《The Merge》 The Merge – Chapter 1 (Oblivious) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- I was at the same place as usual, doing the same things I always do. In a dark room lit only by multiple computer screens. Sitting on my favourite chair, absorbed by the 7th episode of one of my favourite survival TV-show. It was about a man called ¡°SurvivorDude¡±, who would go in the least hospitable areas of our planet and survive there for 1 week with nothing other than a knife. As an avid prepper, I was especially fond of this type of shows where we could learn survival skills. (Preppers: a person who believes a catastrophic disaster or emergency is likely to occur in the future and makes active preparations for it, typically by stockpiling food, ammunition, and other supplies. ¡®there¡¯s no agreement among preppers about what disaster is most imminent¡¯) These possible disasters scenarios were also referred to as ¡°SHTF¡± which mean ¡°Shit Hit The Fan¡± scenarios. Among these possible SHTF scenarios are job loss, flood and fire (natural disasters), economic collapse, wars, zombie apocalypse (viruses like ebola), alien invasion, etc. Like we say among preppers, better safe than sorry. Now a little about myself, my name is Nathan Gagnon, male, 30 years old, unemployed, living in a small town called ¡°Cabano¡± in Quebec/Canada. I am 5¡±8 tall with brown hair, blue eyes and come from french ancestors who immigrated to Canada during the colonial period and have been living alongside the St-Laurent river for generations. After the death of my parents 6 years ago, I became somewhat of a recluse, avoiding the outside world as much as possible. Not that I couldn¡¯t go out, actually I can still remember spending entire summers in the forest with my father, fishing and hunting until dawn. So I didn¡¯t have a problem with the outside world but had difficulty with other people and integrating into normal society in general. If you asked about me and my personality, there was not much to talk about. I was a computer/internet addict, school dropout, brutally honest, awkward in public, used to be good with women but now that was only a thing of the past from my school years, since women don¡¯t want to date neets. (NEET: Another acronym from sociologists¡­ NEET stands for ¡®Not in Education, Employment or Training¡¯. I¡¯m not sure, yet, whether it has any global significance or derogatory overtones. However, it seems to be particularly applicable to a social under-class lacking drive, motivation or ambition. In part this is due to poverty and lack of opportunity) I believe I have a decent sense of justice but I always succumb to cowardice instead of doing the right things. I am overly lazy and always looking for ways to avoid working or to make things easier for myself. Other than that, I am also introverted and self-centred. Actually, it was easier to find faults in my personality rather than qualities. After my parents¡¯ death, I inherited everything they had, a house, some vehicles and a comfortable sum of money. I wasn¡¯t rich, far from it but I had enough to live modestly without the need to work for the rest of my life. After receiving the money, I renovated the familial home and transformed it into a fortress. Installed bullet proof windows, Kevlar in some key areas in the walls, a sophisticated surveillance camera system, but that wasn¡¯t where most of the money went. The biggest part of my money had been invested into a bunker, deep underground in the backyard. When you arrive to my home, you are first met by a forged iron gate that you need a code to open. Then, a long driveway leading to the top of the hill where my home is located. Once at the house, you see a front door as well as a garage door. If you enter the garage door, then in the back of the garage is a stairway leading to the basement of the house. Once you enter the basement, you see a large room with a furnace at your left, ahead are stairs leading upstairs to the first floor, and to the right is a tools storage room. All the hardware like tools and related stuff were stored there and god only knows how much stuff was in there. My father had a small contracting company, so he knew how to do plumbing, electricity, carpentry¡­ Name it, he could do it. So over the years he had gathered a ridiculous amount of power-tools. This room doesn¡¯t seem to have anything special other than the crazy amount of tools but this is actually a special room. This room is the one hiding the secret entrance to my nuclear bunker which is buried deep underground. It was the classic trapdoor hidden under a carpet. Opening the trapdoor lead to a long and steep staircase going 20 feet down underground. Once at the bottom of the stairs, you arrive at a narrow corridor with concrete walls and small red lights on the ceiling providing just enough light to see where you are going. Then, 5 meters in front of you is a heavy duty steel door similar to those found in submarines. Next to that door is a small iron box locked with a padlock. You need to enter the correct 6 numbers combination to open it and expose a blue digital numpad. There again you need to enter a 10 numbers combination and undergo a fingerprint scan to unlock the massive iron door. Once the door is unlocked, you need to turn a massive iron wheel to open it then enter a small room with another similar door on the other side. The second door has no lock but needs the first door to be sealed shut in order to be opened. Upon closing the first door, the small airtight room will then begin to decontaminate the air of anything possibly harmful. A red light to your left will eventually turn green indicating that the buffer zone, which is this small room in between these two doors, had been decontaminated allowing you to finally enter the bunker. The first thing you see as you enter the bunker is a large main room filled with commercial shelves loaded with all sort of stuff. Canned goods and non perishable food, medication for everything and mostly antibiotics, batteries, various containers filled with rice, beans, sugar, flour, etc¡­ There are tooth brushes, tooth paste, jerky, candles, propane burners, basically anything you can think off that could potentially be needed to survive an entire year in the case of a SHTF scenario. I have two large freezers, one refrigerator, a washing machine, a dryer¡­ All the necessary appliances. Everything in here was purchased via the internet since i wasn¡¯t really going out much. At the back is a massive 1000 gallons water tank made out of 2cm thick plastic and next to it, a toilet isolated between some thin plastic walls. The water contained in the tank, is coming from rain water collected by the roof of the house, then filtered to its purest form by highly sophisticated filtering systems. To the right of this big main area is a door leading to a smaller room with four, 30inch screens fixed on the wall, a desk in front of them, some dressers for my clothes and other stuff. This room is also where I keep my huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition. This is also where I spend 98% of my time, in this small and dark room, surrounded by everything I need in this world. My days would generally be, waking up at random hours, drink a coffee and smoke a cigarette, do 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 jumping jacks, then go on my computer for hours. Later, eating the first meal of the day in front of my computer, washing the dishes, go back to my computer. Then the second meal of the day was also eaten in front of my computer then I would remain there for the rest of the day. A few hours before sleep I would drink some home-made alcohol, smoke more cigarettes then go to bed. With all these cigarettes I was smoking, it was a good thing I had a good air filtration system in this, otherwise air-tight environment. Right now I was sitting at my desk as usual, watching my favourite show which I had previously downloaded from the internet a few days before. As the ¡°SurvivorDude¡± was about to drink his own piss for survival, I saw a white light blinking from the corner of my eye. This is the indication that someone had rung the bell at the gate of my propriety. I wasn¡¯t surprised, these visits were scheduled once every month since years ago. I looked at my surveillance cameras and confirmed that it was the same person as usual then opened the gate for him. Pausing my TV-show, I kept a close eye at the mini-van coming up the driveway then stop in front of the garage door. The man got out and began to unload the content of its delivery next to the door then got back in and left as he usually does. I closed the gate and waited a few minutes, staring at all the cameras and at the giant pile of boxes left for me. This was my monthly grocery of perishable food which couldn¡¯t be stored for too long like milk, bread, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, etc. After observing for 5 to 10 minutes I leaned back in my chair and lit a cigarette. I hated having to come out of my bunker, this was a stressful moment for me even though I knew I wouldn¡¯t meet anyone by doing so. Gathering my courage I then walked to the other room and opened the first metal door and closed it behind me. I waited for the light to turn green then opened the second door leading to the red light corridor as I call it. I slowly walked up the stairs, opened the trapdoor and exited in the basement. There, I walked to the room straight ahead and looked through the basement window from where I could see the front yard. The grass was overgrown and made my propriety look abandoned but I wasn¡¯t going to go out every weeks to mow the lawn, too annoying. The biggest problem was that this window was now blocked by overgrown stuff making it useless. Discouraged, I walked up to the door leading up to the garage. In the garage were various stuff and even more tools but what was taking most of the space was my father¡¯s pride and joy, a fire red corvette stingray 1977 which had never seen winter or even rain. That beauty under a grey tarp was in perfect condition. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Going around it I quickly went to the garage windows and surveyed the surroundings. Nothing abnormal, no one around and since it was summer, the trees still had all their leaves. These trees offered perfect cover as my entire plot of land was covered with them as a natural intimacy barrier. I opened the garage door and rapidly began to shuffle the boxes inside, wanting to close the garage door as soon as possible. Once everything was off the driveway and safely inside the garage, I closed the big electric door and finally managed to breathe calmly. The next 30 minutes were spent transporting everything down my bunker before sealing it shut for another month. I placed everything on the shelves by alphabetical order, went to take a piss, then went back to my computer with a freshly lit cigarette and resumed watching my favourite TV-show where I had left it. I spent the rest of the day downloading more TV-shows to watch later, then went to bed like usual. My routine continued without a hitch until 5 days later. I was browsing the internet when I felt a small tremor of the earth. Small earthquakes were frequent around here so I would usually brush it off but this time I lost my internet connection. Now, this was something really annoying but since there had been a small earthquake, things had probably been damaged and would be fixed soon enough. Instead of getting angry this time, I decided to rely on my huge 50TB collection of hard-drives full of movies and TV-shows ready to be watched. ¡°If they don¡¯t fix that shit fast I¡¯ll ask for a refund.¡± I said to myself. Later that day I went to sleep, then when I woke up I immediately verified my internet connection. Annoyingly it was still down and since it had been quite a while now I decided to call customer services and share them my discontentment. I picked up the phone and brought it to my ear only to be met by total silence. There was no dial tone, was the entire grid broken? Did something major happen yesterday? I would normally check up the news on the internet but with my connection malfunctioning I resorted to using the television. I had a TV tuner card on my main computer and switched it to TV but there again, no signal. My phone, television and internet were down which worried me quite a bit. I was now convinced that the only reason I still had electricity was due to me producing it myself, the neighbours were most likely out of it. Not only was I collecting my own water, I was also producing my own electricity with solar panels on the roof and windmills in the yard. Realizing everything else was off service, this was most likely the reason why i could still live comfortably. Something major must have happened during the earthquake after all, but was it really a earthquake? Could it have been some type of explosion? Is my country under attack? Is it war outside? With my prepper¡¯s mind going wild I began to check my CCTV cameras for any sigh of what was happening outside. I brought the control panel closer to me and leaned forward to watch the footage carefully. I grabbed the joystick and turned the cameras in all directions, switching between all of them to see everything around in my yard. Honestly, nothing seemed changed and there was no sign of anything happening. Maybe the central had a major accident and will need a week to fix everything? Since there was nothing I could do about it, I decided to be patient. What seriously worried me though was that even my radios and cellphone didn¡¯t seem to work either. Sure, my cellphone never had any reception down in my bunker but I had a connection to an external antenna, even this didn¡¯t work. I had various radios, PPM, PCM, DSM, CB radio, everything that should still be working even during an apocalypse wasn¡¯t working anymore which is what confused me the most. The only thing left to try at this point would be to exit my bunker and try my cellphone out there, or even go to a neighbour and ask what was happening but I seriously dreaded this option. I was still comfortable in my bunker and had enough food and entertainment for months. With that in mind, I decided to stay here and closely monitor the CCTV cameras. I tried not to let all these inconveniences bother me for the next days but after 1 week without change in the situation I began to seriously wonder what was going on. Maybe they cut me off the grid somehow thinking I was dead? But I was paying my bills diligently so this was unlikely¡­ Maybe an error in their system? One thing is for sure, if by the end of the month things aren¡¯t fixed I will need to go out and check things out for myself. With that in mind, I spent the next week completing the ¡°SurvivorDude¡± episodes and even went through half of all the Tiger Ball Z episodes. It had been almost a month now and my food supply was already dwindling. It became apparent to me that if I didn¡¯t go out and check things for myself, nothing in my situation would change. I also needed to consider going out to buy food but, whether or not I¡¯m able to do that would depend on the situation outside. With only a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, I nervously walked to the bunker door. After passing through the two metal doors and decontamination, I got up the stairs and exited in the tool storage room through the trapdoor. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary excepted a subtle foul smell that was most likely coming from outside. This smell was a familiar one, it was the smell of death. For a hunter like me, it was obvious that someone, or something was dead not far away and was in an advanced stage of decomposition. Worried, I ran straight ahead to one of the basement windows but remembered that the overgrown vegetation was blocking the view, so I decided to go upstairs instead. There, I first looked at the backyard, then the front-yard. My entire propriety was unchanged but there was definitely something wrong here. Not understanding what I was looking at, I quickly ran out through the front door to get a better look. What struck me first was the strong stench of death floating in the air but this wasn¡¯t what was most shocking to me. ¡°W-what the f-¡­¡± I was staring at the sky, agape mouth, amazed by what I was seeing. The sky wasn¡¯t the colour it used to be anymore, the sky I was currently looking at was, purple¡­ Then from the corner of my eye I saw something even more troubling. The sun in the sky wasn¡¯t the sun I used to know anymore. The sun I was currently looking at was a lot bigger than it used to be. I then fell on my knees when I saw the second sun, this one smaller and red in colour and was standing right next to the bigger one. ¡°What the hell is going on here?¡± I muttered to myself. I was suddenly filled with a sense of fear and desperation. What had happened? Was I even still on earth? Suns don¡¯t suddenly grow twice their original size and give birth to a mini sun in a few days, so my next best guess was that I had been transported somewhere else. But if I had been transported somewhere else, why was my house still there, perfectly intact? My entire yard was filled with trees blocking the view and preventing me from seeing the neighbours¡¯ houses. Wanting to confirm my suspicions, I ran down the 50 meters long driveway and reached the iron gate to my propriety. Once there, I looked left toward the St-Laurent river which was the most obvious landmark in the area. What I saw once again made my jaw drop in incredulity. Where there should have been the familiar giant river was now a totally different landscape, filled with giant trees and vegetation. A quick look at the neighbours¡¯ property confirmed that the entire neighbourhood was still intact and left the same way it used to be, but what I could see far away in the horizon was totally different. I still had no idea what had happened but at least now, I knew that most of the town had apparently been ¡°transported¡± somewhere else entirely. The pungent smell of death floating over the neighbourhood also hinted at many causalities in my immediate surroundings. It could not have been more than a month since the incident yet, people were already dying all around me. This was highly worrying because I still had no idea what they had died from. I had no real confirmation of them being dead other than this horrifying smell, but there were no cars in the streets, no one to be seen or any other signs of people still being around. As I was about to open the gate to investigate my surroundings more thoroughly, I suddenly stopped before doing so. Blood froze in my veins and my legs began to shake as I was staring at the front neighbour¡¯s house. What first appeared to be some branches moving in the winds gradually revealed a giant moving body to which these things were attached to. Crawling out of one of the neighbours¡¯ windows, was a big ass cockroach at least 2 meters long. These things I first confused as branches, were actually antennas and legs belonging to this monstrosity. More precisely, this thing looked more like an insectoid alien than a cockroach but at that instant, I had already decided to call it a giant cockroach. My breathing became laborious and adrenaline began rushing through my entire body. This, was most likely the thing that was killing the people living around and if it sees me, my life will most likely be in danger as well. Panicking, I ran as fast as my legs allowed me, back toward my house. I entered through the front door and locked it, going as far as piling up furniture in front of it. Then I ran back down to the basement, through the secret trapdoor and reached the bunker¡¯s doors. My hands were shaking, making it harder than usual to enter all the codes to open it. It was only after closing the first door behind me that I finally managed to calm down and begin to think clearly again. I proceeded to open the second door once the decontamination was over and ran to my bedroom where I was keeping all my firearms and ammunition. I grabbed my semi-auto 12 gauge shotgun and crawled on my bed in the back corner of the room. There, I lit a cigarette whilst still shaking like a leaf, clenching my gun as tightly as possible with both arms, keeping it near my chest like a kid with his plushy. Pant* pant* pant* ¡°T-this is a nightmare¡­ I-I-I¡¯m going to wake up soon¡­ going to wake up¡­ going to wake up¡­ wake up¡­¡± Sadly, my nightmare was only beginning. The Merge – Chapter 2 (Adapting) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- I was in a never ending nightmare, I couldn¡¯t believe what I had just seen. I was still on my bed, gun in hands when I noticed movement on my surveillance camera screen. I swiftly moved closer to see and saw one of these giant cockroach going over the fence surrounding my propriety and begin to investigate where I was a few minutes ago. What I thought while watching its behaviour what that they would eventually find me if I didn¡¯t do anything about it. What was I supposed to do against such monsters? I was just a normal young man, scared out of his mind at what was happening after all. After feeling despair deep down in my bones, my attention turned back to the gun I was holding. I looked at it, the cold metal it was made of somehow managed to calm me down a bit. I sat on my chair and opened a heavy metal music playlist on my computer, trying to gather courage. With some good old Slayer and Killswitch Engage playing loudly, I grabbed my shotgun and place the end of the barrel in my mouth. Tears began to trickle down my cheeks as I was saying my goodbyes to this world. I could deal with the end of the human race, but dealing with alien monstrosity? No thank. With my thumb on the trigger, I began to shake, my sight gradually getting blurry. Was this how people felt as they were about to leave this world? It didn¡¯t matter, I didn¡¯t want to live in a world infested by monsters. My decision was taken. My hands began to shake even more than before and I began to feel dizzy. Something wasn¡¯t right, this wasn¡¯t normal. I became unable to control my muscles and dropped the gun on the ground, unable to keep hold of it. I tried to get up from my chair but ended up on the ground as well. Something definitely wasn¡¯t right, this was not shock, this was¡­ poison? I wanted to try and figure out how I ended up being poisoned, but my mind was in a haze and I was simply incapable of focusing on anything. In the end, I wouldn¡¯t need to kill myself after all, I was going to die stupidly, just like that. Unable to think clearly and slowly dying, I crawled on my stomach toward the shelf where I was keeping my antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. Once there I grabbed a few pills of what I thought could help me but there was not much I could do to treat myself against poisoning. Only time would tell, if I was going to survive this ordeal or not. Eventually, I passed out, laid on the cold hard floor of my bunker. I don¡¯t know how long I spent there but I eventually woke up in a puddle of my own vomit and feces. From the look of it, I had leaked from all my orifices while I was passed out. I could barely move and my vision was still blurry but I was alive and conscious. I could feel that I was highly dehydrated, so I mustered all my remaining strength and crawled to my water dispenser. Once there I stuck my mouth under it and slightly opened the valve. I needed to re-hydrate myself but drinking too quickly would only result in making me puke it all out again. I drank one drop after the other, slowly filling my stomach with the precious fluid. As I thought my body was finally winning the fight against the poison, dizziness suddenly forced me back, headfirst in the toilet. I was feeling like crap and felt like I was slowly dying. My skin and intestines were on fire and I could feel every single muscle in my body scream in pain. For the next five days, I remained in a semi-lethargic state, barely able to move or do anything. Eventually I began to recuperate and my condition was getting better everyday. I was able to keep my food and drinks down without regurgitating it all which helped me rebuild some strength. Then one week later, I was finally back on my feet and had already various hypothesis on why I had gotten sick. It all came down to the sky I had seen a few days back. Its colour being purple instead of blue, was a good indication of what had happened. The atmosphere in this world was apparently different from the one on earth and possibly toxic to me. The sky usually appears blue, because blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth¡¯s atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colours because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time. But if the atmosphere contained something else other than regular oxygen, then the sky would most likely appear in a different colour. Whatever was in the air of this world, it was making it appear purple. It was also possible that the small red sun was sending deadly radiation toward the earth. Whatever the real reason was, being in my airtight bunker had apparently saved my life. The air down here was purified and being deep underground was also protecting me against radiations. Taking this into consideration, I then realized this was most likely the reason why some people had died outside. Maybe these giant cockroaches weren¡¯t the cause of it after all. They certainly looked menacing and terrifying but maybe they were only scavengers, eating their rotting remains. Feeling a bit reassured by that, I began to go through my drawers, looking for something I had purchased a while back. After a few minutes, I finally found it. It was my ¡®still unused¡¯ hazmat suit. I also had a gas mask to go with it since I had prepared in case of chemical warfare. I didn¡¯t know if this would be enough to protect me against whatever was killing people up there, but it sure was better than nothing. I prepared everything I would need for my next outing and placed it on a table. Then, I went to my room and looked through my arsenal, to select which weapons to bring with me. What I finally selected was a short barrel shotgun which I would strap on my back, a CZ-958 which was an assault riffle (Actually the closest to an AK-47 you could own in Canada) that I would keep in hand with a shoulder strap. On my right thigh, I would strap a top quality machete which was a saw on one side, and a normal cutting edge on the other. I first wanted to bring more equipment but decided that it would only slow me down if I needed to run. I needed to consider wearing a backpack to transport whatever loots I would find out there. Thank to my CCTV cameras, I knew that it was night-time outside and there was no way in hell I was going to go out at night. I lit a cigarette, sat on a chair and looked at the pile of equipment on the table. As I was looking at my yellow hazmat suit, a sudden realization struck me. Yellow wasn¡¯t a very discreet colour for someone trying to sneak without being seen. I then decided to put the hazmat suit and gas-mask on, grabbed my shotgun and exited the bunker. With sweaty palms and fear in my heart, I slowly walked up the stairs leading to the basement. There was still this putrid smell floating in the air but luckily, I couldn¡¯t hear anything suspicious. I walked very slowly, trying not to make a sound as my mask was gradually fogging on, impairing my vision. I exited the basement and entered the garage. Once there, I quickly grabbed what I had come for and ran back down to my bunker. What I had gotten out to get, were two spray cans. One forest green, the other black. I removed my suit, hung it on a clothe hanger and began to paint it with camouflage patterns. The goal was to hide all the yellow and replace it with something more discreet. A few minutes later, I was satisfied with my work. I needed to wait for the sun to rise and for the paint to dry, so I drank a few glasses of moonshine and went to bed. Few hours later, I woke up, drank my coffee and did my exercises as usual but this time, I was nervous. I was smoking one cigarette after the other and my legs were shaking. As weird as it may sound, knowing that most people should be dead made it easier for me to go out. If I killed these cockroaches, this world could all be mine alone. I had had many dreams of being alone on earth, how relaxing this could be with modern infrastructure still around. It was basically what was happening right now¡­ excluding these alien monsters crawling around. These monsters were definitely not part of my dream. Of course if I found survivors, I think I would lend them a hand. I think¡­ Now that I was living it, the thought of being completely alone forever didn¡¯t seemed as idyllic as I first thought. There was just something creepy and unsettling, about the thought of being the last one of my species alive. I put on my camouflaged hazmat suit and gas-mask, then begin to tie up all the straps to hold my weapons. Then was the turn of the ammo belts making me look like John Rambo. I grabbed my short barrel shotgun, my assault riffle, my machete, put on gloves and grabbed my backpack. I couldn¡¯t help but look at myself in the mirror. With the gas-mask on, I looked like a survivor from an apocalypse movie. I exited the bunker and went into the garage to look for something my father was collecting back in the days. Now illegal, bear traps had became objects of collection for some people as historic artifacts. To me, they seemed ideal for these ugly aliens outside. Of course, this wasn¡¯t meant to kill, but only to immobilize them long enough for me to go out and shoot them. I couldn¡¯t afford to waste any bullets on these guys if they happened to be quick on their legs. So the plan was simple, place bear traps, attract cockroaches. Once caught, shoot cockroaches in the face. I went upstairs and looked through the windows to see if some of them were still around. Confirming that my yard was completely empty, it seemed apparent these creatures didn¡¯t waste time where there was no food. As long as I stayed smart about it, I should be able to set my traps without them bothering me. I grabbed my 958 (Assault riffle) and exited through the font door while trying not to make any sounds. Opening and closing the door silently was surprisingly nerve racking. Looking left and right, I stealthily walked toward the lamp post not far down the driveway. Stuck in concrete, this post was solid enough to do the job. I attached the bear traps to the post with chains and sat them all around in the grass. Once that was done, I placed a walkies-talkie in a metal box near the traps. I took a last look around through my fogged mask, admiring the purple sky and twin suns. This was weird after all¡­ Feeling a bit demoralized, I ran back inside, closed the door and brought the second walkies-talkie to my mouth. I took a deep breath and went for it. ¡°??? CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA No matter what happens, ?? I feel like it¡¯s no big deal! ??CHA-LA HEAD CHA-LA Just as loudly as my heart pounds,?? The Tiger-Dama roars¡­Sparking!~~~????¡± Not knowing what to say, I decided to sing the Tiger Ball Z opening theme which sounded kind of muffled due to my gas-mask but the results were more overwhelming than expected. Weird ¡®clickety¡¯ sounds began to be heard as some giant cockroaches began to climb over my fences. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. It was terribly creepy, they were coming from all directions, rushing toward the sound they had heard. Eventually, one of them reached the bear trap field and stuck one if its legs into one. The creature let out a ear piercing squeal which seemed to make the other even more agitated. The other monstrosity who came next jumped on the trapped cockroach and began to feed on it. Others would then get stuck in a trap and the same thing would happen to them. These creatures were savage ones and had no sense of species. These things were cannibals. After a while, my front yard was filled with 20 or more of them. After confirming that no new one were coming and that most of them were probably gathered at the same place, I took a deep breath, opened the door and stood my ground, gun in hands. I pointed my assault riffle at the creatures and opened fire. BAM!* BAM!* BAM!* BAM!* BAM!* The bullets were going through them like butter, killing more than one with a single shot. It take only a second to empty a magazine but it felt like an eternity. After emptying my magazine, I didn¡¯t take the time to reload as some of them were already running in my direction. The hairs on my entire body stood up as a voice in my head kept yelling to run away but there was only 2-3 of them still alive and I had my shotgun, still fully loaded. I grabbed the short barrel shotgun strapped to my back, pointed it at the incoming monstrosities and fired. I had loaded it with buckshot hoping to get a good spray but the result were more gruesome than expected. Firing this type of ammo made the creatures explode like big blobs of jelly. I kept firing at everything getting close to me. One, two and three cockroaches down. Everything happened so fast, there was now green gooey stuff all over my driveway. My legs were shaking and I couldn¡¯t help but vomit in my mask which was seriously disgusting. With my mask now full of vomit, I was having a hard time breathing. I was still in shock at how violently these things had reacted to the noise I made. I couldn¡¯t help but wonder if these things were reacting this violently to any type of noises, or only to human voices. Sadly, what happened next answered my question. ¡°Cliketycliketyclak*¡± I became pale as I instantly recognized the incoming sound. Guns are definitely loud and had been heard from way further away than my ¡®walkies-talkie show¡¯ from earlier. I could tell from the sound that an insane amount of them were coming this way. Panicking, I closed the door, pushed the couch against it and ran back to my bunker to get more ammunition and clean my mask. When I came back up, my yard was already filled with them. There must have been at least a hundred of them, eating the dead carcasses of their comrades and crawling around everywhere. I was scared, I wanted to go back to my bunker and hide, but from my earlier experience, I knew guns were highly effective against these things. It was totally unlike me who usually had zero courage, but seeing them invade my personal space that way made me angry. Scared but determined, I went up to the second floor and silently walked up to one of the bedroom windows. I placed all my magazines on the bed next to me, and slightly opened the window. From where I was, I could see all these monsters crawling around and trying to break through the front door and windows. I took a deep breath, leaned forward and began to systematically eliminate them one at a time. I would aim for their heads and quickly reload when I was out. I had taken the resolution of keeping my shotgun loaded for myself in case they managed to get inside. There was no way I would let myself be eaten alive by these monstrosities. Realizing where I was shooting from, some of them tried to climb the wall to reach my window but were quickly taken care of with a bullet in the face. It had probably lasted only a few minutes but to me, it felt like hours. Eventually, all of them were dead. Many were still twitching around but it was most likely their nerves or muscle memory. I closed the window, crawled in a corner of the room and tried to calm down. My body was overwhelmed by adrenaline and wouldn¡¯t stop shaking. Tears were filling my eyes, making it hard to see clearly. Even though I had easily won against a swarm of them, I was traumatized and my mind was a total mess. After a few minutes, I remembered that I had yet to confirm if my gas-mask truly protected me against whatever was in the air. Afraid of suddenly loosing consciousness and getting sick again, a ran back down to my bunker. Once back inside, I undressed and threw all my equipment in a corner of the room. I placed my guns on the table, lit a cigarette and sat on my bed. My hands were still shaking as if I was suffering from Parkinson and my heart was beating faster than ever before. My yard was now an alien graveyard and would most likely attract more of these things. I needed to get rid of these bodies before things got out of hand, but I first needed to make sure I wasn¡¯t going to get sick like the last time I had gotten out. I waited three hours during which I simply kept staring at the ceiling light. During these three hours, I didn¡¯t think about anything. All that had went through my head was the images of what had just happened. I was proud of my unexpected courage, but scared shit-less of what else might be out there. I needed to go get some food, but the nearest grocery store was two kilometres away. It was going to be one hell of an adventure to get there. After three hours, I had only been slightly dizzy and had puked only once. The effect of whatever was toxic in the air had noticeably less effect when I wore my mask. Reassured, I went back upstairs and had a look at my front yard. All this green gooey blood and guts were sickening. I had to clear over a hundred alien corpses and simply couldn¡¯t find it in myself to do it. They were simply too gross for me to even consider touching. Not only that, I was also scared out of my mind by the idea of some of them feigning death, waiting for me to get near them before attacking. The only reassuring fact was that I had most likely killed all of them in a quite large radius around my propriety. I should now be able to go out relatively safely. As I was thinking of a way to rid my yard of these carcasses, a wonderful idea popped into my head. My 5th neighbour had a big 4¡Á4 pickup truck equipped with a plow in the front. It was a Toyota Hilux if I remember correctly. My neighbour was using it to clear the snow in his driveway during winter. I could see how useful it could be to clean the mess in my yard. Gun in hand and refilled ammo belts, I walked out through the garage door. I tried to keep as much distance between me and these dead creatures. I kept my head in constant motion, looking left and right as I walked down my driveway. Upon reaching the gate, I inspected my surrounding and made sure no more creatures were around. I opened the gate and walked up to the middle of the street. For the first time in a long time, I was out and able to look around. The entire neighbourhood looked perfectly normal, if we excluded the horrible smell and the unkempt lawns. The biggest difference was the eerie silence all around me. Holding my assault riffle like a soldier, I carefully made my way down the street toward my 5th neighbour¡¯s house. When I arrived, the pick-up was still where it had always been before. I walked around and verified if the doors were unlocked but of course, everything was locked. With no other choice, I went to the front door and knocked just in case. Around one minute later with no answers, I bashed through the door and entered. Luckily for me, most people in this town had similar habits and would keep their keys in the wardrobe near the front door. There, I found a key hanger with many sets of keys. I picked the only one with a Toyota symbol on it and placed it in one of my pockets. Then I began to loot everything useful in the house and ended up filling my backpack with canned goods found in the pantry. Luckily for me, the owner of this house wasn¡¯t home during the past events so I didn¡¯t have to deal with his corpse. There was a lot more stuff I deemed useful but decided to come back later. I got out and walked up to the pick-up truck. I surveyed my surrounding and made sure nothing was creeping up on me before unlocking the truck doors. I sat on the seat, closed the door and placed both my hands on the steering wheel. There, I tried to calm my nerves by breathing slowly and calmly. ¡°This must be what they call hell¡­¡± After one minute, I turned the key in the ignition. A few wining sounds later, the old pick-up truck finally came back to life with a big roar and a puff of white smoke. ¡°Hahahahaha! WAHOooO! Rock ¡®n ROLL!!!!¡±. I pushed with all my weight on the accelerator and exited the driveway in a cloud of dust, making the tires squeal the entire way. The truck roared the entire way up to my home, so I was expecting some stragglers to come and play with me. I parked the truck in front of the garage door and ran back inside. I kept a lookout through the windows but nothing happened. I waited for 30 minutes, guns ready for actions but no creatures appeared. Apparently, I truly had killed the majority of them. Reassured, I got out again and prepared myself for a seriously disgusting clean up. Once more, I started the pick-up truck and lowered the snowplow. Then, I spent half an hour pushing the carcasses in a huge pile away from the house and trees. There was still guts and various gross stuff laying around but rain and worms should take care of that with time. I went in the garage, grabbed a 5 litre bottle of used oil and a gas canister. I got back out and emptied the combustible substances on the giant pile of carcasses before backing away a few steps. Just looking at this huge pile of gore made me want to vomit. I grabbed a piece of cloth, lit it on fire and threw it on the pile of carcasses. The gas and oil immediately caught fire and began to create a dense black smoke. I grabbed some logs, branches and various inflammable stuff from my surroundings and threw it in the giant bonfire, hoping everything would burn hot enough to be reduced to ashes. I watched the fire for a few minutes, unable to believe how bad-ass I was for killing so many aliens on my own. I then went back inside my bunker with a sense of having accomplished something great. Once gain, I threw my equipment in a corner of the room and filled a bucket with warm water to wash myself. I still felt like puking so I didn¡¯t eat anything. Once clean, I sat on my favourite chair and monitored the fire through my CCTV cameras while smoking a well deserved cigarette. I was slowly starting to feel like I could maybe survive in this world if I kept going like this. ¡°Tomorrow I should try to see if I can find any survivors¡­ Maybe¡­¡± The Merge – Chapter 3 (Evolving) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- From what I had observed so far, it looked like the area that had been transported to this ¡®world¡¯ was a giant circle. A circle of around 5km in diameter judging from its curvature. 5Km meant that most of the town and its 5000 inhabitants had been transported. I was on the east side of the circle, in the most rural area of it all. The following efforts made in order to find survivors turned out to be unrealistic. I tried to reach the centre of town by foot, and by truck, but the further in town I got, the more dangerous and numerous the ¡®wildlife¡¯ became. After penetrating almost one kilometre in, I had already met 5 new species. Of course none of them had been cute little rabbits or even birds but instead, all looked like mutants from horror movies. I didn¡¯t take the time to carefully observe them as I immediately turned around and ran back home at the first sight of them. All I knew was what they looked like. I saw some that didn¡¯t look like anything I had ever seen before, so I couldn¡¯t really say ¡®it looked like this or that¡¯. Between all these monstrosities, only two of them had a familiar appearance. The first one had me confuse them with dogs at first sight. Closer inspection showed that they were nothing like dogs and were much closer to reptiles. They had monstrous dentition, and their bodies seemed built for speed. Luckily, I was in my trusty pick-up truck when I came across a pack of those. Then the other familiar looking creature was something like a bull, but more like a bull on steroids. It had horns everywhere on its head, some type of brown feathers as fur and a strange body-shape. Its shape made me think of a mix between a gorilla and a bull since its forelimbs were longer. There were too many¡­ I didn¡¯t have enough ammunition to kill all these creatures, and that¡¯s without considering where they had originally come from. If I kill all the monsters in town, more will come from the forest. This was a losing battle. Not being the courageous type, I quickly gave up and concentrated on my own survival which was still difficult. I had spent a few weeks looting the neighbourhood, stockpiling their non perishable food. Entering a new house was always a horrible experience. Each time I would see the same thing. Perfectly intact houses, no sign of struggle or fighting, but each time there was one or more corpses. Some times I would come across children and baby corpses. These were the hardest to deal with psychologically. Seeing that some people had died in bed, or even watching TV, it seemed obvious that their death had been quick and painless. Thinking back on it, if the fear of that first cockroach hadn¡¯t made me run back inside my bunker back then, I would surely have died the same way instead of simply getting sick. I first thought of burying their bodies, but their sheer numbers forced me to ignore them. I didn¡¯t have time to bury them all right now. Instead, I took everything I thought useful, loaded it in my pick-up truck and went to the next house. I was still unsure as to why some of the corpses hadn¡¯t been touched. Only the houses with opened windows had been visited by the local creatures. In these cases, no corpses were left. All that could be seen were brown stinky stains on the ground, indicating something had rotted and leaked in this area. In comparison, if the house had closed doors and windows, no creatures seemed to be able to get it. I couldn¡¯t imagine why a 2 meter long insectoid creature couldn¡¯t break the windows but apparently, they couldn¡¯t, or preferred not to. This was reassuring as it seemed to indicate that as long as I was somewhere barricaded, they wouldn¡¯t come for me. The smell of death, would never go away. These houses were uninhabitable and should be demolished, I even thought about burning them, but decided not to. I spent around 3 weeks gathering everything of value from the neighbourhood, going as far as towing their vehicles to my yard. My yard now looked like a car dealership. There was so much useful stuff in cars, I couldn¡¯t bring myself to leave them. By useful I meant the wiring, electronics, batteries, the gas contained in their tank etc. The plan was to siphon them all dry and store the gas in a giant tanker truck I had spotted at the nearby truck-stop. I would also need to go to a ¡®Canadian Tire¡¯ store, where I knew I could find fuel preservative and stabilizer. Little known fact, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel all have an expiration date. Normal gasoline will last no longer than 3 years which is why I needed this preservative. Actually, even with preservative, 3 years should be its limit. The big difference would be how fresh the gasoline stay in the first 2 years. Without the preservative, gasoline will lose some of its volatility (ignitability) after only 12 months. I could have done a lot more during these 3 weeks, but I didn¡¯t. I stayed in my bunker most of the time, eating my new canned food. I was feeling demoralized, barely surviving at all. The reason for my lack of effort was simple, I was doomed to die soon. Even canned food has expiration dates, but worst of all was my gas-mask. Gas-masks use filters which are screwed onto the mask near the mouth piece. Well little known fact, these filter last no longer than 24h. Right now, I only had 3 filters left. I only had 72 hours of outside time left. All I could do was maximizing my use of time, and gather as much food as possible. I estimated I could last 6 months at most. So here I was, sitting on my usual chair, munching on some craft diner¡¯s cheesy noodles. I was watching some episodes of my favourite anime, trying to get my mind out of things. Today I had planned something big. Just at the bottom of my street, was the land owned by my father¡¯s ex construction company. I had ended up selling it for a few million dollars a few years back. There, I knew there was exactly that I needed right now. A giant wheel loader! A 5 tons¡­ Ln900 something¡­ Doesn¡¯t matter, I knew how to drive it (sort of) and knew where the keys were (kinda-ish). I only needed to go get it, bring it back to my house and turn it into an apocalypse ready vehicle. I will weld iron plates over the windows and leave only small cracks for visibility. Then I will need to go back there and hitch the big trailer they used to carry tools and materials. I will need to rapidly empty its content, then plow my way to the grocery store. Since everybody probably died instantly, no looters should have been there before. It was even less likely, knowing there was a bigger grocery store closer to town. If a grocery store had been looted, it would be that other one. I grabbed and put on my equipment, then once more exited the safety of my bunker. The thought of me being alone in this world, and the loss of internet had affected me differently than how I would have expected. For the first time in my life I felt loneliness. As I was walking out of the house, I was still surprising myself at how easy it was to go out now. Having no society or other people around had forced me out of my old NEET way of life. There was nobody to hide from anymore. (Excepted monsters who won¡¯t judge me.) All these past weeks had been spent clearing this neighbourhood. It had taken me some time but the entire area was now relatively safe. Still, I walked down the street with my head swivelling around, making sure nothing was sneaking up on me. Few minutes later, I finally arrived at my father¡¯s company property. I immediately spotted the wheel loader at the back but turned right toward the office first. It was a very dull looking building, a two story grey box with windows. In front of it, scattered everywhere were bones and some pieces of ripped off clothing. I had already seen this before. When the giant cockroaches get to your body, this is all they leave behind. These bastard seem to eat everything excepted the bones. Ignoring all this I walked to the door, shotgun in hand. Unsurprisingly, the door was opened. Most doors in town were unlocked since everything seemed to have happened during the day. From what I had observed so far, people were apparently at work or at school during the first events. The door slowly opened without a sound, and a sudden wave of stench assaulted my nostrils. ¡°This smell, I will seriously never get used to it.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but say out loud to myself. In the room, laid on the floor, were some employees who were probably on lunch break at the time. Their bodies were highly decomposed, to a point where you couldn¡¯t differentiate between male or female. Closing the door behind, I walked up to the counter at the reception. This is where the key should be so I began to look around. As expected, the keys were all together on a board behind the desk. I grabbed the familiar set of keys and looked around through the windows before going back out. I¡¯m certain I saw some movement outside but I was slowly getting used to it. Since I first met the group of ¡®wild hell dogs¡¯ (Let¡¯s call them like that) they had continuously stalked me. I would catch glimpse of them on my CCTV cameras and everywhere I went outside. I kept my guard up but I assumed it was mostly curiosity since they hadn¡¯t attacked me so far. Switching to my assault rifle, I went back outside, still careful of my surroundings. It¡¯s surprising how silence can be the scariest thing sometimes. With no electricity, engines or electric motors, the silence was inexplicable. It was the type of silence that makes you realize how noisy our modern world actually is. (Or in my case, was.) I made haste toward the desired vehicle, always inspecting my blind spots. From the corner of my eye there they were again, hiding in the bushes were 2 of these monster dogs. I unclipped my rifle-scope caps and rapidly brought it to my shoulder. As I was staring at them through the lens of my rifle-scope, I heard rustling in the bushes to my right. ¡°Fuckers!¡± (PRnote: clever girl) Rapidly letting go of my rifle, I reached over my shoulder and grabbed my short-barrel shotgun as I twisted my body to the right. Two of these bastard hell dogs were in a frantic race to get me, but as they were about to jump for my throat, BAM! BAM! BAM!