something breaking beneath the surface, but you know absolutely nothing as to what this disgusting beast has beneath its skin. You don't care as you punch again. Nothing about anything makes sense, it all could be a bad dream for all you know. You reel back and give it to it so hard it hurts your fist again. You don't care as you do it again and again. Your entire suit has been tainted purple by the creature's blood spraying out in spurts.

You knock it to its back, you grapple it from above and throw punch after punch. The same purplish goo that sprayed out from its leg begins to drip from its face. With each punch you make more progress in completely destroying the facial structure of the creature. It has stopped trying to resist you.

You feel nothing as it stops moving. You don't know where you are, who you are, or why you are here. You don't know what this thing was, and you don't know why you don't feel guilty about ending its life. Just then, the ground around you begins to shake. You can see a red light flashing below you inside the ground. Something inside the glass is flashing really bright, and then it begins to emit a loud ringing sound that pierces your eardrums. You fall to your knees, grasping your head for any sign of relief from the sound. Relief doesn't come. Your head feels like it is about to burst, and you scream out for anything to stop the sound, and that is when you pass out.