Chapter 1 - Survive

"Wake up" "Wake up" "Wake up" "Wake up!!" A female voice cried out. It's pitch black, but the heat is burning his entire body. His eyes slowly open as he sees a girl right in front of him. It was too blurry and bright for him to see who the girl was and he couldn't speak. The sands touch his head and his hands as he hears sounds; the sounds of guns; the sounds of explosions; the sounds of men screaming in the background; the sound of... a warzone. "Wake up" "Wake up" "Wake up!!" Suddenly, a teenage boy wakes up in the middle of the woods wearing an all-black hoodie with black joggers, and some blood on his left sleeve. His hair color is black as the sunset shines through the pine trees. He looks around to see the sunset behind the trees in the forest "What's... happening? Where am I?" He asks himself.

The boy gets up from the ground in pain as he begins walking around the area, finding broken-down trees and blood everywhere.

RISE OF IZUZUNU

VOLUME 1, CHAPTER 1, SURVIVE

MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

He continues walking around the forest quietly walking around and exploring. As he walks to a nearby tree with blood splattered on it, two little boys appear behind the tree scaring him. The two boys are wearing all-black outfits almost the same as him with blood on their sweaters. "Sir, do you know where we're at?" The little boy asked while his entire body was shaking; he was frightened. "No..." He answers while panicking. "I- I-..." His hands are shaking "I can't remember anything. Why can't I remember!?" He asks the two boys. "We- we don't know! We can't remember a thing too!!" The boys replied in fear. "Huh??" the teenage boy says in his head "They can't remember anything? What is this? Where the hell are we???" he begins to ask questions, but suddenly takes control to protect each other "I suggest we should all calm down," he says.

Everyone calms down with the teenager finally asking "What are your names?"

"I'm George and this is my friend Mikey," George says while Mikey is still shaking a bit. Mikey has bright blonde hair and brown eyes as for George, he has black hair and brown eyes, the same as Jun's.

"I'm…" thinks about his name for a moment; trying to recall "Wait… why… why can't I… remember…" the boy realizes while speaking in his head until "I'm Jun" he makes up a name "Also, you guys look a little too young, how old are you guys?" Jun changes the topic; trying to hide his emotions. "I'm ten and my friend here is nine" George answers. "Wait, you guys remember each other from your past?" Jun asks in confusion. "Yeah, why?" George questions. Jun looks at the sky to see that it is almost completely dark "It's almost night... we better find some shelter" he dodges the questions.

The group dash through the forests and to a nearby river they can hear. Jun grabs a rock from the floor "We should be able to make a fire if we bang rocks together"

"Does that work?" George asks. "I don't know, I just made that up"

They're out of the pine forest and are heading towards an oak forest. The group find a place they think they can camp the night at. They put rocks around a circle and grab sticks from the floors to make a fire.

Minutes later, George finds a cave next to a hill "I found a cave!" He shouts at the camp in the distance "I'll go- go find… some materials if there is any" George tried to be brave as he stuttered his sentence.

"Be back soon!" Jun shouted back. George goes down into the cave. It is night. Jun finally finishes making a wooden axe "Watch out Mikey"

Mikey moves while Jun walks past him and swings his axe around to see if it is usable. "What are you doing?" Mikey asked. "I'm checking if we can use this axe to cut this tree down. We might need wood to make a house if no help arrives for us" Jun explained.

"Smart. By the way, we never asked for your age" Mikey realized. Jun swinging his axe on the tree answers "I'm fourteen" He remembers. The axe manages to cut deep through the small skinny tree.

"It worked!" Mikey shouted. Mikey runs over to Jun and helps him with the tree "Alright, you continue giving the tree an ass beating while I make another axe for us" Jun hands Mikey the axe and sits down on the floor "How? How do I know how to do these things? Was it… my past life?"

THE CAVES

"This is scary, this is scary, this is scary!!" George yells in the cave as his voice echoes through the narrow cave. He turns to the left and finds a bit of metal. "Metal!" He shouted out happily "Yes! This is good!"