* Three consecutive blows of buckshot to the face, turned their body into pasta-strainers. Overloaded with adrenaline, I kept making sudden turns in all directions, looking for more of these fuckers to blow up. The two I had first spotted were not in the bushes anymore, they were gone. I had seriously underestimated these bastards. They had been stalking me, waiting for the best opportunity to strike. They were working as a team and were capable of highly intelligent hunting tactics. This was now a lot more terrifying. I don¡¯t have anyone to watch my back, I am alone in this cursed world. Once again, I was feeling lonely. Surprising how what I miss the most now, is what I used to fear the most before. Human company¡­ Still panicking, I ran to the wheel loader and closed the cabin door. ¡°pant* pant* pant*¡± Finally in a closed area, I could relax. I stuck the key in and started the big diesel engine. Giant puffs of black smoke covered the area as the familiar diesel engine sound made itself heard. The fuel tank was not empty, but lower than half full. I would probably need to fill it up before leaving on the mission. Luckily, I have a manual pump at home that I can use to do that later. Right now I only need to bring this puppy back home, and turn it into a bug/dog squasher tank. I put it in gear and loudly go up the road. With my front gate controller in hand, I opened the front gate to my property and entered with the giant piece of equipment. There, I parked it in front of the garage door, where I could easily work on it in the next days. Still shaken by the dogs¡¯ attack, I went down in my bunker, undressed, sat on my couch and lit a cigarette. My hands were still shaking, my stomach had a knot in it and I felt like crying. This fucking life of mine, this was no game, this was no fantasy fiction. It was fucking scary, that¡¯s what it was. No matter how bad-ass you are, you¡¯d be scared in my situation. The day after, I was cutting some of the car hoods with a plasma cutter. It was thin metal but for some reasons, the creatures of this world didn¡¯t seem to be able to break windows. Using metal plates over the windows was just in case they ended up realizing they could break through. I had already welded pieces of hood over all the windows excepted one when suddenly, something life changing happened. I spotted something small from the corner of my eyes, it was a rat. It was something I had seen so many times before but at that moment, I felt like crying as I observed the little animal scurry around. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. This was not an alien rat, I was certain that it was an earth rat. This was a major discovery, mammals from earth could adapt to this atmosphere? Sure, rats were highly adaptable, but as fellow mammals, if they could do it, maybe I could as well. With my gas-mask filters slowly running out, this discovery brought me a new ray of hope. I quickly finished welding the last metal plate over the door window and removed my mask for a few breaths. I filled my lungs around ten times before putting my mask back on and going back inside. Well, I got sick and puked my guts out all night. The day after I was still feeling under the weather but was already feeling better, so I got out and repeated the same action. ¡°Inhale, exhale¡­¡± That time, I got sick again but for only a few hours. Day after day I persevered, going out and trying to breathe outside longer and longer. I made sure to never over do it and observed some drastic increase in my tolerance to whatever was in the air. One week later, I was already able to stay one entire hour outside without getting sick. This meant that I could indeed adapt to this world to a certain degree, but I was growing worried about something else. Everyday I would wake up, do my exercises, then eat breakfast but recently changes began to happen. I had always been doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 jumping jacks but since I began building a resistance to this world¡¯s atmosphere, my body seemed to change as well. I was seriously worried that whatever was in the air was slowly making my body mutate. I could now do my exercises without breaking a sweat. I decided to push myself to the limit to see how much stronger I had became and the result was, 1000 push-ups, 1000 sit-ups and 1000 jumping jacks¡­ Worst of all, I felt like I could keep going. After pushing my body to its limit I witnessed something even more scary. Red vapour, or something like a red mist began to slowly perspire through the pores of my skin. It looked like my sweat was evaporating but it was something else, something red. Immediately my thought drifted to the red sun. ¡°So what¡¯s toxic in the air truly comes from that red sun eh?¡± I thought to myself. I suspect that whatever is toxic in the air gets accumulated in the body, and maybe exercising allows me to expel it¡­ I¡¯m still unsure whether having it leak like that is a good or a bad thing. One thing for sure was that it was making me stronger. Ironic considering how weak the local creatures seemed to be. Back on earth, humans were usually the weak ones. (Without our modern technology) Animals run faster, are stronger and better at almost everything excepted brainy stuff, but here in this world, humans seemed quite strong. I ran to the mirror to look at myself but the red mist didn¡¯t seem to be visible through it, which was seriously disconcerting. Why? I could clearly see the red mist with my eyes, but mirrors couldn¡¯t reflect it? Strange, very strange indeed. Scared and worried at first, I decided to ignore it. If I couldn¡¯t adapt to this atmosphere I was no better than dead anyway. From now on, first thing in the morning, I planned to go out and breathe some of this ¡®red air¡¯. Then exercise intensively before breakfast. This would be my new routine. During the next week, I went out and filled the wheel loader with diesel stored in a big reservoir back where I had found it. With no electricity, I now needed to use a manual pump directly from the underground tanks since the normal fuel pumps didn¡¯t work. I was finally ready for ¡®operation grocery¡¯ but when I got out to fuel the loader, I noticed something strange again. The red mist I was now seeing seeping through my skin on occasion was now all around. It was everywhere in the air and seemed to be denser in certain areas. There were what seemed like red air currents blowing through everywhere. This was either a new natural phenomena, or had always been there, invisible to my non-adapted eyes. The second choice seemed like the most likely at this point considering what I had seen so far. The phenomena was even more clearly visible during a ¡®red day¡¯. This was the name I had given to the times when the big sun is hidden and only the smaller red sun is out. The red sun seemed to have a faster orbit than the other sun, so sometimes there was 24h of light. (I know suns don¡¯t orbit around planets, but with two suns, how does it work?) A few hours of normal lights, then a few more hours of red light. With only red light around, it was very spooky. The entire world looked like a black room where you develop pictures. It was an apocalyptic vision of horror, a night you would expect vampire to be out. Because of its creepiness, I had avoided going out during these ¡®red days¡¯ so far, but when I finally did, the spectacle was unbelievable. I waved my hands around, playing with the red mist. It seemed so thick, as if the air had doubled density. Now able to breathe 1h30 without mask, I felt ready for the mission. I was going to go grocery shopping tomorrow. Knowing that it was possibly my last night alive, I popped open my best bottle of brandy and got piss drunk. The day after I was so hungover that I aborted the mission. Better go tomorrow, when I feel better. I still did my breathing and training program but it was all I managed to do that day. The day after I woke up early, completed my training program and had breakfast. Today was baked beans. I dressed up, filled my ammo belts, inspected the surroundings through my CCTV cameras, put my mask on and exited the bunker. I was nervous, today was going to be very dangerous. Most annoying thing was that with my mask on, I couldn¡¯t smoke. I got in my mad max style wheel loader and started its engine in a thundering roar. I had selected this vehicle not only because of its sturdiness, but also because of it¡¯s speed. I had first considered using a dozer but those things were far too slow. There was a big Deer D10 dozer over there as well that would have made a perfect tank, but for what I needed it, a wheel bucket was even better. I went back to my father¡¯s ex business property and hooked up a big box trailer in the back of my vehicle. This vehicle was not meant to tow any trailers but I made due with what I had. Since the wheel bucket is ¡®articulated¡® in the middle, carrying a trailer with it was awkward and unpractical, but I attached it with some seriously heavy duty chains and straps. The chances of losing it half way there were almost nonexistent. Articulated: (An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivoting joint in its construction, allowing the vehicle to turn more sharply. There are many kinds of articulated vehicles, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains.) As I was doing this, I kept a look out for cockroaches and these damned dogs but didn¡¯t see anything. Surprising considering I was making so much noise. Once everything was hooked up, I got back into the cabin and began to make my way down the road. Once at the and of the road, I could either turn left, or right. To the left I could see the road being cut straight through as if it had been a cul-de-sac all along. To the right, was the way going toward the centre of town, but midway was the grocery store I was trying to reach. Since the road was going up and down over hills, I couldn¡¯t see very far away but I turned right and pushed the pedal to the metal. Even a creature as big as an elephant couldn¡¯t stop me in this. I roared my way through as tens of weird creatures began to either run away, or try chasing my vehicle. Once over the small hill, the road changed into a 4 lines road, allowing me to do a quick 180¡ã and face my pursuers. I dropped the bucket and pushed the engine to it¡¯s limit. As I was expecting, the creatures that didn¡¯t avoid me got instantly turned into paste. I repeated the process until there were no more of these fuckers left following me. I kept on moving without wasting time toward my destination. Still at the 4 lines road, I stopped at a convenience store to my right. I grabbed my shotgun, exited my loader and ran to the small building. ¡°Shickling*¡± The glass door bell rang, once again, unlocked. The employee¡¯s corpse was no where to be seen. He probably was outside when he died and got eaten. Not wasting a second, I ran to the fridge, grabbed all the beer it contained and began to fill my trailer. Then, most important of all, I emptied the cigarette shelves. I didn¡¯t care what brand it was, I took them all. Then I began to grab the dried meat and other various non-perishable food items and threw them in the trailer with the rest. There was not enough food in there, I had no other choice than keep on going toward the grocery store. I was one third of the way there, my vehicle had proven itself so far and I felt somewhat confident. ¡°Kikaklak*¡± BAM!* A cockroach which was trying to sneak up on me got it¡¯s head blown up to bits. They were probably amazing ambush predators in the wild, but on tarmac, their legs were surprisingly noisy which was good for me. I got back up in my bug destroyer vehicle and got back on the road. Reaching its top speed of 25 kilometres per hour, I was doing good progress. As the shopping mall where the grocery store was located came into view, something else became visible. Something, worrying. I clearly saw it, something looking like a 20 meters long snake was soaking up the sun, laid in the middle of the road but slithered away when he heard my engine. I hoped I wasn¡¯t going to meet it again. A few seconds later I reached the big parking lot which was surprisingly almost empty. I swerved in and kept my speed up as I turned in a circle for a while, trying to aggro as many monsters as possible. Since I had ample space to manoeuvre in this giant parking space, I kept attracting them and running over everything. The creatures I met so far had no chance against my giant piece of heavy machinery. When things cleared up, I kept driving slowly while I inspected the building. Once again, no windows were broken. How such massive windows hadn¡¯t already been destroyed by the wildlife, was beyond me. Luckily, intact windows and doors meant the inside should be safe. I stopped in front of the door, and backed up the trailer as close as I could in front of it. I got out, grabbed my assault rifle and began eliminating the stragglers. I stopped the engine and climbed on top of the cabin to get a better view of my surroundings. I waited a few minutes to see if anything wanted to come play with me. None appeared, except a dozen two legged creatures about one and a half foot high seemingly more interested in eating the corpses laying around. It was the first time I saw these creatures. I first thought of killing them, but they never even looked my way. They seemed totally disinterested in me. Seeing these little monsters eating was unsettling, but I decided to ignore them. I turned around and looked at the big glass automatic doors. These doors were not going to automatically open anymore without electricity so I grabbed a crowbar out of my bag, got down on the ground and walked up to it. I could easily break a window but doing that would allow all the creature to enter inside and eat all the food. The only way was going to be forcing the doors open. I stuck the crowbar between the doors and pried them open. I opened them just enough for me to slide my body through before closing them back up. Inside, the smell of rotting food was unbearable but I had had a lot of training with an even worse smell recently. Rotting fruits almost smelled like perfume compared to corpses. I placed my assault rifle on my back and grabbed my shotgun. The shotgun was always better at close range. A quick survey around the place confirmed that nothing had entered in here. There were a few cadavers, but nothing I hadn¡¯t already handled before. I dragged them all in a corner and covered them with some cardboard boxes. At least that way, I wouldn¡¯t have to look at them. I didn¡¯t have much time, I needed to quickly bring everything I needed closer to the door, then load it up in the trailer. Of course I emptied the stocks of cigarettes and alcohol shelves first, but then went for the big bags of rices and beans. Next were the canned goods and other stuff I found along the way. I grabbed all the instant ramen noodles and products that seemed to never expire. Chocolate bars were also on my list for the quick boost of energy they procured. I now had a giant mound of food piled up in front of the door and was finally ready to begin loading up the trailer but I froze after looking outside through the windows. The little fuckers I had decided to ignore earlier were now numbering in the hundreds. ¡°Ummm.. I haven¡¯t got enough ammo for that kind of shit.¡±¡­ The Merge – Chapter 4 (Shopping) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- Watching these monstrous alien chickens eat was terrifying. Their sheer numbers were enough to slowly make me fall into despair. I could either wait for them to finish eating and leave, or find a way to deal with them. Waiting was not really an option as my mask filter had no more than 6 hours left to it. Even worse was the fact that today was going to be a short day followed by a few hours of ¡®red sun¡¯ before night. I had no idea how long I had before nightfall but I didn¡¯t have time to waste over mutant chickens. Having no idea how to deal with them at the moment, I decided to sit next to my giant pile of supplies and smoke a cigarette. Smoking one would take only 4 to 5 minutes and since I could breath the air for more than 1h30, this wasn¡¯t going to be too much of a problem. While I was at it, I decided to open a bottle of vodka and have a few sips to give me courage. Well me being me, I ended up drinking half the bottle. Probably due to drunkenness, these chickens didn¡¯t seem that scary anymore. I ripped a piece of cloth from my shirt and stuffed it in the opening of the half empty bottle I was drinking, creating a Molotov cocktail. I staggered my way up to the door, opened it slightly and stood next to my trailer bottle in hand. The creatures continued to eat, completely ignoring me again. ¡°HEYY YOU FUCKING CHICKENS! WANT SOME OF THIS?¡± I then yelled while pointing at my Molotov cocktail like an idiot. Some of them, surprised by the sudden shout jumped back and looked at me, but eventually turned their attention back to their feast. ¡°Umf.. Thought so¡­¡± Yea, some stupid mutant chicken wouldn¡¯t go after the superior being that I am¡­ (Still completely drunk by the way.) Satisfied, I placed the bottle next to the door, opened the trailer and began to load everything inside. I began with what was fragile like glass bottles and such, then I began to simply throw the rest on top of it. I was quite drunk, and didn¡¯t care as much anymore. I was totally absorbed by what I was doing and stupidly stopped paying attention to my surroundings while I was finishing to close the trailer and store doors. I grabbed my half empty bottle of vodka, and made my way back to my wheel bucket for my next stop. As I was about to reach the ladder leading up to the cabin, I suddenly jumped back in fright as one of these fucking chicken came out from underneath the loader. ¡°UUARRRAaaa!!! You fucking chicken, you scared me!¡± In my anger I kicked the creature as hard as I could but the result ended up being different from what I was expecting. Instead of flying a few meters back, the mutant chicken exploded like a water balloon, sending blue blood and guts flying all over the area. I, myself was completely covered in this disgustingly smelly stuff. ¡°Nogrrrrrrr* Nog nog noggrrrrr*¡± (Angry chickens sounds.) The hundreds of creatures which witnessed the scene suddenly turned their attention toward me, showing their teeth and growling at me. From the look of it, I had just kicked a hornet¡¯s nest. ¡°Ho crap¡­¡± I quickly grabbed my Molotov cocktail, lit it with my lighter and threw it at them. Sighhhh.. This was when I learned that vodka doesn¡¯t burn very well¡­ All I had accomplished was to piss them off even more. They all began to run in my direction and before I could reach behind my back for my shotgun, they all jumped on me at the same time. There were so many of them that I couldn¡¯t see anything anymore. I could feel their teeth and claws on my skin as they were trying to rip apart every part of my body. I was flailing my limbs around like crazy, sending them flying in all directions but more of them kept coming. My clothes got ripped off during their assault and I began to bleed from everywhere, I was going to die like this. No! No way in hell I¡¯ll accept that. If I go down, I will go down kicking like a wild horse. I clenched my teeth and grabbed my machete. With them being all over me, a melee weapon was my only option. Machete in hand, I began to slash left, right, up and down like a madman. Since I couldn¡¯t feel much resistance from the blade, I first thought they were avoiding it, but as the ground began to be covered with a thick layer of blue blood and guts, I understood that it was working. These creature were simply very fragile, they were like a water balloon only waiting to be popped. I kept swinging my blade in all directions while protecting my crotch with my left hand. Eventually, I managed to clear most of those who were clinging to my body. I rapidly discovered that I could simply kill them by stomping on them with my feet. The problem was their numbers, for each one of these I killed, 2 more took their place. I was in pain and bleeding but for some reasons, maybe drunkenness, I was not afraid this time. With the knowledge of how weak these creatures truly were, plus my newly found strength and stamina, I was able to stand my ground in this hellish battle. The chickens¡¯ onslaught kept on going for who knows how long, but in the midst of this bloody carnage, I began to feel something different. As my anger and desire for power grew, more and more of this red mist began to leak from my body. At that instant, it probably looked like I was going super saiyan or something. It was as if time had slowed down, I could clearly see these creature coming, even those trying to attack from my blind spots. Actually, my mask was covered with blue blood preventing me from seeing clearly but as this red mist began to leak, I felt like I could see without my eyes. Truly a weird sensation. My blade became sharper, truer and more unforgiving as I slashed everything coming my way into pieces. I eventually stopped feeling pain from my wounds and even started to enjoy this sensation. I was not only drunk on alcohol, I was slowly getting battle drunk as well. Eventually, after an unknown amount of time, the creatures stopped their attacks. I stood there, blade in hand and panting away my fatigue. I wiped the blood of my mask to see what was happening but this blue crap was sticky and hard to clean, so I simply removed my mask and had a look around. I was standing waist deep in blue guts and surrounded by a wall of corpses. How many did I kill? Hundreds? All around, the remaining creatures were running away, finally admitting defeat. I took a few steps forward toward a guts free location to inspect myself. My clothes were ruined, but the hundreds of cuts all over my body seemed superficial. I was bleeding but nothing like a hemorrhage or anything life threatening. Remembering what had just happened, I was amazed. I totally looked like a super hero back then didn¡¯t I? Realizing I had survived this encounter, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. I was shaking like a leaf and tears began to flow from my eyes. ¡°S-scary.. Sob* Sob* That was, fucking scary. Bluarggg*¡± I couldn¡¯t help but puke the content of my stomach. No, I am definitely not a super hero. I am just a stupid NEET after all. Sensing fear overcoming me, I sheathed my machete and ran back to the loader. I closed the cabin¡¯s door shut and kept crying for a few minutes while clenching the steering wheel with both hands. I was in a poor state and my entire body screamed to run back to my bunker. For the next few minutes, I fought to regain my composure. I concentrated on encouraging thoughts like the fact that I had just discovered how weak these creatures truly were. This thought eventually lead me to another conclusion. I began to recall how all the creatures I had killed so far had been easily ripped apart by gun shots. Then sudden illumination! The creatures from this world, may look scary but, their constitution was very weak. Compared to them, the human body seemed a lot stronger and sturdier. Maybe I wasn¡¯t in such a bad position after all. Thinking about it, maybe this big 5 ton loader was even overkill for these¡­ Just like that, I had regained confidence and came back to my senses. Then there was this red mist thing that had also happened. What was that all about? From having watched so many anime, I developed a theory but had yet to prove it. My theory was that this red mist was maybe secreted like some sort of OP adrenaline. When in danger, maybe this red ¡®energy¡¯ was being used to boost the body¡¯s performance. This would explain how I managed to suddenly become stronger and faster. Or maybe I was just too drunk and imagined all this? No, alcohol doesn¡¯t cause hallucinations, I think. Still holding the steering wheel firmly, I first looked right toward the way back home, then left, to the big ¡®Canadian Tire¡¯ located right next to the grocery store. Canadian Tires are large surface stores offering sporting goods, hardware, electronics, housewares, garden and patio, and auto accessories. It was right next to where I was, and it was where I would be able to obtain fuel preservative, propane tanks, and most importantly, guns and ammunition. I was injured but, I had already eliminated the danger and didn¡¯t feel like coming back another time just for this. Gathering my mental strength, I started the big wheel loader and drove the few meters separating me from my goal. I still had free space in my trailer and needed to make this trip count. With that in mind, I did the same as with the grocery store and backed up the trailer in front of the store doors. By the way, that loud beeping sound this thing makes while backing away was seriously starting to annoy me as I feared it would bring some more unwanted attention. As I was about to stop the engine, a giant shadow swept through the parking lot. ¡°A plane???¡± I instinctively thought judging by the size of the shadow. I lowered my head and leaned forward, trying to look at the sky through the front cabin¡¯s window. I searched for a bit but couldn¡¯t see anything. I hadn¡¯t seen anything but couldn¡¯t shake this bad feeling. I broke out in a cold sweat, and I had this deep pit in the bottom of my stomach telling me to run away. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a blood-chilling roar froze me in place. ¡°ROOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!¡± Then, out of nowhere, it landed in front of my loader in an ungraceful manner that made the entire ground shake under the creature¡¯s weight. The flying creature had bluish grey scales and was almost as big as my loader. By all mean, this thing looked exactly like what anyone would call a dragon. Dragons truly exist? No way! The giant monster was displaying its size by opening its wings and growling in a threatening manner. For the first time in my life, I understood what it was to piss your pants out of fear. This thing was visibly trying to pick a fight but there was something strange about its behaviour. It didn¡¯t feel like it was threatening me, it actually felt more like this creature was trying to pick up a fight with my giant vehicle. Suddenly, the creature took a deep breath while arching its neck backward. You know, I played a lot of Skyrim, so I immediately associated this movement with an incoming fire-breath. Panicking, I raised the bucket up to shield myself against whatever was coming and charged forward, toward the beast. Seeing my giant vehicle suddenly move, the creature responded by aggressively latching itself to the bucket. The dragon attacked furiously, making the entire vehicle shake under its strength like it was a toy truck. This creature was not weak like the others, in fact it was currently biting chunks off of the steel bucket as I pushed it backward. Since the bucket was raised a few meters up, the dragon eventually began to be pushed on his back and under the bucket. I didn¡¯t want it to get too close to the tires since it could rip pieces of reinforced steel, the tires wouldn¡¯t have any chance. After pushing the creature around 15 meters backward, I eventually pinned it against a parked vehicle. The small sedan got immediately crushed under the beast¡¯s weight as I tilted the bucket downward, over the dragon¡¯s chest. Then, I dropped the bucket on the beast, using all the weight and hydraulics strength this machine had. My goal was to cut the dragon in half, using the bucket as a dull blade. This machine was capable of applying an insane amount of force yet, even as the two front wheels began to rise off the ground, the dragon¡¯s body still refused to break. This was just insane! This machine is capable of crushing cars and everything yet can¡¯t put a dent on this monster. The dragon was still furiously struggling like a devil drowning in holy water, the entire vehicle almost verging on it¡¯s sides. I was in trouble, this thing wasn¡¯t an animal. This thing was a fucking flying fortress. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. While I was still jerking the bucket around, trying to break the beast¡¯s ribs or whatever this creature¡¯s anatomy had placed there, I was thinking as hard as I could, trying to figure out a method to kill it. Without warning, the dragon arched its neck back and opened it¡¯s mouth before freeing hell fire on earth. It was my first time seeing a creature truly capable of spitting fire, this was mesmerizing. It was amazing certainly but I quickly began to panic as the heat of said fire was way over what I would have expected. Luckily, the bucket blocked most of it but was left glowing red hot after the attack. If this reaches me, I¡¯m a dead man. Then, the two front tires simply exploded, as air quickly escaped them via the gaping melted holes left by the creature¡¯s flames. ¡°FUCK!! Now this thing can¡¯t go anywhere anymore.¡± Sensing that the time to abandon ship was ripe, I grabbed my backpack, kicked the door open and jumped down. First falling on my face due to drunkenness, I jumped back on my feet sobered up by fear. I ran away toward the store as fast as I could, not daring to look back even once. Once I had judged to be far enough, I turned around and aimed my rifle at the beast. I was shaking so much that I couldn¡¯t align a perfect shot. I had to take a few seconds to breathe and calm down before shooting. ¡°Breathe in, breathe out. I can do it!¡± I laid myself on the ground for better stability and aimed at the creature¡¯s head. ¡°BAM! Ting!* Eh?¡± The bullet ricochet on its head, barely leaving a mark. The creature became angered and trashed around even more. Panic setting in, I immediately felt like running away. This thing couldn¡¯t be killed! But soon my eyes focused on something encouraging. The creature had a bloody belly and for once, it was red blood like mine. If this thing can bleed, it can be killed. (What movie was that a quote from again? Ho right, predator.) Observing the creature through my magnifying rifle scope, I observed where the bleeding came from and immediately discovered it¡¯s weak point. The bucket teeth had penetrated the dragon¡¯s belly. Therefor, its belly should be its weak spot right? Moving right a bit to get a better shot I laid back down and aimed. ¡°BAM!¡± This time the bullet went right in, creating a wound that soon began to bleed. Encouraged, I kept firing, hoping to touch its vital organs but the damned thing kept struggling as if it was getting angrier and angrier. I ended up emptying 2 entire clips in its belly before finally witnessing the creature losing strength. It wasn¡¯t dead, but was certainly mortally wounded. Not wanting to waste any more bullets on it, I decided to let it bleed out. Finally feeling safe again, I began to look up to the sky, looking for any sign of more of them coming. Maybe these things were social creatures. If that was the case, I needed to get as far away from here as possible. I ran to the Canadian Tire store and forced the door open with my crowbar. I quickly entered and closed the door behind me. There, I sat on the floor behind the cash register and held my gun close to my chest. It was too much, I had almost died too many times today. This was way more than I could take. I remained there, hidden in the dark as I silently sobbed my fear away. Not all creatures are weak, not all of them could be crushed bare handed. Cockroaches, hell dogs, devil chickens and all those were small fries but what I had just met right now was the real deal. This world had some really dangerous creatures living in it but a dragon? This didn¡¯t make sense. In a different world, it would be normal to see creatures looking strangely similar to those on earth but creatures from fairy tales¡­ How is that possible? I mean, the damned thing could have looked like a dragon but, spitting fire for real? ¡°Did I get transported into a fantasy world?¡­.. STATUS WINDOW!¡­¡­.¡± I then yelled. Obviously, nothing happened.. ¡°Am I stupid?¡± There¡¯s no such thing as real game fantasy worlds. Could it be that all these legends of fire breathing creatures in my world came from dragons from this world being transported to earth by accident in the past? Definitely possible. ¡°Urggg I feel like I¡¯m going to be sick.¡± Wait¡­ If dragons made it to my world, could there be a way for me to go back ? This is something I definitely need to look into. I was there, naked, covered in blue smelly bodily fluids, covered with wounds and my spirit half-shattered. Worst of all, night-time was quickly approaching and I had no more than a few hours left on my mask filter. Even if another dragon appeared, I couldn¡¯t stay here for the night and would have to venture out by foot to avoid alerting it. I could not see a possibility for things to get better if such creatures lived around here. After struggling to move my sore body, I finally got back up and looked out the windows. Strange, no creature had come to eat the dragon¡¯s remain. Could the local creatures fear it even after its death? I watched the puddle of blood increase in size as the dragon emptied itself, then began to think about something else. ¡°Red blood¡­¡± This was the first creature with red blood I had seen so far actually. (If I exclude the rat I spotted a while back.) Does that mean I can eat its meat? Insectoids have yellow or green slimy stuff as blood, other creatures have either blue or purple blood. None had red blood like me or this dragon. Knowing that, it could mean I can eat it right? It¡¯s red meat so I could theoretically have some dragon steaks? Then my mind began to drift somewhere else, incapable of concentrating on one thought at a time. Could it be that instead of coming from this world, dragons were originally transported from earth the same way I ? Then dragons went extinct on earth but not here? That would mean that dragons did exist in my world as well as ruining my idea about finding a way back home. ¡°No no, let¡¯s not think about that right now¡± I then thought to myself. I only had around one hour of daylight left before the short period of red light. I would prefer to be home before that if you ask me but for that I needed a new vehicle. Parked right in front of the store was a brand new ford f-150. It being parked so close would usually indicate that it belonged to an employee, or a customer. I quickly went to the hunting section of the store and grabbed a few pieces of clothing. Mine were all ripped to shreds. Then I began to go from one cadaver to the other, looking in their pockets. With all the gross stuff I have to touch daily, it¡¯s no wonder I always wear gloves. At my 6th corpse I finally found a key with a ford logo on it. I nervously walked near the glass door while holding my gun near my chest. I was nervously scrutinizing the sky, looking for any sign of danger. I don¡¯t know how long I stood there but I was frozen in place, scared to death of what could be out there. I pulled the set of keys out of my pocket and used the remote to unlock the doors. This made the indicators blink, confirming those were the correct keys and also confirming that the truck¡¯s battery still had a charge. You see, batteries have this tendency of discharging themselves if unused over a long period of time. It had been around 4 months now since this vehicle had last moved but the battery seemed still good. I now had three choices ahead of me. 1: Jump in the truck and haul ass back home. 2: Quickly unhook the trailer from the now useless loader and attach it to the pick-up truck before going home. Or 3: Do all I said in choice 2 but also gather all the equipment I need from this store before leaving. Since I didn¡¯t want to come out of my bunker ever again, option 3 was the one I was contemplating. I didn¡¯t want to have to come back here in the near future. Decided, I stuffed the keys in my pocket and began to gather all I needed, creating a pile in front of the door like at the grocery store. I took everything I judged useful, ammunition, guns, propane tank, fuel preservative, giant plastic tarp and other survival equipment. I had managed to find many gunpowder containers in store and in the back-store. I had so much that I began contemplating the making of bombs. For creature like dragons, I needed something capable of packing a bigger punch than my current 958. From what I had just witnessed, only my 338 Lapua sniper rifle could kill such a thing. I had always called it my ¡°hand cannon¡±. It was not a .50cal but it was the biggest calibre we were allowed to own back in Canada. Grenades or other explosives could definitely be useful as well. After estimating my pile of stuff to be the maximum size the trailer could still carry, I walked up to the glass door once again and looked at the sky. No movement, and still no scavenging creatures eating the dragon¡¯s corpse. Could this also mean that dragon¡¯s flesh isn¡¯t comestible? I was eyeing the beast¡¯s tail with saliva filling my mouth. Strange how fear turned to hunger once the beast was finally dead. I slowly pulled the remote out of my pocket, aimed it at the pick-up truck and pressed start. I could hear the starter having barely enough electricity to make the engine turn but since it was a brand new truck, its engine eventually came to life energetically. ¡°Good good!¡± I pulled my bolt cutter out of my bag and ran to the still fuming loader. I cut the chains attaching it to the trailer as fast as possible and cut the straps with my machete. I then jumped into the truck and backed it into a position allowing me to turn the trailer to the left. Once this was done, I hooked the trailer and backed it away in front of the store door. The entire time, I kept my eyes toward the sky, my blood freezing in my veins at every cloud passing overhead. Confident that the alternator had charged the battery enough, I stopped the engine and ran back into the store. I waited a few minutes, worried about the noises I had just made but nothing happened other than a few cockroaches walking nearby, completely ignoring the dragon¡¯s corpse. Seeing the sun slowly setting, and the sky turning red, a sense of urgency prompted me to open the trailer and begin to load as fast as possible. Once that was done, I rapidly closed the trailer, started the truck engine and prepare to drive away but I stopped next to the dragon carcass. ¡°Urgggggg FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!¡± The only chance at red meat on this planet, I couldn¡¯t let it pass. I ran out and began to hack away at the tail but my machete blade simply kept bouncing off of it as if it was a steel pipe or something. Annoyed I stopped the truck engine and ran back into the store. There, I grabbed a giant gas powered concrete saw, grabbed an oil canister and ran back outside. These things were like chainsaws, they didn¡¯t simply use fuel, but a mix of fuel and oil, that¡¯s how these engines lubricate themselves. I emptied most of the oil canister and siphoned some fuel from a nearby car. Then, I mixed it all and fuelled the saw. A few cranks and the engine started in a cloud of blue oily smoke. This thing made so much noise that I couldn¡¯t stop but keep looking around and at the sky. I immediately attacked the tail, cutting it from the base. Luckily, with the proper tools, dragons could be chopped to pieces apparently. Unable to lift the tail I chopped it into more pieces and loaded into the back of the pick-up truck. Seeing that even with this much noise no creatures were coming near me, I assumed that dragons were truly feared by the local fauna and so a genius idea came to me. Rapidly, I severed its head as well and loaded it into the truck. My idea was to use this head as a trophy capable of keeping creatures away from my territory. With my vehicle now loaded at full capacity, I jumped back into the truck and drove away without looking back. The sun had set a few minutes ago, right now the only light was coming from the red sun which made everything look crimson red. It was light, but not as bright as with a normal sun. As I drove, I kept seeing glowing eyes because of my headlamps, looking at me from the side of the road as I drove past them as fast as possible. My eyes were looking in all directions, hoping not to meet anything too troublesome. I rapidly reached the convenience store and as I kept looking everywhere, I finally spotted something I had not noticed on my way to the stores earlier. On the other side of the road, in front of the convenience store was a truck stop. Incredulous, I stomped on the break and pulled my head out of the truck¡¯s window. It was there that I had spotted a massive fuel truck a month back. Remember the tanker truck I wanted to use to store all the fuel I have? Well it didn¡¯t look like it was going to happen anymore. ¡°T-the tanker t-truck¡­ is gone.¡± The Merge – Chapter 5 (Crafting) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- The parking area where the tanker truck should be was empty. I was certain to have seen a big rig there a month back, but now it was gone. There could be only one explanation for this sudden disappearance, survivors. This was the only possible answer. There were no corpses or anything suspicious around but it couldn¡¯t be anything else. Then, a sudden rumbling far in the distance made me snap back to what I was previously doing. ¡°Thunder¡­ Better hurry back home.¡± Since I had been here in this world, I had never seen rain during the day, but you could expect rain every night. I sat back in my seat and continued my journey back home with butterflies in my stomach. I was not alone, there were more people who had survived than I first expected. Since they took the truck recently, this would mean that they had survived for at least 3 months. With that in mind, it was highly likely that they were still alive, somewhere in town. As I made a left turn on my street and finally saw my property in the distance, my body began to ache. With salvation and safety in sight, my body had finally begun to relax hence waking up the pain caused by my wounds. No monster had tried attacking me during my way back. Considering it was currently a ¡®red day¡¯, I was perplexed not to have came across anything bad. A small grin formed on my face as the reason for this seemed to be exactly what I had hoped for. The dragon¡¯s head in the back of my truck seemed more valuable than I had first thought. Finally arriving at the gate of my property, I swiftly opened it and entered with my heavy cargo. I promptly parked the truck and trailer in front of the garage door and exited my vehicle. I needed to disinfect my wounds and clean the blue blood and guts from my guns and other equipment. Obviously, I wanted to get in my bunker and never come out again, but the dragon¡¯s tail I had brought kept bothering me. In such heat, if I didn¡¯t take care of it tonight, it¡¯ll spoil and turn bad really fast. This world¡¯s climate, seasons and sun cycles were still a total mystery to me. I had recently gone out of my bunker, during a few rare minutes of storm-less night. The stars in the sky seemed to be the same as the one on earth. I am no professional astronomer so I couldn¡¯t say for sure but, I recognized many familiar constellations. Shaking away these complicated questions, I began to carry the dragon pieces into the garage but stopped as I was about to unload the head. It was a seriously big head, as big as an elephant¡¯s head. How the hell did I managed to load it in the back of this truck? No matter how I looked at it, this should have been way too heavy for me to lift. Yet, I clearly remembered rolling it into the back of the truck, and even partially lift it. I then tried to lift it again but as I expected, this thing was way too heavy. Questions were inundating my mind as I wondered how I had accomplished such a feat back then. Memories of this red mist phenomena during my fight against the evil alien chickens kept popping into my head. There was no other possible explanation, I had used the power of this red mist unconsciously back then since I felt in danger. This was the only explanation as to how I had managed to lift this incredibly heavy dragon head. Since I had no intentions of eating the head, I decided to leave it in the back of my truck for now. In the worst case scenario, it will attract other dragons. In the best case, it will keep other creatures away from here. I will see what I can do with it tomorrow if my body condition allows me but for now, only the tail needed to be prioritized. I only had a few hours left on my current mask filter and intended to use it all before retiring for the night. My father¡¯s corvette was starting to get on my nerve, it was taking too much space in the garage and would need to be relocated tomorrow. If Father had heard me say that, he would have whooped my ass. I placed the tail pieces on an improvised counter and took out a meat cleaver and other sharp knives. The meat was tender, the only hard part was the scale covered skin. As long as I cut around it, I was able to butcher it properly without too much difficulties. I spend around 2 hours butchering the meat and sealed the pieces in zip-lock bags and saran wrap. I now had a mountain of red meat and began to fill my 2 big freezers with it. Eventually, my two freezers were filled to the brim but I still had more meat left. Not wanting to waste anything, I pulled out my father¡¯s smoker out of the store room and began to cut the remaining meat in thin slices ready to be smoked. I also placed the dragon¡¯s skin onto racks to dry and be tanned later. By the time I had achieved doing all this, my mask filter had already reached out its maximum lifetime, prompting me to finish for the day. I closed the garage door and used a steel pipe as chimney to evacuate the smoker¡¯s smoke from a window. The meat would be left there to smoke the entire night. Before finishing for the day, I opened the trailer door and grabbed something I had found at the Canadian Tire store. They were respiratory masks, usually used by painter or in other professions necessitating the use of toxic substances. I had grabbed all the masks I had found as well as boxes of spare filters. They were called ¡®organic vapour cartridges¡¯ and still needed to be tested since I didn¡¯t know if they could filter this ¡®red air¡¯. With what I wanted in hand, I closed and locked the trailer before going back to the safety of my underground shelter. I threw my equipment in a corner of the room and walked naked to the back of the main room. There, I took a long and warm shower, making sure to clean properly all the cuts and bruises on my poorly battered skin. Once that was done, I grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and meticulously disinfected every wound on my body. Blue blood and guts had been in contact with my wounds which made me quite paranoid as to the possible future infections. Luckily, none of the cuts seemed deep enough to reach the muscles. Some of them could have used a few stitched but I deemed it unnecessary. I had felt enough pain for the day and didn¡¯t feel like piercing myself with a needle on top of it all. The day had been especially long and scary. Here in my bunker, I could finally relax and feel better about it all but many things were still on my mind. Firstly, will my wounds heal properly? Secondly, that dragon encounter and my two freezers full of meat, and lastly, the survivors. I keep talking in plural since I doubted anyone except me would have been able to survive this ordeal alone. They had to travel across town, down to the truck stop near my home, take the big rig and drive it back to where they had come from. A surprising feat for someone alone. If they needed that much fuel, it was obviously to run a generator. That generator was most likely running an air filtration system which had allowed them to survive thus far. ¡°Somewhere in town, where the air is being filtered¡­¡± I whispered to myself. Where could that be? I grabbed some painkillers and antibiotics to prevent infection as I kept pacing around the room, lost in thought while chain smoking cigarettes. Most people don¡¯t own expensive air filtration systems like me. Considering this, it should logically be a public building. Fire station? Possible but unlikely¡­ Police station? Library?¡­ No. Where could they be? I kept thinking about it but couldn¡¯t come up with anything solid so I pushed the matter aside for later. Right now, I was starving. I had spent hours butchering meat and I was seriously salivating at the thought of eating some, but it was very late. I was dead tired and didn¡¯t feel like testing its edibility or get sick if it wasn¡¯t. Instead, I simply made some instant ramen noodles and went to bed. I was so tired that I instantly drifted asleep like a baby. Hopefully I won¡¯t go through such dangers in the future. Thump! Shake* I woke up wondering what was happening. The entire ground was shaking and making my provisions fall off the shelves. I stood up from my bed but couldn¡¯t react as quickly as I wanted due to the soreness of my body. How long had I slept? What was happening? I quickly looked through my CCTV cameras to shed light on the situation but was met with black screens. Thump! Shake* This time the lights flickered, something had happened to my power grid? Thump! Shake* Fuck! I think I know what is going on outside. I attracted a dragon to my house didn¡¯t I? And the damned thing is destroying everything above ground. My trailer full of supplies, my solar panels and windmill, everything I needed to survive was being destroyed wasn¡¯t it? Filled with anger, I grabbed my 338 Lapua sniper rifle, loaded its magazine with the deadly rounds and exited my bunker half-naked. Whatever was destroying my house needed to be taken care of as fast as possible or it meant my death. I nervously exited through the steel doors, ran down the red corridor, then up the stairs and opened the secret trap door. ¡°Gasp!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but let out a gasp because of what I was seeing. I should now be in the basement but, I was outside instead. ¡®Gulp*¡¯ My house was gone. All around me were burning remains of what was once my family home. It was still night and rain was pouring down, luckily preventing the fire from spreading to the entire neighbourhood. I was in shock, I had just lost everything. To burn under the rain, there were only two possible explanations in my mind. It was either my smoker that I had left untended that had caused this fire, or a dragon came and burned everything. ¡°Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr¡± A very low growl coming from behind made me jump back in fear. What I saw as I turned around froze me in place. ¡°ROOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!¡± A giant red glowing eye was staring at me from beyond the darkness of night, an eye as big as a car. Then, as my eyes finally focused on the dark silhouette, I almost fainted out of fear. It was indeed a dragon, and a very pissed one at that. But this wasn¡¯t the problem. This dragon which was currently staring at me with fury in its eyes was easily 20 times bigger than the one I had killed earlier. This dragon was as big as an apartment building. ¡°D-don¡¯t tell me¡­ H-his mom?¡± My stomach sank down so low that it felt like it had reached my feet. The giant dragon then arched its neck backward and took a deep breath. Knowing what was coming, I tried to jump back down the trapdoor to avoid it but it was too late. The fire was too hot, too powerful. It melted the ground, turning it into lava. The giant wall of flame reached me in the blink of an eye and annihilated everything it touched. HAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant*¡± I woke up in a puddle of my own sweat. My heart was beating like no tomorrow and my mind was in shambles. ¡°A-a dream?¡­¡± Panicked, I put on some pants and ran out to the garage. It was still night, the garage was pitch-dark and the only light came from the dim flame of the smoker. The smoker was running out of wood but everything else seemed perfectly normal. I restocked the smoker with wood, then slowly crawled alongside my father¡¯s corvette. Trying not to make a sound, I stealthily crawled up to the garage door with the intention of looking outside through one of the small windows. I should have used the CCTV cameras first instead of running outside like a moron. Because I didn¡¯t know what to expect, I was terrified to look out the window. I stood up, inch by inch until my eyes finally reached the necessary height to see out the window. It was incredibly dark and I couldn¡¯t see anything except one thing, two glowing red eyes only a few meters away from me. ¡°Gasp!