The Reaping
John was full when he got home. Though he didn't feel bloated, he was simply full and relaxed. He took a quick warm shower before heading to his room and threw his used clothes at his laundry basket. He found his flash drive. Good thing his presentation was moved to the next class session which would mean by next week. He saw the unanswered messages Phuoc sent to him through the Scream game platform and answered back with a message of non-reply just to annoy his friend. They ended up doing a couple of hours of gaming against other online players before John got tired.
Feeling drowsy he said goodbye to Phuoc then prepared to drift off to sleep under his blanket. Since he lost his memories last night he irked when he felt something pointed, hard and cold underneath the sheets. Thinking it was a prank from his older brother John hurriedly removed his blanket over his bed only to be staring at an icicle looking thing lying on his bed. Disappointed that it seemed to be a tube of ice he grasped it with one of his hands thinking it would be gone. In a matter of seconds as he was about to place the icicle within one of his drawers. The strange thing melted quickly but instead of dripping to the floor it started to be absorbed by John's skin. Freaking out he tried to remove the liquid icicle from his hand only to have big parts of the melted icicle to the skin of his other hand.
"Am I dreaming or what?" John said to himself panicking.
"There should be a way to take this off my hands." as he tried to wipe his palms to the bedsheet, his study table then at the wall.
Feeling that some of the liquid was being removed from his hands he continued wiping his hands to the wall but what he didn't know it was slowly enveloping all of him. Only as the very thin film of a mix of metal and plastic wrapped over his eyes that he learned that what he was doing was simply helping that thin film of melted icicle totally cover him. Then everything seemed to go black.
When John awoke he was back in the middle of the forest where he was last night. Standing yet looking around trying to recall his memories from last night, everything seems to be coming back. But unlike last night it seems the air in this place was giving him strength as if he was breathing through his whole body. It felt so refreshing borderline pleasurable that he found himself levitating a few feet up in the air after a few minutes. He was surprised, then he thought to be stepping in the ground and in no time he was feet were firmly on the earth. It seems that he could float in the air if he wished now.
If this is a dream what should I be doing here he thought. He tried to further calm himself down, closed his eyes and tried to make sense of all the things that happened to him while in this place. For some weird reason he felt an aversion to certain creatures he could sense miles away which was weird since he had his eyes closed. These unknown creatures appeared like red dots in his mind. It seemed that whatever his body was breathing it hated those things that has been moving on the horizon. John opened his eyes but all he could see were trees. He then decided to satisfy his curiosity and find out what these red dots are all about and began to run towards their direction.
After a few minutes of running then stopping to sense where these red dots where, he was slowly getting to them closer. John didn't notice he has been running for hours between breaks until he realized there were now dozens of red dots in his mind when he closes his eyes. A few moments later, he stood at the border of the forest. The landscape suddenly changed, two suns were high in the sky where one seemed as big as the moon. What was before him was land that seemed to suffer drought since it looked once like a forest but everything now was dry. Dead trees were all around on the ground, there was almost a sandy soil instead of grass or moss. A few big leafless trees were still standing proudly once in a while though they were long dead or maybe burnt. Every few minutes, the sound of falling timber came from this direction which must be from the standing dead trees which couldn't bear its own weight any longer.
John once more closed his eyes and tried to sense the direction where the closest red dots were and carefully headed to it. A few minutes later, he found himself standing before a pack of those rabid black wolf-dogs he encountered last night. He blamed himself for not being careful enough since all he saw in his mind was a red dot which he thought was simply one creature. What he saw before him was about nine of this weird black creatures curling next to each other asleep and within a few seconds that John arrived they were roused back to consciousness and together looked at him.
"Hey good boys, I'm just passing by." John tried to pacify them as he remembered how they were rabid enough to chase the silver man across the forest last night but it didn't seem to work.