He then hears a growl in the distance of the cave's paths. George quiets down a bit as his legs shiver. It sounds like a dangerous creature. George walks backward to try to avoid whatever that monster is. He turns around and finds a person with bright white, gray, and black covering his entire body. His hair is almost all gone with dark black veins surrounding his entire body; black blood drips from his mouth with scars and bruises everywhere.

George screams very loudly Jun and Mikey can hear him in the distance from the camp. George screams louder and the creature tries to jump on George with its claws.

"Mikey! We gotta go get George!" Jun shouted. He runs with all the wooden weapons he made. George dashes out of the cave carrying a torch in his hands "Jun!" He shouted as he ran from the creature "Jun, Mikey! Run!"

As George gets a little closer Jun looks at the dark cave to see a bunch of creatures with dark blood dripping down their faces. "What the hell!?" Jun shouted as he stood there panicking. Jun decides to run for it with George, but Mikey is still standing there, panicking. Jun runs to grab Mikey and carries him as they run from the creatures. Jun struggles to carry Mikey "Mikey, You fatass!"

The creatures chase them around the campsite. Jun falls to the ground from the weight of Mikey. George stops running and turns back "You guys alright!?"

The creatures stopped too. Jun, Mikey, and George are surrounded from every direction. The kids breathe heavily as the creatures slowly walk closer. "What are we gonna do?" Mikey asks; his whole body shaking.

"Take this" Jun gives them both a sword made out of rocks; he uses a wooden sword. "When I say one, two, three, we attack them all at once"

"That's impossible! Look around!" George shouted at Jun.

"Just do it!" Jun yelled

"Three"

"Two"

"One!"

They were about to attack until a bolt of lightning struck down onto the creatures. White lightning. The woman jumps onto the ground and slams her fists into the ground, generating a huge shockwave that electrocutes all the creatures.

"What the hell!" Mikey shouted. More creatures with blood dripping down and short monsters appear.

Jun wondered "I don't get it... What the hell is this place? And who the hell is that girl!?? How can she control electricity!!?"

"I don't know," George answered.

Mikey and George stood in horror as they watched some dead bodies come to life. The bodies were moving on their own. They are all confused and scared right now.

The woman continues to blast more electricity toward the deadly creatures as she finally speaks "You got a house!!? Get in the house if you do!"

Jun grabs onto Mikey and George's shirts "Come on! We gotta go!"

They run to take cover in the unfinished house. Jun slams the door shut. George and Mikey breathe heavily.

Jun slightly opens the door to see all the monsters trying to fight the woman with electricity. The woman blasts one more bolt and flies off into the sky. Jun shuts the door "We're safe here for now. Just rest for now"

"But- Who was that??" Mikey becomes confused and scared as they all take a seat on the wooden floor.

"I don't know" Jun whispered "Just rest... we'll think about this tomorrow"

Jun rests his head on the floor and tries to fall asleep. Jun is frightened in the house with no roof. Mikey and George decide to join Jun as they lay their body down on the floor. Jun slows his breathing and goes to sleep. "Thank you, random stranger," Jun says.

THE NEXT DAY

Jun is still asleep. George and Mikey are outside chopping down wood to finish up the house.

"Aren't you scared we might come across those.. creatures again?" Mikey asked George, still frightened from last night.

"I am... Come on, help me with this. We'll talk about this when Jun wakes up" George answered.

Mikey stood there and looked back at the house. George notices "Come on, Mikey. The creatures are gone"

Mikey looks back at the tree. "Mikey, go get me some iron would you?" George asked Mikey to get him Iron from the cave. Mikey answered in a fearful voice "Huh?" he took two steps back.

Mikey thinks about his answer if he wants to go do it or not. "Okay" Mikey uttered

He turns around and heads towards the cave with his legs shaking. "Mikey, You'll need this sword" Mikey takes it from George's hands "Use this" George says to Mikey.

George gets back to work on the house porch. He never learned how to build, but for some reason it seemed easy for him "Hm" George thought.

