I woke to the stabbing pain of needles lodged deep into my skin. My body, too weak to resist, felt like a hollow shell drained and brittle from the loss of blood. Tubes snaked out of my limbs, their ends connected to a strange machine. The man beside me moved to a control panel, his fingers dancing over buttons with practiced intent.
Then, it activated
Agony erupted through my body like wildfire. I convulsed in the chair, screaming until my throat gave out, until my voice was raw and broken. My vision blurred, red veins bulging across my face. It felt as if my life force itself was being ripped away, forcefully extracted and siphoned into the tubes.
It lasted for hours.
Then, something changed. A golden, radiant substance bled from my body and flowed into the machine. The man's eyes widened with awe.
"Fascinating," he whispered.
As my energy reached the strange, crackling structure nearby a jagged rift hanging in the air like a wound in reality it reacted. The crack pulsed and then tore open violently.
A hand came through.
Panic seized the man. His confidence shattered in an instant. "No… No, no Cleaver! CLEAVER, COME OUT!"
But it was too late.
The being stepped through.
Fifteen feet tall, humanoid but grotesquely alien. Its thin frame moved with unnatural speed, and its four eyes glowed with menace. The crack behind it widened into a gaping maw.
I was still strapped to the chair, unable to move
Then a man burst in Cleaver, presumably. He was armed with twin daggers and a hardened expression. But he hesitated. Confused.
The creature didn't.
In a blur, it struck, seizing Cleaver by the throat. He thrashed, gasping for air, utterly outmatched. I watched from my restraints, heart pounding, mind racing through every possible way to escape.
Nothing.
I was going to die here. A meaningless, pitiful death.
Then the man who drained my energy hurled something small, metallic. A flash grenade.
Light exploded.
The creature roared and staggered back, momentarily blinded. It released Cleaver, who collapsed to the floor. The space was small too small for a being of its size to maneuver freely. In its confusion, the creature lashed out, striking me in the chair.
I flew.
The needles tore from my body all at once. The pain unimaginable
By body soon passed through the crack
It was like being shredded into a million pieces and forced back together, all in a breath. A sensation beyond pain.
When I landed, I was covered in blood, the wounds from the tubes still fresh and seeping. Around me was a barren wasteland black sand stretching endlessly, beneath a sky where no sun shone. Only a dark moon hung above, leaking faint silver light from its edges. I could barely see.
I was beyond the gate.
The most dangerous place for a living being to walk into
No trees. No water. No sound but my own breathing and the wind over ash. I stumbled forward, disoriented and starved. I had no idea if it was night or Day? I couldn't tell.
Then I saw it. A shape in the distance. A tent?
Driven by thirst and hunger, I forced my broken body toward it. But the closer I got, the farther it seemed. My limbs trembled. My mind dulled. I collapsed just short of reaching it.
As the darkness took me, I saw a figure approach.
When I next awoke, I was lying on a mat. Hunger gnawed at me like a beast. I tried to rise, but before I could move, someone entered.
A young man dark blue hair, scruffy beard, eyes sharp but not unfriendly. He handed me a bowl filled with some kind of black meat in murky broth. I hesitated.
But my hunger forced me
I took a bite. The taste was foul sour, metallic, rotten. It felt like poison. But I ate.
He stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "You're new here, aren't you?"
I nodded cautiously. "Yeah."
"I'm Anvil," he said. "From the Fourth Gate."
I blinked. "Fourth... gate?"
He caught my confusion. "That's what we call the one on Earth."
"I thought there was only one gate," I muttered.
"Even I don't know why they call it that
My mind spun. Too many unknowns. I had so many questions. I masked my thoughts and asked instead, "Were you alone here?"
He shook his head. "I was with others. We got separated during a fight with a Variable."
"Variable?" I had no idea what he meant
I didn't ask. Not yet.
"Are you trying to find your comrades?" I said
He shrugged. "They went north. I'm heading there tomorrow."
I stared at him, my stomach still turning from the food. So this was it. I was stuck here with him.