The wolves slowly stood up, their smokey fur became wavy and their faces seemed to express the angriest of wolves that anyone has seen through a National Geographic channel before tearing their prey. John didn't wait any longer and he run but unlike last night, he wasn't running away. He run towards the pack of wolves and in no time was giving them hell of punches and kicks not even letting them attack him even once or so he thought. John felt that these dog-wolves were more sluggish than last night but he was actually faster now than these creatures. Appearing like the wolves were moving in slow motion, John rained down different punches and kicks non-stop until the last wolf self-detonated itself and left a red crystal. He got nine crystals and has held all these blood crystals in his hands, they melted into his skin and he felt a warm sensation. It wasn't painful, in fact it seemed to restore his stamina. Then with a smile he knew he had to go wolf hunting, he realized it seemed to be his mission that's why he was summoned to this place. Within another hour John has destroyed six packs of those weird wolves in the dead forest and then extracting the energy from their crystals. He began getting used to move his body in ridiculous motion as if he was a gymnast in steroids and yet like a berserker when fighting with his limbs. He has never gotten hit when raiding the packs of wolves. While he was enjoying of exterminating these wolves, John didn't know that the edges of the dead forest was slowly coming to life, a few dead trees started to bud silver green leaves and the ground sprouting grass or moss with a slight silver aura. These unusual growth of foliage happened every time John exterminated one of the wolf packs. He was already into his almost 40th wolf pack when he looked at the horizon behind him and realized the border of the dead forest seemed to get closer despite traveling for miles. Did he take a wrong turn while hunting down the wolves John thought since it didn't make sense for a forest to grow over night.
He was about to head back to the direction of the silver green forest when he sensed that a huge red dot was approaching him in the remaining lands of the dead forest. Just as he was turning his head, he saw an over-sized charcoal-black gorilla (or at least it ran and looked very similar to it) with a head of a wild boar with huge tusks and literally red flaming eyes. It was still in the mountainous horizon a few moments ago when John realized it was roaring its way to him and was only a few hundred meters from him. Full of confidence from exterminating more than a hundred wolves John decided to confront the boar-gorilla face to face. Just as he was was running to meet it and deliver one of his strongest punches that could one-shot a wolf the larger creature suddenly rammed his whole body to John sending him flying far into the air back into the border between the trees with leaves and the dead forest.
John squinted as he found himself hugging the ground. Did he just had been knocked out with a single attack and was literally tumbling in the air before his whole body made a crater on the ground? His shock turned into fear when he felt his whole body weigh like a ton of bricks and he could hardly stand up. As he was standing up panting, he just realized that the forest was quickly recovering as grass slowly sprouting up from the almost sandy ground of the dead forest. As he was starting to appreciate the return of live plants he was disturbed by a roaring shriek and he realized it came from the boar-gorilla who was now again charging at him from a few hundreds of meters away.
In just a span of seconds the boar-gorilla was before him and rammed him again. John again flew deeper into the forest. This happened for quite a number of times now and John realized this must be what that silver guy from the night before really feared. This weird gorilla, with a high-pitched scream and had tusks instead of normal ape teeth only attacked him when the wolves were almost extinct. John's fear turned into wonder since despite him taking critical attacks from that big ape and being hit by its tusk he was simply being tossed around and feeling weak but he never bled. Another dozen times of being tossed in the air again and John thought he didn't really have to be scared, he might feel wobbly after getting thrown around but he still sensed he had enough strength to possibly kill this creature.
Unknown to the boy, being thrown around had John crashing down on the ground in weird angles which was enough to supposed to kill him but after a few seconds his body would slowly contort and stand up as if his broken bones and muscles seemed to be repair themselves without his knowledge. By the time he was conscious his body was as good as new only him feeling a little tired. Yet somehow his strength gets replenished whenever he took deep breaths seemingly absorbing the cold air around him.
It has been dozens of times already that John has been tossed, trampled and tusked around without killing him. His fear that turned to wonder has now transformed to irritation. He had tried doing every martial art move he knew to this ape yet it managed to attack him first before any of his moves hit it.