*¡± My two legs gave way, making me fall on my ass. I was having a panic attack. I had difficulty breathing, my chest was tight and I felt like vomiting. I remained there, leaning on my father¡¯s corvette¡¯s front bumper, looking pathetic as I was trying to regain my composure. There were absolutely no sounds other than the sound of rain, and everything was way too quiet for a giant creature like a dragon to be here. I crawled on my stomach the entire way but I finally managed to get back inside. Silently closing the door, I ran down the trapdoor, stairs and the red corridor. I hurried into my bunker and ran to my computers to look through my CCTV cameras. This was the first thing I should have done after waking up after all. I carefully inspected each screen, there was no movement anywhere. Everything seemed calm but when I looked at the camera aimed at the front of the garage door, there they were again. These blood chilling, glowing red eyes. This time though, I could clearly see what was going on by switching to night vision. These glowing eyes were those of the severed dragon head. So these eyes would still emit light even after the dragon¡¯s death. This was truly peculiar, they were not glowing but seemingly bioluminescent. (Bioluminescence: is the production and emission of light by a living organism. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some bioluminescent bacteria and terrestrial invertebrates such as fireflies.) The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Truly fascinating even though it is equally chilling. You couldn¡¯t help but think it was still alive since this process should normally occur only when the creature is alive. (As far as I know¡­) Finally calmed down, I sat at the end of my bed and lit a cigarette. My thoughts were in total disorder. My body was annoyingly sore and I had slept only a few hours. I will need to get this head further away from my home tomorrow just in case. As I was smoking, I kept thinking about the possible location of the survivors. I eventually finished my cigarette and laid on my bed, still lost in thought. Then it came to me out of nowhere. ¡°The hospital!¡± Of course that¡¯s where they were. After all you needed good air filtration in an operating room, or for patients with respiratory sicknesses. The hospital also had an emergency generator which would have saved everybody during the crisis! This was amazing, this meant that the total number of survivors was potentially huge. There could be a hundred people stuck inside the hospital right now, but the big problem was that the hospital was located on the other side of town to the west. Between 4 to 5 kilometres away from here to be more precise. Having figured out where they probably were, I ended up finding sleep rapidly. Luckily this time, it was a dreamless rest. I woke up in the morning with aching muscles and pain in my joints. I felt like crap but pulled myself out of bed with the taste of red meat in mind. The cuts on my body were still very sensitive and had yet to close but at least they didn¡¯t bleed. I put on some clean clothes, grabbed my shotgun and went out in the garage. The smoker was doing its job perfectly and the meat looked delicious. I decided to leave the meat in the smoker for a bit longer and went back inside after putting more wood into it. I sat at the table and grabbed my head with both hands while recalling yesterday¡¯s events. I was happy to learn about the survivors but couldn¡¯t help but feel anxious about it. I missed it when I thought I was alone but now that I knew I wasn¡¯t alone, I didn¡¯t feel like meeting them anymore. Then I hatched a splendid idea. My property has a large antenna linked to various types of radio waves. If they had a CB radio, we could talk to each other like on the telephone. (Internet ancestor) My antenna was powerful enough to receive from them even if they had a small range antenna. This was a perfect plan, after all I couldn¡¯t blindly trust them. Some of them might want to beat the location of my bunker out of me then kill me. In these types of scenarios, other humans are your biggest threat. I will establish contact, secretly gather information about them, then decide what to do. Having one more thing off my mind suddenly reopened my appetite. I grabbed one of the steaks which had yet to fully freeze and placed it in the microwave in defrost mode. I then prepared a hot pan and used dragon fat as butter. I grabbed the precious piece of meat out of the microwave and gently placed it in the sizzling pan. TSSZZzzzzzzz* The smell was divine, a mix between beef and chicken. It was a total saliva inundation in my mouth and I was even considering eating the damned thing mid-rare, but just to be safe I decided to have it well cooked. While this was cooking, I rapidly made a batch of powdered mash potato with powdered milk as accompaniment. I grabbed a plate, placed the mash potato and the steak next to each other. I sat at the table and cried. I was so fucking happy, this was the best day in my life. I wolfed the entire thing down while crying my eyes out. Satisfied, I laid on my bed and digested peacefully. I needed to deal with my cargo today and I had still yet to decide what I was going to do with the dragon¡¯s head. Before I could decide anything, a familiar dizziness overcame me. ¡®Red mist¡¯ poisoning once again, the meat! I ran to the toilet and stuffed my index finger down my throat until I had completely emptied my stomach. But the dizziness wasn¡¯t going away, I was slowly losing consciousness. I had too much red gas inside me, I needed to evacuate some. Trying to remember the sensation of going super saiyan from yesterday, I began to try to force it all out of me. As I did so, the dizziness turned into a state of drunkenness. Everything around me seemed to slow down and I felt in control of every pore on my body. As I wished it, red mist began to leak from my skin. First it was trickles, then torrents. My skin was burning and screaming as I forced more and more out of me. The room became filled with it and the air filtration system couldn¡¯t keep up. I kept concentrating on this feeling and continued expelling it until I stopped feeling sick. Sensing I had reached a tolerable level of red mist, I stopped expelling it from my body. The air in the room eventually cleaned up and I felt instantly better. ¡°Fiuff¡­ Crap now I¡¯m hungry again¡­¡± I had almost died again, but this time I had learned something incredibly important. With this ability, I didn¡¯t need a gas mask anymore. I just had to regularly keep expelling some gas out. (No pun intended) This time I opted for something safe, some canned ravioli. I would need to increase my red gas tolerance quite a bit to be able to spoil myself with some dragon steaks. ¡°Sniff, sob sob sob*¡± The rest of the day was productive and happily uneventful. Not a single creature stepped foot on my property and I am certain that it is this dragon¡¯s head¡¯s doing. Curious to know how heavy this head was, I used a winch and a crane scale that Father and I used to weigh our catches. We loved hunting and fishing. Knowing how heavy our catch was was an important part of it. Conclusion, almost a thousand pounds. I was agape, unable to believe my eyes. While under the effect of this red gas, I had managed to partially lift a thousand pounds? Me, the neet, smoker who only does some exercises every day. Amazing, I will need to experiment with that later. Thank to the gas expulsion technique, I spent the entire day in the garage. I took Father¡¯s corvette outside and parked it on the side of the house. Feeling that my yard was safer than ever thanks to Mr Dragon, I unloaded the trailer, placed everything important in the bunker and the rest in the basement. I also took the dried meat out of the smoker and stored it in air sealed bags. Next, I placed the dragon¡¯s head a bit further away from the house on the side of the driveway, then began to make a small workshop in the garage by placing various tools and work surfaces everywhere. The sun was finally setting and I had spent a very productive day to say the least. I went back inside, ate some canned meatballs and watched a few movies before bed. The next day, I did my exercises and red air training but stayed inside the entire day. I felt lazy¡­ I also ate a mouthful of steak. Mmmmmm, I got sick but it was worth it. One week later, my wounds were already closed and healing properly. I spent the entire week crafting various things in my new workshop. I used my large stock of gunpowder to make some pipe bombs and various traps. I was not a professional in explosives so I kept it as simple as possible. I also welded a V-shaped plow in front of my new pick-up truck to clear the obstacles out of my way, placed a generator and all the tools I might need in the future in the back and reinforced the windows. I also filled the tires with a green gooey product that is supposed to automatically fix any punctures and allow me to ride a few more kilometres safely. I prepared a portable CB radio and everything else I judged necessary to establish my first contact with survivors. My yard was very peaceful since I had placed the dragon¡¯s head in the middle of it. I had ended up doing a quick autopsy of this severed head and discovered something interesting. Actually, dragons don¡¯t breathe fire, they spit it. I had discovered 2 glands in the back of its mouth which sprayed some nasty smelling liquids if squeezed hard enough. The gland on the right and left side of its mouth were secreting 2 different liquids. One was yellow, the other brown. Individually, these two liquids were inoffensive but if mixed, a chemical reaction happened and immediately took flame. The reaction was incredibly violent and could melt through metal if enough liquid was used. I ended up milking the two glands dry and conserved the two precious fluids in glass jars. I named these liquids ¡®dragon napalm¡¯. I knew this could come in handy later. At the moment, I was in the garage once again, trying to create a bigger bomb by using a pipe bomb and a propane tank. I tried to use a timer but I am not an electrician or a bomb specialist so I opted for a simple long fuse instead. The garage door was opened, and music was playing through my ipod. Needless to say, I had gained a lot of confidence these last days. I was now able to stay outside more than 12 hours without needing to expel the red mist out of my body. This meant that I could finally eat half a normal steak without getting sick. Having completed my propane bomb, I grabbed my rifle and decided to go for a walk. I was near the border to the otherworldly forest to the east but I had never explored it. Wearing full hunting camouflage gear and rifle in hand, I began to walk through the neighbours¡¯ yards and rapidly reached a clear demarcation in the land. You could see an obvious line between what had came from earth, and what was from this world. The grass was a different tone of green and the trees became very different looking, more exotic. All around my property were apple, plum, pear, cherry and other various fruit trees, but none of them had produced fruits. Back on earth, it should be winter right now but here, the heat only seemed to get more and more unbearable each day. With my world¡¯s trees not producing any fruits, I wondered if the plants from this world were even comestible to humans. I even began to think of making a garden to grow vegetables from earth since my provisions wouldn¡¯t last forever, especially if there were many survivors still around. I stood there, a few feet away from the border to this unknown world, afraid of stepping foot out of my world¡¯s soil. As I was about to step foot into the unknown, I heard a sudden rustling in the long grass behind me. I immediately grabbed my machete and turned around to face what was coming and it was them again. These fucking hell dogs. They had been waiting for me all this time, these bastards were persistent. They were two, charging at high speed toward me. They were just far enough to give me time to begin expelling red mist and enter the now familiar trance. I could see the creatures running in slow motion toward me but this time, I was calm and collected. In a few swift movements, I charged at the beasts and slashed the first one in half. The second one received a kick to the jaw which beheaded him instantly. The red mist was hurling all around me, creating a small hurricane shielding me from fear and most attacks. These dogs were nothing more than bugs for me to step on. With that taken care of, I sheathed my machete and turned back toward the unknown forest once again. I didn¡¯t want to do it but I needed to learn more about this world in order to survive. I couldn¡¯t always stay hidden in my bunker. I gathered my courage and stepped foot into the unknown. The ground was smoochy and covered with humid moss and wet soil. All the trees were from different species I had never seen before. Some were small, other were normal size, but those that attracted my attention the most were the giant skyscraper like trees. I silently advanced through the forest rifle in hand, trying not to make a sound. The noises in this forest were all foreign. Some sounded like cicadas, but other sounded as if they were straight out of horror movies. Everything was scary, even the plants. Some giants flowers like things gave me the creeps. I couldn¡¯t help but imagine them as carnivorous plants. I walked up to a medium sized tree and began to tap on it with my machete. To my surprise, I could chip off chunks of wood very easily. Then I used my hands and realized just how soft the wood was. I was probably still under the effect of my going super sayan earlier but was amazed to see that I was able to dig my fingers into the trunk. This tree was as soft as styrofoam and I could bring it down bare handed. No need for chainsaws when dealing with styrofoam trees after all. The plants were similar, very fragile and easy to destroy. Some of the trees had thorns but they seemed incapable of piercing my skin and would always end up breaking before penetrating it. Feeling like I was in a styrofoam world, I couldn¡¯t help but totally destroy a few trees by simply kicking them. It was fun, but I hadn¡¯t come here to play. I didn¡¯t want to get too far away and get lost so I turned around and headed back home. I had discovered something important again, most flora and fauna living in this world were fragile things. Once back home, I boiled some noodle and made tomato sauce macaroni. After my meal, I began to gather everything I had crafted this last week and placed them on the table. My preparations were completed and I was pretty certain to have thought of everything. ¡°Tomorrow is the day I meet with these survivors.¡± The Merge – Chapter 6 (Encounters) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- When I woke up, I realized I still had serious problems with other humans. It was today that I was supposed to make contact with the survivors, but the stress caused by it and the butterflies in my stomach were intolerable. I drank my coffee, smoked my cigarette and did my exercises. Then, I sat at my computer chair and watched a show about car restoration. There¡¯s no denying it, I was trying to delay the inevitable. I ate some canned soup and canned beef stew, then began to put on my equipment. This time I decided to swap my short barrel shotgun with my 338 Lapua sniper rifle. I exited my bunker and walked around in the garage, looking at my tools and drying dragon skins¡­ ¡°Sigh*¡­¡±Alright I¡¯m just wasting time because I dread meeting with other people. As shameful as it sounds, I was hoping they were all dead in a way. Hopefully, I would be able to drop the radio off at a place where they will find it and avoid meeting them directly. I went outside to my front yard and inspected my armoured pick-up truck that I was going to use for this adventure. Then I looked around and was pleased to see no signs of any creatures around. This was all thanks to my splendid dragon head. Speaking of the thing, the ¡®meat¡¯ in the head had started to rot but the skin remained perfectly intact. I walked up to it and crouched for a better view. On closer inspection, the eyes which should have been the first thing to decay, were still perfectly intact. I grabbed my ¡®Rambo style¡¯ knife, and tapped on one of the eyes. To my surprise, it made a tik tik tik* sound, as if I was hitting a glass bead. Intrigued, I pried one of the eyeball out with my knife to inspect it. What came out was a bit smaller than a tennis ball, was quite heavy and felt like a glass marble. Some of the area around the optic nerve also had this hard shell over it, so the entire thing was teardrop shaped. I held it in my hands, trying to block the light and could clearly see it glow in the dark. How this thing can still glow after so long is a mystery, but I suspected that it was related to the red mist. Since it was still early in the morning, I took the time to pull out two of its sharp canines as well and made a necklace. I took one of the big gold chain I had looted from someone¡¯s house, and drilled holes big enough for it to go through. The glowing eyeball in the middle with canines on each side. The eyeball was a bit big but it looked really cool. With a little bit of luck, this could maybe act as a monster repellent as well. With my new necklace around my neck, I began to load everything in my pick-up truck and took the road toward the centre of town. I passed the convenience store, the industrial district and finally arrived at the shopping centre where I had met the dragon before. So far, I had only seen a small amount of creatures including a few cockroaches, but nothing in the numbers they used to be. Maybe I was slowly succeeding in pushing them out of my town. The trick is to kill them faster than they can reproduce after all. I made a left turn toward the dragon carcass out of curiosity but was surprised by what I saw. The dragon¡¯s corpse had visibly been ripped to shreds by something big. The claw marks on its steel like skin were far too large to be anything I had seen so far. Most of the meat had been consumed and only bones and skin remained. The wheel loader was still there, but the bucket had been ripped off. The sight of this made me shiver in fear. There was something big and maybe even more dangerous than a dragon out there. The thing was so heavy that it had left footprints in the tarmac. As if I needed bad news like that to start the day with. I looked around gun in hand but couldn¡¯t see any sign of life. I tried to have a look at the footprints but they were not deep or well defined enough to help me understand what had left them. By the look of it, the creature was bipedal and seemed to have 3 toes with sharp claws. Fact was, they were sharp enough to rip through dragon skin. I was terrified but still felt relatively confident since I couldn¡¯t see anything around. Everything was so silent and deserted that one could think I was the only living thing around. I quickly gathered the bigger pieces of dragon skin and some bones and threw them in the back of my truck. Could be useful later. Once that was done, I climbed back into my truck and enjoyed the air conditioning while smoking a cigarette. All kinds of thoughts were flying through my mind and one of them was about why most creatures seemed to have left the area. My best hypothesis was that a large predator had taken my town as its territory and made the weaker creatures leave. The state of the dragon corpse seemed to confirm this hypothesis but I wasn¡¯t falling into despair like I would have done a few days back. Actually I was happy about it. I preferred having to deal with one very strong monster rather than deal with thousands of annoying ones. I was well armed after all. I finished my cigarette and resumed my journey toward town. After exiting the shopping centre¡¯s parking, I made a left turn toward an area I hadn¡¯t gone to yet. This was the furthest I had been from home since the teleportation event. I drove slowly, trying to be as silent as possible. I had to avoid a few cars with highly decomposed corpses inside. You could hardly see through their windows as the decomposition process create all kinds of bacteria that start to grow, and eventually cover the inside of the car with smelly brown sludge everywhere. I eventually reached the industrial area, where all the heavy industries were located. So far, I still hadn¡¯t seen any dangerous creatures. Past the industrial area, I arrived at a small hill, which I knew reaching the top of would finally allow me to see the centre of town. But then before reaching the top, anxiety overtook me. I immobilized my vehicle and looked around for a while. With nothing happening, and an eerie silence floating everywhere, I pressed on and climbed the hill as fast as a slug. Once on top, I finally had my first look at where 80% of the population lived. At first glance, the town didn¡¯t seem in bad shape. The big grocery store seemed intact but a local pub as well the house next to it had burned down. Someone dying with a lit cigarette maybe. Then the first thing that appeared weird were giant white mounds. They were all over and seemed to mark a border of some sort. At first glance, they looked like termite mounds made out of snow. I drove next to one and got out of my vehicle to further inspect it. It was pretty hard to the touch and looked a bit like concrete, but with my current strength, I didn¡¯t have too much difficulty to start digging into it. I found out that this ¡®concrete¡¯ contained hairs, scales, claws, bones¡­ So basically this was a big pile of monster shit. A bit grossed out at first, I then noticed something black and shiny. I dug a bit and pulled it out of the mound of shit. It was part of a pair of glasses made out of plastic. Whatever was shitting these white pylons was a man eater, and judging by the size of them, must also be enormous. Not all creatures can make two metre tall piles of shit. Seeing human artifacts in a monster excrement angered me for some reason. I wanted to kill that thing if I had the chance. I changed to a new pair of gloves and jumped back in my truck. I went past an intersection and continued straight ahead toward the hospital. If the tanker truck wasn¡¯t there, then I was wrong from the beginning. I crawled through a road tightly packed with two storey houses and was expecting to see things jump at me but nothing came. I was seriously starting to worry about whatever had made them leave town. Something this size should make sounds, make the earth tremble under its feet, but it was pure silence everywhere. I reached a second intersection, only a few hundred meters from the hospital, but I turned left toward the police station instead of going straight to the hospital. I never thought I would ever say these words, but I was very glad to see 5 roaches running at me as I approached. There appearance somehow reassured me and gave me confidence, so I stopped my vehicle and used this opportunity to purge some red mist out of my body. I had became very good at it and could expel a severe amount of it very quickly now and as I did so, the roaches suddenly stopped. It was my first time seeing them react that way, worried I turned around expecting to see a giant monster, but there was nothing. Were they scared of me? Or was it my dragon necklace? ¡°Mouwahahahaha. Come play with Uncle Nathan, gnahahaha*¡± Now overly excited, I unsheathed my machete and ran toward them as fast as I could. With the ¡®red mist doping¡¯, my legs were a lot faster and stronger but gravity and laws of physics prevented me from using my full capacities. I would simply slide on the tarmac and run as if I was on ice when trying to put all my strength into it. The nearest cockroach came at me but exploded under my left fist. I kept my momentum and sliced the second one in half with my machete. Seeing that I was destroying them, the other roaches turned tail and tried to flee. I first wanted to shoot them, but making too much noise in my situation would have been stupid. Instead, I decided to stop expelling my red mist and watched them scurry away. ¡°Sigh* My hands are covered with that blue crap again¡­¡± I switched to yet another pair of gloves and jumped back in my truck. Only a few seconds later, I parked at the police station and stopped the engine. There was something curious about the buildings around here. I could see spots where green goo had been applied on them. I got out, gun in hands, and inspected the perimeter, but saw nothing. Still worried, I tried to ignore it and carefully walked up to the door. Inside the police station were a few corpses as usual but nothing out of the ordinary. Seeing corpses was actually a good sign since it meant no monsters had made it in. A quick look around soon revealed what I was looking for. It was the door leading to the armoury and was obviously locked with a combination lock. The walls were made out of reinforced concrete and the door was obviously made out of heavy steel. I kneelled in front of the door and removed my backpack. I grabbed one of my pipe bombs and began to remove the nails taped around it. They were meant to be shrapnel but I didn¡¯t need them to blow up a door and it would make things more dangerous than necessary. Once I was done, I taped it to the door, grabbed my backpack and pulled my lighter out of my pocket. It was a short fuse leaving me only 5 seconds to run away. I lit the fuse and quickly hid behind a corner with my fingers stuck in my ears. BOOM!* The detonation sounded powerful and was on time which made me proud of my craftsmanship. I had tried one back at home with only half the amount of gunpowder this one had, and was surprised at how powerful it was. With that in mind, I knew this ¡®fully loaded¡¯ one had to have created a substantial explosion. I carefully walked up to the door hidden by a cloud of smoke and dust and was first disappointed. The door seemed to still be holding even with the damage it had received. I grabbed what remained of the door handle and pulled energetically. To my surprise, the door suddenly opened without resistance. With a giant grin on my face I entered the dark room. I grabbed my flashlight and had a look around. Guns! Lots of them. I instantly got all giddy and fuzzy inside because of what I was seeing. I grabbed all the 9mm Glock pistols and all the boxes of ammo I found and loaded everything in my truck. When that was done, I walked back inside and couldn¡¯t stop smiling at what I was now looking at. Police anti-riot body armours are what I was after since the beginning. Bullet proof vests were now something precious to have so I loaded all the equipment in the truck and strapped everything in place. I went back inside and undressed in order to put on my new body armour. I removed the police tag and began to put the pieces on. Feeling like cosplaying in this situation might sound strange but there were not a lot of ways to entertain myself anymore. I wore everything, even the helmet with visor and even wore my gas mask. It was still an old used filter, but I had no real need for it anymore, so I was using the mask only to protect my face at this point. I looked at myself through the glass reflection and giggled. This suit made me look like a bad-ass and boosted my self confidence. I rearmed myself but this time I added one of the 9mm pistols to my belt. I had no pistols in my gun collection at home. In Canada, you needed to do some training and paperwork just to get a licence to own one, so I had never bothered. Now fully equipped, I walked back out the door with confidence in my steps. When I was about to open the truck door, I began to feel something. Thump*¡­. Thump*¡­. Thump*¡­. Thump*¡­. Thump*¡­. Something incredibly heavy was approaching. Not wasting a second, a ran back inside the building and prepared my 338 ¡®hand cannon¡¯ sniper rifle. If it¡¯s the thing that ate the dragon¡¯s corpse, I will surely need this OP gun if the damned thing is coming for me. I crouched silently near the window and tried to have a look at what was approaching. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. The heavy steps seemed slow and regular which could indicate that the beast was relaxed and confident. I was sweating bullets as the steps got closer and closer but eventually, the beast began to get further away before I could even get a chance to see it. I waited, immobile, petrified as my fertile imagination went wild. Not knowing what I was dealing with was no doubt the worst thing about this situation. Eventually, the beast got far away enough so the tremors couldn¡¯t be felt anymore. I stood up and had a careful look around. How such a big creature could move around town without destroying everything in its path was a big mystery to me. Not knowing what the thing looked like, I could only call it by what I knew so far, so I named it, ¡®Shit mound-ster¡¯. (Assuming that it is the creature who shat those pylons back there.) With the giant creature seemingly gone in a different direction from where I was heading, I ran back to my truck and drove off. I returned to the intersection and turned left toward the hospital. I drove past a drugstore and a school before finally seeing the hospital in the distance. As I got closer, I immediately spotted it. The tanker truck truly was there as I was expecting. The giant vehicle was parked on the left side of the building near the ER where the ambulances usually arrived. I stopped in the road in front of the hospital and did a quick inspection. To my left were rich looking two storey houses, to the right was a patch of grass with trees, then a big parking area and finally the hospital. Some areas of the hospital seemed to have been through a war as part of the walls were collapsed and others burnt. I quickly turned left and entered one of the big houses¡¯ driveway, then stopped the engine. I got out of my vehicle and circled around the house, but all the doors were locked. Spotting a wooden ladder used to go up a tree-house, I knocked it off and used it to reach one of the second floor windows. I then broke the window, entered and knocked the ladder away from the window so nothing would follow me up here. I was in a white bedroom where the bed had white silky sheets and even the carpet was white. I blocked the broken window with a chair and exited the room. It was a very beautiful house where everything looked crazy expensive but I ignored all that and began to look around for anything useful. The owner of this place seemed to be a guy since everything I found worth mentioning were all what they call ¡®men¡¯s toys¡¯. Hung on the wall of one of the room were a bunch of swords which made me contemplate the idea of replacing my machete with one of them. On a drawer was a mahogany box which immediately attracted my attention. I opened it carefully and pulled out its content on the floor. It was a bag made out of golden fabric which contained a beautiful black katana. Under it was a piece of paper saying ¡®Certificate of authenticity¡¯ and all kind of stuff. I unsheathed the blade and had a look at it. It was visibly a brand new blade but seemed to be of very high quality. Just by the look of the box alone, one could tell this was a very expensive sword. The blade was shining under the sun-rays, exhibiting its beautiful hamon. The box also contained a maintenance kit used to clean and polish the blade. (Hamon: In swordsmithing, hamon (ÈÐÎÄ hamon ?) (from Japanese, literally ¡°blade pattern¡±) is a visual effect created on the blade by the hardening process. The hamon is the outline of the hardened zone (yakiba) which contains the cutting edge (ha).) I was totally fascinated by the beauty of this blade and my machete suddenly seemed a lot less interesting to me. I strapped the katana to my backpack and continued to loot the other rooms one by one. I eventually reached the kitchen but avoided opening the refrigerator since I knew from experience how disgusting the inside would be. I went through the cabinets and eventually opened one containing various bottles of alcohol. I stared at them a few seconds but decided to close it back and ignore it but then something unbelievable happened. ¡°Eppp!, elllppp! Helppp me!!!¡± I wasn¡¯t dreaming? There was a small voice coming out of the cabinet. I reopened it and saw the bottle of rum crying its eyes out and begging for my help. Not being heartless, I grabbed the bottle of rum and enacted mercy upon it by taking a few sips. OKOK! Don¡¯t look at me like that, I know I know, I may have a drinking problem¡­ I went back up to the second floor and got out on a balcony offering a perfect view of the hospital. The plan was simple, spending the day here looking at it and gathering as much information as possible. I dropped my backpack on the floor and sat on a bamboo chair with my bottle of rum in hand. I remained there for a few hours without seeing any movement. I had already smoked a third of a pack of cigarettes and finished my bottle of rum and was slowly losing patience. Were they still alive? Or maybe they never get out of the hospital? I used the railing to stabilize my sniper rifle and inspected the hospital through its powerful scope. Many windows were broken, I could see many barricades and what seemed like large claw marks on the building walls. Clearly, these people have had a hard time. My initial plan was simple, wait until night-time and infiltrate the area, then leave the CB radio where they could find it in the morning. That meant that I still had many hours to kill before going there but I also had other things to worry about. What if they had placed traps? After spending a few hours without seeing anything, I began to wonder if they were already all dead. But then again, I myself was regularly spending many days inside without going out so I assumed they were doing the same and avoided the outside¡¯s red poisonous air. One more hour later, I finally saw some movement in the long glass near the hospital. It was a yellow horned creature I had never seen before. The creature was lizard like with green and yellow patterns all over its body. Its head was adorned with three long horns that the creature seemed to use to dig holes in the ground. The creature was around the size of a dog and was digging nervously before eventually running back into the forest. It was the first creature I had seen that didn¡¯t look too terrifying. It even gave me the impression of being an herbivore or an insectivore which was reassuring to see. With nothing happening, I got bored out of my mind and decided to take a short nap. When I woke up, it was finally beginning to get dark outside. I went back out on the balcony and once again inspected the hospital through my sniper scope. There was still totally nothing happening so I lost patience and decided to sneak over there before the sun completely disappeared over the horizon. I gathered my gear and exited the house from the front door like I owned the place. I walked past my pick-up truck, crossed the road and carefully advanced toward the hospital. I reached the parking area and gradually made my way forward, using the parked cars as covers. I kept an eye out for traps as I finally reached the hospital building. Many windows had been broken and most corridors seemed barricaded with benches and tables. I entered through one of the broken windows and inched my way forward, gun in hands. Wherever I went, my path would always end up being blocked by one of these barricades. On further inspection, I eventually found a barricade which seemed to see regular activity so I tiptoed close to it and looked for a way through it, but before I could do anything, a familiar sound surprised me. ¡°Cough cough*¡± I instantly froze, trying to be as immobile as possible. Then, the faint sound of footsteps began to be heard. Someone was coming this way! I hid in a corner and listened carefully. Eventually, the person began to walk away from the barricade and went through a door. It was most likely someone keeping watch over the most critical barricades. I was nervous but also happy, this was the first confirmation I had seen of other people still being alive. I needed to leave the CB radio on the other side of the barricade but there was no way I could go through it without making noises. I sat in the corner and tried to come up with a plan but the only idea I got implied make immediate contact with the survivor which I had wanted to avoid from the beginning. Hearing a human voice after so long had made a brutal impact on my mental state and I now really wanted to talk with them. I gathered my courage, placed my gas mask over my face and stood up. I decided to hide my face since I didn¡¯t know who were these people. Maybe some of them knew who I was and where I lived so I decided not to take any chances for now. I pulled out the portable CB radio from my bag and held it in my left hand. I walked up to the barricade and knocked on a table with my gun in a well known melody. It was the most famous knock in human history, so I knew they would immediately recognize it and realize it was done by a survivor just like them. ¡°Knock¡ªknock¨Cknock¨Cknock¡ªknock¡ª¡ª-knock¡ªknock*.¡± I backed away a few steps and waited. Eventually I heard the door open and steps slowly approaching. I stood there, a radio in one hand, a gun in the other. My body totally covered in bullet proof body armour, gas mask and police helmet on my head, I must have looked very intimidating. Eventually, a whispering voice broke the silence. ¡°Anyone out there?¡± It was a young man¡¯s voice that sounded slightly muffled by something like a mask. I was incredibly nervous, hearing a human voice after so long instantly warmed my soul with a sense of comfort so I rapidly answered. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Eh? A survivor? Wait a second!¡± He then answered with a surprised and excited voice. I couldn¡¯t see him but I heard the young man run back through the door he had came from then yelling to other people that a survivor had appeared. I dropped the CB radio on the ground with a motorbike battery and some food supplies. I also left a note explaining how to use it and that I would make contact with them in a few hours. As I was leaving, I could hear the sound of a few people quickly trying to bring down the barricade, so I hurried and left before they could see me. I discretely ran through the parking lot, jumped in my truck and waited for a few minutes while smoking some cigarettes. It was now totally dark outside and I couldn¡¯t see anything anymore. The only source of light was the glowing amber on the tip of my cigarette swirling in the air in front of my face. When I was finally feeling ready, I started the engine and backed out the driveway. I switched the headlights on and stomped on the gas pedal. I hated being out while it was so dark so I decided to establish a new record. How fast could I go back home, considering there were no police, speed limits or obstacles in my way. My truck roared through town as I kept my foot on the accelerator. I went through the first intersection, then the second one. I was already halfway through, already getting out of town and it had taken me only a minute. I eventually reached the industrial area, forcing me to slow down and swerve around some abandoned cars. Once the road was clear again, I stomped on the gas once more and accelerated up to 140KMh. As I was about to reach the truck stop, something as big as a deer jumped in front of me. I stomped on the break but was going way too fast to avoid anything, so I plowed straight into it. The truck shook as if it had hit a large rock and made me lose control. I did a 180¡ã and barely avoided ending up into a ditch. ¡°Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant*¡± What was that? I didn¡¯t even have time to see what I had hit so I got out of the truck and looked back with my flashlight. Whatever it was that I hit, it didn¡¯t seemed injured by the brutal collision as I only saw a silhouette scurry away in the tall grasses. I inspected the front of my truck and was amazed to see that whatever I had hit, had bent the massive steel plow out of shape. Fearing another encounter with such a sturdy monster, I jumped back in my truck and left as fast as I could. Luckily, nothing else happened on my way back. I parked my truck in front of my garage door and entered my house. I went down into my bunker, undressed naked and took a well deserved shower. Feeling alive again, I grabbed a cold beer, lit a cigarette and sat naked on my computer chair. I took a puff of my cigarette and a sip of my deliciously cold beer as I rolled up in my chair toward my various radios. I entered the radio frequency I had told them to use and listened to the familiar static. I was a nervous wreck. If everything went according to plan, they should be currently waiting for me to speak. I brought the microphone up to my mouth, took a deep breath and pressed the button. ¡°Hello? Can anyone hear me?¡±¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­ After a minute of silence, a reply finally came through. ¡°Yes! YES! Who are you? Where are you? How many more people survived? Why did you leave earlier?¡± This time it was a woman¡¯s voice. Not being used to speak with women, I instinctively made my voice deeper before answering. ¡°One question at a time, we will have ample time to get to know each other.¡± The Merge – Chapter 7 (Saviour) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- ¡°My name is Nate, and I didn¡¯t stay earlier because I wanted to know who I am dealing with before blindly walking into a possible trap. I hope you won¡¯t feel offended by my lack of blind trust toward strangers¡± I decided not to lie while giving them as little information as possible about me. It was possible someone among them knew me by name and could locate my hideout that way, so instead of Nathan, I decided to be Nate for now. ¡°Hemm, yes, I guess you are right¡­ My name is Camille.¡± The woman then answered but as she spoke, the whispering voice of a man could also be heard talking to her. ¡°Ask how many are they, and what is their situation with food.¡± Said the man. Before the woman began repeating what I had already heard, I quickly asked first. ¡°How many survivors are there in your group?¡± As soon as I asked this, the radio became silent. Of course they hesitated to reveal how many they were. Revealing your numbers to a potential enemy is not something smart to do so I decided to try and reassure them first. ¡°No need to be so prudent, I already know where you are and your approximate numbers. (I kinda lied there, I had no idea how many they were.) If I had wished to kill you tonight, you would have been dead already. But instead, I decided to reveal myself to you. Isn¡¯t that proof enough that I am not your enemy?¡± The radio was still silent, but 30 seconds later the reply finally came through. ¡°There¡¯s 8 of us, how about you?¡± Eight she said¡­ Sound credible, but it was a lot less than I was expecting. ¡°We are one. I mean, I am alone¡­¡± I saw no point in lying about it at this point. Their reaction was exactly what I had expected. ¡°EHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!????? Have you been alone since the very beginning???????¡± Yep, predictable reaction. Since I had gone the honest route so far, I decided to continue with it. ¡°Yes, since day one. I thought I was the only one who had survived¡­ It¡¯s been, an interesting ride so far.¡± I answered nonchalantly. Alright I have to admit, since I was talking to a woman, I felt the need to try and sound cool. I usually don¡¯t brag like that, but I still had survived many months in this hellish alien world on my own. Isn¡¯t that worth bragging about? ¡°N-no way¡­ ¡®Crowd noises¡®*¡± They then said. At this point they were all talking at the same time and I couldn¡¯t hear anything, so I waited for them to calm down and clearly ask their next questions which I was already anticipating. ¡°You must be somewhere very safe. Where are you? What about air purification? Is there enough space for more people? What about food?¡± Once again, they all began talking on top of each others and it was all very chaotic, but a stern woman¡¯s voice broke through the chaos and began to speak through the radio. I instantly began to wonder if she was their leader or something. Anyway, that woman sounded very bossy, she had also effortlessly taken over control of the radio. ¡°Hello? I¡¯m Alice. Enough of this dilly dally, what these people want to know is if you can help us. We are being attacked everyday, also our generator died a few times already, forcing us to venture out to fix it. Each time we did, we lost some of our people. We are also going to starve soon, since no one wants to go out and get more food because those who did in the past, never came back alive. But you, you came and left with no apparent difficulties.¡± Now that¡¯s refreshing, talking to someone who¡¯s being frank like that. ¡°Understood, I will see what I can do for you. But forget about the safe location you think I have. I had a gas mask the entire time so I didn¡¯t need air filtration.¡± That was the first blatant lie I told them, but I was ready to do everything in my power to hide the existence of my bunker. ¡°You asked us to be honest with you. Yet you are the one lying to us right now. None of us believe you could have survived alone without a safe place to live.¡± The woman who sounded mature enough to be in her fifties, suddenly sounded vexed and annoyed which made me panic a little. I didn¡¯t want to get entangled in my lies so I decided to switch their attention to something else instead. ¡°We can survive here. I simply discovered the secret behind this world.¡± There was no way they wouldn¡¯t be intrigued by these words. They would immediately forget about trying to locate my bunker. ¡°Secret?¡± She then answered with audible curiosity in her voice. ¡°Yes, we can develop a resistance to whatever is poisonous in the air.¡± As I said that, various noises began to be heard through the radio. It was as if they were fighting among each other over the control of the radio. As to confirm my suspicions, the next answer came from the first woman I had spoken with at the beginning. She sounded quite calm and young compared to the previous lady. ¡°Resistance? You mean exposing ourselves to small dose of it regularly until our body can resist to it?¡± The young woman immediately hit the jackpot which was very surprising to me. Did they already know about it? I needed to make sure. ¡°Yes it is exactly what I meant. I¡¯m surprised at how fast you figured it out. May I ask how you immediately guessed it correctly?¡± ¡°Hemm sorry I didn¡¯t tell you. I am a doctor.¡± Now that explain a lot of thing. They were in an hospital after all, so having doctors among them wasn¡¯t that surprising after all. ¡°Camille was it? Your profession makes you someone very important right now. Did anyone in your group ever get sick from the poison in the air?¡± I was asking this because I remembered clearly how horrible my first time was. My guess was that surviving this first time was the key to the red air adaptation. ¡°Y-yes, Robert, Marc and Alice got seriously ill because of it a while back. Most people don¡¯t survive through it though.¡± Sigh, like I thought. Since I was talking to a doctor, I decided to recount my experience to her. I told her how I had built my red air resistance, how building up this resistance only seemed to increase the amount of gas we could contain before feeling sick and that learning an expulsion technique was also necessary. Obviously, she was skeptical at first but ended up sounding very interested and fascinated by my story, and since she was a doctor, she immediately began to come up with ideas that could facilitate the process and prevent them from getting too seriously sick. We spoke about ¡®adaptation¡¯ and theorized about how we could have ended up in a different world when she eventually affirmed having no idea where this ¡®poison¡¯ was coming from. In my case I had suspected the red sun from the beginning so I was surprised they had not suspected it. But on the other hand, they probably couldn¡¯t see the red mist yet and hadn¡¯t made the link between the two. Glad to know something else they didn¡¯t, I instantly blurted out the answer. ¡°What¡¯s poisonous in the air is some kind of gas. It is a gas coming from the red sun I think.¡± I assumed her answer would be something along the lines of ¡®Of course!¡¯ but it was not what I got. ¡°Red sun? What red sun?¡± She said instead. Now that was an unexpected answer. ¡°Have you ever gotten outside?¡± That would explain why they didn¡¯t know. ¡°Yes, some of us did¡­ Why? What red sun?¡± My head was filled with confusion. I was simply speechless and unable to explain what the hell was going on. I needed to confirm my suspicions so my next question was; ¡°What colour is the sky to you?¡± Her answer completely stomped me once again. ¡°Blue¡­ Like it always has been. Are you feeling alright?¡± Now I was even more confused than before. They couldn¡¯t see the red sun, and couldn¡¯t see the red tint in the air making the sky appear purple. In my case, I had been able to see them both even before getting in contact with the red mist for the first time, so this didn¡¯t make sense. ¡°No nothing, never-mind that. Anyway, be careful not to overdo it. As long as you haven¡¯t learned the expulsion technique, it¡¯s easy to die from this gas. How much longer can you hold with the food you have?¡± I wanted to help, but I had no intention of carrying them like dead weight. I will help as much as I deem necessary, but they will have to adapt and quickly start pulling their own weight. ¡°We are already rationing our food. We could eat everything we have left tonight if we wanted to.¡± Sigh, what a shitty situation they are in. I was annoyed but for some reason, I was happy. To be honest, it had been a while since the last time I had been this entertained. Having a conversation with other people was really entertaining, especially if it was over the internet, phone or in this case, a radio. ¡°I will try to make a quick trip tomorrow and bring you some food, but I¡¯m warning you, if I find anything suspicious or if you have weapons on you when I come, I will turn around and never come back.¡± I made sure they understood how serious I was by the tone of my voice and waited for the answer. ¡°Okay, don¡¯t worry. No weapons, no funny business. Promise. Sob* Sniff* T-thank you Nate. We can¡¯t thank you enough.¡± I felt happy to hear that, but I couldn¡¯t help but feel guilty since I still hadn¡¯t actually done anything yet. I spent the rest of the night talking with them and learned some of their names and professions. -First was Camille Dufron, A 28 years old female doctor. (Very useful) -Second was the stern lady, Alice Tremblay, female, 55 years old, geologist/gemologist/jewellery maker. (Who care about jewellery anymore.) -Third was Marc-Andr¨¦ Bureau, a 23 years old young man who¡¯s a mechanic. (Useful) -Fourth was Robert Arthur, a 41 years old male surgeon. (Very useful) There were still 4 people I hadn¡¯t talked to, but we had been talking for hours and decided to go to sleep and resume our conversation in person tomorrow. I was very nervous at the idea of meeting them, I even regretted telling them I was coming, but I couldn¡¯t just leave them to die. From what they told me, they were over 60 in the beginning and were now only 8. No need to say, they were having a hard time. I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling for a while. Many things were going through my mind and I felt overwhelmed. Could they really not see the red sun? Would I walk into a trap tomorrow? Should I really go or not. But then, this intense moment of reflection abruptly got interrupted by my stomach which reminded me I hadn¡¯t eaten in awhile. ¡°Gurrlrlrlr*¡± I decided to make some sidekick fettuccine alfredo and while the noodles were boiling, I filled the washing machine and began doing my laundry. I should normally be asleep right now but I didn¡¯t feel tired at all. Actually I was way too nervous to sleep. I ate my noodles and cleaned the dishes. Then I transferred my clothes to the dryer and drank a few sips of brandy from my personal bottle collection. After a few drinks, I went to bed but couldn¡¯t find sleep. I kept turning on my bed, lost in thoughts as I was trying to imagine what tomorrow would be like. I was finally drifting asleep when a sudden scream made me jump on my bed. ¡°KYAaaaaaaaaa!!!Static* It¡¯s here ag-Static* It got David!! Dav-Static* dead!!! Static* It¡¯s-Static* Coming ba-Static*¡± I jumped on my feet and ran to the radio. ¡°Hello? What is happening?!¡± ¡°I-it¡¯s th-Static* Godzilla like mo-Static*er!!! IT¡¯S DESTROY-Static* THE HOSPITAL!