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My Monstrous World

On an afternoon of idleness and monotony, upon discovering a family heirloom, a portal to an unknown world opens before Noah. Now encountering horrors out of nightmares, powers beyond his comprehension and a wound that eats away at his sanity, the young man will have to find the way to survive this, or if he can, fight it. (First time writing a novel and English is not my first language, apologies for any mistakes.)

JaysAwake · Urban
Not enough ratings
13 Chs

An Afternoon of Monotony

"Haa..."

Letting out a sigh, a young man was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, a disinterested expression on his face.

'...How troublesome.' Thought the young man.

As for what it was that was afflicting him, it was something that had troubled most young people at least once in their lives.

High school classes had already ended a couple of weeks ago, and now, it was time to start thinking about the next stage of his life. It was time to decide what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, or at least most of it.

Unfortunately, this young man, whose name was Noah, was having a difficult time thinking about his options.

Coming from a lower middle class family where he had only his mother and grandmother, money remained both a concern and a constraint.

He didn't really have an idea of what he wanted to do, mixed in with the fear of what he would do if he chose the wrong career. Coupled with his grades that weren't bad, but not outstanding either, it was hard to think she could get help for his higher education.

'Though of course, there's always the option of going into debt and paying it all off later...'

With a sour expression on his face, sensing that his mood was starting to worsen, Noah shook his head before jumping out of his bed.

Already standing, his silver gaze began to inspect his surroundings, betraying his wearer's desire to find something else to occupy himself with. To his bad luck, no matter how hard he searched, his room was still the same as always, apparently, he had nothing to do.

"...Ah! Come to think of it, now that classes are over and a cycle of my life closed, that means changes, changes everywhere!" With those words, Noah left his room to find a few garbage bags and cardboard boxes.

Apparently, he had found something to occupy himself with to avoid thinking about his future, and while he couldn't do this forever, it would do for the time being.

Before long, Noah's room underwent many changes, with the closets being completely emptied, the bed being moved out of the way and clothes on top, the desk tucked to one side, and many other small things being discarded.

In this way, a couple of hours passed, and both the garbage bags and cardboard boxes were now full.

Plop!

Dropping his butt on the floor, Noah wiped the sweat from his forehead, "That was tiring!"

Unlike before, his expression was now more animated, proving that this little distraction had worked. Besides, it had been somewhat productive, as his room now looked much more spacious and cleaner than before, although this had also caused a small problem.

"Now... it's time to get rid of this." Noah said looking at the filled garbage bags and cardboard boxes on the side of his room's door.

Quickly getting up, the young man took the bags and tossed them into the garbage bin outside the house, as for the boxes, they were going to go somewhere else.

Since they were full of things like books and clothes, plus other things he couldn't just throw away, Noah decided it would be better to keep them.

Clank!

With that sound, the attic stairs opened and Noah climbed up carrying the boxes.

The attic, like many others, was spacious and dusty, making it clear that no one really visited it other than to store the occasional item from time to time.

Because of this, there were already several cardboard boxes similar to the ones Noah had around the entrance, forcing him to look for a freer space where he could leave his boxes.

"Woah, this place is really dusty." Noah couldn't help but comment after setting his boxes down. "Hm, there's a lot of stuff here..."

Taking his gaze to the surroundings, Noah suddenly had an idea.

While his room now looked nice, it was a bit too empty for his liking, something that could easily be fixed after a bit of rummaging through this storehouse of forgotten little treasures.

That way, to improve the aesthetics of his room, and definitely not to further prolong not thinking about his future, Noah decided to take a look at what the attic was hiding.

Box after box, their contents were revealed before Noah's attentive gaze, who took the time to examine them, as if trying to see through their history.

Among old clothes, broken clocks, old or broken tools, as the minutes passed, the young man's curiosity was slowly satiated.

Unfortunately, this did not mean that he was succeeding in his original goal, for while the things he found were interesting, none of them could really be used as decoration.

Closing the last cardboard box he had to go through, Noah stood up, "Too bad, I thought there'd be something else in here.... Well, at least a couple of this tools might come in handy."

With a bit of regret and having left what he thought was useful in a nearby box, the young man then started walking towards the stairs, thinking about what he could make for dinner.

Chink!

"...Hm?"

Just then, however, Noah noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

In the far corner of the attic, the part where the light was dim and the boxes seemed to hide something behind, a certain flash of light caught his attention.

The young man, neither short nor lazy, stopped his steps and changed direction to head towards the flash.

Passing between the boxes, for some reason Noah felt how little by little, the rhythm of his heart, along with his nervousness, was increasing, it was as if his body was trying to tell him something.

But ignoring this, the young man kept moving forward until the object that caught his attention was in front of him.

Of a height equal to his own and with a surface wider than himself, the object in question was mostly covered by an old and dusty sheet.

It was thanks to the latter that the flash was possible, because through a small gap in the sheet, a bit of the object reflected the solitary ray of sunlight that reached this corner of the attic.

