《Rise of the Empire》 Prologue The air smelt of something metallic, screams were coming in from all directions. he could hear weeping from behind him and some curses to his direct right side. It''s always something like "Fuck you" and "Hope you die", though often it''s "I hope you never succeed and live on the street you fuck". Wulfrik tries to keep his eyelids shut like always, trying to ignore the cries of the people yelling at him, as well as the horror of the scene which it always has been. A hand reaches out to shake him, it feels cold, detached, bony. "It''s time", it says. It''s came from behind him, it sounded like grinding metal cogs, like engines of old roaring again from ages of slumber. Wulfrik tries to shake the hand off, but it''s still there, attached like duct tape or welded iron. "Come, it is time. Don''t be afraid, we need you." Again, it''s the grinding of metal, but not loud. The hand digs it''s nails further into the flesh of Wulfrik''s left shoulder, he feels something hot tricking down but no pain. He hears some rustling from behind, like a cloak shifting and turning, as well some mumbling of an ancient language, one of which he never have heard of or know. Wulfrik feels light weighted, and the feeling of being on his knees is gone. He feels like he''s floating, drifting upwards to the unknown, faster and faster. The hand of the being behind him is still there, clutched like a hawk, with it''s pray in its talons. "Wulfrik!" A cry comes from behind him, it''s not the metallic grinding of gears, but a female voice. It sounds familiar, very familiar, like someone he knows very well. "Wake up you damn fool!", he feels some sort of electric current go through him, it felt like it came from whoever screamed at him from behind moments ago. Everything fades away, like the summer breeze, sweeping the lands of the cold. Wulfrik wakes up like every morning, to the yelling of his mother whose trying to wake him up. He understands its for his well being and help, but by god its annoying and loud. "I''m awake! I''m awake." Wulfrik yells back, trying to quell the mad god from slaughtering the world of the living. "Good, now hurry up and put some clothes on, its 0708 and you need to get to work" she says. Like every morning it''s a struggle to wake up, like the fight between the MC and a deity in one of the web novels, which he reads a lot of lately. "I''m going, let me just get everything." Wulfrik says, while struggling to leave the comfortable bed. He picks up his jeans, shirt, socks and hoodie from the ground and puts them on. The hoodie is black with a logo from one of the festivals, from which he was apart of helping out. The jeans is blue with a small streak of black smudge, from carrying a old fireplace, and a normal blue shirt.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Wulfrik grabs the wallet, phone, keys and heads to the bathroom quickly set up his hair. In the bathroom he can see himself the mirror, early 20 years old, long dark blonde hair, blue/green tired and haunted eyes, goatee with facial hair developing in the sides and average nose & mouth. Nothing peculiar stands out, neither handsome nor ugly. He takes a handful of cold water and splashes it against his face to chase away the drowsiness. He takes a hair band and pulls his hair back to setup a very basic man bun to keep it all away from his eyes. A slight flicker of dark shadow at the right corner of his eyes, barely noticable. Wulfrik pulls a fast 90 degree turn to face the sudden shadowy movement, and nothing. He scans the area with his eyes to try and locate the thing that made the movement, only to find nothing. He only sees a bathtub along the teal coloured wall with a window right below the rooftop, the bathtub empty and sun shining through the roof top. *I must be going insane or something, I swear i saw some kind of movement.* He think to himself, he turns away from looking at the bathtub and leaves the bathroom, heading towards the stairs. On his way through the living room with the kitchen there as well, he spots his mother behind the kitchen bar looking on her phone. She just has a large t-shirt on her with frazzled hair, she''s chubby but not fat and shorter than Wulfrik , who is 1.81. On the counter he finds a plastic see-through bag with 3 breads with butter and cheese inside, Wulfrik picks them up on his way to the stairs. "Be careful while driving, and don''t forget to get your sister from school today" she says after she pulls her sight from the phone, giving him a small smile. "Sure thing", he respond back while still going towards the stairs and into the hallway, he grabs his old shoes which is now 2-3 years old and still comfy, and heads out the door. "Have a good day at work!" you can hear his mother yell at him from the 2nd floor, coming thru the stairs. "I''ll try! See you later" he says back, closes the door and heads towards his car. It''s an old car for which they got super cheap, and with the help of his father they managed to fix the small issues as well. He gets in the car, puts his playlist on and drives to work. While driving towards work, memories of years past flood his mind, memories of old. The memory fragment contained times when he was bullied & harassed, memories he though he had locked away. His mind wanders to the darker corner of his mind, though again on the right side of his vision, he sees movement. A flicker of dark.. something, Wulfrik does a sharp turn to face it, but nothing, he sees nothing. He look around inside the car while the stereos are blasting out some hard rock music, but no results. There''s nothing to indicate that something could be moving or anyone there, *The hell is going on? I must still be sleepy..