¡± Godzilla??? Hearing this, I immediately made the link between it and ¡®shit mound-ster¡¯. They had to be talking about the giant shit pylons monster living in town. Feeling like they would all die if I didn¡¯t do something, I rapidly began putting on my equipment. There was a chance this was a trap, but by the noises coming through the radio, I felt this was very real. Once I was finally dressed up, I grabbed a few boxes of respiratory masks, exited my bunker and ran to my front yard. It was raining heavily, everything was pitch dark and damp. Not a good time to go out like that, but I didn¡¯t have a choice. There, I selected a chevy impala from the bunch of cars parked in my yard and loaded my two propane tank bombs onto the passenger seats. All the cars I had brought to my home had their keys into the ignition, so it was quick and easy to get a new vehicle going. I started the engine and smoked the tires the entire way up down my driveway. I drove as fast as I could, swerving around obstacles and barely keeping control of the car due to the wet road. I eventually reached the town but it was so damn dark that I could only see in front of me, where the headlamps were shining. I blasted through town, passed the two intersections and finally arrived near the hospital. Not being able to see anything, I turned into the hospital parking area and finally saw it. It was around 100 metres ahead of me. My headlamps could only reveal its legs as the beast was simply too enormous. This monster, was very similar to a t-rex on steroids. It was at least as tall as the four storey hospital building so it was no wonder they had called it Godzilla. The beast was on a rampage, digging its way into the building like an anteater digging into an anthill. The beast had its face stuffed into a hole it had dug and kept trying to go deeper by making the building crumble. There were also many alien cockroaches, using this opportunity to infiltrate the hospital and try to get to the survivors first, but regular gunshots confirmed there were still survivors inside. This was an apocalyptic scene and I would normally have assumed they were all dead but the gunshots and creatures¡¯ behaviour confirmed to me that there were still people struggling to survive in there. I pulled the handbrake and got out of my vehicle, then I unloaded the boxes of respiratory masks, filters and my backpack and hid everything under a nearby vehicle. I grabbed the two propane bombs completely covered with nails shrapnel and placed them on the hood of my car. Next I grabbed my pistol and shot through the front window. The giant beast was so busy that it didn¡¯t even react to the noise. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.I grabbed the two long fuses and threaded them through the bullet hole in the windshield down into the car. It was raining so much that I would never have been able to light them otherwise. I sat back in the car and punched the horn repetitively until the beast finally turned its attention toward me. The giant creature turned its head and growled in a menacing manner. My headlamps were now shining straight into its eyes, offering a terrifying view of the creature. I got out of my vehicle once again, laid my 338 Lapua ¡®hand cannon¡¯ over the car door and took a shot at the creature¡¯s neck region. BANG!* ¡°ROARRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!¡± The bullet entered it¡¯s neck and exited right through the other side. Good news, this thing wasn¡¯t armour plated like a dragon, but the beast was now really pissed and rapidly began staggering its way toward me. I quickly reached inside the car and lit the 2 fuses, then began to run away while shooting a few more random shot at the creature¡¯s belly. BOOOOOM!* My timing was a bit off and the bombs went off as the beast had just went past the car, but the explosion was so big and violent that hundreds of pieces of shrapnel embedded themselves into the creature¡¯s legs. ¡°ROARRRRRRrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!¡± The giant Godzilla like creature fell face first to the ground, crushing a few cars in the process. It began to struggle and tried to get up again, but I was already laid in position. My next shot was aimed straight at one of its eyes and would hopefully reach the brain. BANG!* Perfect shot! The giant monster instantly fell lifelessly on the ground and twitched a bit before finally breathing its last breath. ¡°Pant* Pant* Pant* Pant* Did I really just do that?¡± I stood up, and stared at the giant corpse lit by the flames of the burning car I had used to come here. These propane bombs were some seriously dangerous stuff. ¡°Ouch..¡± A sharp pain invaded my left shoulder. I had a look and realized some of the shrapnel had grazed it. Thanks to my bullet proof equipment, I was bleeding but it was nothing life threatening. I fired a few more shots at the beast¡¯s head to be safe, grabbed my backpack and ran toward the hospital. As soon as I entered, I was instantly blocked by hordes of cockroaches trying to slip through some of the barricades. Occasionally, gunshots would be heard, most likely shot by the survivors killing the creatures who had managed to get through. I strapped my gun to my backpack and switched to my new katana. It was about time I tested how sharp this thing was. With my pistol in one hand and a katana in the other, I made my way forward and began to clear out the corridors. Firing at those running away and slashing to pieces those charging toward me, I made quick work of these weaklings. I was swinging my sword so fast that my arms looked like blurry appendages. I was sending guts and blood flying in all directions and it looked like they were being shredded to pieces by a lawnmower. At the end of the hallway from where I was, I spotted a bunch of cockroaches trying to run away but who had gotten stuck in a dead end. I couldn¡¯t help but smirk at their predicament. It was now their turn to feel the fear of being cornered. I began to leak a hurricane of red mist and instantly felt power surge through my entire body. The roached were making small wimping noises as I began to walk toward them with a killing glare in my eyes. I sheathed my sword and pistol and grabbed the vending machine to my left. I effortlessly dragged it in front of me and gathered all my strength into my legs. I would have been able to lift it easily, but throwing such a big thing over my shoulder would have been physically impossible due to it¡¯s size and shape. I began to push the machine toward the dead end and rapidly accelerated. In a quick burst of power, I pushed the machine down the hallway, making it slide at high speed toward the panicking cockroaches. Squish*¡­ The machine flew straight down the hallway and flattened them against the wall, instantly turning the creatures to paste. I reloaded my pistol, grabbed my katana and kept on killing everything I could find. Is this what they call selfless courage? I wasn¡¯t feeling fear or anything, all I felt was the need to protect those of my kind. That ¡®shit mound-ster¡¯ Godzilla was no where near comparable to a dragon after all and defeating it on my own had given me a massive amount of self confidence. At this point, I was like the terminator, unstoppable and emotionless. The hospital rapidly turned into a monster graveyard as I plowed my way through the corridors. I was constantly leaking red mist because my shoulder was killing me, but luckily the ¡®red mist doping¡¯ helped me ignore the pain. I continued to kill everything until I finally reached the barricade where I had last heard gunshots coming from. There were many creature¡¯s corpses laid around and a few still alive which I quickly reduced to puree under my feet. I stood there, wearing a gas mask, entirely clad in body armour, with my sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. I was panting and trying to catch my breath back, my body was entirely covered in blue blood and other gross stuff. Blood and pieces of monsters were falling from the ceiling, creating the most horrifying rain one could imagine. Two men were staring at me from the other side of the heavily damaged barricade and weren¡¯t saying anything. One of them seemed young, in his early twenties while the other seemed in his forties. They were both holding shotguns and wearing oxygen mask usually meant for patients. These mask were connected to oxygen tanks strapped to their back with ropes. Quite the smart idea I had to admit. I stared back at them for a seconds and sheathed my sword and pistol back to my belt. As I did so, the two men lowered their shotguns and kept staring at me with agape mouths. One of them eventually broke the silence as I turned around to leave. ¡°N-Nate?? Is that you?¡± I stopped and slowly turned around. I then nodded and made a hand gesture for them to follow me. They were obviously reluctant to cross their barricade but ended up following behind as I began to nonchalantly walk away. We walked down the main corridor where I had killed at least a hundred cockroaches. The two men remained silent while staring at each others the entire way. After a minute or two, we finally exited and arrived at the parking area where I had single handedly brought down Godzilla earlier. When the two men saw the giant carcass, they began to back away in fear. Seeing them so afraid, I began to kick the giant corpse to show them there was no danger anymore. The two men were looking at me as if I was the most inexplicable thing they had ever seen. ¡°Where are you bringing us?¡± Suddenly asked the older man. ¡°I brought stuff for you, the least you can do is help carrying it.¡± I then answered while pointing at a few boxes hidden under a car. The young man walked up to me and offered me a handshake. I gently grabbed his hand while being careful not to crush it as he introduced himself. ¡°I¡¯m Marc-Andr¨¦, thank you very much for saving us.¡± Then the second man approached me to do the same thing which made me feel very awkward. ¡°What the hell are you? How did you manage to kill this giant beast? Did you bring a rocket launcher or something?¡± It was dark and raining outside so I didn¡¯t feel like having a conversation about that. ¡°Let¡¯s do this later, we have more urgent things to do. For now carry this inside, I¡¯ll be right behind you.¡± The two men nodded and grabbed the boxes as I walked toward the giant carcass. Once again, this thing had red blood. It was the second creature I had came across which had red blood like ours. There was so much meat in this creature that I felt horrible to see it going to waste. Sadly, my two freezers were already full and the other survivors wouldn¡¯t be able to eat it because of its high ¡®red mist¡¯ content. I took my sword and stabbed the creature¡¯s scaly skin. Unlike the dragon, it was not especially hard. It should actually be just a bit tougher than a crocodile hide. Hopefully this dead body would keep other monsters away like the dragon had done for me. Well, unless it attract something even bigger. ¡°Hoooooo red meat? Can we eat this?¡± The voice of the young man came from over my shoulder. I turned and saw him licking his lips like a starving beast. The older man wasn¡¯t any better. These people were visibly starving but I knew that eating this would kill them. ¡°Yes and no. This meat contain a huge amount of this poison you are struggling with. You can eat that only after developing a good resistance to it.¡± ¡°Fucking hell¡± Said the younger man. The two men seemed totally dejected by my answer. ¡°Are you sure?¡± Then asked the older man. ¡°I almost died once because of this¡­ If you want to grab yourself a steak and die from it, do as you please.¡± Next I inspected its claws and teeth and came to a conclusion, this was not the creature which had shredded the dragon corpse to pieces. This was worrying but I didn¡¯t have time to think about it. I had just went through hell again and just wanted to get my visit here over with. I was happy to have saved the survivors but wasn¡¯t enjoying being in their company after all. Leaving the giant corpse behind, I walked back to the hospital with the two starved men in tow. ¡°MARKKKK!!! ROBERT!!!!!?????¡± A feminine scream came from the hospital as we were heading there. ¡°We¡¯re alright!! Nate came and saved us!¡± Then said the older man while patting my shoulder like a proud father. ¡°Ouch!*¡± That idiot had just tapped on my injured shoulder making me weep in pain. This was bad, I instinctively began to leak a bit of red mist to stop feeling pain. I couldn¡¯t break down, I couldn¡¯t show my shameful side to these people who are counting on and looking up to me. I needed to appear strong and invincible. ¡°Eh? Hey! You¡¯re injured!! Quickly come with me.¡± From what the woman said, he should be Robert, the 40 something years old surgeon. There should be no one in this world better than him to look at my injury, so I silently followed behind him. Once we reached the collapsed area of the hospital, I finally saw the woman whose voice was still unfamiliar to me. She had a mask over her mouth and nose but at first glance it was obvious that she was seriously beautiful. A bit on the skinny side but they had been starved for a long time so it was to be expected. We entered and walked through a labyrinth of corridors and barricades. Marc and the unknown girl stayed behind and began to fix the barricades as Robert the surgeon and I kept walking toward their living quarters. A minute later, we finally arrived at the heart of the hospital. There was some sort of quarantine plastic sealing the hallway that had a sealable sticky zipper in the middle as doorway. Robert opened the hole and asked me to hurry through before too much red mist leaked in. We both entered and Robert quickly sealed back the entry. He then asked me to sit on a chair while he was going to get his medical tools. I sat and soon realized that if I kept leaking red mist to overcome pain, I would also contaminate the air of this safe area. From now on I didn¡¯t have any other choice than tolerate the pain. I raised my head and had a look around. It was a corridor with many doors leading to rooms. I managed to hear Robert talk from another room and saying to the other that it was now safe and that I had came to save them. Feeling stupid to wear a mask inside, I removed it and attached it to my belt. I tried to remove my top armour but it seemed to be stuck at the shoulder area. On further inspection, I had a nail stuck in my shoulder bone, holding my body armour in place. ¡°Crap¡­¡± Luckily there was a surgeon capable of fixing this with me. ¡°Whispers~~~~~*¡± Hearing whispers I diverted my attention away from my shoulder and had a look around. Four people were staring at me without saying anything as if I was an animal in cage. This feeling of being the centre of attention was truly terrifying. A young woman around 5¡±6 tall with blond hair and blue eyes immediately ran to me after noticing my injury. ¡°Oh my god, that must be incredibly painful¡­¡± By the voice I immediately recognized her. She was the female doctor I had spoken to on the radio. She was pretty looking, but god she stank. Actually, they all stank and looked dirty as well. ¡°It¡¯d be better if I could pull the nail out¡­¡± She had a quick look at it and answered with good news. ¡°It¡¯s stuck near the AC joint in the acromion bone so no artery should have been touched. But it¡¯s stuck deep in the bone, we will need tools to extract it.¡± This was all I wanted to know. If there was no danger in pulling it out, then I wanted this thing out of me now. I grabbed the nail with the tip of my fingers and effortlessly pulled it out under the incredulous eyes of Camille. ¡°H-how did you..?¡± Before she could finish her question, Robert came back with a bag full of all the things he judged necessary to patch me up. Finally nail free, I was able to remove the top of my body armour and shirt. Camille and Robert couldn¡¯t help but stare at my physique with big round eyes. Yea I knew how they felt, I couldn¡¯t help but stare at myself in the mirror as well. I was not big, but my muscles were splendidly developed. My new life style had also made me lose a lot of body-fat making me look ripped as hell. I might have imagined it but I could swear I saw Camille¡¯s cheeks turning red. Robert the surgeon inspected me and confirmed that no important blood vessels had been touched and that I only needed a few stitches. As Robert was about to begin the stitches, Marc and the still unknown woman came back after having consolidated the barricades. ¡°Oh my~~~~ Teehee*¡± She then said while devouring me with her eyes. I could clearly see that Marc wasn¡¯t pleased by her reaction. Were they together? Meh, I didn¡¯t care. I was currently shirtless and being observed by 7 strangers. I was beginning to panic when luckily, Camille and Robert asked everyone to leave the room and give us a bit of privacy. When it was finally just the three of us, Robert approached me with his needle and thread. ¡°Ummm.. Urgggggg .. What? URGGgggg!¡­¡± Robert seemed troubled and Camille had a giant frown on her forehead. ¡°I-I can¡¯t pierce your skin¡­ The needle just bent¡­ What are you made of?¡± The Merge – Chapter 8 (Loner) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- The two stared at me with questioning eyes until I finally gave them an explanation. ¡°As you grow a resistance to the poison, your body grows stronger, sturdier. Remember the red mist expulsion technique I spoke to you about on the radio? When you use it, the effects on your body are even more pronounced. Also, the effects remain for a few minutes after you stop using the technique. This mean that you should be able to suture my wound in a few minutes.¡± The two were silently staring at me in the eyes, trying to decide if I was being honest or not. Truthfully, they had no reason to doubt me, especially after witnessing themselves how hard my skin could become. ¡°This is astonishing. How much stronger have you become?¡± Curiously asked Robert. ¡°Last time I checked, I could lift 1000 pounds.¡± Their eyes became round like coins and their jaws dropped. ¡°I-I can¡¯t believe this¡­ So this is how you could defeat all those monsters?¡± Then inquired Camille, to which I responded with a silent nod. ¡°Any negative side effects?¡± She then continued. So far I hadn¡¯t noticed any negative side effect. Seeing red fog everywhere was certainly annoying, but I was getting used to it. I also didn¡¯t know if the others would ¡°evolve¡± the ability to see it themselves later since they can¡¯t see the red sun. We continued our idle chatter as Robert was poking my wound with a needle containing anaesthetic. At first he couldn¡¯t, but after a few more minutes the needle finally went it allowing him to finally numb the pain. ¡°Woaa! You were right. Now the suturing needle should be able to go through if I apply enough force.¡± He finally said before beginning the stitching. A sudden moment of awkward silence was a perfect excuse to look around the room. (Which was actually a corridor.) The floor was dirty, the walls were also dirty, the survivors themselves were dirty. They told me they gathered rainwater from the roof, so water shouldn¡¯t be the issue. I suspected them to be this way because they had given up and were slowly waiting for death. Camille was silently observing the stitching process, throwing occasional glances at my chest. I was getting embarrassed, I knew my chest was amazing and everything but how could she blatantly stare at me like that. What a shameless woman. While I was lost in my delusional ¡®shut-in¡¯ world, Camille finally opened her mouth. ¡°Hemm, I have been looking for a while now and I was wondering¡­¡± Woaaa? Really? She¡¯s going to admit it just like that? And now, does she want to offer me sex or something? Wait, that doesn¡¯t make sense right? My cheek instantly turned red in embarrassment. What was I even thinking about. ¡°That necklace, what is it? I get a creepy vibe from it.¡± Haaa! So that¡¯s what she was looking at? I am so dumb¡­ *Face-palm* I had no real reason to hide the dragon story from them, so I quickly recalled the story while Robert finished dealing with my shoulder. I was happy, that way the awkward silence was over. ¡°You¡¯re saying there¡¯ real dragons like in the movies living here?¡± Robert couldn¡¯t help but yell. Instantly, many heads began to pop out from doorways and were looking at us with questioning eyes. Sigh* Look like we still had a lot of catching up to do, but to be honest I couldn¡¯t wait to be alone again. Everybody got into the room as I was putting my clothes back on. We all sat in a circle surrounding a camping propane lamp. It was my first time getting to clearly see them all at the same time. Nobody was keeping watch apparently¡­ They were all in a hurry to learn about the dragon but I first wanted everybody to introduce themselves. I already knew Robert the surgeon, Camille the doctor, Marc-Andr¨¦ the mechanic and Alice the rock specialist/jewellery maker. I hadn¡¯t seen Alice yet but I knew she was 55 years old and there was only one woman fitting that age. She was a big lady who didn¡¯t have a gentle face. The wrinkles on her face seemed to indicate a stern temperament. Knowing these guys had been starved for a few months, she must have been seriously obese in the beginning to still be this fat. Next was the hot chick, the one I first met after the men. She was terribly beautiful with her dark brown hair and Persian blue eyes. (Actually quite similar to mine.) ¡°My name is Emanuela Tamez. Don¡¯t go thinking I¡¯m Mexican because of my name, I actually can¡¯t speak Spanish. I¡¯m 24 years old, I used to work for a swimsuit modelling agency but my dream is-, was to be a singer.¡± She had lost her smile by the end of her presentation and became gloomy. Well, what can I say. On paper, totally worthless. But on paper I was a NEET, so I knew better than to judge her based on her job. After her was an elderly man. It was a miracle that he had survived thus far. ¡°Urr, my name is L¨¦opaul Garon, 63 years old, retired engineer. I am the one fixing things around here. Hurhuhurhu*¡± He said before giving a hearty laugh. He had long grey hair, a big red nose and gave a warm and gently impression. Engineer¡­ No wonder he was still alive. They had definitely protected him. He not only seemed incredibly nice, but his knowledge made him even more precious considering our situation. Last but not least, was a young girl who seemed to be around 12 or 13 years old. She was hiding, totally glued to Camille and I hadn¡¯t heard her say a word since the beginning. When she noticed I was looking at her and expecting her to introduce herself, she swiftly hid behind Camille who showed a warm and gentle smile as she patted her head. ¡°She¡¯s Annie. I¡¯m not sure about her age but she should be around 13 or 14. She went through a lot for her age, and since her parent¡¯s death, she hasn¡¯t spoken a word.¡± Everybody was silent, apparently sad for the little girl. Seeing how much she clung to Camille, I had first guessed she was her daughter or little sister. Curiously, everybody had blue eyes and almost everybody also had brown hair. Only Camille had blonde hair and L¨¦opaul¡¯s were grey. If I was to say who was attractive and who wasn¡¯t, I¡¯d have to say that Emanuela was a 9.5/10, Camille a 7.5/10, Marc-Andr¨¦ a 7 I guess.. Hard to judge guys. Then Robert the surgeon with his balding head was no more than a 5, Alice and L¨¦opaul were old and ugly so there was no use to give them a rating. Then the young Annie, well I don¡¯t rate kids. She¡¯s super cute, as a kid¡­ As for me, I never considered myself ugly, but not a toyboy either. Anyway, I was happy to see that I personally knew none of them and didn¡¯t need to hide my identity any longer. ¡°Ok, now is my turn I guess. I am Nathan, 30 years old, dragon slayer.¡± I first thought of starting with a joke, since talking in public was making me sick to my stomach. Some of them giggled, but Camille and Robert who knew what I was wearing around my neck didn¡¯t. I then recounted the day I had killed the dragon once again and got a few gasps and visibly, some of them didn¡¯t believed me. After giving them a few more details, I believed I had convinced most of them of the veracity of my tale. Alice who used to be a jewellery maker seemed to be especially interested by my necklace and even asked to hold it. I gave it to her and she quickly began to inspect and fiddle with it. ¡°This look like a glass eye to me. These teeth are also quite small for dragon¡¯s tooth¡­¡± She then said, rekindling people¡¯s doubts about my story. ¡°That¡¯s because I picked the smallest tooth. The big ones would have made the necklace even bulkier and more awkward than he already is. I kept the dragon¡¯s head at a safe location. I also tanned some of its skin, kept tendons, bones and even the liquid napalm it can spit. Anyway, what would I gain from lying about this?¡± Everybody seemed convinced by my answer this time but Alice wasn¡¯t finished. ¡°What about I take these materials and make you a proper, professionally made necklace out of it?¡± I had my doubt about her offer. Could she simply want to steal it from me? Why would she even offer to do this for me? Seeing my doubtful expression, the fat lady showed her usual frown and continued. ¡°Don¡¯t get me wrong, I am not offering to do this for free. In exchange, would you accept to help and teach us how to survive the way you do?¡± That was quite a good offer since I had already decided to do it for free. I was also curious to see how she intended to make this necklace ¡®better¡¯. ¡°Alright but not until I make another one with the other eye. It might only be my superstition, but I could swear this necklace has the ability to scare some monsters away.¡± They were all very interested by this, but they were already the ones indebted to me and wouldn¡¯t dare asking for more at the moment. If they wanted a dragon necklace, they could go out and try to kill their own dragon and see how easy it is. (Sarcasm over 9000!) ¡°Perfect! I will make something really nice out of this. Butttt¡­. I will need my faceting machine and jewellery making tools¡­ They are at my shop on the main street.¡± She suddenly added without an ounce of shame. Urgg.. I knew there was a catch after all. The sun should soon be rising, but I hadn¡¯t slept or eaten in awhile. All I wanted was to get this over with and go back to my bunker. ¡°Sighh* I get it. Who¡¯s coming with me to the grocery store for resupply? I will be your bodyguard but you lot will do the looting. I brought you masks that will give you more mobility and protection.¡± They all hesitated for a while but the sexy Emanuela eventually raised her hand and with a mischievous smile said; ¡°I¡¯ll go! I¡¯ll feel safe if Nate guards my body. teehee*¡± This instantly made Marc-Andr¨¦ frown and raise his hand as well. Camille said she wanted to come but Annie began to cry so they decided she should stay. Then the only one left to consider would have been Robert, but he looked really bad. He was very thin and adding to that last night¡¯s injuries, he seemed barely able to walk. It looked like we would be 3 after all. The sexy Spanish girl and her jealous boyfriend. Sigh* Wonder why I hate human interactions? What made our first meeting even more awkward was the obvious conflict of emotions I could feel from them. I mean, they had lost a certain guy named David a few hours back, but were probably desensitized since they had lost more than 50 people in less than 5 months. They were also happy since I brought them some kind of hope, so they were grieving in silence not to be bad hosts I guess. I took my necklace back from Alice and grabbed my backpack. ¡°Get ready, we leave at sunrise.¡± I said before leaving without saying goodbye. ¡°Where are you going?¡± Inquired Emanuela. ¡°I¡¯m going to prepare a vehicle. You, prepare yourself.¡± I said before closing the zipper. I then walked down the corridors, inspecting the barricades and making sure nothing had come in. I eventually exited the building and stood in front of the hospital. The sky was deep red as the sun had yet to appear on the horizon. ¡°Nogg Nog noG NoG!*¡± That familiar sound froze my blood. The giant Godzilla carcass was being devoured by hundreds of little ¡®alien mutant monster chickens¡¯. What a familiar scene this was. This time I would remember not to mess with them. As long as you don¡¯t bother them, they should ignore you. I soaked in the rising sun and lit a cigarette to relax. I knew for a fact there was a pickup truck inside the garage of the big house I was currently staring at. This was the house I had gotten my katana from yesterday. I already knew where the truck¡¯s keys were and couldn¡¯t see any threatening creatures around. This was going to be an easy mission. I strolled, cigarette in hand across the parking lot. Some cockroaches spotted me but seemed to keep their distances. This was getting a lot easier thanks to my necklace. Or maybe they had learned that I was a threat to them? Who knows how smart or dumb these creatures really are. Groolowlwolwo* My stomach was aching, sign that I was getting seriously hungry. Finally reaching the house, I entered, closed the door and pulled a few pieces of dragon dried meat out of my bag. This will have to do for now, I thought to myself. I grabbed the keys which were still where I had last seen them and went to the alcohol cabinet for a few sips. Then, while still munching on some jerky, I made my way out to the garage. This time it was a grey dodge ram. Almost everyone had a pickup truck in my town. This was now very useful. I started the engine and made sure everything was in working order and also if there was enough gas in the tank, then got back out of the truck. The garage door was an electric one but there was no electricity anymore. Luckily, these doors also had a manual mechanism. It was a string that you needed to pull in order to release the lock, then simply lift it manually. I opened the door, got the truck out and closed it back. I sat back in the truck, adjusted the mirrors and seat position. Then, I lit a cigarette and drove off toward the hospital. This truck seemed to be in good condition and had plenty of power which was a good thing. I stopped in front of the hospital and waited for the other two to come out. As I was relaxing and smoking, I noticed a pair of sunglasses hanging from the sun visors. Since it was sunny, I decided to put them on and since I was also getting bored, I decided to put some music on. The CD collection in the armrest was quite shitty, but the best pick seemed to be Nirvana, the ¡°NEVERMIND¡± album. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. There were two CDs so I inserted disk one in the CD player before looking at the back of the box for the titles. The first song began, and it was ¡°Smell like teen spirit¡±. This was one of my favourite songs so I felt no hesitation to pump up the volume a few notches. As I was flailing my arms around, singing along with a cigarette in hand and sunglasses on, I failed to notice movement to my right. When I finally did, I saw two persons standing there. They had guns in hands, gas masks on, hanging jaws and incredulous eyes. A bit embarrassed, I quickly turned the radio off and acted cool, as if they had seen nothing. ¡°You truly are something aren¡¯t you?¡± Said the beautiful Emanuela with a bright smile. As for Marc, he seemed displeased and mumbled something I couldn¡¯t hear. ¡°I can¡¯t believe this guy, seemingly enjoying himself in a world where the rest of us drop like flies.¡± Not to incommode them, I threw my cigarette out and waited for them to jump on board. Emanuela had a rifle, while Marc-Andr¨¦ had a shotgun. Emanuela instantly hijacked the front seat next to mine, forcing Marc to grouch his way into the back. He should consider himself lucky, if this truck had been a 2 seater, he would have been stuck in the box. When everybody was in position, I drove off and went past the giant Godzilla carcass. I was wondering why Emanuela and Marc didn¡¯t make a big deal out of all these monster chickens, but it was later clarified by Emanuela. ¡°You should avoid driving too close to them. We never messed with them since they don¡¯t attack us but I¡¯m sure it could get ugly if we did.¡± What can I say, they had been smarter about it than me back then. I needed to remember to never mention my ¡®evil chicken misadventure¡¯ to them at the risk of losing some of my ¡°Dragon Slayer¡± credibility. I wanted to be their pillar of strength, the one they could rely on for their protection. I couldn¡¯t afford to show weakness when I was with them. I drove straight past the two intersections and entered the grocery shop parking lot. I parked the truck right next to the front door like I usually do and left the engine running. There were a few creatures that had been attracted by the engine noise and were running toward us, so I got out of the truck with my katana in hand and turned to my two acolytes. ¡°Stay in the truck until I¡¯m finished clearing the area.¡± I closed the door and unsheathed my sword with a smile on my face. I needed to be wary of my left shoulder but swinging my sword around needed only my right arm. I began to leak some red mist out of my body which made my hair and clothes move like the wind would. Some of the creatures immediately stopped and ran away, but there were still 10 creatures coming at me. They were now less than 20 meters away so I grabbed a small pebble and threw it at one of them. The pebble went right through and exited on the other side of its body like a bullet. Now at 10 meters, I grabbed another rock and did the same again before charging at the 8 remaining creatures with my sword. I effortlessly slashed the first 3 creatures, but one of them flanked me and bit my ankle. It broke its teeth on it and got its head chopped off afterwards but this could have been dangerous without the red mist power. ¡®Enough playing around¡¯, I then thought to myself. Letting my mind drift into the ¡®red mist trance¡¯, I began to stomp, slash and punch everything coming my way. I had tried to avoid this ¡°berserker¡± type of fight, but it was what I did best after all. The only problem was that I was once again covered with smelly blue/purple blood and guts. Annoyed to always end up covered in this shit, I walked back up to the truck and gestured them to get moving. They opened the door with a crowbar and entered. I followed behind them after closing the door and participated in the corpse removal routine. To me it was a routine, but I could tell that it was a traumatizing experience to them. Actually I was surprised to see Emanuela doing a lot better than Marc who was discretely puking in the corner. You know what they say, if it¡¯s about mental strength, many women will give any men a run for their money. As I was dragging another corpse to a corner, I noticed my two partners had suddenly disappeared. Worried, I called out to them but got a worrying answer. ¡°Wef wereh! Fonf wowwy.¡± This was Emanuela¡¯s voice, and she sounded like she was in trouble. Worried, I ran toward her voice and jumped with all my strength over an entire aisle before crash-landing into some shelves. It was my first time jumping with all my strength under the ¡®red mist doping¡¯, and I was not disappointed. I wasn¡¯t expecting to be able to jump more than 3 meters high. This unknown had caused me to crash into some dried pasta shelves. I was feeling quite stupid but it got worse when Emanuela and Marc simply walked up to me, mouths full of granola bars and asked; ¡°Awe fou awfright?¡± ¡°Sigh* Yea nevermind me. Next time warn me before disappearing like that.¡± A bit annoyed, I walked away and exited the store before sitting on the hood of the truck. There, I lit a cigarette and kept a lookout for any potential dangers while the other two began filling the truck with rice, beans, pasta, canned food and other stuff. I would occasionally get down and kill some creatures before getting back up on the hood. Every-time when Marc was alone inside, Emanuela would come to me and try holding conversations. As I suspected, her behaviour seemed to indicate there was something between the two of them since she felt the need to talk to me discretely. I was not very interested in love triangles, and had no intention to get involved with this, so I was vaguely ignoring her at this point. It took only 30 minutes but the truck was already quite full. I told them it was enough for now and sat back in the truck. We still had another place to go before heading back to the hospital. That fat lady had promised me a professionally made necklace, and I was intending to take her up on her offer. The problem was that her shop was located in an area I still hadn¡¯t explored so far. It was very close by, but the unknown was what troubled me the most. Marc quickly got in the truck with me while Emanuela was closing the door of the store. He was annoyingly staring at me through the mirror for a while before finally saying what he had on his mind. ¡°She acts that way just to piss me off but keep in mind that¡¯s she¡¯s my girlfriend. So don¡¯t get any funny ideas in your head.¡± He then said with a menacing glare in his eyes. God I hate human interactions, it¡¯s always filled with crap like that. I didn¡¯t touch her, I didn¡¯t want to touch her, (Ok maybe a little) but most of all, I wanted nothing to do with their relationship. Not knowing what to say, I blurted out what came to mind. ¡°I¡¯m not the one doing anything here.¡± Obviously, he didn¡¯t seemed satisfied with my answer. Emanuela finally jumped in with us while still munching on some dried fruits. She looked like a squirrel¡­ ¡°Munch munch* Are we going back now?¡± She asked in between two mouthful. ¡°No, one more place to go. We have to get Alice¡¯s tools. Grab your guns and be on full alert from now on.¡± The two of them did as I asked as we pulled out of the parking area and through the intersection. From there on, it was unexplored territory. I drove slowly, swerving between abandoned cars parked in the middle of the road. A few cockroaches came at us but I simply drove over them. We turned right and finally reached the main street. It was not a big street, actually it was a very small one since it dated from the colonial period. Because of its history, this street was very narrow with the buildings sitting right next to the street. This place was stifling, I couldn¡¯t help but feel like the buildings were closing in on me. With our heads on a swivel, we slowly drove down the street before finally reaching the jewellery store. Same as last time, I got out and killed a few creatures, but when I turned around to tell them to come with me, I noticed they had some sort of argument, so I decided to leave them to sort it out and went in the store alone. Luckily, the door was unlocked as usual. It was dark so I pulled out my trusty flashlight and had a look around. Alice had asked me to bring a few necklaces, her boxes of precious stones stored in the back and her tools. I immediately began to break the display cases and fill my bag with gold, silver and all kind of expensive stuff. In this situation, I totally looked like a robber. I rapidly grabbed what I needed and went to the back-store to get her tools but was met with a very bad surprise. Most of her tools were not a problem but she had explicitly asked for her faceting machine. The problem was that this machine was as big as these old bulky sewing machines from back in the days. Using red mist doping, I eventually managed to load it in the back of the truck while being careful not to pop my stitches out. Enamnuela and Marc had been fighting and yelling at each other the entire time as I loaded it. I almost didn¡¯t want to get back in and felt like chilling out until they were finished. They didn¡¯t seemed to care if I could hear so I ended up eavesdropping on them a little. From what I could understand, Emanuela had a boyfriend back on earth, but ended up hooking up with Marc-Andr¨¦ during these last months. It¡¯s not like she would ever see her boyfriend again anyway. (Not that I had given hope of finding a way back home, but¡­) It also seemed like Emanuela didn¡¯t consider her relation with Marc as something serious, but Marc hadn¡¯t seen it that way and had grown attached to her. What I thought about this, was that Emanuela was simply trying to dump him since she had found someone better. (Me) This was a situation you often see in dramas, so I knew it would only end badly. Even more reasons to stay away from this mess. As soon as I opened the door, the two of them instantly went silent. This was a good thing for me, so I silently sat and immediately drove off. This time, I drove a lot faster as I wanted these two out of my sight as fast as possible. I made a turn right into a small road but stomped on the break, sending Emanuela fly into the windshield. ¡°Owwww What the f-¡± She interrupted her scolding as she saw what had made me stop so suddenly. ¡°W-wha- Kyaaa!¡± A few meters ahead of us was something I had hoped not to encounter again. It was the titan snake from my first expedition. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was the same one as last time, but it looked a lot like it. This thing was huge! Estimating its length was almost impossible since it was all coiled up on itself. The creature was staring at us, in a ready to strike position. Its tongue was flickering nervously but the snake wasn¡¯t coming toward us. He didn¡¯t seem ready to attack, but more ready to defend itself. With Emanuela and Marc both freaking out next to me, I backed away very slowly and turned around toward the direction we had come from. Even if it was longer, we would take the longer route. Better make detours and use routes we know to be safe. A few minutes later, we were finally back to the hospital. Emanuela ran off to bring people to help unloading, leaving me alone with Marc once again. This time he didn¡¯t speak to me and didn¡¯t even look at me. Annoyed, I simply ignored him and did my things. With the entire group helping to unload, things went pretty quickly. At this point I was hungry, tired, and sick of being in other people¡¯s company. Wanting to be gone as soon as possible, I dropped Alice¡¯s tools and emptied the jewelries I had in my bag. The fat lady then came up to me and browsed through everything I had brought. ¡°Hmmmm looks like you took everything I need.¡± For once, she wasn¡¯t frowning and seemed relatively happy. I gave her my dragon necklace and said my goodbye to everybody. Camille, Emanuela and the old L¨¦opaul wanted me to stay for a feast but I wanted to be back home and sleep for 12 hours straight at this point. I made my way out with a few of them following behind me, then jumped back in my truck. We waved at each others as I left the hospital and soon enough, they became small dots in my rear view mirrors. Knowing they were now relatively safe, I could relax and enjoy my solitude once again. I didn¡¯t know if it was because I didn¡¯t have my necklace anymore but I met a lot more monsters than usual on my way back. Luckily, they were all the weak blue blooded type so I simply drove over them. As I turned left on my road, I finally began to relax once again. I turned right and went up my driveway. I was very happy to see that nothing had been touched. Knowing they could use this truck to locate me, I parked it behind the house, out of view. Next, I pulled the second eye out of the now completely rotten dragon head¡¯s eye socket and stuffed it in my pocket. I would need to make another necklace while Alice was working on a fancier one. I then entered and rapidly went down in my bunker. There, I once again threw all my equipment in a corner of the room and jumped in the shower. These other survivors were so dirty and stinky that I felt like washing twice just in case. I then quickly cooked and ate a steak before collapsing on my bed. I couldn¡¯t tell if this had been a good or a shitty day to be honest. As I was about to drift asleep, Camille spoke through the radio. ¡°I hope you made your way back safely. Emanuela told us how amazing it was to see you fight. I hope I will get the opportunity to spend some time with you as well. If you can hear this, thank you for everything.¡± Then the radio went silent. As my consciousness was slowly drifting away, I couldn¡¯t shake the smile off my face. Maybe this wasn¡¯t so bad after all. The Merge – Chapter 9 (Weaknesses) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- It had been a little while already since my first contact with the survivors, 6 months since our arrival into this world. I had kept restricted, yet regular contact with them via radio and during our daily patrols. Since a few days back, we had begun to conduct regular patrols around town and killed everything that moved. Our objective was simple, to take back control of our town by any means necessary. One would drive the vehicle while another was acting as the gunman. We would always remain mobile, never staying at the same place for too long and shoot while on the move. That way we had managed to slowly take over the town. Usually, I would be teamed up with Robert the surgeon, while Marc would follow behind in the support vehicle teamed up with either Camille or Emanuela. This strategy had proven to be very effective so far so daily patrols had now became mandatory. Trying to save some ammunition and gunpowder, we ended up using a new type of weapons. On the back of each one of our trucks was a small generator and an air compressor used to power our compressed air cannons. Not as precise, they were still very deadly and could be loaded with basically anything, from rocks to pieces of metal and even glass shards. Made with a 2 meter long steel pipe, these air cannons were based on the same principle as the potato guns we used to play with as kids but a lot deadlier. We also began to observe that the creatures had learned to run away at the sound of our engines. The local creatures were clearly learning that humans were the apex predator as it used to be back on earth. We were slowly starting to feel like we didn¡¯t need to be afraid anymore but I still had vivid memories of the dragon attack and of whatever had eaten its corpse afterwards. There were things living in this world that we needed to avoid at all cost, but the other survivors hadn¡¯t been exposed to these type of monsters yet, so they were still acting a bit more careless than me. The survivors had also progressed quite a bit in their red air resistance training and would soon be ready to learn the expulsion technique which would accelerate their growth rate even more. They were far from my level but were no longer threatened by blue blooded creatures. After having killed thousands of creatures, we had finally begun to understand how to rank them by strength. Those which had blue blood, were weak. Those with red blood seemed to be the strongest. In the middle were the purple blooded creatures and in their case, it all depended on how closer to red or blue their blood was. Logically I would have assumed that all creatures were born with blue blood, and that absorbing red mist was slowly making their blood turn red, making them stronger in the process, but as a red blooded creature myself, I was confused since we humans had red blood even though we came from a world without red mist. Maybe it was something totally different after all. Anyway, the survivors could now tolerate a few hours of red mist exposure and didn¡¯t have to panic anymore if the generator happened to die for a few hours before being fixed. We were also using walkie radios now, so we could keep in touch with those who remained at the hospital as we patrolled town. During these last weeks, I had mostly talked with Camille and L¨¦opaul since I would always learn something useful when I spoke with that old man. As for Camille, she was mostly a friend. I truly enjoyed our daily talks and was more than happy to speak with her as long as it was via radio. Emanuela would often try to speak to me via radio but I had tried to keep our conversation to a minimum for obvious reasons. As for my patrol partner, Robert the surgeon, we had ended up growing closer and friendlier as well. It was a strange relationship, we never spoke much but we knew we could count on each other. It was mostly a relationship based on mutual respect. Our days were so incredibly busy that we didn¡¯t see the time go by and the weather slowly getting dryer. The old L¨¦opaul had brought up a very good idea which had launched a massive building project. His idea was simple but brilliant, it was to build an electric fence around the area we wished to keep safe. In the following days, we went on the roofs of each buildings in the centre of town and scavenged all the solar panels we could find. L¨¦opaul had first wanted to build windmills, but I had windmills myself and knew for a fact that the wind wasn¡¯t powerful enough around here to make them worth having. Back home, all my energy was mostly produced via my solar panels. The absence of strong wind would also explain how styrofoam trees could stay upright and not snap in half at every storms. Anyway, L¨¦opaul had then spent all of his time creating an electrical system capable of powering the hospital with enough electricity to spare for the electrical fence which was still under construction. We were using heavy machinery to rip and recycle all the metal wire fences we could find. These fences were far from rare and were used to enclose everything from parks to industrial complexes. Our first goal was to fence up the hospital but we ended up expanding the project to a 1 kilometre perimeter around the hospital. The survivors had also begun to fix their living quarters and turn the place into something worth calling home. They now had working toilets and showers, they also had a kitchen and could also now use the massive hospital cafeteria¡¯s refrigerator, since electricity had been restored in the building. With so much work ahead of ourselves, we didn¡¯t have time to think about our situation. People who were almost suicidal before, were now too busy to think about anything else. My days now very different from before as well. I would generally wake up and have breakfast with Camille. Not in person but she would keep me company on the radio as I ate and prepared myself. Then I could leave and meet up with the others for the morning patrol. These patrols generally only lasted a few hours, leaving me time to do my own things until afternoon patrol. We had also begun to gather the corpses of whatever we killed and put them in a fenced up field to rot and prevent wild animals from eating them. We also mixed various stuff with the corpses like grass, out of date food, wood chips and other various biodegradable stuff. Our goal was simple, to make compost to be used in our experimental field. We needed to complete our electric fence project before sowing anything since the local creature would most likely destroy our harvests if we didn¡¯t. Our goal was to learn if earth crops could grow in this world. We knew we would eventually run out of preserved food, so we needed to find a way to produce fresh food to feed ourselves in the future. During my free times, I had also perfected my arsenal quite a bit, helped by L¨¦opaul who seemed to know everything about anything. My pipe bombs were now more compact and more deadly. The old man had also taught me how to make ammonium nitrate bombs which were like atom bombs compared to my small pipe bombs. Ammonium nitrate was something more easily accessible than I would have suspected. Some fertilizers had ammonium nitrate as ingredient and could be used for the bombs. Even in its pure form, ammonium nitrate by itself is not explosive. In fact, bombs need two components beside the fertilizer: a detonator and a fuel. Armed with that new found knowledge, I was currently creating the biggest bomb I had ever made during my free time. The entire bomb was three, 55 gallon plastic barrels filled with explosives, strapped to a palette and held by a forklift in my garage. It now only needed a powerful detonator which I was working on with the help of the old man L¨¦opaul. I had affectionately named the bomb ¡®Little Boy¡¯ in homage to the first nuclear bomb created back on earth. My reason for creating this bomb was my constant fear of coming across another dragon or the thing that ate its corpse. You can never have too much firepower in a fight for survival. As safe at the town might have currently felt, I couldn¡¯t shake this ominous feeling. In the back of my mind, I couldn¡¯t help but suspect that something really bad could happen at any moment. It was this way of thinking that had made me a prepper in the first place. This ¡°paranoia¡± had saved my and these other survivors¡¯ lives so far after all. I was currently standing in the back of a pick-up truck, holding on to one of our giant air cannons as Robert drove us around town. Marc and Emanuela were shadowing us from behind in a different pick-up truck with Emanuela at the wheel and Marc handling the cannon. As the days went by, we had all noticed how there were less and less creatures roaming in our territory which motivated us to keep doing these patrols. We were currently driving down the main road, chasing some creatures that were running away from us like a horde of gazelles hunted by lions. We pursued them until they left the 5 kilometres circle we were now calling our territory. The creatures ran away and disappeared into the jungle, hopefully having learned to stay away from here. With the other survivors also increasing their red mist resistance, the local creatures no longer had any easy prey to hunt and had no reason to hang around anymore. Robert then immobilized the vehicle and got out as Marc and Emanuela stopped behind us and gathered for a quick meeting. I pulled out a bottle of rum from my bag and began sipping on it after lighting a cigarette while people gathered around. ¡°Look like the town has been cleared already. Umf* Getting easier everyday.