The Tomorrow Land

Somewhere in the wilderness, there existed a place that resembled a cellar. Half of the cellar was completely burnt, and the other half was slowly burning. An intense burning smell of raw flesh and wood permitted the surrounding. There were hundreds of dead bodies littered on the floor. Some of them resembled children, and others were adults. Most of the bodies were burnt past recognition leaving a few exceptions. At the center of the cellar was an amalgamation of flesh and bones which appeared to breathe every few minutes.

Suddenly something moved on the floor; in between the littered dead bodies, a body that resembled a boy around age twenty to twenty-one tried to change his sleeping position. Feeling uncomfortable, Aeim woke up but struggled to open his eyes. However, abruptly his head started to hurt crazily, like someone splitting it open, and the unbearable smell in the surrounding almost caused him to vomit.

"Finally, he is awake."

"Ahh! It smells so bad in here."

"It took him so long to wake up."

"If not for us healing him, he would have died even before opening his eyes."

"So useless."

"I want to see outside what it looks like."

"Why we suddenly became like this."

"Aaaaa!" Screaming, Aeim clutched his head in pain; the hundreds of voices arguing in his head suddenly quieted down. Though still in pain and confusion, he tried to force open his eyes to look around, but currently, Aeim's aim was pretty aimless; he found it hard to focus his eyes on anything. Yesterday when he went to bed to sleep, everything was okay, but when he woke up, he suddenly found himself in unbearable pain.

'Ahh! Why does my head hurt so bad...?'

'What is this unbearable smell...?

'Why can't I move my body...?'

'What happened after I went to sleep last night...?' perplexed Aeim questioned.

Unable to move his body, Aeim tried to calm his mind down not to freak out. Unknown to him, he lay quietly on a bed composed of dead bodies. In the meantime, he tried to replay all yesterday's content in his mind.

"Is he calmed down?"

"Let me take over the body now."

"Don't; that's not our job."

"Ahh! Why are we stuck here like prisoners."

The voice, which quieted down for a few seconds, suddenly started to talk again. Aeim jolted awake, his eyes that could not focus before finally focused, and he looked around in horror. What greeted him was the hell. His body lay on top of blood gore of burned and melted dead bodies.

"Aaaaaaa!" "Aaaaaa!" "What the F**K..." Aeim's face instantly turned pale. His breathing quickened, and he screamed in terror. His legs and torso were still numb, but extreme fear in his heart and mind filled his body with adrenaline, and his numb arms gained some control. Aeim freaked out; he moved his arms like boat paddles, trying to drag his body away from this dead horror.

"Ugh! How much he screams."

"Oh my God! Oh my God! What is all this."

"F***! F***! F***!"

"W... W... What the hell is this."

"Aaaa! Mommy! I want to go home."

"Ugh! Did not expect it to be so bad."

"Ewe! So dirty."

"Fun! Fun! So much fun."

"Fascinating!"

"Aaaa! Shut up! Shut Up! Shut Up!" clutching his head Aeim screamed, which once more felt like splitting in pain.

"Why can't I feel my legs?"

"What's happening? Where are these noises coming from?" With all his might, Aeim dragged his body to a somewhat clean space and looked around again to see any alive people. But there were no living beings in the surrounding, only dead bodies. Hundreds of unrecognizable dead bodies vary from children to older adults.

"Am I in hell...?"

"I must be dreaming" Aeim slapped himself hard on the cheeks and closed his eyes before rubbing them vigorously with his hands, thinking he was in a bad dream. But the place or scene did not change when he opened his eyes again. He was not dreaming; everything around him was real.

Aeim gulped; all the hair on his body stood straight. He looked at his bloody hands and the splattered blood on his clothes and felt a chill rising in the air. His eyes wandered around the place and looked to find some door or hole to escape, and then his eyes landed on a fifty feet amalgamation made up of flesh and bones.

Aeim vomited all the acid mixed with leftovers inside his stomach came out. The amalgamation had hundreds of blood-crying human faces, with some of their eyes blinking. Few of them seemed to be trying to open their mounts to say something, and half were gasping for air as they tried to breathe. It had no legs or arms but hundreds of faces sewn onto a mass of flesh. The scene was terrifying, like a monster coming alive out of stories.

"F**k!" was the first word that came out of his mouth after seeing the amalgamation. But the more Aeim stared at it, the more he found expression on faces of flesh hopeless. Most looked confused as they stared at the emptiness in front of them.

"How did I land in this place" Aeim cried.

However, seeing that the amalgamation could not move, he calmed down a bit. After calming down, he looked around to discover some door or path to get out of the place. The longer Aeim looked around, the more the things seemed weird. He could already be said to be extremely strong-hearted as he did not go into a mental shock after looking at all these dead people, or maybe it was because of his will to survive, or maybe it was just adrenaline running through his body.

Trying not to touch any dead bodies or blood on the floor, he dragged his half-numb body to a broken wall where the sunlight was coming.

"Ugh! So slow!"

"Who would do something like that."

"Hey, did you count how many bodies were here"

"More than two hundred"

This time, Aeim's head did not hurt as much as before; however, the voices spooked him further. He wanted to calm his mind, but these voices in his head made him hard to concentrate and focus on his surroundings.

"Did these dead bodies' ghosts attach themselves to me" he muttered and speculated while dragging his body as fast as he could. That was the only possible scenario that came to mind after seeing the alive mass of flesh amalgamation.

"How stupid! he thinks we are ghosts."

"Don't speak for now; otherwise, he may be unable to make it."

Aeim tried to ignore the voices in his head. To survive, his current priority was to get out of this place and look for some living humans or anything alive. Dragging his body, he soon reached the broken wall where sunlight was coming inside. Looking at the big hole in the wall at the front, he felt a little hope that he might survive this ordeal.

It was afternoon, and a yellow Sun hung in the middle of the sky. The air in the surroundings was dry, and the land was burning hot. It was hot to the point that one could easily cook an egg in the open.

Aeim slowly dragged himself out of the broken wall. His eyes struggled to stay open in the blinding sunlight, and he sneezed repeatedly. Wiping away all the water and mucus from his nose on his clothes, he supported his body with his left hand, and his right hand went over his eyes to block the extra light. Aeim looked around; the only thing that greeted him was a hot, dead, and barren land. He felt hopeless again.

'Am I going to die here...?' he thought despairingly.

All the adrenaline in his body seemed to run out; he felt his body become extremely weak. He also felt extremely hungry and thirsty. However, where he could find water in this barren place, except few dead plants rolling on the ground in the hot air, the land appears desolate.

Desperate to survive, with a flickering hope in his heart, Aeim looked again. He gazed as far as he could in the bright sunlight. Nonetheless, his effort gave him some fruit; he saw something. A road quite far from where he was. His eyes shone with bright light.

'Maybe there is still some hope...' Aeim muttered. His head was already working slowly as he did not even question himself if the road he saw was real, or just a mirage, or maybe just his delusion. However, this was his only hope; if he lost it, he might die out by getting roasted in the Sun.

Hungry and thirsty stomach, Aeim dragged his body onto the barren land. Continuous scratching of stones and dry plants on the ground caused wounds and blisters to his legs and hands, which grew bigger as he continued to drag himself, leaving a small trail of blood behind. Even blisters on his hands had popped open, revealing the red flesh. But the pain was not the thing he was experiencing right now. His body was already in shock.

Aeim continued to pull himself until he did not even know where he was going. After dragging himself for an hour, devoid of energy, he collapsed on the ground. It was hard to tell if he had reached the road which he had seen before. Dead or alive, it was unknown.