CHAPTER 45: Reappearance Of The Bleeding Door

At first all Alex could see was the same thing that he had before; blurry eyes that showed twisting and turning black and white spots which flew everywhere in his field of vision.

But after a few seconds all those spots began clearing.

'Good,' Alex thought in satisfaction even as he felt slightly dizzy.

Alex then considered his body's current state while he was waiting for his eyes to brighten.

'My ribs still feel weak, same as my arm.' Alex slightly raised his healed arm while deep in his thoughts. 'I can't fight or overstress them until I get back to Freestone and get a professional to fix them, or else they might snap again.'

Alex then tried to raise his other arm.

However, just like he had expected, he couldn't feel anything from it let alone move it.

'Still nothing huh,' Alex sighed as his eyebrow twitched. 'Well whatever, when my eyes recalibrate themselves I'll see what's wrong with it.'

Alex then proceeded to occupy his thoughts with plans of how to escape while waiting.

At last, after several minutes everything had finally fully cleared.

'Finally.' Alex thought impatiently as the last dots faded away.

'Hmm, what's that?' The first thing Alex found himself looking at was a huge long white rod.

Alex almost instantly recognized the white thing. He had seen it before.

'Beastie's bone.' Alex thought soberly.

Due to the fact that he hadn't been able to move his body before, it had not been possible for Alex to see any part of the beast's body except its skull.

However, Alex could see its whole frame now, and to be honest, it was a grim sight.

In a way that was similar to its skull, almost all the skin and muscle had decomposed, leaving the monstrosity's once terror-inducing form as a five-meter-tall skeletal frame of grisly proportions.

As mentioned earlier, the scene right in front of Alex's sunken eyes was another wake up call to him and showed him a picture of what his future would most certainly look like if he doesn't toughen up and become impossibly strong.

'As I am right now,' Alex thought grimly, 'that will be me soon enough. I'm well aware of how hard it is to reach the First Tier and how the odds are stacked against me...it's not like I awakened naturally.'

Alex clenched his teeth and stared into the empty eye sockets of the corpse

'But I want to see...'

Alex resolutely glanced down at his two hands.

'With these two hands of mine...'

"Huh?"

Suddenly, a sound of surprise slipped out of Alex's throat, and immediately afterwards a shocked silence descended over the still, dark pool.

All was quiet, at least until...

"EEEUUHHH!"

...a strangled and guttural sound suddenly destroyed the serenity of the scene.

*SPLASH*

Alex's legs gave way from under him and he fell into the blood with a loud splash.

Alex's good hand sank into the soggy sand underneath the ebony pool of blood and he scooted back through the thick liquid, ignoring the loud splashing as a feeling of intense panic overcame him.

Sadly, no matter how far back Alex moved, the source of his fear followed him.

Alex then looked down at his arm once again and...

"EEEUUHHH!"

...the same sound he had made moments earlier once again came out of his throat.

'How did this happen?' Alex thought panickedly. He then shakily reached out, and with his hand lightly touched the source of his shock and fear...his arm.

Instantly Alex jerked his arm back and stared at his arm in shocked silence. However, Alex's mind was anything but silent, it was in fact racing at neck breaking speed.

'My arm, it's...it's...gone!'

Alex stared down, but instead of seeing his arm as he was accustomed to, he instead saw his rough and ivory-colored bone exposed to the open air.

From the tips of his fingers, past his forearm, and ending halfway up his upper arm, all the flesh and muscles were gone, leaving only his ivory-colored bone as the only thing that could be seen.

As Alex stared down in dumbfounded silence, countless thoughts went through his mind in quick succession.

'What happened to my arm?'

The memory of how he had killed the beast flashed past, causing Alex's eyes to widen in shock and surprise.

'Was it the fire?'

'It had to be the fire.'

'The pain was excruciating, how did I not realize that with that level of pain I was doing my body serious harm?'

'Wait. I remember smelling burnt flesh, but I thought it was coming from the beast so I didn't think too much of it.'

Alex heistantly reached out and he once again touched his exposed bone.

'Cold, frightfully cold.'

Alex then tried to move his arm, conveniently forgetting that he had tried the same thing not so long ago.

'Please work.' Alex mind played that sentence on repeat in an almost silent prayer as he tried his very best to even have a finger twitch.

But unsurprisingly, he couldn't even achieve that, as in his current state it was physically impossible.

However, Alex began strongly shaking his head then lightly bit his lip.

'What's wrong with me?' A nervous smile appeared on his face. 'I obviously feel asleep and I'm now dreaming.'

'Of course, I must be dreaming.'

'That makes sense, there is no way I could have lost my hand.'

'Right? There's no possible way.'

'I'm not even sure Freestone can fix an injury that severe, so it couldn't have happened to me.'

In less than a second, a whirlwind of thoughts raced through Alex's mind—a grave testament to his panicked state and the turmoil within his psyche.

*CRACK*

Suddenly, a loud, resounding crack boomed out, while the aftershocks echoed around the battlefield, leaving ripples in the pool of blood.

'Wha...what's that?'

Alex's frayed nerves were stretched even more, and he turned wide open frightened eyes toward the origin of the sound.

At first Alex couldn't see anything weird as his startled gaze flitted from one end of the sand filled oasis to the other.

'Nothing,' Alex's eyes moved from one sandy crater to the next, and when he was satisfied he let out a sigh of tortured relief. 'I guess it was just my imaginat...'

*CRACK*

Alex's wide eyed gaze flew to a spot just outside of the blood filled crater he was sitting in and across from the corpse of the beast.

'Is that...' Miraculously, Alex's badly burnt face paled, and a look of fear appeared. 'A tear?'

At the spot mentioned earlier what appeared to be a tiny, few inches long rip in space materialized. In the space in-between the tear was a black, lightless vacuum that could be compared to the void that Alex was trapped in, but outclassed it in terms of intensity, vividity and most of all sheer malevolent menace.

'What the hell is that?'

*CRACK*

Then right in front of Alex's terrified gaze, the tear abruptly began extending upward.

Finally, after several seconds, the tear had increased from approximately three inches until its current size of eight inches.

Alex slowly began scooting away from the rip and moving closer to the skeletal corpse of the long dead beast while one thought played on repeat in his shaken brain.

'I need to get out of here, it's no longer safe.'

Shakily, Alex stood up, turned around and began stumbling toward the corpse of the beast.

*CRACK*

There was something different about that crack, it was like on a fundamental level it was not like the previous sounds.

Alex instinctively knew the moment he heard that sound that something was coming.

'I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!' Alex quickly glanced over his back at the tear, and what he saw gave him pause.

Around the crack, there suddenly appeared a thick crimson liquid that slowly oozed down the tear while tiny drops noiselessly dripped onto the ebony sand. Then almost instantaneously, the crack abruptly began widening until it resembled a vague rectangular shape, the moment that finished happening, something strange happened. It was like a transparent film suddenly covered the vacuum and with every second that passed it changed and became opaque.

The more opaque the film became, the more it seemed to no longer be insubstantial, and instead its form became tangible.

As Alex watched the changes that were taking place a weird feeling came over him.

'This feels familiar,' Alex frowned and stopped running.

By now the void had completely disappeared and now all that Alex could see was the film...well, it didn't really look like a film anymore, but instead resembled a more organic matter, a material that was like wood...in fact, it was wood.

'I know what it is.' It suddenly hit Alex exactly where he had seen that thing before. Furthermore, the realization came as such a shock that he immediately turned around and started running.

'It's the...'

*CRACK*

Alex cast a terrified face at the rip behind him.

'...the door.'