* *Ring Ring* Cellphone starts ringing, Wulfrik takes a look at the phone to find out that it''s an old classmate calling him. *Odd, he never called me before. What could be the issue?* Wulfrik taps the ''Answer''. Wulfrik said, "Hello?". After a while came the response, "Oh hello Wulfrik , long time no see. How are you?". "I am doing fine Peter, and how are you?". "I''m doing very good Wulfrik . Hey, could you meet me now? I really need your help". "Oh? But it''s..." Wulfrik looks at the clock. "It''s 0718, I need to get to work. What could be important?", *What could be so important that I need to come late to work?* Wulfrik thought. Chapter 1. Where.. Am I ? There are birds chirping nearby, singing their songs of beauty in the morning daylight. Clouds can be seen high up in the sky, coupled with the two suns rising up from the east, it''s a gorgeous sight to behold. Trees tall as buildings surrounds this place, thick with vegetation and branches. The wind flow between the trees and makes the tree branches sway along the wind, as if following a dance in a masquerade ball. A young man can be seen laying between the trees on the soft grass, he seems to be around 19-20 years old, short blond hair and a stubble for a goatee. Modern but slightly worn clothes with a trench coat laying by the side, he seem to be having a bad dream as the face is twitching with agony and pain. He sits up in a panic, breathing heavily and looks around the trees which looks to be a part of a large forest. He scans his surroundings looking for any unseen danger, perhaps from what he was dreaming about not that long ago, he takes a deep breath and stands up. However he has no energy left and falls back down face first into the grass, getting some dirt and bugs into his mouth and nose. *Cough cough* The man pulls himself up from the horrible face palm, hand on his face trying to remove any dirt or bugs still remaining from the.. embarrassing fall. "Where.. am I?" He mumbles to himself, with a few blades of grass sticking out form the mouth. <> He thinks to himself, moving his hands around his body looking for any wounds or abnormality. He finds nothing out of place and it seems to be the same as before he ''blacked out'', he takes a deep breath and tries again to stand up. On trembling legs he stands up, taking a look around once more in this new and weird place he''s been.. sent to? "What is this place? Reminds me of Germany or Norway, though in Norway the trees were thinner and definitively not as tall as these! Holy shit" He looks up, marveling at the height of these trees surrounding him. They are as tall as buildings in the city we has at! "Alright, let''s figure out where we are.. Where''s the phone?" He searches through his pockets of where he believed his phone to be.. nothing. He starts searching the immediate area where we woke up from. He sees his coat lying a few meters from where we was laying, goes towards it and searches the inner pocket. "Aha, there you are.. Huh, that''s weird, no signal" As he starts the phone he notices the signal icon on the top right is showing no signal, while the battery shows it to have around 74% left. He tries to lift the phone high above it his while tilting it so he can still see the indicator for the signal receiver, he starts going in a large circle to ''help'' the phone find a signal or something. "Well, this is very odd. Normally by now the whole planet is surrounded by new satellites, allowing for a full coverage, so that you would still have a signal even if you went deep up the mountain or deep in a forest. And there would be no danger as we''ve already cleaned up the space debris from generations ago" He stops doing the weird act of finding a signal, he puts the phone in his back pocket and puts on the coat. He''s always loved these sort of coats, it''s black made of regular wool, the coat goes as far down to his knees while keeping the coat open. It has deep red colour on the inside made of silk of some kind with 2 inner pockets on each side. He takes another look around himself, seeing nothing but trees, vegetables and tall grass. He decides to take a direction and starts walking, in a very casual manner since running or a brisk jog would just deplete his energy. He never did much exercise in his spare time nor any sports, but still remain thin though not much or any muscles.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. "Alright, so the signal is out or cannot be found. There''s no indication of any movement through the area around me, as there''s still thick trees, no pathways or any derbies or man made objects like plastic or carved words in trees" <> After some time of walking he spots some weird looking plants, it''s stalk is a foot long while the flower is bright teal in colour, with 5 petals and a bright red bud. Nothing of this sort has he seen before in class nor mentioned on HandBook. He walks up to it, cautious since he has no clue if it''s poisonous or harmful, he bends own close enough to see details on the petals. There seems to be some carved runes on them! <> He plucks the flower by twisting the stalk near the earth, and holds it up. It''s slowly losing it''s colour after a few seconds of being removed, turning from a nice teal colour into a grey. Like if it''s life is being drained. The red bud slowly turned black alongside the teal''s transformation. "What?" He was shocked with the rapid changes to the flower he plucked, moments after the