¡± Proudly boasted Marc as he walked toward us. Ignoring him, the bubbly Emanuela jogged her way past him and sat in the truck bed next to me. ¡°Mind giving me a sip of that?¡± She then asked while cutely pouting her cheeks. ¡°Suit yourself.¡± I then answered while passing her the bottle. I had plenty more where it had come from after all. Marc was discretely gritting his teeth as Emanuela placed her supple lips on the rim of the bottle without wiping it. This was a definite indirect kiss and I knew she was doing it on purpose every-time, but I had always refrained from saying anything. I had a suspicion that she was waiting for exactly that, the feeling that I would be playing in her hands if I commented on it. ¡°Will you join us today for some fence building?¡± Then inquired Robert the surgeon. I had helped them a bit by teaching them how to operate some of the equipment and with some manual labour but I already had other projects for the day. ¡°Sorry, I have a project of my own in mind for today.¡± I nonchalantly responded. Marc made an obviously displeased face and Emanuela also seemed a bit disconcerted by my loner lifestyle but they didn¡¯t push it any further. In Marc¡¯s case, he was probably happier the further away I stayed from ¡®his girl¡¯. ¡°Mmmmm, you know Nate, I was wondering. Why don¡¯t you live with us? We have worked a lot and made the hospital very cozy and comfortable. That way we could all work together don¡¯t you think?¡± Curiously asked miss universe. This was an annoying question. It¡¯s not like I could simply answer them with a ¡®I work alone¡¯ type of line here. They had obviously asked about that before but I had always changed the subject. This time though, I felt like I couldn¡¯t avoid it since they had so much on their plates at the moment, they definitely needed the extra help I could bring them. How was I supposed to answer this? Tell them I don¡¯t like hanging around people too much? Wouldn¡¯t they dislike me if they learned that? They should naturally think it¡¯s because I don¡¯t like them. Other than that I had no idea what to say. Emanuela was looking deep into my eyes, expecting an answer while taking a sip from my bottle of rum. Sensing my discomfort, Robert immediately came to my rescue. ¡°He has his reason. Anyway, let¡¯s go back to the hospital.¡± I took my bottle of rum back from the seductive succubus and stuffed it in my bag before taking back my gunner position. ¡°Thanks, doc.¡± I then whispered to the 41 years old Robert who answered with a bright smile. ¡°You can count on me my friend.¡± Emanuela pouted her way back to her vehicle with Marc in tow, then our convoy finally took back on the road. We crossed the centre of town and arrived at an intersection near the police station. I still hadn¡¯t told them about the guns stashed in there and was surprised that they still hadn¡¯t thought of having a look there. In my head, the police station was the most obvious place to look at first. The bullet proof vests I had gifted them even had ¡®police¡¯ written on them¡­ I tapped three time on the roof of the truck, signalling Robert to stop his vehicle. I grabbed my assault rifle and got down from the vehicle. ¡°Static* Why are we stopping here?¡± Asked Emanuela through the walkies-talkies. This area was where I had found the green patches of goo on the buildings¡¯ walls. I had assumed these were territory marking belonging to a creature but had never seen which creature had made them. I even asked Camille and Robert if they could identify what this green goo was with their ¡®super medical knowledge¡¯ but was met with a negative answer. Apparently doctors and surgeons are not to be confused with lab rats or something¡­ Suspecting that maybe the creature was dead or gone, I had decided to spray orange paint on the markings to see if the creature would ¡®fix¡¯ them. Robert immediately understood what I was looking at and rolled down his window. ¡°It hasn¡¯t even been 24 hours since you sprayed them¡­ Yet they have all been covered back up with that green stuff. It must be a nocturnal creature¡­¡± Not knowing what I was dealing with was what terrified me the most. Something was living in our town, and this thing had yet to be seen or identified. Undeterred, I had anticipated this possibility and had brought the solution in my bag. The solution was hunting cameras, two of them. These cameras were meant to be attached to trees and left in the woods for weeks or even months. They had motion detectors and would take pictures of anything that walked in front of them while left unattended. I grabbed my radio and told the other three that I needed time to reapply paint on the markings and install the cameras. I also told them that instead of waiting for me, they should go loot the guns in the nearby police station. This obviously caused a bit of a backlash since I knew that place was filled with ammunition and rifles and hadn¡¯t told them before now, but once again Robert¡¯s intervention calmed everyone down. The two trucks rolled past me and stopped in front of the police station as I began to tag the buildings with orange paint. Once the paint job completed, I attached the cameras to telephone posts and tested them to make sure they were working properly. By the time I was finished, the other three had already loaded quite a bit of stuff in their trucks. Even though they all already had one, they ended up taking all the remaining bullet proof vests anyway. It was better to have too much than not enough after all. As I was nonchalantly walking up to them, screams of terror from Emanuela and Marc unconsciously made me go super saiyan with red mist. What I then saw, was a giant gecko like creature which was perfectly camouflaged in the tall grass. Even though this thing was as big as a truck, its camouflage was so well developed that we would have never seen it if it hadn¡¯t moved. The reason it was now moving was because it had taken Marc and Emanuela for targets. Emanuela had instantly begun to unload her firearm on the creature while Marc had turned tail and was running away, leaving her to face the giant creature alone. Assault rifle in hand, I was unloading my magazine on the creature while running toward Emanuela as fast as I could. Doped on red mist, I ripped a stop sign from the ground and threw it like a javelin at the creature. The long metal pole flew like a missile and embedded itself into the creature¡¯s left front leg which made it scream in agony. At this point, Marc had already jumped back in his truck and seemed ready to flee on his own. As the creature began to charge toward her, Emanuela turned around and began to run toward me. I would have normally kept my distance and shot it with my sniper but the girl was in danger, forcing me to take reckless measures. Finally reaching me, Emanuela hid behind my back as I unsheathed my sword like a samurai, ready to face the creature head on. Annoyingly, the creature¡¯s next move took me by surprise as it began to spit green goo in our direction. Doped on red mist, my reflexes and speed would have allowed me to avoid the green goo but Emanuela would have been left unprotected, so I instantly grabbed and shielded her from the spit with my own body. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. This was not something I would have normally done but everything had happened so quickly that I hadn¡¯t had time to think things through. My entire back got sprayed with the goo but my full body armour luckily managed to protect me against most of it. Then, I felt a small trickle flowing down my back, starting from my neck region. If this was poison like I suspected, I was dead. ¡°N-Nate!!!!¡± Screamed the woman in my arms with tears filling her eyes. I had fucked up, I was going to die because I had decided to be with these people. If I had stayed alone like I normally do, this would have never happened. Of course I was terrified, but I could also feel a warm and prideful feeling swelling deep down in my chest. If someone had told me that one day I would feel prideful for dying a warrior¡¯s death, I would have laughed in their face, but here I was, prepared to give my life to protect people I barely knew. I truly had changed a lot during these last months haven¡¯t I? I stared in Emanuela¡¯s eyes and forced a smile before screaming. ¡°RUNNNNN!!!!!!¡± I then pushed her away and turned to face the charging creature with my sword. My vision was already getting blurry but I didn¡¯t need to see perfectly to spot such a big creature. Expelling as much red mist as I could, I charged the beast with speed that would have made me appear blurry to any spectators. I tightened the grip on my sword and slashed downward, aiming for its head. My katana sank between the creature¡¯s eyes and into its skull. The blade made its way through the bones and brain but snapped in half as it reached the spine, sending me tumbling down on the ground. I was struggling to get back up and continue the fight, but the dizziness kept making me fall back on the ground. I couldn¡¯t see anymore and couldn¡¯t confirm that the beast was dead so I kept fighting to get up when I finally heard Robert¡¯s voice. ¡°NATE!!!¡± Pan!* Pan!* Pan!* Pan!* The sound of gunfire was the last thing I heard as my consciousness faded into oblivion. ¡®I hope they will be alright without me¡¯, was the only thought I had in mind at this instant. What came next were nightmarish visions and a sense of emptiness. I had no longer any control over my thought and was instead caught up in a delirium, a simple viewer without free will. It was like a nightmare you couldn¡¯t escape from by waking up. I was also devoid of any sense of time but couldn¡¯t think of anything anyway since I was a simple spectator. In these nightmares, otherworldly voices could sometime be heard. Bringing me comfort, these voices were the only things I was hoping for. I couldn¡¯t distinguish who was talking or what they were talking about at first but as time went by, I began to discern them more properly. ¡°You know Nate, before we met you, I thought of ending my life many times¡­¡­.. Sob* If you die, what will I do? Sob* sniff* Sorry, I shouldn¡¯t be thinking about these things because I know you will definitely wake up. Sniff* You are the strongest person I have ever met. This situation really made me regret never tel-¡­.¡± The voice then began to fade as I sank back into my nightmares. That voice, was Camille¡¯s. How could I not recognize the voice of the woman I had spent so much time talking to on the radio. In our daily conversations, she would tell me about her past life, how she had lost her little brother to cancer when she was still in high-school. This was the trigger that had made her want to become a doctor. She would also recall what their group had went through before we met. How the majority of the death in their groups hadn¡¯t been from monsters but from the people taking their own lives out of fear and despair. The mission to get the fuel truck which had costed them the lives of 3 of their people. How Robert had kept the group together and how old pop L¨¦opaul had always been the positive voice in the group. I also knew that her favourite colour was green, that she also enjoyed the ocean and nature in general. She had even told me how she had always been too busy with work to ever get a serious boyfriend in the past. I felt like she was the person I knew best in this world. Among the many voices that kept talking to me, Camille and Robert were the most frequent. I would also occasionally hear the voices of my dead mother and father who would tell me random things like ¡®What do you want for dinner?¡¯ or ¡®When will you finally do something with your life!¡¯ I thought I would never wake up from this never ending nightmare when suddenly, for no apparent reason, I woke up as if I had only went to sleep like usual. First blinded by the light, I gradually opened my eyes and waited for my vision to focus. What I first saw was the ceiling, then felt warmth in my hands. Turning to my left, I saw Emanuela, who had apparently fallen asleep while holding my hand. Then turning to my right, I saw Camille who was doing the exact same thing but with my right hand. Since when did I have a harem again? No, more importantly, I had survived the poison? Sure, we were in an hospital but poison isn¡¯t something you can easily threat. My luck was apparently immeasurable. My mouth and throat were dry like a desert and my head felt like it would explode. I could really have used some painkillers but didn¡¯t want to wake the girls up so I remained immobile and stared at the ceiling. After a while, it had become unbearable, leaving me no other choice than to wake them up. I squeezed Camille¡¯s hand a bit which caused her to jerk her head up in surprise. ¡°Did he just move his hand? Nate? Can you hear me?¡± I slowly opened my eyes and looked at her before trying to tell her what I truly needed at this instant. ¡°C-c-c¡­¡± I was apparently still very weak and couldn¡¯t articulate what I was trying to say. ¡°Sea? What about the sea?¡± ¡°C-cc-c-¡­. Cigarette!¡± Finally! The word had came out silently but flawlessly. ¡°Hehehehehehehehe! I can¡¯t believe you! Heheheheheheh! You are still weak, you know smoking is bad for you.¡± Annoying, I knew she had a very motherly personality but I was older than her for fuck sake. ¡°Nate????!!!!!¡± Sigh* And here¡¯s the other one. ¡°NATE!!!!!! Sob* Cry* I knew you wouldn¡¯t die like this!¡± Urgg, the bane of being popular I guess. Still, I was happy to see that she was alive and well. I had succeeded in protecting her after all. I then tried to ask them if everybody else were still alright but was stopped by Camille who told me to get some rest and save my strength. What she didn¡¯t understand was that going back to the dream world was the last thing I wanted to do after finally waking up. All I wanted right now was a goddamned cigarette!!!! ¡°G-give me¡­. a cig-¡­ Dammit! Cough!* cough!*¡± Totally ignoring me, the two girls ran out and began to yell the good news to everyone. After that they all came running into my room and made it incredibly awkward with their tears and get well wishes. The fat Alice came and handed to me the necklace she had finally managed to complete after so long. ¡°I know this is owed, but take it as a get well gift if you want. Glad to see you back with us young man.¡± The fat lady then gave me a rare smile, followed by a wink that gave me goosebumps. I inspected the necklace and was amazed by her craftsmanship. (Or should I say craftswomanship?) She had polished and cut the eye in the same way she would have done to an opal. She had removed all the useless material and kept only the glowing iris then mounted it on a medallion surrounded by diamonds. The two dragon teeth were now held by dragon shaped thingy instead of simple hole through them. The entire thing was made out of shiny white metal. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn¡¯t gold but assumed it was because she thought that gold was weak and too easy to break. ¡°What metal is it made of?¡± I then inquired. ¡°Eh, it¡¯s white gold. A lot sturdier than crappy yellow gold.¡± White gold? I had heard of this before but never really understood what it was. She then explained that white gold was an alloy, a mix of two or more metals together. In this case, it was a mix of gold and palladium, giving it this white chrome colour. The fat lady then leaned closer to me and whispered. ¡°When you feel better, remember to come and see me. There¡¯s something strange about your old gold chain that I¡¯d like to discuss in private with you.¡± That sounded intriguing but we were then interrupted by Robert and old pop L¨¦opaul who then came in the room with springs in their steps. ¡°You really are back! We missed you my friend.¡± Robert then approached and shook my hand. He seemed incredibly tired and looked like he had a rough time. Then came old man L¨¦opaul. ¡°Heyy youngster! How does it feel to have all the ladies worrying about you? Hurhuhurhu¡± The then followed with his usual hearty laugh that made me laugh but earned him some glare from the ladies. ¡°W-what happened a-after I got p-poisoned?¡± I then laboriously asked. Everybody¡¯s expressions then turned serious as Robert took Camille¡¯s chair next to my bed and began to recall the events. ¡°When I came out of the police station after hearing all the commotion outside, I saw you on the ground, struggling to get up. Then I saw the giant monster next to you that was still moving, so I unloaded my weapon on it without knowing that you had already killed it. The creature was only twitching due to it¡¯s nerves. Then Emanuela came running at me, saying you had been poisoned and to help you. We brought you back to the hospital but there was not much we could do to threat poison so we kept monitoring your vitals and gave you medication to fight against the effects of the poison. At this point, there was nothing more we could do than wait. In the end, you are the one who pulled through.¡± Then my next question was an obvious one. ¡°How long, have I been out?¡± Robert cringed a bit before answering. ¡°Almost a week.¡± Woaa, almost a week? What kind of terrible poison was it to knock me out so badly? Then my attention turned back to the people looking at me. I was browsing through the room, looking for the two missing persons. Seemingly understanding what I was looking for, Emanuela¡¯s face became twisted and angry looking. Sensing the tension, Camille quickly intervened. ¡°Annie! Stop being so shy and come here already!¡± The small girl¡¯s head instantly popped out from the doorway, then disappearing again as fast as it had appeared. Seeing the scene, I couldn¡¯t help but giggle as she reminded me of a groundhog or something. Seeing that Marc wasn¡¯t here, I first thought that maybe he was busy or injured, but Emanuela¡¯s reaction was enough hint to guess what was truly going on. I now suspected that he had maybe suffered some backlashes from the group for running away and abandoning Emanuela to her death back then. Wanting to avoid annoying dramas, I then decided not to mention his name. Anyway, right now there was something a lot more important for me to ask. I then threw an intense stare at my best buddy Robert which caught all of his attention and made him lean forward to hear me properly. ¡°Robert, my f-friend. I have a f-favour to ask you.¡± Robert then gave me his most serious and determined expression which meant I could count on him for anything. ¡°YOU¡¯RE NOT GETTING A CIGARETTE!!!!!!¡± Then interrupted Camille with a giant frown on her forehead. ¡°Tch, bitch.¡± The room then exploded with laughter and among the loud laughs, Camille then added ¡°I¡¯ll pretend I didn¡¯t hear that last part. Umf!*¡± After that, I spent a few days recuperating from my misadventure that had almost cost me my life. Camille would always remain next to me, feed me some porridge and holding idle talks. Most of the time it would be only me and her for hours as the others were always busy with patrols and fence building. As time went by, Annie gradually began to get closer to me and stopped acting as if I was a frightening monster. This scene almost made us look like a husband and wife and their young daughter. After asking every 2 minutes for the last 3 days, Camille eventually caved in and brought me a pack of cigarettes to stop me from trying to sneak out of bed every-time she left. What was she expecting. Spending the entire day laying in bed, I had nothing else to do than smoke. On the fourth day I was already walking around and kicking. The reason for my fast recovery? I was a neet who couldn¡¯t bear to be in contact with people for too long, yet I had been stuck with people coming in and out of my room all the time for days. I had endured this for four days now and couldn¡¯t wait to get the fuck out of there and go back to my bunker. Using red mist doping to make me appear completely healed, I then managed to convinced them of my total remission and had them bring my equipment to my room. Everything was there, they had even cleaned my body armour of all the poisonous green goo. They had also brought my broken sword even though it was now useless. Still using the red mist doping, I put on my equipment and prepared to leave but made a quick stop to see Alice before leaving. I knocked at the door of her room to which she responded with a loud ¡°Come in!¡± I then entered and closed the door behind me for more intimacy. She was sitting at her desk and inspected some rocks. ¡°Ha! It¡¯s you. You look like shit. Gahahagaha¡± Sigh* This fat lady was always so coarse that it made me cringe every-time. ¡°What was it about my gold necklace you wanted to talk about?¡± Acting as if she had just now remembered something important she quickly stood up and started browsing through her drawers. ¡°There it is!¡± She then held the necklace in her hand. I walked closer to her to get a look at also noticed something strange with it. ¡°You see this?¡± She asked while pointing exactly at what I was staring at. ¡°Yea, what is it?¡± I didn¡¯t know what I was looking at but some areas of my necklace had begun to change colour and had began to turned red. ¡°This discoloration is not oxidation or any kind of dye. The areas which have turned red seem to have changed at a molecular level or something. I¡¯m no nerd but the gold that has turned red got stronger. Usually, gold is very weak but I could only scratch this red gold with a diamond. Also, the areas which have turned red seem to be the areas that were in direct contact with your skin.¡± Now this was interesting. To me it appeared that gold could absorb red mist and be strengthened by it the same way my body was while using the expulsion technique. I couldn¡¯t see any use for it yet, but this was something interesting to know. The fat lady then continued. ¡°Those teeth you gave me were also very peculiar.¡± She walked back up to her desk as she talked and grabbed the small stone she was previously looking at before I arrived. ¡°To mount them properly, I had to cut the roots of the tooth. At first everything seemed normal until I reached the core. The white on them seem to be made out of normal teeth stuff but their core is black and made out of something I have never seen before. This is one of the most important discoveries we have ever made since that black thing that looks like obsidian is actually harder than diamond which is supposed to be the hardest material known to man. I totally ruined a diamond faceting disk to cut that shit out.¡± At this point, nothing surprised me anymore when it came to dragons. Then, a sudden thought crossed my mind. If dragon¡¯s teeth had a solid black core, could the bones have the same thing in them? This would explain how I couldn¡¯t crush its rib cage with my huge 5 tons machine. I was curious to go check out the bones I had back home and was getting dizzy from constantly using red mist to stay upright, so I quickly thanked Alice, said my goodbyes to everyone and left as quickly as possible. On my way I noticed that they had made considerable progress on the electric fence and it should soon be completed. With the daily patrols, the town was now perfectly safe so my ride back home was luckily uneventful. When I turned and engaged into my driveway, I suddenly stomped on the brake and stared at the area where my dragon skull used to be. One, the skull was gone. Two, the ground in that area had been trashed. I quickly turned my attention to my house but luckily, everything else seemed intact. I parked my vehicle and ran down to my bunker. My CCTV cameras had a motion detector function to them. Like the hunting cameras, they would record videos of the moments when movement had been detected and save them into my computer. I hurriedly browsed through the 11 last days that I hadn¡¯t been here to monitor, and found what I was looking for in the folder containing the videos from only a few hours ago. What I saw in this 43 seconds video froze the blood in my veins. The hairs were standing straight on my head and I almost fell off my chair. Snapping out of it a few seconds later, I ran to the radio and began to yell at the other survivors. ¡°HELLO?! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!!!! EVERYBODY GET BACK INSIDE!!!!¡± The Merge – Chapter 10 (Captive) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here ------------------- ¡°HELLO?! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY!!!!!! EVERYBODY GET BACK INSIDE!!!!¡± Still in panic, I was anxiously waiting for a response which came a few seconds later. ¡°Hello? What¡¯s going on, is there a problem?¡± Usually Camille was the one in charge of the radio but the one to answer this time was Emanuela. ¡°Tell everybody to get back inside, don¡¯t make unnecessary noises, don¡¯t cook smelly food and shut down anything that consumes electricity and isn¡¯t absolutely necessary.¡± I then said while trying to stay calm. This was all I could think of at the moment, hopefully these precautions would be enough to protect them. ¡°O-Okay! Camille and Robert just got out for a quick patrol, I¡¯ll try to contact them via radio, wait a sec.¡± She hurriedly said before going silent for a few minutes. While she was trying to contact them via walkies-talkie radios, I leaned closer to my monitor and watched the video a few more times. This 43 seconds video, I just couldn¡¯t get used to what it showed. The images contained in this short video would send shivers down my spines every time I watched it. Knowing that such a creature existed in this world should be enough to push many people toward suicide. At least this was the feeling I got from it. The video was beginning with a giant flying creature coming down from the sky and land on my front lawn. This creature was as big as my 2 storey house so the camera showed only the lower part of its body. From it¡¯s lower body, there was no doubt that this was a dragon, and a big one at that, but this was where things started to get weird. Not only was this thing easily 5 to 6 times bigger than the first dragon I had met, but the general appearance of its body was also totally different. This one was silvery black in colour and had spikes and horns everywhere. Its body was entirely covered in what seemed like spiky armour plates. The first dragon I had seen had a weaker belly, but this one didn¡¯t seem to have any flaws in its armour. Its toes were very long but the claws on them were even more impressive. At first glance, this thing appeared to have feet similar to an eagle¡¯s when you looked at its sharp and murderous looking talons. Its wings were also covered with spikes and armour plating. The beast had a long, sharp and bony looking tail. The first dragon I had seen was walking on 4 legs, using its wings as front legs like bats. This one though was walking upright, like a bird or even like a raptor or a t-rex. The giant creature then walked around my yard and stopped next to the dragon skull I had been keeping there. It is when the creature bent its neck and body downward to get a closer look at the skull, that I finally saw the creature¡¯s head which remained visible for only 5 seconds in the video. The sight of this creature¡¯s face was something I would never be able to forget and would probably see in my nightmares for the rest of my life. This was not the head of a dragon, at least not what I would have envisioned it to look like. Its short snout and eyes facing forward instead of being on each side of its head gave it an eerie humanoid appearance. No, not humanoid but more like a demon. This thing was a dragon on steroids with the head of a demon attached to it. The lack of lips made its razor sharp teeth fully visible, making it appear as if the beast was constantly grinning. The creature also had long vivid red tendrils or horns growing on its head down its neck, giving the impression of fiery red hair. This thing made me think of a harpy more than it made me think of a dragon because of its hellish looking head. Even through the camera, I felt as if the creature could peer deep into my soul, giving me goosebumps in the process. The beast then stomped onto the skull, partially crushing it then trashed it around before taking-off into the sky toward who knows where. The creature had reacted violently to the skull which made me think that both species were probably mortal enemies. If this thing saw my necklace, it would most likely enrage it instead of protecting me against it. Was this creature aware of our presence here? Had it simply happened to fly by or was it regularly hunting in the area? My first thought was to lay low and hide for a few days, hoping the beast would leave this area for a new one, but I had no knowledge of their natural behaviour. If we were in the middle of its territory, then we had a serious problem on our hands. As I was deep in thought, Emanuela finally answered back through the radio. ¡°I-I couldn¡¯t contact them. They must be in a valley or something because I can¡¯t get through them right now.¡± Fuck! Had the creature gotten to them already? Where they really in an unreachable area or where they dead? Why did it had to be Robert and Camille, why my two favourite people of them all. Couldn¡¯t it have been Marc out there instead? I would not have cared as much if this was the case. Frustrated, worried and completely torn by my current dilemma, I leaned back into my chair and pulled my hair with both hands. ¡°GRRrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa FUCKKKKKkkkkkkkk! Ignore them! Ignore them!¡± I was punching the sides of my head, trying to stop my mind from thinking of stupid things to do. Maybe they were perfectly alright, maybe the dragon was already long gone and Robert and Camille truly were in a dead spot where radio won¡¯t work. I just needed to wait for them to get back to the hospital. ¡°Hello Nate? What¡¯s going on? Tell me, what is happening?!¡± This time I could clearly hear the worries in her voice. Should I tell her the truth? Or should I pretend like everything was going to be alright to prevent her and the others from panicking. I was already panicking myself so I thought for a moment that keeping the truth from them would be for the best but finally opted for partial truth instead. ¡°W-we¡­ have a dragon problem.¡± This time the answer came immediately. ¡°WHATT??? Camille and Robert are out there! We need to do something!!!!¡± This reply didn¡¯t fail to annoy me as I was already struggling with the same dilemma. I was still recovering from my 7 days of ¡°coma¡± after being poisoned and didn¡¯t really have the strength to battle a steroid dragon, but I also felt like I had no other choice than do something. Determined, I grabbed the radio one last time. ¡°All of you, stay and hide inside, I will go get them. Emanuela, you keep trying to join them via radio.¡± I hung down the radio and staggered back to the kitchen area. There, I took some painkiller mixed with a few sips of vodka, then filled my bag with a few pipe bombs, batteries, bullets and everything I thought could be needed if things went wrong. I sat for a few seconds, completely emptied of energy, sweating like a pig and trying to catch back my breath. I was certainly not in any condition to be going out at the moment but as long as I only needed to drive, I should be alright. The plan was to find them, tell them to rush back to the hospital then come back here. I was also carrying my radio so that I would know if Emanuela finally managed to reach them. Feeling like I had wasted enough time, I stood up and grabbed a set of keys hanging near the entrance. I looked at them with nostalgia before apologizing to my deceased father. ¡°I¡¯ll be taking the ¡®red dragon¡¯ to go save these people dad. I know this car meant a lot to you, but these people are all I have left in this world. Please look over me and grant me your protection so that your beloved car and I may come back safely.¡± Struggling to stay on my feet, I staggered my way out of the bunker and up to the garage. My backpack felt like it was loaded with rocks and my legs were shaking, threatening to give up at any time. I went outside and walked to the side of the house. There it was, laid under a grey tarp, my father¡¯s corvette. I removed the tarp, loaded my backpack onto the passenger seat and collapsed in mine. I was seeing double and everything was slowly becoming blurry, a bit like when you are drunk. Well, I was used to this feeling so I decided to push through it. I then stick the key into the ignition and let the V8 resurrect from its ashes. Well that was the plan, but the battery was dead so I ended up taking a neighbour¡¯s mustang instead. I unleashed its V8 and roared down the street while keeping a close ear on my radio. Emanuela was still trying to communicate with Camille and Robert and they still weren¡¯t answering. The fact that they weren¡¯t responding was worrying, they were either in a place where the radio couldn¡¯t reach like a basement, had turned off their radios or were dead already. Worried I drove down the road as fast as I could while keeping an eye opened for any sign of them or their truck. I had to constantly keep using red mist to avoid fainting and wouldn¡¯t be able to keep this up for too long. As I was roaring down the road toward the centre of town, giant claws suddenly pierced through the roof of my car and then, all I could see was the purple sky. My car was flying. At first I thought I was having hallucinations but when the claws finally let go of the car, I began to feel like I was falling. It all happened very fast but soon I was plunging toward the ground and impacted like a brick in an empty grass field. The car began to tumble, sending pieces of metal and glass flying all over the place. Inside the car, all I could see was sky, dirt, sky, dirt. The car tumbled at least 10 times before finally stopping on its roof. Thank to the red mist, I didn¡¯t seem seriously injured so I quickly extricated myself from the wreckage and pulled my backpack out with me. My breathing was laborious, I wasn¡¯t sure what had just happened but I suspected this goddamned dragon to be responsible. I crawled and leaned on the wrecked mustang as I was hurriedly preparing my 338 Lapua sniper rifle. THUMP!* A very large tremor of the earth announced that whatever had sent me flying, had landed on the other side of the car. Using the mustang as cover, I was hoping the creature wouldn¡¯t see me and just leave, but I still had loaded my gun just in case I had to fight. Thump!* Thump!* Thump!* Thump!* The sound of slowly approaching heavy footsteps were making the ground shake under their weight. Sweat was dripping from the tip of my nose as I was clinging to my gun and struggling to stay conscious. Was this where I would die? I felt like I had been in life or death situations way too often recently. I could definitely take a break from that right now. ¡°RRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr¡± A low rumble which could only be emitted by a very large animal sounded as if it was only inches away from my ears. I laid on the ground, trying to disappear but as I thought of crawling back inside the car for cover, I realized the car I was previously leaning against was gone. In fact, it was still in the air to my left, having been sent flying by the creature as if it was a weightless toy. The creature clearly aware that I was hiding behind it and had simply thrown it out of its way. Even though my vision was blurry, I could clearly see the giant face staring at me with the creepiest of all grins on its face. This ¡®dragon¡¯ was the most disturbingly ugly creature I had seen so far, and the simple sight of it paralyzed me in fear. The giant demon faced creature stared at me with curious eyes for a while, tilting its head left and right before finally backing away. Still holding my gun tightly, I was afraid to shoot. Seeing how perfectly armoured this creature¡¯s body was, not only would my bullet be noneffective, but it would also enrage the creature which would most likely mean my death. Hoping to be saved by my necklace, I slowly moved my left hand toward my neck, trying to pull my necklace out of my shirt but before I had time to do so, the giant creature pounced on me. It grabbed me with one of its powerful hind legs and took off in the sky. I was struggling to free myself but it was useless, this thing was way too strong. The creature could have easily crushed me to pieces but seemed be holding me carefully, trying not to kill me immediately. Even if this thing didn¡¯t seem to want to kill me straight away, I remained very worried. It was most likely bringing me as food to its babies or something. I still had my hands on my gun but was unable to move or aim it anywhere. In only a few seconds, we were already high up into the air, overlooking my town from a hundred metres in the air. Being in the air like that gave me the opportunity to confirm that my 5 kilometre circle theory was accurate. From up there I could clearly see the circle and my town in the middle of it. The vegetation in the circle was different from the outside, making the circle visually obvious even with blurry vision. We kept flying at high altitude, just under cloud level and soon, my town was only a small speck in the horizon. I couldn¡¯t see clearly but I kept staring at the ground anyway. From what I could see, all there was around us were forest and more forest. The landscape also seemed covered with small mountains and ravines, making it look like a rough terrain to walk through. As the creature kept flying and taking me further away from my home, hope of ever finding my way back slowly began to fade. We had been flying for a while and were probably between 20 to 30 miles away from town now. I tried to grab my radio and tell the others but couldn¡¯t move. I was stuck in this beast¡¯s claws and wouldn¡¯t go anywhere until the creature released me. We seemed to be heading toward a big mountain range visible in the distance. Accepting the fact that I wouldn¡¯t be able to free myself while we were in the air, I began to observe the ground down below and tried to make a mental map of what I was seeing. It is while doing so that I noticed something that I thought to be very important. The red mist, visible only to my eyes seemed to be covering the entire land but also seemed more condensed in certain areas. There were these river like streams of red mist snaking all over the landscape and some of them gathered in the same area, creating some type of vortex. Similar to a storm cell, the red mist seemed to gather to form circles similar to hurricanes seen from space. Some red mist streams were visibly denser than others and were flowing away to the horizon like rivers. Seeing these circles of condensed red mist made me think that it was most likely this phenomena that had transported our town into this world. Confirming this theory, I later saw a few more circles like the one that had transported my town. One of them was filled with sand, the other seemed to be a perfectly circular lake. These circles had probably transported part of a desert and part of a lake or an ocean. This also meant that the teleportation accident my town had been caught into wasn¡¯t an isolated one. This made me wonder, if we went into one of these circles beforehand, would we be transported back into our world? On the way, I also noticed something interesting. There were some areas that seemed to contain a very small amount of red mist. If we went to one of these ¡®dead spots¡¯, maybe we wouldn¡¯t have to deal with red mist poisoning problems again. (Not that it was a problem for me anymore.) Eventually, the demon dragon began to lose some altitude and headed straight to an enormous 90¡ã cliff-side. What seemed like a very small black spot in the distance, was actually a giant entrance to a cave which was accessible only if you could fly there. It was an enormous hole, big enough to allow this giant demon dragon to fit through with its wings partially opened. Before touching ground, the creature threw me deep into the cave, sending me tumbling down on the hard rocky ground. Sore everywhere, I struggled to get back on my feet and prepared my rifle but was instantly grabbed by its tail then carried deeper into the cave. I was struggling as hard as I could but was already hearing voices in my head, telling me to take a rest and that I had fought hard enough already. Stolen story; please report. Refusing to accept death, I kept struggling to lift my gun up but couldn¡¯t since I was being shaken and thrown everywhere like a vulgar crash dummy. Now deep in the cave, I couldn¡¯t see anything anymore. It was pitch darkness, preventing me from seeing anything other than my glowing necklace. I couldn¡¯t see anything, but I could hear very strange noises. In this darkness, I could hear roars and chirping noises coming from all around me. Probably this creature¡¯s babies waiting to be fed, and I was probably what was on the menu tonight. Disoriented, I eventually felt the creature¡¯s tail letting go of me. The sensation of falling was all I could feel before hitting the ground head first. Unable to stand up, I crawled back until my back hit a wall, preventing me from crawling any further. I was in a hole, or a deep pit of some sort and wouldn¡¯t be able to get out in my condition. ¡°Ggrrrrrrrr*¡± Crap, I wasn¡¯t alone in this hole. All that could be seen in this dark environment was my glowing necklace and two more similar red eyes, staring at me from only a few meters away. I was too weak to lift my gun, unable to defend myself, I was totally at the mercy of whatever was with me in this hole. Tears began to flow down my cheeks as I was finally accepting my fate. This was where I would die, this time I wouldn¡¯t be able to pull off a miracle like the other times. The two glaring red eyes began to disappear as my consciousness slowly faded away into nothingness. This is how my life would end, as dragon food. Anyway, for a neet, I had certainly impressed myself for surviving this long. This time I knew for sure that caring for other people was what had caused my death, but I didn¡¯t regret anything. I was proud of what I had accomplished these last 6 months. When I opened my eyes again I was still in pitch darkness and feeling disoriented. Was this what the afterlife was like? There was basically nothing other than nothingness in here. But then pain in my body made me doubt as to whether I was dead or alive. I was relatively comfortable and could feel a warm breeze blowing on my face. ¡°RRRrrrr Zzzzzz RRRrrr ZZZZzzzzz¡± The sound of something breathing next to me made my heart skip a beat, and soon the realization of what was going on struck me. I reached with my right hand toward the sound, which was also the direction the warm air was blowing from, and felt what seemed to be scales. I couldn¡¯t move anymore, not because I was still feeling sick but because of what was most likely sleeping right next to me. I reached for my belt and grabbed my flashlight. Sneakily placing my hand over it not to wake up whatever was sleeping next to me, I then turned the light on which made my hand glow red. Slightly removing my hand while aiming toward my right, I finally managed to see what was near me. The first thing I saw was a small dragon sleeping right next to me, all curled up in a ball like a dog. Then I saw what my surroundings looked like. I was in a deep hole of around 7 meters in diameters and at least 12 meters deep. The walls were all shiny and polished looking which on closer inspection appeared to be vitrified rock. For it to be like that, these stone would have needed to have been submitted to extreme heat. Vitrified stones are simply stones that have been melted to a point where they form glass or a glaze. What I saw next were bones, many of them scattered all around me. These bones were most likely remnants of this young sleeping dragon¡¯s previous meals. This baby dragon was no bigger than a large dog and was similar in appearance to the first one I had encountered back then, except smaller. My necklace had probably saved my life on this one. This young dragon probably thought I was from the same species as him, which stopped him from devouring me as I was unconscious. As I was browsing through the bones surrounding me, I eventually noticed something that caught my eyes. It was a human skull. Then a bit further to the left, another one. Seemed like this dragon had been fed on humans before. The giant demon dragon had probably brought some corpses laying around in town after everybody died. The more I looked at these skulls, the more intrigued I became. Trying not to make any noises, I crawled toward the skulls to get a better look at them. As soon as I grabbed one, I instantly noticed what seemed wrong from afar. These skulls were small, too small to be adult¡¯s. I couldn¡¯t help but feel enraged after realizing that kids had been used to feed this creature. Looking up, I couldn¡¯t see any way of getting out of this hole. The walls were perfectly slick and seemed unclimbable. Especially being weakened like I was, there was not much I could do at the moment. There was no point in fretting about it now anyway, so I tried to stand up but fell back on my ass instead. I was still feeling a bit sick after all. I was hungry and thirsty as well, but luckily I had some provisions. I opened my water-tight backpack and pulled some granola bars and a bottle of water out of it. I had placed my flashlight in my crotch, trying to leak just enough light to see what I was doing, then drank some of my water. Next challenge was, trying to get a granola bar out of its wrapper without making noises. It took me way longer than it should have, but the wrapper eventually submitted to my will. I took a big bite out of the bar and immediately felt a lot better. Munch* munch* munch* ¡°Trlrlrlllrrl* Chirrrr chirrrrp* Rrrrrllll*¡± As I was eating, small noises that sounded almost like a mix between a purring cat and a bird, attracted my attention. When I looked toward the sound, I noticed two glowing red eyes staring at me. Looked like the sound of me eating had woken up my little friend over there. I slowly grabbed my 338 and waited to see its behaviour. It wouldn¡¯t be fair to simply shoot it, considering it could have killed me earlier but hadn¡¯t. I was also afraid that the sound of my gun would alert that demon dragon and make it panic after realizing I had killed one of its bab-¡­ Wait, they didn¡¯t belong to the same species from what I could see, so what was actually going on here? Was it that thing, when male and female of a same species look nothing alike, like peacocks for example? Or was it something more sinister. I couldn¡¯t help but get the feeling that this hole we were in was actually a prison. Deep enough to prevent a baby dragon from getting out, and narrow enough to prevent an older one from opening its wings completely. Though, I¡¯m certain a fully grown adult could shred its way out of it. Shining my flashlight in its direction, I watched the little creature carefully, ready to open fire. A baby dragon should definitely die from a shot of my powerful sniper rifle. The small dragon was bobbing its head up and down, then laid its body low to the ground as it inched its way toward me. I wasn¡¯t feeling any aggression, but I remained on the defensive anyway. I presented it with a piece of granola bar that I placed on the ground. The little dragon simply sniffed it, then completely ignored it. Nothing other than meat would do after all. I had some dragon jerky in my bag, but these were for me and I actually felt bad about the idea of feeding dragon meat to a baby dragon. Maybe their species naturally practised cannibalism like most reptiles, but I preferred keeping the meat for myself. The baby dragon began to bump its head against my legs, like a dog wanting affection. Still scared of it, I reluctantly tried petting it but almost got my hand chomped off in the process. This little thing¡¯s way of playing was too dangerous for me. I stood up and shooed it away, using my height to intimidate it. The little creature backed away but still looked overly excited. Not wasting a second, I swallowed some painkiller and pulled my rope out of my bag. I attached a few bones to one side and began to throw it out of the hole, hoping to use the bones as anchor or grappling hook. 20 tries later, a sore arm and short of breath, I took a break and sat down for a moment. There was not a lot of nooks and crannies where the bones could get stuck apparently. At this point, it was all based on luck and perseverance. The little dragon had kept trying to grab and play with the bones on the end of the rope, each time it fell back down. This baby dragon acted a lot like a dog if you looked at it for a while. A cute dog, that could rip your arm off at any time if it felt like throwing a tantrum. No doubt I was trying to get out of there as fast as I could. A few more tries later, the other end of the rope finally seemed to have been gotten stuck on something. I made sure to keep a constant pressure on the rope and boosted my physical ability with red mist to climb out of it. Still feeling under the weather, I was feeling a lot better than the day before at the very least. Once out of the hole, I used my flashlight and lit the surroundings. The sound of many more creatures could be heard echoing through this giant tunnel. The hole I had just gotten out of, was apparently only one out of many. They were all dug next to each others, almost looking like a beehive. I plunged my light into the abyss of my neighbours¡¯ hole and saw another dragon, a bit older than the one I had slept with. I slowly walked to the 3rd hole and as I leaned over the hole to look down, flames came straight at me. I hadn¡¯t had time to look properly but in that hole was a green dragon, which looked to be from a totally different species from the other ones. This one was an aggressive one, maybe because of my necklace? I had been lucky not to have ended up in that hole instead. The 4th hole didn¡¯t show any movements, but on closer inspection, an egg was there right in the middle of it. Brown with red stripes, this one hadn¡¯t hatched yet. This placed looked more and more like some sort of prison to me. Turning my flashlight off for a second allowed me to see daylight, telling me with direction I needed to follow. I was walking on the tips of my toes, worried that I could come across that demon dragonoid thingy. After a few minutes, I eventually emerged into an enormous room, and to my left there it was, the giant hole I had come in from. The demon dragon was nowhere to be seen which helped me breathe a lot better. In the middle of the room was something looking like a giant bird nest, built with bones. On closer inspection, the only skulls I could see in the pile seemed to be from dragons. Then it all became clear, this demon dragon was a dragon eater. It went as far as steal the eggs, hatch, feed and fatten them in order to eat them later. I staggered my way up to the giant entry, and had a look at the sheer cliff below me. 90¡ã up, down, left and right¡­ This was the perfect fortress for something like a dragon. ¡°St*ca*si*def**ger*¡± Surprise, even though inaudible, it was definitely Camille¡¯s voice right then through the radio. This radio said that it could reach up to 30 miles, but that was only in optimal conditions like, having a line of sight, the sky being clear with no radio interference etc. The fact that this cave was so high up was probably a huge beneficial factor in this. I felt relieved, Camille was safe, so should be Robert. They were probably worrying about me since I had not given them any news since then. Bringing the radio to my mouth, I tried sending them at least the confirmation that I was still alive. ¡°Here¡¯s Nate, I have been taken prisoner by the dragon. Do not worry, I will come back¡­ I hope.¡± They probably hadn¡¯t understood anything of this but they should now, at least know that I am alive. A panicked reply instantly came back. ¡°ATE!