Feeling angry and stupid for being made a playtoy of an ape that wanted to kill him, John's irritation turned into bloodlust after the nth time he was thrown in the air. Little did he know that he was recovering faster than before and he was leaking a hazy faint aura of silvery smoke and his body was enveloped with a thin reddish film of light. John was now thinking of many ways how he could butcher this animal since he had finally lost his patience. And as the boar-gorilla came stampeding towards him for the hundredth time, John released his frustration and angert with a loud roar. It sounded like an irritated lion that has been challenged by a rival. Then a few milliseconds passed by. When John finished his subconscious roar he glanced forward expecting the gorilla to ram into him but was again caught in surprise.
The giant creature was moving at a slow-pace a few feet before him covered in weird frost, only its eyes still burned red flames as before.
"Guess it's my time now to punish you." As John hit it with his strongest punch straight into it's snout.
This time it was the ape who was flying a few dozens of meters away. Without mercy John chased the gorilla and rained punches and kicks to the creature who finally sounded like it was hurt. Every now and then John would give a full-blown uppercut or a reverse axe kick just to pay back the gorilla from tossing him around. Unlike John, the gorilla didn't seem to have the regeneration that the boy had and was already groaning when it fell on the ground on the thirtieth time.
The incensed John didn't stop from his avalanche of attacks as he seemed to display different types of martial arts attacks at different parts of the ape's body. It felt John was letting his body memorize this now deadly moves while trying to recall his martial arts training from the past. He knew he wasn't a skilled sportsman like Jonah but here in the dream it seemed he could break his limits.
After shouting expletives while beating up the now helpless ape John finally decided to end it. While showering kicks to the ape that hardly could stand, John crazily thought that he could finish it with a body blow from above. Without thinking twice he hoisted himself to the air as far as he could while slamming back down to the earth in a crude attempt to imitate a professional wrester's body slam with his shoulder first hitting the ape's head. With a loud crash, the ape exploded as if it was a bomb clearing dozens of trees which suddenly was a crater.
"I totally forgot about that." John finally trying to get back his senses. "I should have kicked it instead." His head ringing from the loud blast he experienced a few seconds before.
It took him minutes of rolling around with his hands on his ears as he endured the pain from the ear ringing and the damage to his body due to the blast. When he was more or less recovered, he stood up and fumbled heading to the center of the crater.
"Whoa hoho, I knew it!" John finally smiled in satisfaction. Right in the middle of the crater lied a maroon crystal which was five times larger than the largest crystal he got from the boars. He then grabbed the crystal with both his hands and hoisted it up in the air feeling as if he was displaying his championship belt for all the world to see.
"I finally killed it!" John laughingly shouted out into the air. His satisfaction was suddenly disturbed as he realized the crystal started to melt and was now covering him with seemingly thick blood ooze all over his body. It also smelled pungent as if it was real blood and it strangely felt like warm blood too.
"The hell!" shouted the frustrated John. "Even in death, could you have given me a power-up of light instead of stinky blood?"
As the blood trickled down to his feet, his body started to absorb it. The once frustrated John now quieted down as he felt a better sensation than the past times he absorbed the largest crystal before the ape's. John felt that he got stronger, but unlike in novels where there seems to be a system to measure the protagonist's stats he only knew his strength tripled through his instincts.
He then threw a wild punch to the nearest tree that was alive. His fist produced a clap sound as if breaking the sound barrier and what happened next surprised even him as the more than 40-feet pine tree fell to the ground with a loud thud.
After a few moments, sounds of shriek-roaring gorillas seemed to be heard from various parts of the dead forest as if sensing their comrade had died. Irritated, John prepared to head back into the dead forest.
"I'm going to exterminate you all." John said to himself while walking to the dead forest.
Unknowingly, he has been leaking his aura of power and on top of him formed changing figures of smoky silhouettes between a wolf, the silver man, and the gorilla as if displaying he now had their strengths.