Mikey's in the cave mining iron with a pickaxe. "Gotta get some iron for George. Getting iron for George" He says to calm himself down.

"Jun gotta do things too. He can't just lay in the house all day-" Mikey was cut off by a sound in the distance. He turns his head towards the sound in the distance with a frightened face. He picks up all the iron and runs out of the cave panicking "Oh hell nah!"

Jun wakes up and gets up from the ground. He opens the door to see George working on the porch. "What are you doing?" Jun asked.

"I'm making a porch," George replied.

"Help!" Mikey screams in the distance and falls to the ground. The creature with blood dripping all over the floor is back. The creature tried to attack them, but stopped. It then screeches and screams as its entire body is steaming. Jun looks at the sun and sees the damage it's doing to the creature. Mikey looks at it with a frightened face as George runs to Mikey. "Mikey! Hey! You alright man?"

George helps Mikey up and they all look at the creature's corpse. "What the hell," George whispers.

Jun realized it now "The sun"

"What?" George asked.

Jun tells them "The sun! That's our weapon against the monsters!"

"What do you mean weapon?" George is confused, but Mikey gets it.

Mikey explained "The sun burned the monster. We could use that as an advantage to only come out during a sunny day"

"Correct," Jun says "So you know what, I think we should explore"

"What do you mean to explore? Have you seen the creatures that live in this world??" George shouted because he was scared.

Jun gives George a good reason "Yes, we've all seen them, but we have to explore and hopefully find a nearby town to ask them for help or.. maybe even the answers about the creatures"

George calmed down and thinks about it "Okay then... let's do it"

"Alright, we need someone to stay here and build the house," Jun said.

"I'll stay," George tells them.

"But we will need another person to find food-"

"Me! I can get you guys some food. I found a lot of cows and sheep while going to the cave" Mikey cuts off Jun.

"You sure you won't be scared?"

"I won't"

Jun smiled and grabbed his sword "Sounds like a plan to me. Let's go!"

They all split up to go do their own jobs for the day. Jun travels past a mountain looking for signs of human life. George is back at the house chopping wood down. Mikey is out on a hunt for food "I'm sorry... cows" He decapitated their heads as the cows fell to the ground. The blood spews out from the neck onto the ground.

As Jun was on the mountain, he saw something in the distance. It's a house! "A village!" Jun shouted out loud running down the hill. At the village "Who's that?" an adult in the village asks his friends. "Everyone be friendly. I think we found a survivor" he says. The village was filled with people with bright hair colors; blue, red, pink, etc. Not a single black-haired person was spotted. Jun breathed heavily as he made it to the village "Guys!" he breathed harder "I need your help!"

"What- with what?" The villagers asked. "I woke up in the middle of the woods and saw these creatures with blood all over their faces and my friend's dead body coming to life-!"

Jun was cut off by the old man in the village "That's enough... It seems that you are new to this world" he says.

Jun asked "What?"

The old man tells a girl to take Jun in "Hey, take the boy to your place and explain everything"

A girl with orange hair and orange eyes walks up to Jun "I'll give you shelter at my place, come on-" she suddenly gasps as her eyes widen "Hey… You're the boy I saved from last night!"

"What!? You're the lightning girl!??" Jun shouts. "Yes!" she shouts back.

Later, Jun was uncomfortable as he sat on the chair in the dining room. "She's cooking food," Jun said to himself "This seems a bit awkward… We barely know each other and only know each other from that night"

She gives him a huge plate filled with delicious-looking food. Jun grabs a piece of chicken and bites it. "It- it's good" Jun stuffed more food into his mouth. "Everyone loves my cooking" She smiled. "Thank you, lightning girl! Thank you!" he shouts. The girl smiles.

A few hours have passed by and Jun is starting to ask questions "So… what are these monsters or... weird-looking creatures here for?"