*A*GO*RI*ERE*EP*AG*¡± It was incomprehensible, but Camille sounded worried. Had they understood me more clearly than I could hear them? Maybe old pop had increased their reception range? No, he would have increased the transmission as well. I think¡­ When I was about to try and tell them more about my situation, a small spec in the horizon began to worry me. It seemed like this demon thing was coming back and I really didn¡¯t feel like meeting face to face with it again. Not knowing what to do, I staggered back down the cells corridor, where all the grunting noises would make the hairs on your body stand up. The sounds of many dragons in the same room was truly something indescribable. Panicking and quickly running out of options, I attached my rope to a giant boulder in an inconspicuous manner and rapidly descended into the hole containing the egg. Better sleep with an egg than a hyperactive dragon. Once at the bottom of the hole, I laid low and tried not to attract attention. I needed to figure out a way to escape as soon as this monster left to hunt. This thing had many mouths to feed after all and probably needed to hunt a lot. Soon enough, the deep and imposing sound of a giant creature flapping its wings began to echo deep into the giant cave, making the dragons around agitated and noisier than normal. ¡°NIART BET TARRRRUUUFFFFFF DISPIERKA!!!!! NIAT KABOO!! NIATTTTT!!!! DISPIERKA! NIAT!¡± Unable to believe my ears at first, the voice of a panicking yet very angry woman echoed through the cave as well. Her language sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, even from me, a neet who spent his life on the internet. Even without being able to speak it, I could identify most languages by how they sounded, but this one was totally new to me. The woman¡¯s voice and the beast¡¯s thumping footsteps got closer and closer, before eventually making room for horrible noises that I would never be able to forget in my life. ¡°Thump!* KYYAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! N-NIAAARRGGLGGGL KAAAAAAaaaaaaaGLggLGLrgl!¡± Paralyzed by fear, I could do nothing but listen to the sound of a woman being eaten alive a few meters away from me. As soon as the demon dragon¡¯s foot steps got far away enough, I climbed the rope and ran as fast as I could to the hole the screams were coming from. I shone my light deep into the hole and almost puked. A blue gray-ish dragon, similar to the one I had slept with, was already head deep inside the girl¡¯s belly and was eating her internal organs. The girl, laid on her back was staring at the bright light coming from my flashlight with teary eyes as the beast was eating her entrails like spaghetti. ¡°A-ak bratia cough* lagoh- goh¡¯sri-a¡­ Arrr cough* cough*¡± I had no idea what she was saying but it was probably something along the lines of ¡®help me¡¯ or something¡­ Horrified, was not heavy enough of a word to describe my emotions at that instant. Even though the girl I was looking at seemed very human at first, seeing her bluish purplish blood quickly explained why she looked so foreign to me. She had black hair and eyes, her facial features seemed strangely Asian, but what was most striking was her white/purplish skin colour. Very similar to ours, but with a tint of purple to it. Her eyes also seemed like twice the size they should normally be, which was her most bizarre facial feature. The second biggest difference was her size. She seemed to be in the 4 feet range when it came to height. She was not looking like a midget, but was a perfectly scaled down humanoid creature. This was a major discovery, we were not alone in this world. They was a totally different human species out there, but how was that even possible. This could only be possible if humans had been transported here a long time ago and had evolved into a totally new species. This also explained what exactly were the skulls I had found in the hole I had slept in. They were not children¡¯s, but small humans¡¯ from this world. Unable to watch the scene anymore, I turned around and went back down into my hole. There, I curled up into a ball and began to think as hard as I could about an escape plan while munching on some dragon¡¯ jerky. My fear of being discovered by this demon dragon was so strong, that I hadn¡¯t even considered smoking a cigarettes the entire day. ¡°When doped on red mist, does my body get strong enough to survive a 800 meter free fall?¡± I wondered. The Merge – Chapter 11 (Trekking) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here This chapter has been released ahead of schedule thank to a generous donator. ------------------- After spending an entire day analyzing the demon dragon¡¯s movement, I now had a good grasp of its hunting habits and now, knew that the beast left for a minimum of 3 to 4 hours each time. I had spent the entire day, rolled in a ball deep in my hole, listening to all the sounds surrounding me. I had spent the entire time thinking of an exit strategy and was very limited in my options. I had ended up going around the cave and checking all the holes to know what was inside of each of them. There were 12 holes, 9 contained these blue greyish dragons which belonged to the same species as the one I had killed back in the days. Since they seemed to be the most common ones, I decided to name them ¡®common dragon¡¯. I had also come across green and brown dragons, visibly from a different species but preferred to avoid them since they acted very aggressively toward me. I had come up with an escape plan after seeing that one of these common dragons was quite big and wasn¡¯t a baby anymore. It was a very stupid plan that I would have never considered if I wasn¡¯t currently in a very precarious situation. When your life is in danger, even a very dangerous plan might sound like a good one, and this was what my current situation was like. The plan was simple, drag this big dragon out of its hole and use it to glide down. The biggest problem in this idea was the fact that these dragons had never learned how to fly and had remained captive their entire lives. I could only hope that the creature would instinctively know how to fly or even glide to safety. The demon dragon hadn¡¯t brought another human since that time and I was very thankful for it. After seeing the poor girl being eaten, I couldn¡¯t get these images out of my head. Could I have done something to help her? No there was nothing I could have done. The only thing I could do right now was to think of a way to kill this damned thing after getting back home. This creature seemed so sturdy that I doubted that even my bomb ¡®lil boy¡¯ could even put a dent in its armour. I was also torn about what to do with the other dragons being prisoners in here with me. My love for animals made me wish to free them before escaping, but I knew they would grow to become man eaters in the future. I was being torn between my love for animals and my human solidarity. If I killed them all, I would be doing a great service to humanity, but I simply couldn¡¯t bring myself to seriously consider it. These grey dragons were quite friendly to me and acted a lot like dogs which made things even harder. Deciding to concentrate on my own survival, I opted to simply close my eyes and ignore all these thoughts. The demon dragon which I had also decided to name ¡°king dragon¡± was currently asleep and would go for a morning hunt at sunrise. I needed to be prepared for that vital opportunity. King dragon seemed to be an appropriate name for the demonic beast since back on earth, king cobras were snakes eating other snakes which was similar to this dragon eating other dragons. I still hadn¡¯t given names to the other dragon species since I still hadn¡¯t seen many of them yet and didn¡¯t know what were their specific characteristics. My situation was bad, but not impossible to deal with just yet. I was already running out of water and dragon jerky so my escape had to be tomorrow or my chances of success would be greatly reduced. I had prepared a rope with a slipknot to one end that I planned to slip around the dragon¡¯s neck then hoist him out of its hole. I hoped the dragon would help me drag him out and not resist, but there was no way to be sure before trying it. I was still sitting in my hole, in pitch darkness, waiting for the sun to rise while staring at the egg next to me with the help of my flashlight. At first, I was stuck in a dilemma and actively wondered what I should do with that egg. Since it was still in it¡¯s egg, maybe I could tame it somehow. I used to own animals like parrots, dogs, cats and knew a bit about animal imprinting. If the first thing this creature saw after hatching was me, it should normally consider me as its parent. And if I raised it, maybe I could teach it that humans are off the menu. In the end, the thought of leaving this poor baby dragon to a short life in prison was angering me, so I was already determined to bring the egg with me no matter what. This was my way to redeem myself for abandoning all the other dragons to their fate. I waited the entire day in this hole, in a cave, surrounded by the grunts and noises of monsters. I was all alone, far from home, hungry, thirsty and terrified. I was living a real life nightmare from which I could only wake up by using my own strength. For me, to even consider jumping on the back of a dragon, then down a 800 metres cliff, I had to be seriously terrified. Then finally, the sound of the king dragon going out for its morning hunt resonated through the dark prison that was this cave. I quickly placed the egg in my backpack then waited a few minutes to be safe before climbing out of my hole. I ran to the main chamber and looked out through the exit to make sure the king dragon was out of sight. After making sure the way was clear, I ran back to hole number 8 which was containing the biggest dragon. I slowly lowered the noose in the hole and gently tried to get it around the dragon¡¯s neck. It took me a few minutes, but the dragon eventually calmed down which made things easier. Having secured a rope around its neck, I began to expel a large amount of red mist that made the surrounding dragons go wild in their holes. This was a big dragon, but I was strong and confident in being able to pull it out of there. Dragons were the sturdiest creatures I had ever met, so I knew for sure that a noose around their neck had no chance of hurting them. My only worries were, how the creature would react once outside the hole, and obviously the 800 metres jump that should follow. With my muscles bulging under the red mist doping and determination in my eyes, I tightly grabbed the rope with both hands. Using a large stone as support for my feet, I began to tug on the rope as hard as I could. The dragon instantly began to grunt and scream but I kept pulling with all my might. Eventually, its head appeared out of the hole and the creature began to use its forelimbs to pull itself out of it. The dragon was looking a bit confused, so I slowly walked up to it and tried to act in a nonthreatening manner. While standing on its hind legs, the beast was just a bit taller than me. A dragon of this size almost gave the feeling of a carnivorous ostrich. Still trying to move as slowly as possible, I gently tugged on the rope and guided the dragon toward the main room. Once in the room, my young partner began to act agitated. Probably because of all the dragon remains littering the room. ¡°Shhhh sShhhhhh Calm down big boy. Nothing we can do about the dead, but you and me need to get the fuck out of here so please calm down.¡± Maybe because I was using a very calm and reassuring voice, but the creature immediately calmed down after hearing my words. It could probably sense that I was trying to help it and wasn¡¯t his enemy. I kept pulling on the rope and guided it in the direction of the giant hole being used as doorway. After seeing daylight, the young dragon jumped back and tugged on the rope, trying to go back into the darkness. Being heavier than me, I was being dragged and knew I couldn¡¯t win a tug war against it. Using a big crack in the ground, I locked my feet in place and dragged it back to me. I was very proud to see that I was capable of overpowering a dragon of this size. After a few more minutes of struggle, I finally managed to get the dragon in position in front of the giant 800 metres drop. The beast seemed scared and nervous as if it knew what was about to happen. As for me, I looked to the sky and prepared myself mentally before the next step. Once ready, I threw my last piece of jerky right next to the cliff and stealthily side-stepped behind the creature. As it lowered itself to grab the jerky, I ran and abruptly jumped on its back, grabbing its neck with my arms and forcing it off the cliff with my momentum. We fell for at least a quarter of the way before the young dragon finally began to move its wings. I had hoped that flying would come to it instinctively as it fell and it seemed I was right. The only problem was that I was way too heavy for this little dragon to carry me, so we kept plunging toward the ground at a scary speed. The dragon began to flap its wings as hard as it could but all it did was slightly reduce our falling speed. As the trees became closer, I began to expel as much red mist as possible and braced myself for impact. We then hit the trees at a scary speed which made them literally explode as we plowed through them. We began to spin out of control as we teared through the vegetation and eventually crashed to the ground with enough force to generate a small crater. The young dragon instantly stood up and sent me flying off its back before thrashing around uncontrollably. It didn¡¯t seemed hurt, but it was definitely pissed off at something. Worried for my egg, I quickly took off my bag and inspected it. The egg was perfectly intact as if nothing had happened. Dragons truly are something else, even their eggs are unbreakable. Reassured, I rapidly inspected my gear and prepared for the long journey ahead. I had my 338 sniper rifle, my handgun, my machete, 6 pipe bombs and 2 special incendiary dragon napalm bombs. I was far from home and had no idea how to get back there but I had a plan. I only needed to get in range of our walkies-talkie radios for it to work. With that in mind, I only needed an approximated direction to follow. Even if I was barely conscious while being captured, I still knew that I had been transported west from my town. Logically, if I headed east long enough, I would eventually get close enough for my radio to reach them and have the guys build a smoke signal for me to follow back home. As I was ready to leave, the young dragon began to glare at me. ¡°Yes yes I know. I will take that rope off your neck, but you better behave.¡± I removed the rope without too much difficulty and walked away from it. The young dragon then climbed on some rocks and seemed to practice flapping its wings. I hoped that it would be able to fly and leave this place on its own before the king dragon came back. I didn¡¯t have time to deal with it anymore and needed to use every minute of daylight I could get. I took a quick look at the compass on my wristwatch and began to walk east. The landscape was making progress very slowly with all its crevasses, ravines, cliffs and other irregularities. Due to the rocky surface, vegetation was relatively sparse and allowed me to keep an eye on the purple sky. The sounds in this alien forest were all foreign and scary. A small bird like reptile could emit a sound that sounded like a giant lion and a giant monster could sound like a small piglet. Eventually, I began to react violently to any new sound I came across and was always ready to climb up a tree. After a few hours, I reached a dead end and ended up climbing a vertical cliff which made progress even slower. At this speed, I wondered how long it would take me to travel 30 miles. All the plants looked poisonous to me, and all the small insects and creatures around would make me jump in fear every time they moved. I was already calling this forest ¡®the green hell¡¯ after only a few hours of trekking. The temperature was extremely hot and humid, I was wearing full body armour, a very heavy backpack and weapons. No need to say that I was soaking wet and beginning to fear being victim of a heatstroke. Not wanting to drop dead because of the heat, I stopped to take a break near a rocky cliff and lit my first cigarette in almost two days. It felt so good, I was thirsty and hungry but at least now, I wasn¡¯t in withdrawal anymore. I took my bag off and removed the top part of my armour in the hope of letting some of my sweat dry. I had yet to come across any source of water which made me worry. I could last weeks without food, but without water, I would be dead in two days in this heat. As I was catching my breath back, I began to notice a low buzzing sound coming from the ground. Knowing that everything in this world was dangerous, I immediately raised my guard up. I hurriedly put my clothes and backpack on and grabbed my 338. I backed away until I couldn¡¯t hear the sound anymore but kept an eye on the small rocky mountain. Eventually, my eyes caught some movement from between some rocks. Apparently, this small mountain was home to a species of insectoid that seemed to live in holes and caves all around the area. These things were horrifying like everything in this world so far. They had 12 limbs and each one of them seemed to have its uses. 6 legs to walk, 2 to be used as small hands to eat, 2 longer and stronger arms probably meant to grab and 2 more limbs that were visibly meant to kill. The two murderous limbs that the creature always kept high up above its head, were looking like a mix between scythes and the arms or a praying mantis. This insect obviously had a face only a mother could love and a jaw that seemed to be capable of cutting through anything. The creatures also had wings which were probably what made this buzzing sound that had warned me of their presence. Actually, there was something more to it. I had the feeling that I had ¡®felt¡¯ them before hearing them. I was beginning to be more and more aware of it but I felt like I could sense the presences of nearby creatures. This ability also seemed to be more effective against powerful creatures and in areas that contained a lower concentration of red mist, as if red mist itself was interfering with my ¡®sensing¡¯ ability. From then on, I decided to try and train this ability as I continued my journey. Noticing that the sun was rapidly going down, I decided to make shelter for the night. The last thing I wanted was to be caught unprepared in this alien jungle at night. Who knows what might roam these lands at night. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Walking to the biggest skyscraper tree I could find, I doped my body on red mist and climbed it by digging my hands and feet into the soft wood. Climbing a Styrofoam trees was very easy and its height was going to procure me more safety than staying at ground level. Once I was high enough, I took my machete and began to dig into the tree like a woodpecker. I dug a hole just big enough for me to fit through and dug the inside until I had a big enough room to lay in foetal position for the night. Having kept the round cap from the entry, I used it to block it and just like that, I had completely disappeared from anyone¡¯s sight. That night ended up being a very long one during which I had barely slept at all. The forest at night was even more noisy than during the day, and I kept hearing monsters fighting and killing each other all night. At least, this is what it sounded like to me, terrified and hidden in my hole high in a tree. With an egg as only companion, I kept it in my arms the entire night and even spoke to it out of boredom. I was unsure if it was due to pure exhaustion, but I was already calling it my baby. At the break of dawn, I was already up and ready to go. I was getting a headache due to dehydration and seriously needed to find water today. With this goal in mind, I resumed my journey east. I could clearly see that the forest was getting denser up ahead and had already assumed that I would find water over there. I was growing weary and knew that the closer to water I was getting, the more wildlife I would encounter. Arriving in the denser forest, I unsheathed my machete and began to hack away at the vegetation to open a path. The vegetation was so dense that I could see only a few metres ahead of me. At this point, I was very grateful to the plants for being so easy to cut through. Even though I could plow through the plants very easily, making my way through them was exhausting and slowed progress considerably. This was until I spotted a game-trail. As a hunter, I was very familiar with these trails commonly found in forests all around the world. Game trails are paths or trails created and used by the fauna that pass through or live in an area. Lots of game trails have been maintained by generations of animals. Animals create these trails by repeatedly walking the same areas for hunting and grazing. The trail was heading east and was obviously the fastest route back home, but following a game-trail also meant a higher chance of coming across the creatures using them. Keeping my rifle ready for action, my decision was already made. Following an existing path was a lot faster than making my own after all. Having weighed the risk, I made my way forward while constantly keeping my attention on this ¡®life force sensing ability¡¯. Actually, I was most likely sensing the red mist emitted by the creatures rather than life force but I had yet to understand exactly how it worked. After an hour, I finally sensed something coming and once again ran up a tree and waited. Five familiar creatures eventually appeared and stopped as soon as they arrived to the area I had walked on. These 5 creatures were a pack of hell dogs like the ones from back then but these ones seemed bigger and more dangerous looking. The hellish dogs seemed agitated and were frantically smelling the ground. I knew for a fact that when these creatures began to sniff someone¡¯s trail, they could stalk for months and never gave up. Luckily, I also knew that these creatures were the weak blue blooded type and could be dealt with without too much difficulty. Grabbing my machete in my left hand and my handgun in the right, I jumped down from my tree while under the red mist influence. I landed with a loud thump only a few metres from the dogs which made them jump in surprise. Like a bad-ass from an action movie, I aimed at their heads and opened fire. BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* I emptied an entire clip at lightning speed and managed to kill 3 of them and injure the other 2 that had turned tail and run away. The two that were still alive would most likely die from their injuries later and shouldn¡¯t be a problem in the future. I reloaded my gun and scanned the surroundings before placing it back in its holster. Machete in hand, I moved toward one of the three corpses for a closer inspection. I was starving, but even though I was slowly dying of hunger, the thought of eating blue meat still made me gag. From what I had seen so far, blue blooded creatures could eat red meat, and red blooded creatures could eat blue meat. This meant that I could most likely digest this blue meat but¡­ Gag* No, I needed to man up and eat. This was all psychological, I had to get into the zone and eat the damned thing. I had salt and pepper in my bag for situations like this as well. Using my Rambo knife, I butchered some pieces of meat and placed them in a plastic bag in my backpack. I was very dehydrated and needed water before anything else. To digest food, the body needs water. Eating food without drinking would only dehydrate your body faster. With that taken care of, I resumed my journey with a crippling headache that kept forcing me to take pain killers. The pain was really debilitating but there was worse, I was already starting to feel dizziness when I moved too quickly because of being highly dehydrated. Luckily, the trail eventually led to a small creek where I finally found a small stream of water. Instantly getting tunnel vision, I filled my canteen while intensely staring at it. It was a similar feeling to when you finally see a toilet after hours of keeping it in. My mouth screamed to get a sip but who knew what type of viruses and bacteria lived in this water. Boiling it for 15 minutes was the minimum I could do in such a situation. Selecting the biggest tree I could find, I climbed and stopped at the biggest branch. This tree was so big that the branch I was currently sitting on was big enough to make a big conference table out of it. With my machete, I dug a bowl shaped hole on top of it before climbing back down. I gathered some clay from the stream and climbed back up the tree with it. Using the clay, I covered the freshly exposed wood in my bowl and that way, created a clay bowl embedded in the tree. What I was doing was quite simple, I was making a fire-pit up in a tree. The clay was only to prevent the branch from catching on fire because of it. I would need to keep it a small controlled fire but as long as I had enough flames to boil my water, all was good. I gathered some twigs and dry grass and effortlessly lit a fire with my cigarette lighter. I placed my canteen next to the flame and waited for it to boil while observing the forest down below. Once the water had boiled for long enough I waited for it to cool down a bit and slowly drank it. I was incredibly thirsty but knew that chugging it down while being so dehydrated would cause me to vomit it back out uncontrollably. I repeated the process a few time until my belly was swollen with the precious fluid. Only then did my attention revert back to my hunger. I pulled the blue meat from my bag and placed it on sticks over the fire. Usually, meat gets brown as it cooks but this one was slowly turning grey. Truly disgusting in every way, but if this was what I needed to eat to survive, I would eat the damned thing no matter what. I cooked the meat until it began to turn black before taking it out in front of me. I used a bit of salt and a large amount of pepper on it, but the thing still looked unappetizing. I remained silent while staring at it for a while, but eventually mustered my courage and threw a piece of it in my mouth. Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch* Munch* The meat was rubbery and tasted sweet. Something sweet might sound delicious but who would put sugar on meat? The fact that the meat didn¡¯t taste anything like meat made my eyes water as the gag reflex kept on coming. The only thing I could think of that would have been more disgusting than this, would have been to eat raw bull testicles or something. I eventually managed to force myself to eat the entire thing, and even though I felt grossed out, my body was already feeling better. Since I had just proven that we could eat blue meat, the next thing would be to find a way to make it taste better. Maybe I would try boiling it next time. I spent the rest of the day re-hydrating and eventually slept in that tree. During my time in the jungle, I had already come across tens of new species and had felt many more that would simply avoid me. It had been a while since the last time I had come across a cockroach and knew they were around since I could see some of their tracks. Looked like cockroaches wouldn¡¯t be a problem to me any longer. I had most likely grown even stronger than before but didn¡¯t know exactly how much. Fact was that I couldn¡¯t remember the last time I had felt red mist poisoning. I had spent months without needed an emergency red mist expulsion even though I had consumed a large amount of dragon meat in the meantime. To me, it felt like I was now totally immunized to red mist poisoning and my body didn¡¯t seem to have any limit in the amount it could hold. I would have to begin the other survivors¡¯ training as soon as I got back home so they would be able to survive without their air purifier. By the third night, I felt like I had made good progress so I decided to climb the highest tree in the area. Once on top of it, I leaned against a branch and turned my radio on. ¡°Hello, here¡¯s Nate. Can anyone hear me?¡± I then waited but nothing came through so I kept repeating and waiting until I finally heard something. ¡°Static* H-Static* Nate? Is that you?¡± Urggg.. That voice was Marc¡¯s. Not exactly the one I wanted to hear but I ignored that detail. ¡°Yes, is everybody alright over there?¡± Then instead of an answer, what I got sounded more like a fight over the radio. As a confirmation of who had won the battle for the radio, what I heard next was Robert¡¯s voice. ¡°Hello? Nate! Everyone¡¯s fine over here so don¡¯t worry. But you! Are you alright? Where are you? Alone in the jungle? How can we help? Are you injured? Give us your general direction and we will send a rescue party.¡± Robert sounded genuinely worried and was speaking so fast, I could barely understand what he said. ¡°Calm down Rob. (Yep, I had decided to call him that just now.) I have walked for 3 days now so I should be getting closer to town. There¡¯s a lot we need to talk about. I might also have found a way to get back on earth.¡± I was so excited by the possibility that I couldn¡¯t wait to share the good news with them. ¡°WHATTTTTTTtttttttt?¡± That was not only Robert¡¯s voice but something that sounded more like a choir. ¡°We¡¯ll talk about it when I¡¯m back but for now I need you to do me a favour. I will never be able to get back without it.¡° I then continued with the main reason why I had contacted them. ¡°Anything! What do you want us to do?¡± Anxiously asked Robert. ¡°I need a smoke signal so that I can see where our town is located. I suggest you burn tires, this will make a black smoke that¡¯s easy to see from afar. Just keep it burning during the day until I¡¯m back. Can you do that?¡± ¡°Of course! We will do that first thing tomorrow morning. Anything else we can do? Are you sure you are alright?¡± Robert must have been worrying about me from the way he spoke. Not wanting to worry him even more, I decided to keep most of my worries to myself. ¡°I¡¯m perfectly alright. This jungle is beautiful and fun to walk through. The wildlife is also quite docile and playful. Food and water are abundant and readily available. I¡¯m having a blast out here really.¡± I said with a playful voice. ¡°Hahahahaha* Alright, if it¡¯s you, I¡¯m sure you can thrive alone over there. We¡¯ll get your smoke signal ready but don¡¯t overdo it okay?¡± Added Robert in a motherly tone. ¡°Yes mom!! Heheheh*¡± It felt good to talk with someone after so long. I was not ashamed to admit it, I was missing them more and more as days went by. As I was about to turn the radio off, Camille¡¯s voice came through. ¡°Nate? Are you really alright? Are you eating well? How do you sleep at night? You¡¯re not injured are you?¡± Sigh, well there was no doubt that I had many people caring about me over there. Camille¡¯s voice was like a warm blanket over my fatigued mind. ¡°Hey Cami, (Yes, I missed them so much that I was starting to give them nicknames.) I¡¯m not doing too bad really, so don¡¯t worry. I don¡¯t know how long it will take me to trek back home but I will definitely come back.¡± After that I kept talking with her for around 10 minutes before deciding to shut the radio off to save the batteries for later. I had ended up asking her where she and Robert were the day I went looking for them, but only got a vague answer. I was suspecting a secret relationship between her and Rob but didn¡¯t feel jealousy. I loved both of them and was really happy for them if it was really the case. I would need to make things clear with them when I get back home. In the morning, I climbed back up to the top of my tree and had a quick look around. There, through the horizon, a big column of black smoke was visible at around 10 miles to the north east. I was lucky to have a radio since I would have never known that I was too far south at the time. With my new coordinates in mind, I resumed my journey for the fourth consecutive day. I came across some grass eating giant creatures with spikes all over their bodies, a giant flying creature looking like a reptilian vulture and all kinds of weird stuff. I had even seen a plant that bled if you cut it. Even if some things looked similar to what could be found on earth, this world truly was an alien world in every way. Travelling during the day, sleeping up in a tree at night, my journey continued in a routine manner up to the 5th day. On that night, I was sleeping inside the trunk of a giant tree while cuddling with my egg as usual, when an unusual sensation woke me up. For some reason, I was bathing into a warm and slimy substance. I first thought I had puked in my sleep, but then felt movements next to me. Quickly reaching for my flashlight, I shone light on whatever was moving but was stomped by what I saw. ¡°Ha crap¡­ No no no no no! Why the fuck are you hatching now!????¡± The Merge – Chapter 12 (Fatherhood) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here Still ahead of schedule. ;) ------------------- Seeing my baby hatch so early was a surprise. I was excited to see what my little friend would look like, but was also worried since I was hoping it wouldn¡¯t hatch until I made it back home to safety. We were in the middle of a dangerous jungle at night, in a tight room dug in a tree. A bit grossed out by the fact that I was soaking in egg fluids, I used my knife and dug a drainage hole for the fluid to leak out. The egg was mostly intact excepted a small hole from which the liquid had came out. I was expecting the dragon to burst out like ¡®Tadaaa baby dragon!¡¯ but in reality, it took almost 3 hours before the little thing finally managed to come out. I would have helped him to break the shell, but I had heard somewhere that creatures coming from eggs were building their strength from hatching and shouldn¡¯t be assisted. Unsure if it was an urban legend or not, I chose not to take any risk and silently observe the process. What came out was the most creepily adorable thing in the world. The creature was no bigger than a cat and belonged to a dragon species I had never encountered before. This little dragon was looking exactly the way a dragon should look. The head, body, colours and everything was exactly what you would expect a dragon to be like. The little creature had fiery red eyes, its body was entirely covered in black scales but had long, blood red, spiky armour plates in certain areas like over its spine, head and neck area. Its body seemed perfect in every way and its belly also seemed properly protected. The most striking details about its appearance were its beautiful red wings and horns. This little dragon could have rivalled in beauty with the most beautiful exotic birds from earth. Seeing how colourful the little thing was, I instinctively assumed that it was a male based on my knowledge of birds. When it came to birds, female usually had camouflage coloured feathers while the males had brightly coloured ones to seduce the females. Dragons were not birds, but I assumed it would be the same for them. Holding the little creature all curled up in my arms, I began to wonder what to do next. It was probably hungry, but all the dragons I had seen so far were devoid of nipples. Most reptiles from earth were ready to hunt and eat meat as soon as they hatched, so I hoped it was the same for dragons. ¡°Tomorrow, daddy will kill something tasty for you little one.¡± After calling him ¡®little one¡¯, I realized I needed to think of a name for him. Finding and giving names was something I was terrible at. A few years back, I had a parrot that I had named ¡®MrHankey¡¯ because he kept shitting on my shoulders, a cat named ¡®MissKamikaze¡¯ because she kept jumping from high places and seemed to constantly flirt with death, and also a dog names ¡®Humpy,¡¯ for self-explanatory reasons. This time though, I was looking for a name worthy of a dragon and wanted to do it right. I would usually have googled what was the best name for dragons, but could now only rely on my brain. While careful not to wake my baby up, I began to inspect my equipment in hope of finding a source of inspiration somewhere. Then, a stroke of genius. The knife on my belt was the perfect inspiration for the most bad-ass name a dragon could get. Rambo, was now selected to be his name. I was still wet and gooey from the birth juices, but ignored all that and tried to sleep a bit more while cuddling with Rambo. Only a few hours later, I was woken up by Rambo who had begun to explore our little nest and wouldn¡¯t stay in place. ¡°Yawnn, good morning Rambo.¡± The little creature stared into my eyes and rapidly bobbed his head up and down while looking very excited. He bunny hopped back to me and rubbed his head against mine in an unmistakable show of affection. This little thing was so adorable, I was totally melting while looking at him. Sure, he looked like he could bite off your fingers at any given time, but he was also incredibly cute at the same time. The little creature was intensely observing every move I made, staring, sniffing and poking his head everywhere. Seeing him sniffing me like that made me feel a bit awkward. Truth was, I hadn¡¯t shaved or washed since being abducted by the king dragon and smelled like a mix between a public toilet and a locker room. I kicked the piece of wood covering the exit hole and observed Rambo¡¯s reaction. Opening the hole leading out of our woodpecker¡¯s hole gave Rambo his first sight of daylight, which seemed to scare him a little at first. Rapidly regaining composure, he then poked his head out of the hole and had a look around. He then turned back toward me and furiously bobbed his head up and down. I was guessing this gesture meant that he was happy and excited. I exited the hole alone, sat on a big branch nearby and observed Rambo¡¯s reaction. ¡°Come here Rambo!¡± The newborn dragon bobbed his head up and down once more and vigorously jumped out of the hole with energy in his legs. After bunny hopping the last meter separating us, the little guy jumped into my arms, clung to my clothes and from then on refused to let go. Trying to separate him from me only resulted in more rips on my now very tattered riot suit. This suit had protected me well so far but was now in need of retirement. I already had a new suit that I was working on back home and finishing it had suddenly become a priority. I say ¡®working on¡¯ because I was actually making a better version of this suit that I was reinforcing with dragon skin. These suits were weak in the joints since Kevlar wasn¡¯t flexible, but dragon skin was flexible and even more resistant than Kevlar. This version 2.0 of my police riot suit was going to be a fusion of the best earth and this alien world had to offer. (As far as I know.) Giving up on trying to remove Rambo from my chest, I stood up and put my backpack on. With an incredible speed, Rambo then crawled up and over my shoulder before clinging on to the top of my bag. ¡°You can stay on my bag but be careful not to put holes in it. This bag is water tight and very expensive!¡± As I was saying this, I heard a rip* sound and saw Rambo vanishing inside the bag. ¡°HA! For fuck sake¡­¡± Twisting my neck to look at the damage, I saw Rambo¡¯s head poking out from the hole and looking over my left shoulder. This was scarier than you might think, having a baby dragon¡¯s head right next to your face like that. He didn¡¯t seemed aggressive so far, but what if he went nuts and decided to rip my left ear off? ¡°Guaaaaaa! Guaaaaaaaa! Kiupp Kiuppp!¡± My baby¡¯s first words were those, said straight into my left ear which now ringed with an annoying buzzing sound. ¡°Yes yes Rambo¡­ I know you are happy. Let me decide which direction we will go today, then I¡¯ll get you something to eat.¡± As I was looking over the horizon, I was conflicted. I needed to go north, but a bit further south from my location was one of these red mist vortex I wanted to check out. Staring at the black smoke on the horizon gave me a lot of complicated feelings. I missed these people a lot, but we all wanted to go back home in the end. Studying these red mist vortexes was the key to find our way back to earth, I was sure of it. ¡°Guaa!¡± Trekking through this landscape was immensely difficult but I was almost back home finally. I was still vividly remembering day 4. That day, I had walked the entire day but had only gotten a few meters ahead. The reason for that had been a ravine which was too wide to jump and too deep to climb. I had ended up following it and trying to find a place where it was narrower. That didn¡¯t work so I then tried to build a bridge by felling large trees over it. The trees from this world being too weak, they all ended up snapping in half and falling down the ravine. In the end, I used a tall tree and pole-jumped the ravine like a boss. With the days in this world being shorter and all that, I had ended up wasting the entire day just crossing this one single ravine. If I had a GPS, my path would have probably looked like a swirling snake. Adding to that the hours spent in trees to avoid dangerous creatures, and there you had it. A distance that would normally take one day to walk on flat ground, had ended up taking me 5, and I was still not there yet. Finally judging it necessary, I decided to take the small detour and go check the vortex. With my decision taken, I took my radio and tried to make contact with the other survivors. ¡°Hello? Here¡¯s Nate.¡± ¡°Geeooo¡±¡­ Had Rambo just tried to say hello after hearing me? I had owned a parrot before so I was already familiar with ¡®talking¡¯ animals. The secret was to constantly repeat the same words. ¡°Hello?¡± I repeated. ¡°Eeeooo¡± He instantly answered. Khukhukhu* this pet could end up being even more interesting than I thought. ¡°Static* Hello? Is everything alright? How far away are you now?¡± Asked Camille through the radio. ¡°Eeeooo?¡± I was surprised that Emanuela still hadn¡¯t tried to talk to me yet. Maybe Marc and her had became lovey-dovey again and she decided to keep her distance out of respect for Marc. If that was the case, and if Camille and Robert were also a thing, then I would be even more on the outside than I already was before. Being surrounded by couples was going to be super annoying, I could feel it. ¡°Yea I¡¯m alright, but I wanted to inform you that I might take a small detour. It¡¯s related to that method of going back to earth I mentioned the other day. ¡®Eeeooo?¡¯ Shhh!* Not now Rambo, I¡¯m trying to talk.¡± Having probably a hundred questions in mind, Camille then replied. ¡°Rambo?¡± Yea, that was to be expected. ¡°Ho right, I made a friend¡­¡± I then mischievously said. I wanted to keep Rambo a surprise for now but enjoyed making her curious. ¡°Wait, A FRIEND? Did you find more people???¡± She asked energetically with excitement in her voice. I was going to tell her no but then remembered this woman in the king dragon¡¯s cave. ¡°Yes, and no¡­ There¡¯s no one with me right now, well at least no humans, but yes I found¡­ humans, of some sort, I think¡­ Anyway I need to go now so, don¡¯t worry if I take a few more days before arriving. Bye bye.¡± Then I turned my radio off. ¡°WHA-¡­¡± Khukhukhu, I would have loved to see her face right now. Finally ready to leave, I climbed down the tree and headed south toward the red mist vortex. I tried as hard as I could to focus on my sensing ability, hoping to find a meal for Rambo. After having walked south for only 20 minutes, a small presence finally attracted my attention. I instantly stopped and crouched, then tried to be as stealthy as possible. Probably sensing a change in my behaviour, Rambo went silent and seemed to pay more attention to what I was doing. After stalking my prey over a hundred metres, I finally managed to lay eyes on whatever was emitting the presence I had felt. It was some sort of tree dwelling jumping rat or something of that kind. It was very rare to see anything looking like a mammal in this world but when you did, it was always some type of bottom feeder or inoffensive looking creatures. I laid flat on the ground and placed my sniper rifle in position, ready to fire. Wasting such a powerful bullet on such a small animal was a waste, but as a father, I needed to feed my child no matter what. I aligned a shot and fired. BANG!* ¡°GUAAaa!¡± scared by the loud noise, Rambo instantly disappeared inside my bag. ¡°Don¡¯t be scared, meal¡¯s served Rambo.¡± I walked up to the carcass which had fallen from the tree, pulled Rambo out of my bag and placed him next to it. Rambo sniffed the carcass a bit, then nibbled on it. Seemingly satisfied with the taste, the little dragon then bobbed his head up and down before digging in with all his might. It was amazing to watch such a young dragon tear apart a carcass like that. The tree rat seemed almost as big as him but he still managed to eat almost everything except the head. Seeing my baby eat so healthily warmed my soul and gave me a sense relief. With that taken care of, I resumed my journey toward the vortex. I wasn¡¯t far from it, but I knew very well that distance in this jungle meant nothing. In the end, it took me the entire day to reach the edge of the red vortex. Rambo had been sleeping most of the way but during the times when he was awake, I had been surprised at how receptive he seemed to be. He would get angry and yap every-time we came across a creature but would instantly go silent if I took a stealthy posture. I was worried that he would hinder my journey but he was instead becoming the perfect partner, especially during the boring times. After arriving near the vortex, Rambo began to act more agitated. Since night was fast approaching, I built my usual woodpecker shack and left Rambo and my backpack in it. ¡°Stay Rambo, Stay!¡± I said before closing the hole and climbing down the tree. I stayed and observed for a minute to make sure he wouldn¡¯t try to get out and didn¡¯t hear or see him make any movement. Assuming that dragon parents would normally leave them behind while going hunting, I also assumed that it should be in his instinct to lay low and wait for my return. The reason why I wasn¡¯t taking him with me was simple. When in very high concentration, almost everything could become deadly. Even oxygen could become lethal if its purity was too high. With that in mind, looking at the massive red vortex in front of me gave me the chills. The wall of red mist was so opaque that I could see only a few metres ahead. Seeing how opaque the vortex was, I knew the red mist density inside of it would be off the chart and that made me fear for Rambo¡¯s safety. I ran toward the vortex and rapidly entered it, hoping to be back to Rambo as fast as possible. As soon as I entered the vortex, my throat and lungs instantly began to burn as if I was breathing in fire or some toxic gas. Regretting not having brought my gas mask, I began to expel as much red mist as I could as a precaution against a potential case of red mist poisoning. After walking around 50 metres inside the vortex, I began to feel like something was off. It was very silent, too silent in fact. There was absolutely no noise and no sign of life anywhere, not even insects. Not only that but as I went deeper in, I began to notice that the vegetation seemed to be dying. So too much red mist was lethal to plants as well apparently. There was something else that attracted my attention. I could see a lot of red mist swirling around me in an unusual manner. Usually the red mist would clearly escape my body but for some reason, this time the red mist seemed to be attracted to me. As if attracted to a magnet, I thought that my body was absorbing it but that was wrong. The red mist wasn¡¯t attracted to me but to my necklace. The gold my necklace was made of seemed to suck up red mist like a sponge and I could see the gold slowly turning reddish in colour. Curious to see how far this phenomenon could go, I climbed up a tree, dug a fist size hole, hid my necklace in it and closed back the hole while making sure to leave a small hole, for the red mist to seep in. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. With that done, I ran back to the tree I had left Rambo in and found him asleep in my bag. I curled up around him and tried to get some sleep while hoping Rambo wouldn¡¯t wake me up every few minutes. The next morning, I woke up early and left Rambo behind once more to go get my necklace back. On my way I found a 5 foot long snake that I quickly killed with my machete and kept around my neck. This snake would be our breakfast for today. I entered the vortex, climbed the tree I had left my necklace at and pulled it out of the hole. My necklace had definitely changed appearance, and I was amazed to see how the gold had changed. What was white chrome before was now entirely red, as if the gold itself had completely changed and become a totally new element. I didn¡¯t know if it was doing something else other than simply making the gold harder, but I placed the necklace back around my neck anyway before running back to my baby for breakfast. Turns out, snake meat is not the tastiest meat out there, but Rambo seemed to enjoy it a lot. I was craving some fruits or vegetables but eating unknown plants or fruits was a serious death wish in this alien world. The only safe meal I knew was meat, which made for a poor diet but I had a giant stock of vitamins and supplements back home to fix that issue. I had kept my eyes peeled during my entire journey for traces of humans activity but hadn¡¯t seen any so far. Since dragons could fly, who knew where he had went to to get that woman from back in the cave. They probably didn¡¯t live anywhere near a king dragon¡¯s nest after all, so I assumed they were living a good distance away from here. If there were humanoids living around us, they would have most likely found us and our town a long time ago. If they lived nearby, they would have followed the smoke from our fires or heard all the noise we constantly made. I wasn¡¯t sure if I should feel glad or disappointed by this realization. I was curious to meet these ¡®humans¡¯, but knew they would most likely be hostile to us. Anyway, making this detour had been worth it. It may not have seemed like much, but I had learned many important things about these vortexes. If we wanted to live in one of them and wait to be teleported back, we needed to build a mobile shelter with an air purifier to survive. The red mist density was just to high for any of us to live in over an extended period of time without overdosing. Not wanting to waste anymore time inside this ¡®green hell¡¯, I packed my stuff and hurried back toward town. I was finally doing good progress, but a new obstacle standing in my way forced me to make shelter even though there was still a few hours of daylight left. This annoying obstacle was a swamp, or even worst, a mangrove forest. All I could see were short trees with exposed roots that swirled around in all directions. Then to make it worst, the entire area was completely inundated. Gauging the depth of the water with a stick, I knew that walking ahead would put me at least waist deep in murky brown water. The water was so muddy that a 30 metres long crocodile could have been right in front of me without me knowing. From what I could see, there was no way around it and to be honest, I was getting tired of going around obstacles all the time. My plan was to build a raft and go across first thing tomorrow. Using my climbing rope to tie large logs together, I also used wooden pegs to make sure everything would remain solidly in place. Ropes had a tendency to get loose in every survival show I had watched in the past. As I was building the raft, Rambo intensely observed my every move and even took the time to kill a big snake on his own. What Rambo did next rendered me speechless. The little creature bunny hopped his way next to me while still holding the snake in his mouth. He chomped it in half, laid one of the pieces on my lap then went next to his. He then waited for me to grab my piece of it before beginning to eat his. This display seemed to show that he had acknowledged me as the ¡®alpha¡¯, the leader he needed to obey. This little creature being only 2 days old was showing remarkable intelligence, which made me think that if dragons were being raised by humans, there was no limit to what they could become or accomplish. Feeling proud in my baby boy, we ate the snake and went to sleep early. We woke up very early the next morning while only the red sun was out. A mangrove lit by a red sun was the spookiest thing one could witness in his life. It was still pretty dark but I wanted to make sure that everything was ready for us to leave as soon as the big sun got out. I double checked everything, especially the bindings and the long pole I was going to use to move the raft around. Once satisfied with my preparations, I killed a few creatures that seemed a bit too interested in us then waited for the big sun to come out. While we were waiting, Rambo decided to do some exploring around the camp but remained under my constant supervision. He was still so small, I simply couldn¡¯t stop worrying about him getting attacked by something. While Rambo was courageously winning a fight against a twig he had found on the ground, I noticed a big stone that didn¡¯t look natural. Curious, I walked up to it and began to circle around, looking at it from every angle. Noticing my sudden interest, Rambo tried to imitate me by also circling around it. The stone was covered in a thick layer of green moss which I curiously began to peel away. Once the moss was removed, what I saw made me go silent. The big stone had carvings all over it, carvings that were most definitely man made. What was the most amazing about it was that I recognized the art style on this stone. After having watched so many documentaries, I immediately recognized the Mayan writing style. I couldn¡¯t read it, but these hieroglyphs were no doubt something similar to it. Had these been transported here a long time ago from Central America? Amazed, I took some pictures of it and went back to business. Rambo jumped into my bag as I pushed the raft into the water. I was feeling nervous about this little boat trip and couldn¡¯t shake this ominous feeling in the back of mind. I hated the fact that I couldn¡¯t see what was under the water. Trying to reassure myself by focusing on my sensing ability, I pushed the boat forward over the muddy water. I kept swirling around the roots while always making sure to follow the direction given by my compass. Everything was going perfectly fine until we arrived in a wider area. There, something began to constantly bang onto the pole each time I plunged it in the water which made me glad to have built a raft in the first place. Things were splashing all around us in the water, making it look like panic had caught a population of something living here. I was scared, I had always been scared of things I didn¡¯t know or couldn¡¯t see. This was why I was totally terrified about the idea of being lost at sea. Even if this was far from being a sea, the unnerving feeling was the same. The feeling of not knowing what was right below my feet was the worst feeling I could imagine. Wanting to get away from whatever was living there, I leaked red mist and powered away from there while being careful not to break the pole in the process. The vegetation was so dense that we could barely see the suns, making this place even more creepy. It was dark, damp and smelly from the dead leaves rotting underwater. After a few more hours of zigzagging around roots and trees, Rambo and I finally reached an area that had a lot less trees growing everywhere but also had deeper water. While silently gliding over the water, something underwater suddenly reacted after being accidentally poked by my pole. A giant bundle of roots started to move at the same time as if the trees themselves were alive when a giant snake looking thing emerged from the water. I quickly pushed the raft away from whatever this thing was and soon realized that it was not a snake. This giant creature which was at least as big as a common dragon was in fact something resembling a turtle. A mutant alien monstrous turtle certainly, but the resemblance was undeniable. The creature had a very long neck and its entire body had what looked like roots growing out of it. As long as it didn¡¯t move, there was no way to differentiate it from any other bundle of roots out there. Worried that it could be aggressive, I grabbed my rifle and braced myself. Rambo was observing my every moves as he usually does and seemed very excited about the giant creature¡¯s appearance. The mutant turtle trashed around for a while before rapidly swimming away from us like a startled fish. Conflicted between relief and fright, I didn¡¯t dare lower my guard until the creature was out of sight. Once I was certain to be out of danger, I took the pole and continued forward. Finally being able to see the sky, I then spotted the reassuring black smoke coming from town. By the looks of it, it seemed I would be able to get back home tonight or early tomorrow. I was feeling butterflies of excitement in my stomach but remained cautious, I had yet to be out of this ¡®green hell¡¯ and knew dangers were still everywhere. I was trying to imagine how they would react after seeing Rambo, and how they would react to everything else I had learned this time. This misadventure had been a very good opportunity to gather information about this world. I had discovered a potential way to get back on earth, that humans lived in this world and even discovered an artifact from Central America. With excitement in my heart, I continued to move forward and soon enough, the landscape changed once again. As I left the mangrove, I emerged into open water. I was now being dragged away by the current of a very big and powerful river. Seeing rapids up ahead, I once again used red mist to power through, then jumped on the river bank to the other side. The raft continued with the current and went crashing against the rocks. I had once again made it in the nick of time. Since I stank so much, swimming would not have been so bad but I was more worried about Rambo than anything else. I highly doubted that dragons could swim. On the other side of that river was more jungle the like of which I was already growing accustomed to. I was trying to walk as fast as I could, hoping to get to town before nightfall. The thought of spending another night in a tree was weighing heavily in my fatigued mind at this point. I was malnourished, exhausted and my body was sore from the journey. All the small cuts and bruises I had gotten during my time spent in the jungle didn¡¯t seemed to heal properly. Like the jungles on earth, these hot and humid environments made wounds very hard to heal. Even the smallest cut could get infected and turn into a serious health risk. The small cuts all over my body seemed swollen and yellow puss would come out if I pressed on them. Luckily, I had antibiotics to take care of that problem but I was also worried about the bacteria and parasites that had possibly entered my body. Hurrying through the dense jungle, everything seemed to indicate that I would reach the town in time when something suddenly made me stop and crouch. Thump* Thump* Thump* Thump* The loud footsteps of a very heavy creature were echoing through the forest and seemed to get closer to my location. Judging by how much the ground shook under its feet, this creature had to be among the biggest I had seen so far. Not exactly on Godzilla level, but damned near close to it. I kept my eyes peeled, looking for the giant beast but in the end, I never managed to see it. It was amazing how well this jungle could conceal such monstrously big creatures. Determining that it was safe to move again, I continued to jog through the thick vegetation with Rambo sleeping soundly in my bag. I ran, jumped and climbed everything in my way and finally emerged out of this ¡®green hell¡¯. In front of me was a sight that I thought I would never see again. Right in front of me was a giant McDonald¡¯s sign which seemed to say ¡®welcome home¡¯. I was ecstatic and felt energy coming back to my body. I was still quite a while away from the hospital but felt all my worries vanishing away. I entered the familiar restaurant and sat at a table that was free of any corpses. We hadn¡¯t looted this place since all the food was rotten and nothing of value was to be found in here. I had avoided smoking during my travel, afraid that it would give my position away to the surrounding creatures so I was really looking forward to a relaxing moment like this one. I lit one up and grabbed my radio. ¡°Hello? Here¡¯s Nate.¡± I was still more than a kilometres away from the hospital and didn¡¯t feel like walking anymore, so my plan was to ask them to come pick me up here. ¡°Eeeoooo!¡± Having seemingly been woken up by his favourite word, Rambo got out of my bag and climbed on the table in front of me. He then looked around the restaurant while tilting his head sideways in a funny way. He was probably overwhelmed by the major changes in our surroundings. All he had seen so far had been jungle and swampy lands, so a human town was probably a shock to him. ¡°Hello Nate?¡± Once again, Camille was the one to pick up the radio. ¡°Hey Cami, I¡¯m finally back in town, mind coming to the McDonald¡¯s to pick me up? ~Eeeoo! Eeeeeoooo! Eeoo! Eeoo!~¡± I asked with exhaustion clearly audible in my voice and Rambo¡¯s rambling in the background. ¡°YOU¡¯RE HERE? WE¡¯RE COMING RIGHT AWAY!!! WAIT FOR US!¡± She almost screamed through the radio before abruptly dropping out of the conversation. Being barely able to keep my eyes open, I decided to walk around a bit, followed closely by Rambo. Around 15 minutes later, the familiar sound of a V8 engine grabbed my and Rambo¡¯s attention. ¡°Come Rambo, get in the bag for now. We¡¯re going home.¡± Seemingly understanding what I wanted from him, the little creature jumped on me, climbed up and disappeared inside my bag. The pick-up truck swerved around some parked cars and abruptly stopped in front of the restaurant. The truck had created a small dust cloud that was slowly settling down, eventually allowing me to see inside the vehicle. Seeing that Camille wasn¡¯t there surprised me. Robert had apparently come alone to pick me up for some reason. I grabbed my stuff and exited the restaurant as Robert ran up to me, his arms in the air showing how glad he was to see me back safe.¡±NATHAN!!!!! Hahahahaha I knew you would come back to us safely!¡± He screamed with visible joy on his face. ¡°Eeeeeoooooooo!!~~~¡± Popping his head over my shoulder, Rambo stared at Robert who stopped dead in his track after spotting him. His arms went limp on each side of his body and his face showed an expression that was clearly saying, ¡®what absurdly outrageous thing did he do this time?¡¯ The Merge – Chapter 13 (Reunion) This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL First published on my wordpress: Here Thank you for your support. ;) ------------------- Robert kept staring with blank eyes at the little guy on my shoulder, unsure on how to react. ¡°D-don¡¯t tell me you stole the baby of the dragon that kidnapped you?¡± He eventually asked with his complexion gradually becoming paler and paler. ¡°Eh? No¡­Actually, I stole its meal, not its kid.¡± I nonchalantly answered while heading toward him. ¡°I present to you Rambo, my new pet.¡± I added while holding Rambo in my arms for him to see. Robert came closer with fascination in his eyes as he inspected the little creature from head to toes. I had been worrying about Rambo¡¯s reaction to other humans, but it seemed I had been worrying for nothing. Actually, Rambo wasn¡¯t showing any aggression but was instead feeling very uncomfortable and kept struggling to get back into my bag. ¡°Guaaaaarr¡± I went forward for a manly hug but Robert stepped backward with a shocked expression as I approached. ¡°OH MY GOD!! Can a human truly smell that bad?¡± We stared at each other for a few seconds, then I quickly saw that he had difficulty keeping a straight face. We burst out laughing simultaneously and settled down with a handshake. ¡°Good to see you safe Nate. By the way, I can¡¯t believe you brought a baby dragon¡­ Isn¡¯t it dangerous?¡± He worryingly asked. ¡°I don¡¯t think it will be a problem. Anyway I intend to keep a close eye on him and his training. From what I¡¯ve witnessed so far, Rambo is a lot smarter than any animals I¡¯ve seen so far. Or at least, his learning speed is just amazing.¡± Seemingly satisfied with my answer, Robert then prompted me to get in the truck because it wasn¡¯t safe to hang around at the same place for too long. I sat in the passenger seat and placed my bag and Rambo on my lap. Robert then proceeded to storm out of the parking lot and head toward the hospital. I was unsure whether it was due to finally having company, a comfortable seat, or a mix of both, but my eyes kept trying to give up on me. Because of how mentally demanding the last few days had been, I now had to fight with all my might just to stay awake. What also didn¡¯t help, was just how silent Robert was. Coming to the conclusion that making conversation was necessary for me to stay awake, I asked him something that had been on my mind for a while now. ¡°Say, that day that you and Cami disappeared¡­ I mean¡­ You don¡¯t need to hide anything from me you know. Even if you two are dating or something, there¡¯s no need to hide if from me.¡± I wasn¡¯t lying when saying that, I truly didn¡¯t care if the two of them dated. I suspected that they might have thought that I loved Cami because of how close and friendly I was to her, but truth was, I didn¡¯t have any romantic feeling toward her. Actually, if I suddenly decided to get a girlfriend, Emanuela would probably have been my first pick. My preference for Emanuela was not because of her physique, but because I liked my women on the wild side. Camille was motherly, calm and always composed. Emanuela was more wild, free spirited and her actions never failed at making me feel flustered. That was what I was looking for in a woman. The only reason I hadn¡¯t gone for her after all this time was because of her previous relationship with Marc. Sadly, seeing her dump her man as soon as a better one showed up, had ruined any potential romantic feeling from me. We needed to keep the group unity as solid as we could, or at least until we made it back to earth. It was obvious that if I went for Emanuela, Marc would have gone mental and could have possibly become a danger to us. To me, Camille was a kind person who I could trust and rely upon. I also didn¡¯t want to be with her because she was my only option. I had never really believed in male/female friendships, but there was no other words to describe my feelings for her. After hearing me imply that I suspected them to be a couple, Robert showed a face that screamed ¡®face-palm¡¯. While keeping his focus on the road, he simply showed me the gold ring he had on his left hand ring finger and stayed silent for a few seconds. His face was showing a complicated expression that looked like a mix of sadness, nostalgia and hope. ¡°You see this ring? This is all I have to remember her. She¡¯s the woman I gave my soul to. No matter how far apart we are, no mater if we are in different worlds, I will always find my way back to her. I will never give up on her and never betray her, do you hear me Nate?¡± Seemed like I had been very wrong in my suspicions after all. Seeing Robert¡¯s face, I knew he wasn¡¯t lying. ¡°I understand, sorry. But then, what were you doing together with your radios turned off that day?¡± I still couldn¡¯t shake the feeling that they were deliberately trying to hide something from me. Robert¡¯s face straightened as he seemed conflicted about whether he should tell me or not. Seeing his reaction only made me want to know even more. ¡°Sighh* Sorry Nate but I promised not to speak of the details. It¡¯s a very private matter and she only wanted someone to talk to. The fact that she asked me to be her confidant, only meant that she trusted me to keep my mouth shut about it. So sorry, I¡¯m not the one you should ask about it. Anyway, if I can give you a word of advice, try not to poke your nose in others¡¯ private matters.¡± Now that was a cold answer. I still wanted to know but if Robert insisted so much, it was probably better for me not to dig any deeper. Sensing the atmosphere turning more and more awkward by the minutes, I quickly changed subject with another question. ¡°I haven¡¯t hear from Emanuela in awhile, is she alright?¡± I asked while petting Rambo who was staring out the window with fascination in his eyes. Robert¡¯s face subtly twitched as soon as her name left my mouth, sign that something must have happened. ¡°She¡­ She¡¯s unable to leave her room at the moment. After your disappearance, we sent search parties all over town but encountered something troublesome after doing so. She got injured in the battle but don¡¯t worry, she¡¯s alright and just needs some rest.¡± Crap, I couldn¡¯t leave them alone for a week without them falling apart after all. Well, it was a bit my fault this time though. ¡°Encountered something?¡± I inquired, curious to know what had caused the problem. ¡°Yea, some kind of Godzilla tiger striped t-rex thingy¡­ That thing was furious and out of control. It whipped its tail and blew apart a brick house. The brinks went flying and Emanuela got hit by a few of them. She got banged up quite a bit but luckily, no major injuries. That¡¯s why Camille didn¡¯t come even though she wanted to. One of us needed to stay with her just in case.¡± Sigh* Another day in paradise as they say. ¡°HA! And don¡¯t mention Alice¡¯s foot.¡± He then suddenly added, as if he had just now recalled something important. ¡°Her foot?¡± I curiously asked. Robert¡¯s expression was quite difficult to understand. No matter how I looked at him, he seemed to try very hard not to laugh. ¡°She¡­ Accidentally¡­ Shot herself. In the foot.¡± He then said. This was quite a clumsy thing to do but I didn¡¯t see what was so funny about it, so I kept staring at Robert who¡¯s eyes kept furtively glancing in my direction. ¡°She saw a bug¡­¡± At this point, Robert¡¯s eyes were watering and I could clearly see him biting his lips as hard as he could. Me and him apparently didn¡¯t share the same sense of humour. All I could think of was that we were now two men (women) down. After some more idle chat where I recalled some of what I had went through, we eventually reached a fence gate where Robert had to get out of the vehicle, open the gate, move the truck forward, close the gate, then get back in. Looked like they had finally managed to complete the fence while I was gone. They had also plowed an empty plot of land near the hospital and planted potatoes and other vegetables in it. The compost wasn¡¯t ready yet so they had used commercial fertilizer for now. Good to see they had been busy. A few minutes later, we finally arrived at the hospital where Camille, L¨¦opaul, Marc and Annie were waiting for us near the entrance. Robert parked the truck, then we got out as the small group rushed to greet us. I was expecting the first one to come at me to be Camille but strangely, the little Annie was the one running toward me as fast as her little legs could carry her. Flattered, I crouched with open arms, ready to receive her affection but she then suddenly stopped a meter away from me. She looked at me from head to toes, sniffed a few times then ran away while pinching her nose. It was true that I stank but this was still hurtful. ¡°Our warrior is back!¡± Triumphantly screamed Robert. It was a good thing that I was so dirty, that way they couldn¡¯t see me blush from embarrassment at his words. ¡°Nathan!¡± Said Camille before jumping in my arms. ¡°Hehehehehe You smell so bad! Smells like you had a tough time eh?¡± She then added while giggling and hugging me as tight as she could. ¡°I won¡¯t lie to you, even if I had a broken arm, I would still go in the shower first before getting it fixed.¡± I said, to which we both giggled while still clinging onto each other. ¡°Hey young lad, glad to see you safe. We missed you a lot around here. And as you can see, so did the ladies. Aren¡¯t you glad? Hurhuhurhu¡± Old man L¨¦opaul¡¯s comment prompted Camille to push me away after realizing we had been hugging for a bit too long. ¡°Hey man, welcome back.¡± Then added Marc who was keeping his distance. After hearing his voice, I looked at him but noticed something strange. Marc had busted up lips and two black eyes as if he had fought against someone. Then something I had noticed in the truck earlier came to mind. While showed me his wedding ring earlier, I had noticed that Robert had injured his knuckles, as if he had punched something. The two couldn¡¯t be a coincidence. Robert and Marc had obviously fought about something and it was also obvious who had won the altercation. I had been gone for no more than 10 days and so much stuff had apparently happened during that time. Since I was exhausted, hungry and dirty, I decided not to ask what had happened. Everybody came to shake my hand and spirits seemed high, which seemed like the perfect moment to release the Kraken. ¡°EEEEeeooooooooo!¡± At Rambo¡¯s appearance, everybody jumped back with eyes as round and big as loonies. (Canadian 1 dollar coins) ¡°I present to you my child, Rambo.¡± Old man L¨¦opaul and Marc were staring in shock, Camille had stars in her eyes as if she was looking at a puppy, and Robert¡­ Well Robert was rolling on the floor laughing. I then began to explain how I had come across Rambo, saved and decided to raise him. Camille was totally under Rambo¡¯s charm and tried to touch him, but Rambo growled at her before disappearing into the bag he had came out of. Annie who was silently hiding behind Camille seemed saddened to see Rambo disappearing. As for Camille, she seemed to take it personal, as if Rambo had rejected her. Wanting to cheer her up, I told her that he was still a baby and needed time to get used to new people, after which she seemed to regain hope. ¡°A-Are you fucking insane?! You brought a fucking dragon into our base?????¡± Then complained Marc with his busted up face. There was many things I could have answered to that, but I settled on talking about the safety he would bring, instead of danger. ¡°Until a few days back, I had a dragon skull on my front yard, want to know why? Because it kept all the other monsters away. Now imagine a real, tamed dragon¡­ We won¡¯t have any monsters problem anymore.¡± My words seemed to be met with enthusiasm excepted from Marc who still seemed highly unhappy. ¡°Alright enough! Everyone leave him alone for now. From what I can see, Nate needs a medical check-up and we also need to look at his injuries. Let¡¯s leave the chatter for later. Come this way.¡± Interrupted Camille who then grabbed my hand and dragged me inside the hospital. I asked to take a shower first and also asked if they had a change of clothes that would fit me. I wasn¡¯t going to wash myself and put my dirty clothes back on afterwards. Camille said she would take care of everything and left after escorting me to the shower room. I entered the locker-room and proceeded in removing my sticky clothes off. In the meantime, Rambo had gotten out of the bag and seemed perplex as he watched me. I guessed that for him, seeing me undress for the first time might have looked as if I was peeling my skin off or something. I piled up all my belongings in a corner and went inside the shower followed closely by Rambo who was bunny hopping his way behind me. I went to the first shower near the door, opened the faucet and waited for the water to get warm. Seeing water suddenly coming out of the wall caught Rambo off guard and made him run back to me. The little guy was digging his little claws into my skin as he tried to climb, forcing me to use a bit of red mist to harden my skin. Even without using red mist, my skin was incredibly hard to pierce now, but this baby dragon could cut through it as if it was the flesh of a newborn baby. I scolded him a little, since bad habits needed to be dealt with as soon as they appeared. Once he reached the size of an elephant, it would be too late to try and teach him not to dig his claws into people¡¯s skin. Even more so now that my manly bits were dangling precariously and made me feel insecure around him. I gently began to splash water on him and his fear quickly transformed into playfulness. We played a bit but I soon went back to washing myself, since hot water was now a luxury we couldn¡¯t afford to waste. Scales don¡¯t really get dirty, but I took the opportunity to wash Rambo as well which he seemed to enjoy a lot. Finally seeing the true colour of my skin again, I closed the faucet and went back to the locker room to wait for Camille. As if she was reading my mind, Camille entered the room simultaneously and came face to face with my naked body. Flustered, I hid what needed to be hid with my hands and tried to hide behind a locker. ¡°Kyaa! E-eb-eeeeb-b HERE!!!!! A t-towel to dry your¡­ And c-c-clothes¡­ I put everything here ok? SORRY!!¡± And she ran out of the room with her cheeks as red as a Ferrari. A bit embarrassed but mostly amused by her innocence, I dried myself and put on the clean clothes she had brought me under the curious stare of Rambo. ¡°Guaarr!¡± It was a deep purple chemise, black pants, white socks and a pair of brown shoes which were too big for me. Not really my style if you ask me but it would have to do for now. I exited the room and saw Camille who was waiting for me, still looking like a flustered schoolgirl. ¡°I took your stuff and will p-p-personally wash everything.¡± I gave her my sincere gratitude then followed her to a room for the medical checkup. The entire checkup didn¡¯t take too long and ended by me swallowing a few pills and receiving a few shots just in case. She also cleaned the various cuts and scratches all over my body and disinfected them. Camille was very professional and seemed like a fish in water. We were truly lucky to have a doctor with us in this misadventure. The entire time during the exam, there had been something in the back of my mind. Me and her had a really great relationship, yet she had chosen Robert over me to be her confident that day. I just couldn¡¯t understand why, after all, we spent hours talking to each other on the radio. She spoke to me about a lot of personal stuff during these times so why didn¡¯t she talk to me that day. After all, this had all happened just after I had left the hospital the same day. Had I done something to make her lose trust in me? Resisting the urge to ask her was torture, but I still had Robert¡¯s warning in mind, telling me not to poke my nose where I shouldn¡¯t. By the end of the exam, I was barely standing, almost sleepwalking. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Seeing how sleep deprived I was, Camille then brought me to an empty room and said that it was mine for as long as I wanted. Robert arrived at the same moment and asked her how I was and if everything was alright. Camille reassured him and dragged him outside to let me sleep in peace. The briefing on what I had learned during my adventure would have to wait until I wake up. Being around people truly was exhausting after all. I grabbed Rambo in my arms and laid him on the bed next to me. Intrigued by the softness of the bed at first, Rambo then fell asleep only a few seconds later. The day must had been stressful for him as well. As I was slowly drifting into the dream world, my ears which had been recently trained in a jungle to perceive every little noise caught the sound of a conversation. ¡°I hate hiding stuff from him Camille. Sshhhh* Come.¡± The faint voices of Camille and Robert made my eyes reopen instantly. It was barely audible but I had heard that. I sprung up from my bed and stealthily exited my room. After hearing this much, I was now a man on a mission with one precise goal, eavesdropping on their following conversation. I got out of my room and stealthily walked down the dark corridor. I followed them closely while being careful not to be spotted. They then eventually stopped and began to whisper to each other. I silently walked closer and hid in a dark corner just close enough to hear what they were saying. ¡°You said you wouldn¡¯t talk about it to anyone!¡± Angrily said Camille. ¡°Nate isn¡¯t dumb, he immediately noticed something was going on. I didn¡¯t tell him anything. I promised I wouldn¡¯t speak so I didn¡¯t, but I don¡¯t believe we should lie to him. We owe him at least that.¡± Then said Robert. Camille seemed like she was about to have a panic attack but continued. ¡°You know very well why we can¡¯t tell him!! What if he loses his calm and goes after Marc the way you did? We both know how powerful Nate is, he could accidentally kill him with one punch.¡± Then added Camille. Robert seemed to agree but still looked conflicted. So I was right to think that Robert was the one who had beaten up Marc. I didn¡¯t know what Marc had done, but from their conversation it was something that would anger me enough to make me want to beat him up as well. I couldn¡¯t help but imagine the worst scenario in my mind and was growing restless. He wouldn¡¯t have dared¡­ raping her right? The thought of it made my blood boil with anger and veins began to swell on my forehead. ¡°EEEeeeeeeooooooooooo!¡± Surprised by Rambo¡¯s sudden appearance at first, my attention then turned toward the two people staring at us at the end of the corridor. ¡°Dammit Rambo, you¡¯re usually better at reading the atmosphere.¡± When I was acting stealthy, Rambo usually kept his mouth shut but not this time apparently. Robert was face-palming while Camille seemed highly distressed after realizing I had been eavesdropping on their conversation. The two of them ran up to me with panic in their eyes after noticing the paint peeling off the walls all around me. All these worst case scenarios I was imagining in my head made me angry to a point where I couldn¡¯t control the red mist anymore. Tons of it was furiously leaking out of my body, melting the linoleum on the floor and peeling paint off the walls. Feeling like I was about to burst, I stared in Camille¡¯s eyes and asked her in a voice that made it clear that if she kept lying to me, I would go ask Marc myself. ¡°What did he do to you?¡± Rambo seemed worried by the way I acted and began to growl at the two of them. Robert let out a long sigh before saying, ¡°Seem like we don¡¯t have a choice anymore.¡± Camille seemed reluctant but finally gave in. ¡°Before I tell you, you have to promise me not to tell anyone and not to do anything to Marc.¡± She said with determination in her eyes. I was still drowning in anger and couldn¡¯t think properly anymore. ¡°I can¡¯t promise you that. If he did what I think he did, I¡¯ll kill him.¡± Robert and Camille¡¯s faces turned pale as they began to worry about my possible reaction. The two of them seemed not to know what to do when Camille¡¯s expression suddenly turned to anger. ¡°Okay I will tell you but if you harm Marc in any way because of it, I won¡¯t forgive you!¡± Seeing the determined look in her eyes made me calm down and listen to what she had to say. I took Rambo in my arms and tried to calm him down while Camille began to recall the events. ¡°From the time she first saw you, Emanuela began to ignore Marc as if he had become invisible to her. Marc seemed quite down because of that so I tried to cheer him up by spending some time with him. I may have accidentally sent him wrong signals that made him think I was interested in him. From that moment, he kept following me around and would occasionally touch me inappropriately when we were alone together. That time I asked to speak with Robert in private was to ask him to avoid leaving me alone with him and keep an eye on us just in case he went too far. He did not rape me or anything okay! I was just getting creeped out by the way he acted around me and wanted someone¡¯s opinion.¡± Finally hearing the truth, I was still angry but reassured at the same time. Luckily, it was not as bad as I was imagining but I still wanted to beat him up after hearing the details. ¡°Now I want you to go sleep and never mention this ever again. Am I making myself clear?¡± She then said while glaring at me. ¡°Sigh* Alright, I promise I won¡¯t touch him. But know that if he ever touches you again, I¡¯ll kill him.¡± I blurted out while angrily going back to my room to sleep. I was highly frustrated not to be able to do anything but luckily, Robert had already taught him a lesson before me. I tried to rationalize the situation by convincing myself that groping a woman wasn¡¯t worth the death penalty and that he had probably received a sufficient beating from Robert. Rambo and I then went back to bed but my mind was so agitated that it took me a long time to settle down and finally fall asleep. A few hours later, I was woken up by Rambo who seemed hungry and unable to sleep anymore. As for me, I felt like I could have slept a lot more but established Rambo as a priority. As I was putting my clothes on, Camille entered the room with a plate of warm food for me and a bowl of blue meat for Rambo. ¡°Morning! I wasn¡¯t sure what to bring for Rambo, so I brought some fresh meat from this morning¡¯s fence patrol.¡± Said Camille with a warm smile. Since they had completed the fence, the group had began to patrol around it everyday to gather the corpses of electrocuted creatures and use them for the compost pile. ¡°Oarrrningg!!!¡± ¡°Did he just say ¡®morning¡¯ ???¡± Asked Camille with an incredulous expression. ¡°Yep, sounds like it. Sometimes I suspect him to be smarter than most humans¡­¡± I answered while hugging him like a proud father. Smelling meat, Rambo ran up to Camille and began to bob his head up and down in excitement. She placed the bowl on the floor and watched him eat with a satisfied expression on her face. She seemed satisfied not to be ignored by him anymore. Seeing the other plate in her hands made me remember just how hungry I really was. Turning her attention back to me, Camille then gave me my plate of canned chicken stew which I wolfed down as fast as I could like a wild animal. ¡°Hehehe careful not to choke on it. Ha! Now that I remember, I told Emanuela that you would go see her when you wake up. When you¡¯re done, we will gather and wait for you in the main room to listen to what you have discovered. All of us are really excited to possibly be able to go back home.¡± She said before leaving. I was a bit annoyed by Camille ¡®order¡¯ at first, but decided that going to see someone on their hospital bed was the least i could do. Rambo and I ate our food and exited the room to go see Emanuela who was still stuck in her hospital bed. I walked down the corridor while waiting for Rambo who¡¯s short legs made him a lot slower than me. Once arrive at the door of her room, I knocked and waited to be invited in. ¡°Yes?! Come in!¡± Said Emanuela from the other side of the door. I entered with Rambo following close behind and finally saw her. She looked quite beat up and had a cast on her left arm but still seemed as joyful as ever. ¡°Nate!!! Took you long enough to come see me.¡± She then said with a pouting face. ¡°Sorry, I came as soon as I could.¡± I answered with a smile, well aware that she was only trying to tease me. ¡°Ha! And that must be Rambo. AWWWwwwwwwww* What a truly adorable little thing!!! Ermm¡­ Won¡¯t he become a fire hazard or something?¡± She asked while looking at Rambo who was hiding behind me. ¡°Eeeooo? Guaa!!!¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep a close eye on him. Of course he will need to learn many things, but people managed to tame grizzlies and tigers back on earth after all. Since Rambo is a lot smarter than commons animals, he should be relatively safe to keep around.¡± Emanuela seemed satisfied by my answer and began to ask many questions about my recent adventure. We spoke for a long time during which, Rambo eventually climbed on the bed and poked her with his nose, asking to be petted. Seemed like Rambo liked Emanuela more than the others. Emanuela was in bliss as she caressed Rambo¡¯s scaly body, but the little guy seemed to be the happiest one of the two. ¡°Nate, can you do me¡­ a favour?¡± There was no doubt by her amused expression that she had taken a pause mid sentence on purpose. ¡°Sure, what is it?¡± I asked. ¡°You see that box over there? Can you take one of what¡¯s inside and use it on me please?¡± She asked with her face suddenly turning serious for once. Curious to know what she wanted, I walked up to the small wooden box and opened it. My face instantly turned red as I saw what was inside the box, which made Emanuela giggle like a little girl. The box was containing a bunch of condoms. ¡°Rhahahaha* You should see your face. By the way, I¡¯m a hundred percent serious.¡± She added with a playful expression. I couldn¡¯t tell if she was joking around but I somehow felt like she was very serious. Embarrassed, I grabbed Rambo and ran away before things became more complicated. It was already hard to resist her advances before, so if she had decided to be this forward in the future, things would become a lot more troublesome for me. Still feeling troubled by Emanuela, I went to the main room where the people had gathered and were waiting for me. I sat at the table and tried not to look at dickhead Marc who was sitting right in front of me. I had a feeling that I could potentially lose my composure and accidentally kill him if our eyes met. The fat Alice was there as well, but she was silent and seemed even more pissed than usual. She was sitting on a wheelchair and kept staring at the ground for some reason. ¡°Alright, now that Nathan is here, we can begin the discussion. Nathan, you spoke of a way of going back to earth, mind telling us about it?¡± Asked Robert. Everybody turned their attention toward me and anxiously waited for me to start talking. I began by recalling my adventure from the beginning to the end while trying to include as much details as possible. The ambience around the table was quite strange and felt as if I was a storyteller telling them about the tales of a legendary hero. They were clinging to each word coming out of my mouth and even had moments when I could hear them gasp, cry and celebrate to what I was saying. I then had to explain to them that I could see the poison in the air but didn¡¯t know why they couldn¡¯t. I told them that I could see it as some kind of red mist floating in the air and even told them about the mysterious red sun in the sky. Apparently, the red sun I could see in the sky was visible to them as well but appeared as a second moon. To me, this world had two suns, but to them it was two moons. This made sense in a way because it was easier to explain an earth gravitational system having two moons rather than one having two suns. (AutNote: Error 404, Brain.exe has stopped working.) Then eventually came the time to talk about what they all wanted to know. ¡°That red mist also seemed to gather in giant circles, looking a bit like storm cells. Knowing how mysterious this red mist is, and how the size of these circles are the same as the teleported lands we are in, we can assume that these mist vortexes are the phenomenon responsible for bringing us here. I also found Mayan ruins not so far from here. This means that a similar phenomenon did happen in the past and that we are not an isolated case. I was worried that other worlds could be connected to this one, and it could transport us to yet another world if we tried to be teleported again. I am not entirely sure that this is not the case, but this Mayan stone reassured me quite a bit about that. So what I am basically saying it that we could potentially return back to earth if we stayed in a circle that seems to be ready to teleport us. I am not certain about this but among the red mist vortexes I¡¯ve seen from up high, some seemed denser and more unstable than others. If we had a plane or something we could study them better and pick the one that seem the most ready to teleport us but we don¡¯t, so we can only hope for the best.¡± As I said these word, Robert and Marc suddenly reacted as if they knew something important. ¡°We found two planes in a hangar not long ago¡­¡± Said Robert. ¡°I found the planes, and told you about it.¡± Retorted Marc. ¡°What! What kind of planes? Do they work?¡± I impatiently asked. ¡°Emmm I don¡¯t know much about planes, but they were small yellow two seaters. Their wings were detached for space saving purposes, but they can probably be reattached easily¡­ They were the kind of planes some passionate middle class people can afford I guess.¡± This was major news. ¡°This is perfect! We need to select a road and transform it into a safe runway then I will go check our surroundings from the air.¡± I confidently said. ¡°Nate wait, you know how to pilot these?¡± Worryingly asked Camille. I didn¡¯t really know how to pilot them but I was very good at flight simulators, and had owned a few RC planes in my life. Adding to that the fact that I could probably survive a plane crash with red mist doping, I felt confident. ¡°Of course! Don¡¯t worry. What I¡¯m afraid of is encountering dragons in the air¡­ Speaking of which, we need to kill that king dragon.¡± ¡°Are you out of your mind, why should we even bother fighting such a thing?¡± Blurted Marc with fear in his eyes. ¡°Because there¡¯s a detail I didn¡¯t share with you.¡± I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. ¡°I saw a human. It was a woman and she got devoured before my eyes back there. That king dragon hunts humans to feed his ¡®dragon meals¡¯. This thing needs to die.¡± Shocked by the revelation, the discussion immediately turned to questions about their appearance and every details I knew, but then the details of how she had died brought tears to the eyes of some of them. Touched by my story, everybody agreed to find a way to kill it, even though Marc kept saying to keep him out of it. The meeting ended up lasting hours, during which we brainstormed a plan to create a mobile living quarter for the 7 of us, and a way to bring it down to a red mist circle that we still had yet to select. It would all come down to what I would see from the air, so first we needed to prepare the planes and a runway. ¡°Alright guys, look like we will be busy for a while. Let¡¯s get to it shall we?¡± Then declared Robert. Normally, this is where I would have left back to my bunker but after hearing what Camille had went through, I felt like I needed to keep an eye on things here. Having made my decision, I raised my hand to get people¡¯s attention. ¡°Cough* cough*, if it¡¯s okay with you all, I¡¯d like to move here with you for a while. I¡¯ll go get a few things from home and move them here. It will be easier to work together on getting back to earth that way.¡± The Merge – Chapter 14 (Learning) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Since RRL rewards smaller chapters, i am now dividing the chapters in two parts. ------------------- The announcement that I intended to move in with them ended up being met with a lot of positive feedback from most of them. This was something I would have never considered if not for the possibility of going back to earth. Building a mobile home, moving it through jungles, canyons and rivers up to a red mist vortex where we would have to live for months, or even years was not something I would be able to do on my own. If I wanted to get back to earth, I needed to work with them, but that was not my only reason. One of the major factors pushing me to move closer to them was to keep an eye on Marc. I couldn''t shake this ominous feeling. I felt like the more Marc would be excluded from the group, the more dangerous he could become. Eliminating him would have been the most drastic solution, but only a psychopath would think that way. By killing him, I would become even worse than him in a way. Not only that but the other survivors would most likely see me as a dangerous murderer myself afterwards. I had never killed a human before, and seriously didn''t wish to start doing so. I had no intention of losing what I had left of my humanity because of this ass-hole after all. Because of him, I was worried for the girls'' safety and most of all, worried for the young Annie. I wouldn''t put beyond him the possibility of abusing the young 13 year old girl, even though I might be wrong about that. I had considered the possibility of having him die in an accident during a fight against a monster or something but the sad thing was that we needed him. Among the 8 of us, 2 were too old to do manual labour, 1 was currently injured and another was too young. Including myself, that left us with only 4 able bodies to do all the work that needed to be done. As much as I hated to admit it, as the youngest man, Marc was necessary to us. With all that considered, the only thing I could do was to keep a close eye on him and try not to push him over the edge. In the end, I had decided to move in with them but not the way they expected me to. I began to install myself in a secluded room in the west wing of the hospital, away from the group. Unlike them, I didn''t need to be in the area where the air was being purified. This was the best way I had found to be closer to them while keeping our interactions to a minimum. My new room was near the ER garage door where the ambulances used to get in, especially during winter. Since the others would have been very confused as to why I was isolating myself so much, I decided to finally tell them about the fact that I wasn''t too comfortable around people. I was fearful of their reaction at first but ended up being pleasantly surprised by how they actually reacted. Instead of judging me, they all reacted as if they had finally understood why I was doing certain things, and acted certain ways. Apparently, they had first thought that I either, didn''t like them or was even hiding something. Clarifying my condition seemed to bring them the peace of mind they were hoping for. With access to a garage door and a spacious area, my new living quarters were already feeling like home. I brought a few power-tools, my entire stock of dragon meat, my dragon bones and skins and all the projects I was currently working on. I had also brought my giant bomb ''lil boy'' and asked the old man L¨¦opaul to put priority on finishing its detonator. I had also left most of my important possessions back inside my bunker just in case. Over there, I knew they were safe and would be waiting for me if anything bad happened here. There was another reason for wanting to move to the hospital, and that was Rambo. Truth be told, I didn''t intend to keep a dragon into a small enclosed area beside me. What if he accidentally fire to and burned everything. Also, what was I supposed to do when going to sleep if I didn''t keep him inside? Keep him in the garage? Rambo would have never agreed to that. Not only that, I also didn''t know how fast dragons grew. After reaching a certain size, it would become impossible for me to keep him at my house. Having Rambo stay with the others also seemed like the best way to teach him not to see humans as food. Anyway, after considering all that, moving to the hospital seemed like the best thing to do. I had spent 2 days moving into my new quarters, but most of my stuff was still inside my box trailer parked inside the ''garage''. The first thing I had done was to plug in a generator and install a computer looted from the nearby computer shop, and unpack my DVD collection. Without a computer, this place would have never felt like home, so I had placed it as a priority. Since I was living far away from the others, it would take some time for L¨¦opaul to connect me to the solar grid, so a generator would have to do for now. The next thing had been to install locks on the doors leading to my private quarters as to insure myself some privacy. Robert and Camille kept offering their help but I decided to do everything on my own. I didn''t want anyone to go through my stuff and was perfectly able to take care of everything on my own. I told them that instead of helping me moving my stuff, they should instead think of ways to bring down the king dragon. I was already planning to use ''lil boy'' against it, but I feared that even such a powerful bomb wouldn''t be enough to bring it down, and was hoping the others would come up with some interesting ideas. We also needed to think of a way to lure it near the bomb but I already had my own idea on how to do that. Right now, I was working to complete my riot suit v2.0 by sewing dragon skin patches on the weakest areas of the suit. I say sewing but working with dragon skin was more akin to working with metal. I had to use a metal grinder to cut the necessary pieces of dragon skin, then use a diamond tipped drill bit to pierce holes for the following sewing process. It was hard work, but knowing how strong dragon skin was, it was definitely worth it. While I was working on my suit, I didn''t have time to play with Rambo so I had looted toys from the pet-shop for him to play with. Thank to that, I now knew that if it wasn''t made out of metal, Rambo would effortlessly destroy it. His favourite toy was a giant ball bearing which was a simple steal ball, and he also enjoyed these dried dog bones meant to be chewed on. I was playing some heavy metal on my computer, sipping on a good bottle of vodka while Rambo was fiddling around with his metal ball, when a loud noise made me jump. ¡°THUMP!* Ouchhh.... That... hurt.¡± This was Emanuela''s voice, not knowing I had installed locks on the doors, she had apparently rammed headfirst into the heavy steel door. ¡°Knock* Knock* Knock*... Nathan?¡± Looked like she had finally learned what normal people do before entering someone''s personal space. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. Rambo had already learned that this noise meant that someone was coming to see us, and since he seemed to like Emanuela a lot, the little guy was overly excited. At least one of us was happy to get visitors. I dropped what I was doing and reluctantly went to open the door. ¡°Yes what is it?¡± I asked. As I opened the door, I saw Emanuela who was still rubbing her forehead with a pained expression. ¡°It''s about the ways of killing the king dragon you asked us to think about. We are gathering in the main room and are waiting for you.¡± She said while still rubbing her forehead. Rambo ran between my legs and began to rub his head against her legs. Seemed like he was now acting like a cat, strangely enough. ¡°Heyy there you beautiful! Pet* pet* pet* You''re a good boy, I love you. You''d be even better if you convinced your father to come see me more often. *giggle* Pet* pet* pet*¡± Rambo seemed in trance, totally charmed by her which was a bit worrying. ¡°Fawwtar?¡± Sigh, I wished she would stop adding weird words to his vocabulary already. Because of her, Rambo was now calling me ''Fawtar'' and would keep saying ''I wuv yu'' all the time. I felt like she was turning my beautiful bad-ass dragon into a magical girl or something. ¡°Alright you can go, I will be right behind you.¡± I dropped everything I was doing and made my way up to the communal room where we always had our strategy meetings. When I arrived, everybody was already arrived and waiting for me. ¡°Okay, now that Nate is here, we can start to share our ideas.¡± First began Robert. ¡°Remember when I asked you for a small piece of dragon skin?¡± Asked Robert while looking at me in the eyes. ¡°I needed it to test a few chemicals and guess what, dragons aren''t immune to sulphuric acid. So if we added a barrel of powerful acid to your bomb, it should inflict some serious damage to the beast.¡± Clap!* Clap!* Clap!* Clap!* Said Robert which earned him a few claps from the people who thought it was a very good idea. ¡°Anyone else has an idea?¡± He then continued. Sensing that it was finally her turn, Camille stood up and shared her idea on how to kill a king dragon. ¡°Dragons are similar to most creatures in the aspect that they need to breathe. That''s why I thought about attacking it with toxic gas like Sarin gas or something.¡± Clap!* Clap!* Clap!* Clap!* Once again, a very good idea. ¡°Anyone else have an idea?¡± Inquired Robert. Then, as if it was his cue, old man L¨¦opaul stood up and laid a schematic on the table. ¡°This is a blueprint for what I call a ''taser floor''. The goal is to lay a net of wires on the floor linked to tens of batteries linked in series with a blablabla meant to boost the blablabla current pulses and blablabla......¡± Nobody really understood what he was saying but from what I understood, he was planning to build an electric floor that would paralyze it for a short period of time. I had to admit, this was a brilliant idea since it would immobilize it long enough for it to breathe in Camille''s toxic gases that should theoretically destroy its lungs. Then it was my turn to share my idea. I dreaded this moment, it felt like back in school during these horrible moment where I had to speak in front of the class. I reluctantly stood up and began my quick explanation. ¡°This thing eats dragon meat, so I plan to put poison on some of my dragon meat and use it as bait. That way, if we fail to kill it on the spot, it should eventually die later of poisoning.