Swoosh!

With a simple movemen, Noah grabbed the sheet and lifted it without hesitation, revealing the object, "...Wow."

Beneath the sheets, lay the largest and most majestic mirror Noah had ever seen.

The edges were thick and of a brown metal whose surface seemed to imitate the trunk of a tree, with flecks of gold here and there.

As for the center of it, due to the incredible sharpness of its reflection, Noah first thought it was glass, however, upon closer inspection, it was clear that it was metal.

All this was enough to captivate Noah, but there was another detail that could not be overlooked when looking at this mirror, and this was, that the entire upper left corner of the mirror was not in good condition, with both the edges and even the center being wrinkled and corroded.

However, this detail, instead of ruining the aesthetics of the mirror for Noah, brought a big smile to his face.

"I love it!" The young man exclaimed, thrilled to have found such a beautiful and peculiar adornment for his room.

After saying that, Noah inspected the back of the mirror before nodding his head, satisfied with its condition, because if it badly damaged from behind, rather than an ornament, it would be a danger to him.

He then began to remove any obstacles in the way of what he was about to do... take the mirror with him.

Now with the path clear, Noah positioned himself in front of the mirror before lifting it from the sides, "One and.... TWO!!!"

Noah's expression changed to one of exertion, showing that the mirror was not light at all.

Still, step after step, Noah approached the stairs, focused more than anything on not dropping the mirror for fear that it would suffer any damage.

Finally, after much effort, the young man was already only a step away from the stairs, something that made him cheer up and look at the mirror again as he moved forward.

Although he wouldn't say it out loud, he thought he looked good while lifting something so heavy, "A few more steps and..."

Clanck

Suddenly, however, at the same time he stepped on something that wasn't the attic wooden floor, Noah felt his body suddenly lose his balance.

"!"

At that moment, things seemed to slow down for Noah, who bringing his gaze downward, realized what it was that he had stepped on.

Near a cardboard box, a small hammer with rusty edges was lying on the floor.

'I could have sworn... I'd put it away.' Noah thought before his body began to tumble down the stairs followed by the mirror.

BAM!

A loud sound echoed through the house as a heavy object crashed to the floor of the second floor at the foot of the attic staircase.

However, there was something strange about the scene.

Because of the way Noah fell, the mirror should have ended up right on top of him, which it had not. Instead, the mirror was stuck straight down to the ground, leaving no room for anything to be underneath it.

As for Noah... whether in the vicinity or on the stairs of the attic, he was nowhere to be found.

***

"That... really hurt, argh-"

Sitting down on the floor, Noah began rubbing the sore areas of his body, which in truth was almost his entire body.

"Ah, the mirror!"

Looking around quickly, the young man was relieved to find no mirror nearby, meaning he hadn't fallen. But before he could start looking for it, he noticed something strange.

Whatever direction he looked in, although everything looked the same, there was a certain aspect that had changed in the surroundings.

Whether it was the wall, the floor, the stairs, and even his own clothes, everything seemed to have largely lost its color to give way to a light gray color.

"-This, I can't smell anything either...?"

Just as he had said, it seemed as if any smell had not even diminished like the colors, but had directly disappeared. This evidently worried Noah, who was now no longer concerned with the mirror, but with what was happening with him.

In an instant, several possibilities flashed through his mind, with the most likely and worrisome being that perhaps one of the blows he received to his head when he fell hurt him really bad.

Clang!

Interrupting his train of thought, a clang was heard coming from the first floor, specifically, from where the kitchen was.

Hearing this, Noah was glad, as that familiar clang meant that his mother had arrived and was about to prepare something, since he hadn't done so yet.

Just like that, the young man moved to go downstairs and ask for help about his current condition from the person someone would usually confide in when one was in trouble.

"!"

However, just as he was about to enter the kitchen, Noah stopped dead in his tracks, his gaze settling on whoever was making noise in the kitchen and that, in no way, was his mother.

Standing near the kitchen table was something Noah couldn't describe in any other way than "Monstrous".

Its cracked and loose skin was a sickly gray color from head to toe, it had more than one pair of arms and legs, with each being a different size, creating a bizarre and strange image.

However, the worst thing was not that, but its head.

Having several parts of the skull caved in, the facial features of this being, rather than being features, seemed to be grotesque holes forcibly made in a terrible attempt to resemble a human face.

This sight immediately froze Noah, who instinctively, without even him knowing when, had covered his mouth with his two trembling hands.

The next moment, suppressing his tremors and nervousness with sheer force of will, Noah began to take steps backward, never taking his eyes off the creature in the kitchen.

Creeak!

Unfortunately, because his attention was focused on the creature, he failed to notice that he had stepped on a part of the stairs where the wood was about to give way.

Crack!

With the sound of crunching bones, the creature's head turned abruptly, its empty sockets staring directly in the direction from which the sound had come.

The next moment, the creature lunged at Noah.