She stops pouring tea into the cup. She looks at Jun with a serious face. She sat on the couch next to Jun and began explaining "Well, we call them brutes"

Jun was relieved "Finally... answers"

She continued "They are the monsters of this world. We don't know how or when they got here, but they come out at night and are basically the species of this world and have been living here long before us. The flying brute. They fly around in the skies and are called Kepdragons. They creep up on you sometimes and harm you without you even knowing"

"Kepdragons..." Jun spoke.

She adds more "But they're pretty rare in this continent, so don't worry too much about those" She continued "The brute with the messed up face and blood all over its body are called zombies. There are plenty more I can't explain yet because you haven't seen them. The deadliest one has gray and black reptile-like skin with blue eyes, it can run super fast. Plus it's also blind so when you spot one, just be extremely quiet"

The whole time, Jun's face was shocked and frightened.

"I'll explain every brute I know... and then you will spend the night here okay?" She says. "No, I can't spend the night here; my friends need me and they're out there still," Jun says.

"Okay," She says to Jun. After the girl explains the brutes to Jun, she tells him about the last one "This is the last brute we know of... We call it... the Kaimog Dragon. It is very deadly and it lives in a place called The Kaimog Dimension"

"I see" Jun looks down at the teacup. "And the dragon can also-!" "Bong" "Bong" the sound of a bell was ringing loudly outside as it cut off the girl's sentence.

Jun and the girl jump off the couch. They both looked at each other and then ran outside to see everybody running for their lives. She realized "This is what I've told you about! The kalkruts! They raid small towns like ours!" She shouted at Jun and then grabbed him "Boy! Run now! Run to your friends!"

"No," He said to her. "What?" She was confused. "I can't leave you and everyone here to die!" Jun shouted. "Listen to me! You need to leave now! You got that!? This isn't your village, your friends need you the most!" She convinced Jun to leave. Jun stood there afraid and didn't know what to do until he listened.

Jun backs away, about to run until she speaks again "Hey!"

"Huh?" Jun asked. She replied, "What's your name?" Jun answered her question "My name's Jun" He stuck with the same name Kylo gave him. "Vonda Kregne," She says her full name as she runs toward a huge crowd to join the battle. Jun runs through the village. The whole village is on fire as he runs through people dying everywhere. He sees a lot of brutes Vonda was telling him about "Kalrhinos! Mindmasters! Kalkruts! I have to get back to camp!"

Jun runs through the mountains and into the woods. He cannot see anything as he enters a dark roofed forest. He quickly makes a torch, and then finds three zombies standing there. Jun gasps in fear as he swings his legs, hitting the zombie's face. Jun gets up and runs through the woods as more and more zombies chase him.

"So the zombies come out in the daytime, just when it's dark!" Jun shouted. Jun makes it back to camp to find the boys missing but assumes they're in the shack. Jun tries to open the door, but it's locked. He bangs on the door very loudly "Guys! It's me!"

Mikey gets up to open the door and Jun rushes through inside the house.

"What happened!? Why are you panicking!?" George shouted and asked. Jun began to speak "A village was under attacked by the kalkruts"

"Kalkruts?" Mikey asked. Jun explains to them about the brutes and other stuff. Mikey and George are terrified about it. "What?" they said. "So that's what it is?" George says. "Yeah," Jun spoke. As things calm down, Jun gets up from the floor and stares at the ceiling of the shack. "What are you doing, Jun?" George asked. Jun faces down again and looks at the palm of his hands "This world… is too dangerous for people to live in… Too dangerous for anyone to live in" he says in his head as he curls his hand into a fist "Izuzunu"

"What?" Mikey questions "Why are you saying nonsense??"

"Izuzunu... Our new country, our new town" Jun spoke as he looks at the others. "I see," George smiles. "I plan on starting a new town for people to protect one another by working as a team to fight off against the brutes in this town! We will start a military and protect each other from the kalkruts and the brutes of this world!!" Jun shouted. The boys look at Jun with a surprised face while getting up and standing in a circle. Jun faces the boys and says "And I am and will be... the first President of Izuzunu"

TO BE CONTINUED.