stalk and petals turned gray, and the bud turned black. The flower crumbled into fine dust, picking a ride alongside the wind and vanishing in mere moments. He stands there stunned for a minute or two, not expecting the flower he was interested in to have drastic changes while also crumbling at the end. He shrugs himself off the stunned effects, takes a glance around for another flower of the same type, but all he sees are green vegetables, tall grass and trees, same as when he woke up. "Oh well, guess I won''t have the pleasure of having a new discover able flower to study" He picks roughly the same direction he headed before and starts going again, hoping to leave this damnable forest. <> A few hours past and the light changes into a deep red, which he reads as the day almost being over. "Guess I need to find myself a place to sleep tonight, have no lust of staying up all night walking and be tried as a dead whale tomorrow." He starts looking for a nice tree to lie against, the temperature is warm enough to not need any fireplaces, so he looks just for a place to sleep. "Good thing humanity has taken over the planet completely, there shouldn''t be any predatory animals left, at least not in the open unregulated." He finds a large tree with a sturdy trunk, wide enough to have his back to. He goes up next to it and brushes some leaves and removes a few annoying stones away from his now to be bed. He sits down, crossing his legs and puts his back to the tree, feeling the barky feel even through his coat. "Well I better sleep early, need the energy if I''m gonna get out of this damnable forest and find civilization." He closes his eyes, darkness enveloping his mind. There''s movement in the shadows, a flicker of some sort of light. Wulfrik tries to wake up but finds only darkness, his body numb or his mind numb.. he does not know. Looking around himself in a slight panic, the scene changes to burning flames, explosions in the distance. Screams of children somewhere behind him, 5 o''clock of him you would think. Dark figures moving in the flames, wearing some weird armour or their physical bodies shaped weird. The scene changes again, the flames rising high up and changes into buildings. The same buildings he saw in the city before he blacked out, only these buildings are damaged. You can see large holes in them as if cleanly cut or shot through, further down the street Wulfrik sees a familiar fighter plane, smashed half way into a building, with a limb body hanging out of the cockpit. Wulfrik looks around him and notices that it''s the same street he was walking down before fire fell from the sky, screams and when he blacked out or something. *GRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHRRRR* A unnatural scream sounds of behind him, it sounds to be far behind him but it was very loud, not possible by any known animals to Wulfrik. Wulfrik does a hard 180 turn to face the direction of the scream, he squints his eyes trying to focus and find the thing that made the scream. After a bit of time passes, he sees no movement nor anything ''out of place'' in the direction of the scream. "Looking.. for something?" A deep, rough and not human like voice sounds off on Wulfrik''s right ear. "AAAAH!" With a startle, Wulfrik wakes up from his cozy place in the forest, daylight creeping up through the trees, with birds chirping and singing. "What was.. that?" Chapter 2. What is this place? Wulfrik looked around him, looking for the voice that he heard in his.. dream? It felt so surreal. He spots a weird looking animal, squirrel in size though not a squirrel. It seems to have two heads and two tails with the same body, grey colored hair and and a.. nut? a nut in his tiny hand. The animals feels Wulfrik''s presence and starts running away at full speed the opposite direction of Wulfrik''s cozy sleeping place, not looking back nor making any sounds which is remarkable by itself. Wulfrik sees the squirrel like animal flee away, curious on what it is and how it hasn''t been discovered before by scientists.. <> He stands up and dusts off any bugs, dirt, leaves, basically anything on him. Flaps his coat to help remove it all, takes a look around himself and feels satisfied. <> He takes another look around trying to find out what direction he came from, and where he should be going. <> He shudders as he remembers the dream.. At the scare the sudden voice behind him, like as if he was right up his neck hairs. "What.. was that dream? Those ruined buildings looked like straight out of a war zone, and that fighter plane looked to have been damaged the same way as those buildings, explains why it had crashed into a building." ".. But those dark figures with the weird armour.. Or bodies, could they have been the footsoldiers of whatever race or nation or something, that attacked us? Along with those black ships as transport or airsupport?.." While pondering Wulfrik picks a direction he believe he was heading the day before, and started walking again casual as always. "Where was I.. oh yes. That dream felt so surreal, the question is though, how did I end up here and what would cause those damages I saw on the buildings?" Walking through the forest of unusual tall trees, Wulfrik takes in the scenery of this.. alien forest he would say. After a hour or so of walking, discovering new plants he''s seen before, encountering the same type of squirrel, hiding up high amongst the trees, Wulfrik sees the edge of the forest. "Aha, finally." Wulfrik starts taking off in a job, and then a full sprint off to the edge, dodging branches... Occasionally << Damn bloody branch, shoo! >> and rocks along the way. After what feels like ages of running, he reaches the edge only to be meet with a cliff edge, with a gorgeous view over the landscape below, forests to the left and another forest, of a different kind from the first it would seem to the right up ahead, a field covered in green and yellow colors, stretching out between the two forests on the left and right. The sky is blue like before with snow white clouds drifting by, only difference is the 3 moons one can see in the distance, with quite a lot of space between them and size. Most likely one is further apart from one another, circling the planet. And the 2 suns, reminding Wulfirk of Tatooine from Star Wars. Wulfrik halts himselfs just in the bares of seconds, doing the famous cartoon movement waving of arms as he tries to balance himself from not falling to his most likely death or suffering if he does indeed survive the fall. "Holy shit balls" Wulfrik exclaims to himselfs.. More of a yell really. "That was too close for my tasting.. Damn light blocking off the view so I couldn''t see the damn cliff edge from the forest" He looks behind him to curse some more at the trees, only to find himself looking at a¡­ a different forest. This one looks more "normal" per say, the trees are not impossibly high, but not the same species as the trees he know of on Earth.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The tree itself are black, almost blackish red, with blood red leaves. The branches start sprouting out roughly at 1.5-2m height making the top of the trees thick of branches, leaves and the like.. "What the.. Wha.. Ho.." Baffled by his sight, he pinches his chin and arm to feel some pain and wake up from this weird dream.. No effect of course. "How? Have I been inhaling some psychological drugs or something in that damn forest?! That''s not how things goes! A forest does not change it''s main group of species in less than a bloody second!.. What is this place?" He gets agitate, starts looking around trying to find clues or reasons for the sudden change. No reason or clues found of course, and after calming himself down he takes a few steps forward to the new forest, a bit more familiar one, but not the same either way. This forest before him seems to be a lot more.. Normal like one said, if you ignore the blood red leaves and the blackish red trees, there''s green grass that grow around them, making them stand out a lot more with their roots. The weird alien voodo boodo flowers are also gone, instead the flowers that grow here are more normaler than the ones he saw while in the alien forest. A particular type of flower here, which seems to be the main dominant one, looks very similar to the one on earth called Astrantia, pink ish pedals and a lot of beads. After looking around, fascinated by the new forest before him, Wulfrik turns back around to look at the landscape from the cliff. Try and find some signs of humanity''s signature of technology, willingness to survive or anything. As he approaches the edge, he takes a longer while looking at different directions, trying to see any sort of signal or mark of humanity, be it smoke, people moving around, vehicles, aircraft.. Anything. So far the forest on the right is clear, the forest on the left is clear, while the field in front of him far is also empty or clear. At least from what Wulfrik can see with his eyes. After roughly 30 minutes goes by, no signs of any intelligence life can be found. It all seems like nature is overgrown, no being has been here, at least not been here to build settlements or it''s own mark. <<.. How? Where the hell am I? How can earth become such a place in the mere 24 hours since I saw those ships and fire come down from the sky?!>> He starts to get agitated once more, he looks around and down the cliff edge.. And he sees something! Wulfrik goes prone and crawl up to the ledge to minimize the risk of falling down, and takes a look down the edge. What he sees are.. buildings? a palisade wall?? <> Down there beneath the mountain, surrounding by a forest of red with a small clearing going out to the large fields, is a village. So far one can see 1 large building in the middle, most likely a great hall, with smaller buildings surrounding it, there also seems to be a stable for riders, warehouse for storage as well as a village center outside the so called great hall. One can also see people walk around with middle ages clothing, some even have leather clothing though it''s hard to see from the height from which Wulfrik finds himself at. There''s also a palisade wall surrounding the village with a basic looking gate at the front with 2 doors.they are open now, most likely to allow what seems to be farmers to come in with their harvest. <> Fury slowly started building up in Wulfrik, thinking about the possibilities that humanity had, the gift which technology gave them.. All taken away by whatever they were, flying the black ships. Wulfrik gets back up and finds a way down there, he needs to ask them the reason for staying there, the status of the world and.. What has happened to the rest of humanity. He finds a way down the cliffs on the left side where which the forests also goes down to, it''s quite an abrupt of a slope, so Wulfrik grabs onto branches, stones, anything that he can hold on to, while climbing down. Sadly with his trench coat, it''s a lot harder than it seems like, when you almost step on your own coat and fall down. Half way down the slope he trips on his trenchcoat, and starts tumbling down towards the peaceful village.