Red

The continuation of Dantes as we left on Chapter 10:

We opened the rather large guild double-doors, and went in without particularly worrying about anything. There were a bunch of people sitting across the tables—none of them took a single peek at us, they just sat there without moving whatsoever.

As we were around the middle, Xter opened his mouth, "Dantes, I think we should go back and find Arial." Naturally, I looked at him confused, "huh?" I could see sweat dripping from his face—Xter was picking something up that I couldn't possibly have. "S— sure, let's leave then," I voiced with fear manifesting stutters.

We turned around and began stepping towards the entrance door, quickly speeding up to almost a running pace. While I couldn't feel what Xter was picking up, the terror on his face poisoned my blood enough to cause symptoms.

Just as the double-doors closed, a loud gushing sound came from behind the doors—Xter instantly began visibly shivering, then he put his right hand on my shoulder and stated in a tone that prescribed a massive void to my stomach, "l— let's hurry and find them." 

No sounds were coming from the building—dead, eerie silence unlike the time we entered was floating around in the air. I respected the motion that Xter wouldn't know anything and thus didn't ask a thing; I could assume that someone had exploded without words having any need to be voiced, as the memory of Arial cutting people helped mold this theory.

In silence, Xter began running, "let's go"; I followed him blindly. Soon after just a few steps, we noticed that everyone was frozen—not a single person was moving—time had allegedly stopped moving for everyone but us.

"What the hell is this?!" I let out while perplexed.

"All I know is that we're not safe right now—unfamiliar repulsing MANA started gathering back in that place, intuitively I knew we had to get out of there." Hearing Xter say that made my face drown with a troubled and mildly terrified expression—I didn't feel any of that MANA, which is the strangest part to me—was it reactive to their Systems by any chance?

"L— look!" I suddenly made a silent scream. Xter started looking towards where I pointed, which led to his expression dying even more: blood splatter was over everything—food stands; ground; walls; and even the people. Both of us instantly had our confirmations on what had happened in the guild building—someone exploded into nothing but pure blood.

Xter proceeded to take a deep breath, and then say, "let's run." I affirmed him and we started running towards the place we had to meet up at; in the process of running, however, people began moving yet again—unbothered by everything and anything.

We got to the place just to see a ghost… "Huh?!" Xter let out of all people—usually, I was the one stupefied, but just not this once. Then I quietly asked, fearfully, "A— Arial?" A man whose eyes sparked upon a bath in nothing but blood—a man in the color of blood with only his eyes not being red.

"That would be me—I am Arial, hello there." Xter jumped in to ask in midst of a frenzy, "what the fuck happened?! D— did you also…" Arial then started grinning, "hearing you say that, I'm inferring you also had someone go KBOOOOOM next to you?"

He felt psychopathic—what is this unserious way of describing someone exploding?

Xter was visibly off-put by Arial as well, "y— yeah… uhmm…" for a moment, he took his eyes off Arial—was it anxiety, I wonder—then ensued looking at him, "did you guys also feel that MANA?"

Arial then glanced at Ella and stated, "she only picked it up on an intuitive level, but I felt it loud and clear! I still have no idea what's going on, but that's why I'm going to fin—"

Right as Arial was in the middle of speaking, he got cut off because all of us started glowing in unfamiliar red…

"DA— QUICK, TOUCH X—" Arial screamed at the top of his lungs with intense panic surrounding every corner of his voice.

I couldn't process it in time so I just stood glaring at him, but then I felt a hand from behind hitting me hard enough to have me trip over. "Ah!" I let out.

Fell over on the ground. I, then, obviously, tried standing up, but for some reason I couldn't touch the ground, "h— huh?"

Kept trying to touch the ground but I just couldn't find it—I was face first on the ground having sand touch my mouth all over.

Then… suddenly… from behind me…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

Xter's voice filled with agony. I, instinctually, "huh?"

"MY LEG!! MY FUCKING LEG!!" Hearing that felt like bleach was getting poured straight to my throat—what is he saying?

I rolled over.

Xter was holding his leg by the thigh, with the rest of his leg being completely gone—bleeding profusely and screaming in severe pain.

Didn't process what happened just yet, so I glanced at my arms…

"Oh…"

"...my right arm is gone, no wonder I couldn't find the ground," I calmly stated.

I don't know if it's because of adrenaline or because I lack a System, but I couldn't feel any pain in spite of my arm being gone—blood was crying from it restlessly, but that regardless didn't touch upon my mind.

"D— da— AAAAAAAAAAH!! FUCKKK!!"

Ignored Xter and then started looking around—it was a different area—Arial and Ella were nowhere to be seen. "Teleportation magic?" I quietly whispered to myself.

I proceeded to stand up and take off my shirt—it was bloodied up, but I didn't care. I put it on Xter's leg to stop the bleeding, but it got completely soaked in no time—my shirt didn't do a good enough job, which led to the only conclusion of urgently finding Arial. "T— thank you," exclaimed Xter, regardless of the shirt not doing what it was intended to do.

Then abruptly, from behind, I felt a hand on my shoulder—I peeped behind me and it was a man with an open mouth moving its head to bite me.

My stomach dropped—it bit my neck. "Ah! Shit!" I dropped on the ground with the man.

Struggling to get him off me, suddenly his head dropped on me—Xter had materialized his scythe and just barely, with the little energy he had left in him, cut off his head.

I started heavily breathing while also rolling in pain—my neck started acutely hurting, the pain was unlike anything I've felt before—a stinging pain that came in waves. For some reason, I just couldn't feel any pain from the loss of my right arm; does that have anything to do with the fact that it was teleportation? Is it also related to the Systems?

The things going on are too confusing… everything is quickly going south without any signs of stopping.