¡± Once again, everybody seemed impressed by the idea and began to discuss among themselves. All I wanted to do at this point was to go back to my private quarters but instead, decided to remain a while longer until the meeting was over. The ambience wasn''t so bad after all, Annie was playing with Rambo in a corner of the room and everybody seemed excited after hearing so many good ideas. The only one who didn''t seemed happy about the situation was obviously Marc. I was still seriously annoyed that Camille had categorically forbidden me from laying hands on him. Normally, I would have ignored her, but if the group ended up turning against me because of it, it would become problematic. Just looking at his smug face made me want to punch him. At this point, I was completely ignoring what was happening around me, and was instead lost in mental fantasies. I was imagining myself with my hands around his neck, squeezing until his face turned blue then eventually popping his head off like a big zit. My fantasy felt so real and so vivid that I could even imagine red mist coming out of my body, slowly going around his neck and gradually tighten around it. Marc''s face then turned red as panic began to show on his face. Even though I knew it was only a fantasy, I was still very much enjoying it. As I was about to imagine his head being ripped off, the feeling of something pinching my right leg brought me back to reality. When I turned to look at what was pinching me, I saw Annie staring at me with angered eyes. She was digging her nails into my leg and seemed very angry for some reasons. As I was looking at Annie, strange sounds then attracted my attention back to the people around me. ¡°Cough!* Wheeze* Cough!* Cough!* Hann hannn Wheeze* Wheeze*¡° Marc was wheezing and coughing his lungs out while holding his neck, and everybody around the table was in panic. Camille had run to him and began to inspect him to see what had happened but luckily, Marc seemed to gradually revert from blue to his original colour. Was my fantasy actually real? Had I really manipulated red mist and tried to kill him with my mind? Wait, how did Annie know that it was me? Nobody else seemed to suspect me to be the cause of Marc''s sudden respiratory problem except her. Curious, I leaned in closer to the small girl and without warning, sent a violent burst of red mist out of my body. Annie flinched and stepped back as soon as I did, proof that she could see the red mist just like me. I showed her a big grin that meant I had found out her secret, then laid back on my chair as she ran back to Rambo. Because of this, I spent the rest of the meeting lost in thoughts. Why were Annie and I, the only people capable of seeing the red mist? Then my thoughts turned to what I had just done. If I could use red mist to do that, then it was something similar to telekinesis in a way. I definitely needed to train this ability in the future. After the meeting, I went back to my private quarters and continued to work on my riot suit. Rambo was destroyi- ''playing'' with a kids toy meant to learn basic alphabet. ¡°I wuv yu!¡± I suspected him to be smart enough to learn something from it, but he seemed more interested in destroying the poor plastic toy than learning from it. As I was about to complete my suit, something that I hadn''t felt in a long time happened. I was feeling sick and dizzy which were signs of red mist poisoning. I was surprised, I hadn''t felt this in a very long time and even believed to be immune to it. I expelled a bit of mist and eventually felt better. The Merge – Chapter 14 (Learning) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Wordpress Version: Here ------------------- Had I reached the maximum amount of red mist my body could tolerate? Could I not increase my resistance any further? The amount of red mist my body could hold was so high, that measuring it had become very difficult. After thinking about it for a while, I came up with an idea. The plan was to expel all the red mist in my body, then weigh and eat as much dragon meat as I could before feeling sick again. By weighing the meat, I would be able to obtain a measure of the amount of red mist I could tolerate. Confident in my plan, I went outside and emptied myself of red mist. Then, I began to cook steaks which were weighed one pound at a time. After only a few minutes, I realized this plan wasn''t going to work. I needed to eat way too much meat before being filled with red mist and would most likely get sick from overeating instead. I scratched this plan and tried to think of a way to obtain more red mist more rapidly. Only a few minutes later, as I was observing the empty meat bags on the table, a genius idea came to me. These bags all contained a lot of blood, and blood was most likely what contained the most red mist. I grabbed Rambo and walked to the cafeteria where I was keeping my precious meat. I took a giant cooking pot and went into the big walk-in freezer with it. There, I proceeded in opening the meat bags one after the other and gathered the frozen blood in the bottom of the bags into the cooking pot. After going through all the meat bags, I had gathered almost 3 litres of frozen dragon blood. I took a propane burner, a propane tank and went back to my private area for some cooking. I installed everything on the floor, lit the burner and began to cook the blood. The blood first melted, then boiled for hours until all the water had evaporated. I had to constantly stir it up to prevent the thick syrup from sticking to the bottom of the pot but after a few more minutes, I was left with a small amount of smelly brown powder. (Dehydrated blood) Now that I had a good quantity of ''dragon dust'', I proceeded to weigh and divide it in little piles of 500mg each. With this, I could possibly be able to put a number on the amount of red mist my body was capable of containing, and see if my tolerance to it was still increasing or had reached its maximal capacity. Since I had felt red mist poisoning for the first time in a very long time, I was either losing tolerance, or had reached my limit. Knock!* Knock!* Knock!* While I was weighing and dividing the powder, someone knocked at my door once more. Sigh, living here was going to put my tolerance to people to the test. ¡°Doowrr! Doowrr! Doowrr! Fawwtarrr Fawtarrr! Doowwrr!¡± At least one of us liked it when people came here. ¡°Yes yes Rambo, I know.¡± This little dragon was learning how to communicate at an alarming speed. Seeing him learn so fast was almost scary in a way. I walked up to the door and answered it. ¡°Heyy handsome!~~ I found this amazing bottle of Jack Daniel, mind joining me for a drink?¡± Asked the joyful Emanuela while holding the square bottle in her hands. ¡°Nwela! Nwela! Eeeoooo!¡± Energetically interrupted Rambo. ¡°Since when does he know my name?¡± She asked with a confused look on her face. ¡°Don''t ask me, I''m as confused as you are.¡± I retorted. If Rambo kept learning human speech that fast, we would be able to hold simple conversations with him in only a few months. The little creature was bobbing his head up and down while turning in circles to show his happiness. I was glad to see Rambo happy, but if Emanuela kept coming here all the time, it would become a problem. I was seriously considering telling her that even though I was very attracted to her, I would never date her. I mean, seeing her dump Marc as soon as she saw me had ruined any potential romantic feelings from me. If I dated her, she would most likely dump me as soon as we got back to earth. With that in mind, all I needed to fight against were my feelings of lust for her. I had slept with a few women in the past, but then hadn''t had any interaction with them after becoming an hermit. If I had been able to live for 7 years without sex, I should definitely be able to hold on for a bit longer. Seeing how happy Rambo was to see her, I decided to invite her in and have a few drinks. An hour of her talking and me pretending to be listening later, Emanuela had passed out and was sleeping on my couch with Rambo rolled up in a ball next to her. Being around people truly was exhausting after all, and there didn''t seem to be any way to avoid it. Feeling a bit drunk myself, I still decided to proceed with my red mist gauging test. I went outside, emptied myself of red mist then went back in. Now completely empty, I mixed 500mg of dragon dust and mixed it with some sugar before diluting it in water and drinking it all. Luckily, the taste wasn''t as bad as I was expecting it to be. Still feeling fine, I repeated the process a second time, and a third one. It was after consuming 2000mg of dragon dust that I finally began to feel red mist poisoning. Then came the time to see if I had reached my limit. I emptied my body of red mist once more, and took 2000mg again. I got sick had had to expel some red mist like the first time. Then I repeated this process 5 times but at the 5th time, I didn''t feel sick anymore. Seemed like I could now tolerate 2000mg of dragon dust without feeling sick. This was the confirmation I was hoping for. My body resistance had not reached its limit but was actually still increasing. Then why had I suddenly begunn to feel red mist poisoning again after spending months without feeling it once. Feeling a bit tipsy and confused by my newfound knowledge, I laid back on my chair and pondered about it for a while. Red mist was still so mysterious in every way. We were still far from understanding how our bodies reacted to it. A good example of its mystery were the results of the other survivors'' training. All the other survivors were now able to spend almost 48 hours outside their air filtered shelter, except Annie and Marc who could barely tolerate 8 hours of it. There was no indication of it being linked to gender, age or anything else. Even more bizarre was that Annie could apparently see the red mist just like me, but unlike me had difficulty adapting to it. The more I pondered about it, the more confused I became and decided to call it a day. In fact, it was getting harder and harder not to stare at Emanuela''s ass as she slept, which was part of the reason why I wanted her gone. Not only that, but I was also getting tired and wanted to go to bed, so I grabbed my radio and called for Robert to come see me. A few minutes later, he arrived and seemed confused by what he saw. First, there was me, drunk and barely conscious on my chair. Then there was Emanuela and Rambo who were sleeping on the couch, and on the table next to me laid a bunch individually weighed and separated piles of suspicious red/brown powders. Everything looked a lot like an after-party at a suspicious drug lab. ¡°Mind taking her away? I don''t want to sleep with her in the room.¡± I slurred out in my drunkenness. ¡°I feel like I shouldn''t ask and just bring her back to her bed. Goodnight Nate.¡± He then said while carrying Emanuela back to her room. I locked the door behind him and collapsed on my bed for the night. ¡°Fawwtarrr!! NNNgwyyy! Nnnngwyyy!¡± I woke up the next morning to the voice of Rambo complaining that he was hungry. We had breakfast then I did my daily exercises. After my exercises, I did a quick fence patrol then tried to train that telekinesis power thingy I had used on Marc the day before, but never managed to move anything. I first tried to move a mug, then thinking that it was too heavy, I decided to try with a pen, then a small piece of paper. No matter what I tried, I couldn''t recreate what had happened that time. Was there some weird requirement to it like an emotional trigger or something? Seemed like I had more and more difficulty understanding what was going on with red mist recently. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I was still pondering about what I had discovered the day before. Why was I now reaching my red mist limit faster than before? What was now different from before? Could my body be absorbing it faster now? Unlikely. Then I tried to think about it in a different way. Imagining that my body was an empty bucket with small holes in it. If you wanted to fill it with water, you needed to pour the water in faster than it leaked out. Keeping that in mind, what if my body had become less permeable to red mist? Meaning that my body used to leak red mist out, but was now better at keeping it in. As if some holes in the bucket had been patched up. This would explain why I was getting filled with red mist faster now than before. But I was still stuck with an important question, why and how had I stopped leaking red mist out? What had happened that had made my body better at keeping the red mist in? I still had so many unanswered questions in my head that I decided to take some aspirins to prevent an oncoming headache. Then something came to mind. A while back, Alice had shown me how the areas in contact with my skin on my previous necklace had turned red. If it was only the areas that were in direct contact with my skin, that meant that it had gotten its red mist from my body. I already knew that gold was like a red mist sponge, so it had to be the cause. My gold necklace had kept leeching red mist out of my body, making it harder to get filled with it. With my necklace now fully turned to red gold, it probably wasn''t absorbing red mist anymore, which was why I had started to fill up on red mist faster again. Then a major realization came to mind. All the others had gold rings or other accessories, except Marc and Annie, the two who seemed to adapt the slowest. This was such an important piece of information that I decided to keep it to myself. Keeping Marc weak was a good thing, so I needed to think of a way to get him to wear some rings or something. That way, Marc would remain vulnerable to the red mist while taking longer before getting poisoned by it. The only reason I had managed to grow this strong even while wearing gold, was because I was consuming a large amount of dragon meat and could use the expulsion technique. I had tried to teach the others the expulsion technique but all of them failed miserably. Thinking back on it, since Annie can also see the red mist, she should be able to learn this technique as well. I would need to try to give her some personal lessons later. Pumped by my new important discovery, I decided to finish the work on my riot suit when someone knocked at the door once again. Seemed like there was always someone knocking at my door, how annoying. This time it was the old man L¨¦opaul who had finally completed lil boy''s detonator. ¡°There you go young lad. This remote should reach at least 1 kilometre away, and I suggest you don''t put the batteries in it before being ready to blow things up. Hurhuhurhu* Also, I''m almost finished with the taser carpet I talked about. Ha! I almost forgot, Miss Camille also asked me to tell you that she has finished preparing some nasty gasses or something like that.¡± He said with his usual good mood. ¡°Thank you very much old man.¡± He then proceeded to explain to me how everything functioned, then we talked a bit about my new riot suit. Rambo was listening to us and observing everything we did, but never showed the kind of affection he usually showed with Emanuela. By the looks of it, Rambo seemed to prefer women. Luckily though, his affection toward me seemed to be unwavering as we kept growing closer and closer each day. From what L¨¦opaul had said, we would be ready to start hunting the king dragon tomorrow, so I had to complete my suit before that. A few hours later, my suit 2.0 was finally finished and should be able to protect me against almost anything. In fact, I was pretty sure I could even remain unharmed against a Kalashnikov. Then by the end of the day, it was time to prepare what we would need to lure the king dragon where we wanted him to be. For that purpose, I was sitting on the floor with a microphone in my hand, trying to get Rambo to roar. ¡°Come on Rambo, ROARRRrr!!! Give it everything you got!¡± The little creature looked at me, tilted its head and seemed to struggle to keep his attention away from his toys. Hoping to move things along, I confiscated his toys and tried again. ¡°Come on now, ROAArrr! Like a big boy.¡± Rambo sat and looked at me for a while before finally taking a deep breath and giving his mightiest roar. ¡°Guaaa!¡± So in the end I needed to think of a different plan... As I was trying to think of something else that could attract the king dragon, someone came banging on my door once again, but this time it sounded a lot more energetic than usual. KNOCK!* KNOCK!* KNOCK!* KNOCK!* KNOCK!* ¡°DRAGON!!!!! A DRAGON IS HERE!!!!!!¡± Screamed Emanuela from the other side of the door with panic in her voice. ¡°Nwela! Nwela! Nwelaaa!¡± Unaware of the gravity of the situation, Rambo did his usual joyful greeting while jumping up and down. Was it the king dragon again? If it was, we were in a bad situation. We had yet to be ready to fight it. Worried, I ran up to the door, opened it and quickly asked. ¡°Which colour???¡± This was an essential piece of information in knowing what we were dealing with. ¡°B-Blue greyish! It''s flying over the hospital right now!!!¡± Ufff* A common dragon... We were getting used to seeing flying creatures being attracted to our giant pile of rotting corpses we called ''compost pile'', so it had probably been attracted by it as well. We would usually shoot anything that came to eat our precious fertilizer, but since it was a dragon, we were better off leaving it alone. ¡°Let him eat whatever he wants from our compost pile, he should leave when he''s full.¡± I simply answered before turning back to what I was previously doing. ¡°No! It''s not interested in the compost pile at all! It''s acting strangely... Anyway come quick!¡± She quickly continued. Sigh* Well if it''s a common dragon, I should be able to take care of it. I ran back to my suit, put it on, grabbed my 338 and some pipe bombs and ran to the room they had seen it from. Robert and Camille were watching it through the windows and seemed worried by its behaviour. ¡°It''s like a crow circling over a carcass. He definitely knows we''re in here.¡± Said Robert with fear in his voice. ¡°You stay here and don''t come out. Emanuela, you take care of Rambo.¡± I said before giving her my baby boy. ¡°What are you going to do?¡± Asked Camille with a worried look. Since it was a common dragon, my necklace should work on it, so I judged that the best option was a direct confrontation. Maybe this way, we wouldn''t need to fight it. ¡°Just stay here and don''t do anything. Don''t even make a sound.¡± I said before running out of the hospital. I ran down to the parking lot and stood in the middle of it. ¡°HEYYYY YOU UP THERE! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?¡± I screamed at the flying creature to attract its attention. I was terrified, but I had grown more confident in dealing with common dragons since the cave incident. Noticing me, the dragon rapidly landed a few metres away and began to glare at me with its glowing red eyes. I prepared my sniper rifle and waited to see its behaviour. The first thing I noticed was its size. This common dragon couldn''t be more than a juvenile as it was barely taller than myself. This was reassuring since a bullet from my 338 should be able to kill it if things went bad. ¡°ROOOAARRRRR!!!!¡± The creature roared then slowly walked toward me. Now that was a roar... Not like Rambo''s cute squeaky noises. The way it acted and moved, didn''t make me feel threatened. Actually it felt more like this dragon was observing me. The creature eventually began to raise its head in a strange manner, almost as if it was trying to show me its chin but then did something unbelievable. ¡°Shhhh Sshhhh Biiiig boooy... RRRRrrrrrrrrrrOOooooooo Biig booooooy¡± The Merge – Chapter 15 (Alpha) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Busy week, sorry for the wait. ------------------- The young dragon I was currently doing a stand off with had just talked. Big boy? Wait... ¡°No way! It''s you?!¡± The beast seemed conflicted as to how to react but I was caught up in the same situation. Judging by its size and actions, there was no doubt in my mind that this fellow here was the dragon I had used to glide out of the king dragon''s cave back then. Why was he here? How had he found me? As far as I know, dragons don''t have an exceptional sense of smell or hearing, but their vision was no doubt superior to anything living around. Knowing this, there was no way he could have found me since I had stayed indoors most of the time. The way he was circling around the hospital seemed to indicate that he knew I was in there somewhere. Then a thought popped into my head. What if dragons could sense the red mist emitted by living organisms? They could also potentially be able to differentiate between individuals. Just like we humans could distinguish somebody''s voice between thousands of others. I myself, could notice some vague differences between creatures of different species when using the sensing ability. If dragons had developed this sense to a much higher level, then it would explain the situation I am currently in. Yesterday, I had spent the entire day expelling an insane amount of red mist from my experimentation with the dragon dust. With the amount of red mist I had leaked yesterday, it could explain how this dragon had noticed my presence here. The dragon was slowly getting closer but wasn''t acting aggressively, so I remained calm and tried not to provoke a fight. The beast nudged me with his nose in a playful manner but I had no idea what he wanted from me. Don''t tell me I had imprinted him as well? This was highly possible since I was possibly the first thing he had seen beside his meals. I had a vague memory of calling him big boy back then while trying to calm him down. My words were also probably the first words he had heard in his life, so him considering me as his parent wasn''t that far fetched. I said ''him'', but as far as I knew, this dragon could have been a female as well. If this dragon considered me as his parent, it could become problematic. What if he decided to stay around and follow me every-time I go out? It was highly possible that it would attack the others if I wasn''t with them since it had eaten humans before. I knew since I had seen human skulls in his hole back in the cave. This dragon was not one I could safely keep around like Rambo, so what was I supposed to do about it. Seeing the big dragon acting so gently to me, I dropped my gun and began to pat his head. ¡°Sigh* What am I going to do with you... What do you want? Sorry but I can''t take care of you. You need to go now, shoo shoo!¡± I then tried to shoo him away by waving my arms around but the creature seemed more confused than anything. I scratched my head in annoyance as I was very confused by the situation and didn''t know what to do. ¡°Biiiigg Boooyyy.. RRRRRrrrrrrrrr¡± Hearing him talk in such a deep voice was giving me shivers but it also gave me an idea. I took my cellphone out and started the sound recorder app. ¡°Give me one of those loud roars you did earlier. ROARRRRrrrr!¡± Hearing me roar, the dragon took a step back in surprise but soon followed with exactly what I was hoping for. ¡°ROAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr!¡± Finally having the recording of a perfect dragon roar, I pressed stop and patted ''Big Boy'' for his good work. ¡°Goooood boy! Father''s proud of you.¡± If he saw me as his parent, might as well take responsibility for it. I was still confused as to what to do with him but soon after, the big dragon took care of my dilemma by taking-off and leaving as fast as he had appeared. Seemed like the creature had just come to say his thanks, or simply for a brief visit. Looked like I needed to be more careful before leaking red mist out in the future. I had just faced a dragon, yet I was calm. I was surprised at myself for not making a big deal out of what had just happened. Was the red mist changing me? Or was it this world itself? Fact was, I could barely remember the person I used to be back on earth. With Big Boy no longer visible in the sky, I placed my 338 over my shoulder and calmly walked back to the hospital. ¡°Are you fucking insane????¡± Screamed Camille as soon as I entered. ¡°What were you thinking by just running out there and confronting a goddamned dragon??!¡± She then added while fighting back her tears. Seemed like she had gotten scared and worried about me. ¡°Sorry for worrying you, but it wasn''t much really... This dragon and I are acquaintances.¡± ¡°What do you mean acquaintance?¡± Asked Robert who had followed Camille. ¡°Remember when I told you that I had used a dragon to glide out of the king dragon''s cave? Well that was him... or her...¡± I nonchalantly answered. ¡°You mean it followed you here??? Won''t that become a problem to us?¡± Quickly asked Robert. ¡°Fawwwtarrr!¡± Screamed my little baby boy while bunny hopping toward me followed closely by Emanuela. ¡°Could you please avoid doing stuff that dangerous in the future please?¡± Said the pretty Spanish girl. ¡°You might not believe me but I had the situation under control. But like Robert suggested, we now have a problem... If this dragon thinks I''m his parent as well, he might be sticking around. I don''t know how he would react if he met you guys alone without me around.¡± They were obviously terrorized by these words but I had already thought of a way to protect them. ¡°I''ll have Alice make another necklace out of the other dragon eye I have. When you''re going out for patrol or something, always make sure to have someone in the group wearing it. The one who wears the necklace will have to act as a barrier between the dragon and the others. Keeping in mind how Marc ran away when Manu was in danger a while back, I don''t think we should select him as a potential wearer.¡± The 3 of them nodded in agreement before going back to what they were doing before. I took Rambo in my arms and went back to my room to get the other eye and brought it to Alice for her to make a simple necklace out of it. I asked her not to make it out of gold this time thought. ¡°Ha! By the way, do you have some gold rings? I need around 15 gold rings please, I also need a fake one small enough to fit Annie''s fingers. It need to be something that look like gold but isn''t.¡± I then asked before leaving. ¡°What do you want to do with so many goddamned rings?¡± Rudely asked the fat Alice with her usual angered attitude. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. ¡°I learned that gold could prevent us from being poisoned by the air outside.¡± I answered while trying to keep as much of the details to myself. ¡°Really?? Gahahagaha Now that''s a good news. Why the fake ring thought?¡± She then curiously asked. ¡°That''s a secret, and I''m counting on you to keep it that way. If you''re asked about it, just say that it is real gold.¡± I then said while giving her a wink. Alice frowned even more than usual but eventually gave in. ¡°Errmmm... Okay, but only because it''s you...¡± Alice then opened one of her jewellery boxes, pulled out a few rings and placed them inside a bag before handing them to me. ¡°There''s your rings. And for the fake crap. Ermm...¡± Alice who was currently in a wheelchair due to her foot incident, then began to roll around the room looking for something. Eventually, she pulled a small ring out of a pile of rubbish lying on her desk and threw it at me. ¡°This shit is made out of fake gold it looks a lot like gold but is in fact totally worthless.¡± She added with a look of disgust on her face. This lady was really hard to read and would never speak of her previous life. All I knew about her was her profession and that she had a very bad temper. After leaving her room, I went and called everybody for an improvised meeting at the main room. There, I explained to everybody that wearing as much gold as possible would protect them against red mist poisoning. Then, I placed the gold rings I had obtained from Alice on the table and had each of them pick one. Among the rings, only one was small enough to fit Annie''s fingers, so she naturally ended up with the one made out of fake gold. Seeing that I was giving gold to everyone but Annie, Alice kept staring at me with suspicious eyes but a simple smile from me seemed to dispel her worries. All that mattered to me, was to make sure Marc wore as many rings as possible. It would protect him against red mist poisoning as well as keeping him weak against it. As for Annie, since she could see the red mist like me, she definitely had a lot of potential, so I decided to take her as my disciple. After the meeting, I took her aside and had a short conversation with her. ¡°Hey Annie, remember that technique I tried to teach you before?¡± She kept silently staring at me with apparent curiosity in her eyes. Since she could see the red mist like me, I began to leak some red mist out of my body to show her an example. Instead of leaking out a powerful torrent like I usually do, I went easy and leaked only the small amount I used to be able to leak in the beginning. As I did so, a small amount of red mist began to gently perspire from the pores of my skin like fog over a lake in summer. ¡°See? Just like this. If you manage to do this, I''ll give you a reward.¡± As soon as I spoke about a reward, the young girl''s eyes began to glow with sudden motivation and expectation. Truth be told, I had no real surprise to give her and had said that just to get her motivated, but it now seemed like I needed to think of a gift. Problem was, I had no idea what to give her. Putting that aside for now, the rest of the group and I began to prepare the king dragon trap. We installed ''lil boy'' 800 metres away from the hospital in a an empty plot of land assuring us a good view of it from the hospital roof, and installed old man L¨¦opaul''s taser carpet around it. It was like a net made out of copper wires that covered a wide area around the giant bomb. Then we installed a barrel of sulphuric acid, a barrel of liquid chlorine and a few tanks containing toxic gasses concocted by Camille. This trap was the culmination of everything our combined modern brains could think of. It ended up being not only powerful, but also very vicious in its design. Once everything was installed, we began to place barrels of metallic bits and pieces found in a nearby garage around it, that would play the role of shrapnel. We only needed to install what would be used to lure the king dragon in, but decided to wait for tomorrow since the sun was already setting on the horizon. That night, I went to sleep completely empty of energy but felt excited by the idea of finally getting back at the beast that had dared capture me before. Rambo was snuggling and rubbing against me in a display of affection that was unusual. Today had been such a busy day that I had ended up asking Annie to babysit him for the day, but he obviously didn''t like to be separated from me. ¡°Did you miss me a lot?¡± I asked him. He looked at me unsure about the question, but finally answered. ¡°Fawwtar! Wambo luvv.¡± Well, the structure of this sentence was all wrong but it was still easy to understand. Touched by my baby''s words, I gave him a long hug and fell asleep with him in my arms. I woke up the next morning, had breakfast with Rambo and joined the others for the final preparations. The plan was to use powerful horn speakers and broadcast Big Boy''s roar in a loop with the hope of attracting the king dragon''s attention. I also wanted to use poisoned dragon meat as bait, but ended up scratching that idea out of fear of accidentally poisoning Big Boy or another dragon happening to pass by. ¡°So, where do we start today?¡± Asked Robert as we prepared to go out. ¡°L¨¦opaul prepared a bunch of batteries and loaded them in a trailer. So while I go to the sports arena with Rambo to scavenge some horn speakers, you will help the old man to haul and connect everything electricity related. We need to be ready for action before lunch time, alright?¡± I answered as if I was their leader, to which they all nodded with a surprisingly submissive attitude. I didn''t know since when, or how it had happened, but I was apparently their leader now for some reason. ¡°Robert, today you will be the one to wear the 2nd dragon necklace. I''m counting on you to protect the others if Big Boy comes to visit you. We haven''t seen him since yesterday but we can''t be too careful.¡± Robert seemed nervous at the idea of facing a dragon but he was the only one I could trust with the others'' protection. Alice was going to spend the day inside with Annie as usual but surprisingly, today Marc had decided to help us which was a good thing. I needed to prevent him from isolating himself too much from the group. I was expecting him to react violently to the fact that I was giving them orders as if I was their leader, but it seemed that everything would be alright as long as I avoided to directly order him around. We exited the hospital and each went to do our assigned tasks. Rambo and I went east, toward the arena which was only 500 metres away, while the others went to get the trailer loaded with fully charged batteries. The Merge – Chapter 15 (Alpha) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Wordpress Version: Here ------------------- It took Rambo and I only a few minutes to reach the baseball field next to the arena. Seemingly happy to be out alone with me, Rambo began to joyfully climb the spectator benches and was bunny hopping all over the place. As for me, I was looking up in the air, trying to figure out a way to get to the speakers while keeping an eye on Rambo. These horn speakers were out of reach since they were fixed at the top of giant wooden poles similar to those used for street lights. Well, it wasn''t like there were any cops around to accuse me of vandalism anymore. With that in mind, I grabbed my machete and began to expel red mist while glaring at the thick wooden pole. I squeezed the handle of my machete and tightened my muscles as hard as I could before launching an explosive slash at my target. The result surprised even me. I was expecting to be able to bring it down with a single hit but my machete ended up snapping in half mid-way through the pole. Seemed like I had become too strong to use my full strength on a normal metal tool. Would I end up needing a massive sword like ''Guts'' from the manga Berserk? My body had become something completely different from anything you could find on earth. Even without using red mist, I was now strong enough to effortlessly bend a 5 cm thick iron bar. It was very hard to say how powerful I was when using red mist. I had tried to find out recently, but everything I tried using to measure my strength had ended up being destroyed in the process. Seeing me glare at the wooden pole, Rambo reacted by growling and angrily biting at it. Observing the little fellow chomping pieces of wood as if it was Styrofoam made me laugh at how stupid I was. Following Rambo''s example, I tightened my fist and threw a powerful punch at the pole which made it snap in half and sent pieces of wood fly everywhere. In a loud thud, the pole then fell to the ground, giving me easy access to the speakers. Seeing the defeated wooden pole, Rambo looked at me with excitement in his eyes while bobbing his head up and down. To him, this pole was probably an enemy that we had both defeated by fighting together. I congratulated him by patting him on the head then went on with my task. I didn''t waste time unscrewing the speakers, but simply ripped them off the pole with brute strength. When you have overwhelming strength, why not use it? Now with 3 powerful speakers in hands, I began the short trek to where we had positioned the trap. When Rambo and I arrived, the others had already brought the trailer loaded with the batteries, and were in the process of connecting everything. With the help of L¨¦opaul, I installed the speakers and linked everything to a waterproof radio. The night before, I had created a sound file of Big Boy''s roar that should normally play on repeat for as long as we wanted. A few hours later, the trap was done and ready for action. I pressed play on the radio, turned the volume up as much as I could then we all took a ride back to the hospital. ¡°ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR!¡± We climbed on top of the hospital roof and patiently sat on some camping chairs placed in an area of the roof offering a perfect view of the trap. ¡°ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR!¡± Hearing a powerful dragon roar play on repeat gave a truly unnerving feeling and I could sense the others'' nervousness. As for Rambo, hearing this made him decide to practice his own roar. ¡°Guaaa! Guaaa! Guaaa!¡± Since the king dragon could arrive at any moment, I decided to put the batteries into the remote that would be used to trigger the two stages of the trap. 5 hours later... ¡°ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR! ... ... ... ... ... ROAAARRRRRrrR!¡± There was still no sign of the king dragon. Rambo had fallen asleep out of boredom and almost everybody else was gone as well. Right now, it was only me and Emanuela who now seemed to be feeling well enough to walk around. ¡°Do you really think it''ll work? I mean... It''s been 5 hours already.¡± Asked the beautiful Spanish woman. ¡°Ummmm I think it will... I can''t blame the others for losing faith. If I wasn''t a hunter myself, I would probably be losing hope as well, but I know for a fact that hunting is a sport that necessitates a lot of patience. I won''t give up that easily.¡± I answered with a lot of determination in my voice while patting the sleeping dragon on my laps. Some time later, the sun was already beginning to set and even Emanuela was gone. Seemed like this hunt would have to be halted for the night and resumed tomorrow. To be honest, I had already anticipated the possibility of this hunt being dragged on for a few days. I would need to go stop the recording and call it off for the day. As I was about to get up from my chair, Rambo suddenly stood up and began to growl. I had never seen him act that way so I immediately suspected the king dragon to be the reason for it. I looked up to the sky and soon enough, spotted a familiar silhouette in the distance heading toward us. This was the moment I had waited for. Excited, I leaned my sniper rifle against the railing and grabbed the remote controlling the bomb''s detonator. ¡°GRRRRRrrrrrrrrr Bad dwagonn! Badd dwagonn!¡± These were the words I would usually say when Rambo did something bad. Seemed like he was understanding their meanings and not mindlessly repeating them like some parrots. The giant monstrosity flew overhead a few times and seemed perplex to hear a dragon without being able to see it. Eventually, curiosity took over and the creepy creature decided to land right next to the bomb. It began to sniff around and even bent down to take a closer look at the speakers, where the dragon''s voice came from. I could not have hoped for a better scenario as the creature had landed straight into the trap. I activated the remote and pressed the first button for phase one. As I did so, the teaser carpet activated, paralyzing the creature which fell to the ground on its side. At the same time, a small explosion busted open the tanks containing Camille''s deadly gases. Since the king dragon was paralyzed, he could do nothing but breathe in these toxic cocktails. Of course, the teaser carpet couldn''t hold the creature down for too long as it drained up a lot of electricity and eventually began to lose power. When that happened, the king dragon eventually began to move again after having been paralyzed for 5 to 6 seconds. As soon as I saw it try to get back up, I pressed the phase two button. Phase two was also called ''Mother Of All Bombs'' aka MOAB by the others. Not only was ''lil boy'' powerful enough to make an apartment building disappear, but it was also rigged with deadly shrapnel, liquid chlorine and sulphuric acid. When I pressed the button, BOOOOM!! The resulting explosion was indescribable. Unlike these explosion in movies which produce a lot of fire and seem to go in slow motion, this explosion had been brutal and instantaneous. It was a case of, you see it, now you can''t. A giant shock-wave travelling so fast that you could barely see it then travelled through the entire town and instantly shattered every window in the neighbourhood. The sound was the next thing that hit me. So loud that even Rambo ducked and placed his wings over his head. Then, it all went silent. All you could hear were the debris raining from the sky hitting the ground and buildings all around. When the biggest debris finally stopped falling from the sky, I rapidly stood up and looked at the result through my rifle scope. There was a giant smoke cloud forming a miniature atomic mushroom and covering the entire area. In the beginning, there was no movement but suddenly, a torrent of flames began to emerge from the smoke, the king dragon''s tail also seemed to be madly thrashing around. This thing was even worse than a battleship. Could it have really survived this trap? We couldn''t do anything more than this at this point and if it failed, we would be out of ideas. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. A few more seconds later, the giant creature eventually emerged from the smoke, finally allowing me to take a good look at it. Seemed like the trap had been successful after all. The giant monster had deep wounds on its legs and its wings had been shredded. This thing was not going to leave here through the air. The king dragon fell on the ground but kept struggling to move, destroying a few buildings and coughing blood in the process. While I was observing the scene with wet palms and dry mouth, the others came running up to me after having heard the huge explosion. ¡°Did we get it?¡± Inquired Marc who seemed surprisingly enthusiastic about all this all of a sudden. ¡°Yea, it''s still alive but it won''t survive its wounds.¡± I answered while trying to regain my composure. Even today, this giant creature out there continued to terrify me. Its appearance on its own was enough to send chills down my spine. ¡°I am curious to see what this thing looks like.¡± then added Robert. ¡°Yea I can''t wait to stock up on dragon meat. But nobody approach this thing before I confirm its death.¡± I worryingly added. I had all these horror scenarios of me getting close to it then seeing it get back to life like magic. I had no idea if dragons had the habit of playing possum, but I knew to never underestimate them since they were incredibly smart. An hour later, the sun was down and everything was already shrouded into darkness. We couldn''t see anything but we could clearly hear the beast growling in pain. It lasted for hours then everything went silent. I waited until sunrise before making my move and took my pick-up truck loaded with empty plastic barrels and headed toward the carcass. I parked a safe distance away and observed Rambo''s reaction. If he didn''t approach it, I felt like it would be better if I didn''t either. But as soon as Rambo got out of the car, he ran up to the body, jumped on its head and stared into one of its eyes. I was curiously observing him, unable to understand his strange behaviour. ¡°Rambo?..... Rambo!!?¡± No responses. Rambo simply ignored me and kept staring into its eye as if he was doing something that couldn''t be interrupted. Still curious, I walked up to him and observed closely. From up close, I could see a faint stream of red mist which was travelling from the giant king dragon''s eye, to Rambo''s little red eyes. Was he absorbing his strength or something? Interested by this phenomena, I kept observing but eventually got bored of it and began my work. I pulled out my gas powered concrete saw and made a cut to its carotid artery in its neck. Then, I placed a barrel under the wound to collect as much blood as possible. I intended to used everything and not waste anything on this precious catch. I then made another incision to its belly, grabbed its giant heart with both arms and began to manually make it pump blood which was being drained through the wound on its neck. That way, I rapidly collected 6 barrels of blood which I then loaded in the back of my truck before beginning to butcher the meat. As I was cutting pieces of meat and stuffing them into barrels, Rambo was still staring into the creature eye which gave me an uncomfortable feeling. As I was considering forceful breaking his link or whatever this was, Rambo then shook his head and stepped down from the beast''s head. ¡°Are you alright?¡± I asked him while crouching to his height. ¡°Tyrian nok darum tinar kul ak diran.¡± Then clearly spoke Rambo. ¡°The hell? What language was that?¡± I was stomped. Had Rambo somehow downloaded information from the king dragon or something? I was puzzled, worried and overwhelmed by how everything in this world seemed implausibly magical. Maybe because he could sense my worries, Rambo then spoke with words I could understand. ¡°Rambo love fawter. Fawter strong.¡± He then innocently tilted his head and stared at me. Seeing the love in his eyes made my heart melt. ¡°Daddy love you too!!¡± I said while holding him tightly into my arms. Was this foreign language dragon tongue or something else? I felt like learning it would allow me to speak with Rambo about the mysteries of this world. Or maybe it would be simpler for me to wait for him to learn English. ¡°Is it dead? Can we safely come now?¡± Asked Robert through the radio. ¡°Yes it''s safe now.¡± I shortly answered before getting back to what I was previously doing. I pulled my knife out and extracted the beast''s eye, then turned its head around to get the second eye but noticed that it had been damaged by the explosion. Seemed like I could only get one eye out of this. Between the eye of a common dragon and the eye of a dragon eating monster, it was obvious which one was superior to the other. My necklace was meant to intimidate and scare away other dragons, so the eye of their natural predator was obviously what I needed. This new eye was yellow instead of red and was a bit bigger, but I was certain that Alice would be able to make it fit on my necklace. I stuffed the new eye inside my backpack and continued with the butchering while Rambo was busy eating as much of the beast''s liver as he could. Livers were Rambo''s favourite pieces of meat. A few minutes later, the others finally arrived and their expressions as they stepped out of their truck was priceless. Even if the creature was dead, they seemed afraid of coming any closer. They began to take pictures in front of it but only Robert came close enough to touch it. ¡°What the hell is that thing? I thought you said it was a dragon but... No matter how I look at it, this thing doesn''t look like one at all.¡± Said Robert with a puzzled look on his face. ¡°I know what you mean, but except for its head, its entire body is that of a dragon. It can also spit fire which should be enough to confirm it as a dragon...¡± ¡°RRRRRoooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!¡± A loud roar suddenly broke our conversation and made us look to the sky. What we saw left our jaws hanging in disbelief. Around 6 or 7 young dragons were flying in circles overhead and big boy was most likely among them as well. ¡°Everybody go back to the hospital NOW!¡± The guys quickly scrambled around and rapidly drove off in a cloud of dust, leaving me and Rambo to deal with whatever was going on. Since big boy seemed to be with them, I doubted that they were here to attack me, but I still decided to put Rambo in the truck as precaution. I quickly loaded the barrels of meat I had butchered in the back of my vehicle and prepared to leave when one of the dragons suddenly decided to land behind me. ¡°Shhhhhh Shhhhhh Biggg Boyyyyy¡± Ufff confirming that it was indeed big boy reassured me but then, the remaining dragons did the same, they landed on the king dragon''s carcass and all stared at me. They looked like a bunch of vultures ready to devour a prey. Seeing so many dragons'' eyes glaring at me almost made me faint out of fear, but as the seconds went by without sign of them doing anything, I eventually calmed down. What were they doing, why weren''t they eating? Then big boy walked up to the carcass, ripped the beast''s heart and brought it to me. The 6 dragons were staring and observing my every move which made me feel very unconformable. Seeing the giant piece of bloody flesh in front of me, made me remember something that had happened with Rambo a while back. Curious to see if it was the same thing, I placed a hand on the heart and pretended to take a few bites out of it. As soon as I did that, the 6 dragons dug their head inside the carcass and began to devour it as fast as they could like a group of piranhas. This was the same thing Rambo had done when catching a snake. Accepting me as the alpha, he was waiting for me to eat my part of a prey first before eating his share. By the looks of it, I was now the leader of a pack of juvenile dragons. Where were they even coming from? Were they the dragons from the king dragon''s cave that big boy had went and freed? Seeing 6 dragons rapidly dismember the giant corpse was unsettling, so I jumped back into my vehicle where Rambo had been curiously observing the scene from and drove away toward the hospital. I wanted this creature''s bones, so hopefully they wouldn''t eat or scatter them. But for now, this carcass was theirs and I didn''t intend to get between dragons and their meal. I was nervous while thinking about what had just happened and prayed for this dragon situation not to get out of hand. The Merge – Chapter 16 (Scouting) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- It had already been a month since we defeated the king dragon and in such a short period of time, so many things had changed. In only 30 short days, our town had became a dragon lair inhabited by tens of them. There was not a moment you could watch the sky without seeing one of them fly overhead. Our first reactions to this had been quite chaotic and overly dramatic but soon, we realized that these dragons had no intention of harming us. I was also worried for Rambo but some unbelievable events eventually convinced me otherwise. After witnessing it a few times for myself, it seemed that Rambo was able to order these other dragons around as he pleased. During these last weeks, even though the other dragons had grown considerably, Rambo''s size had remained the same. Rambo was still the size he was when coming out of his egg while the other dragons had almost doubled in size. Also, every-time a dragon decided to approach Rambo and I, Rambo would never show fear or aggression toward them. Instead, he would usually stare at them while remaining calm and composed. By the look of it, they seemed to treat him as being ranked higher in the hierarchy than themselves. It seemed, I was the number 1 and Rambo number 2. I was unsure on exactly how many dragons were living in town and didn''t really care about it. All that mattered was that they had never behaved aggressively toward any of us. Even if it was very unsettling, since these dragons had begun to coexist with us, we hadn''t seen any monsters around. Our town was now a dragon land devoid of any other type of wildlife. By the look of it, if a dragon decided to live somewhere, the other creatures would instinctively leave the area. In the first week after the king dragon''s death, we had spotted a tiger striped t-rex that Robert then identified as being the one who had injured Emanuela. Not wanting such a creature to roam near our town, we took our armoured vehicles and gave chase, but before we could inflict any serious injury to the beast, dragons began to appear from everywhere and swarmed the giant t-rex creature. The scene ended up being very gruesome and brutal. As you could imagine, seeing tens of small dragons clinging to the giant beast and ripping pieces of its body until it bled to death had been a rare spectacle. This time though, they began to eat it before giving me the first piece like they would usually do. I hadn''t seen this as anything worth making a fuss about, but seeing this, Rambo jumped out of the truck and began to growl at them. As I was panicking and rushing to grab my baby dragon, something remarkable happened. One of the dragons who had locked eyes with Rambo began to make some yapping sound which caught the attention of all the other dragons feasting on the giant carcass. At this moment, I thought we were about to die, but Rambo would keep staring intensely at the other dragons without making a sound. Eventually, one of them brought me a big piece of meat and repeated the ''wait for the alpha to eat first'' ritual. It was only after seeing the other dragons pay proper respect to me that Rambo finally decided to stop glaring at them. I knew why Rambo had done this. It was important to always enforce my position in the hierarchy but as you could expect, playing that game with dragons was the most terrifying thing in the world. Luckily, I apparently had a fearless son capable of helping me do that. How could such a small dragon give orders to these bigger dragons belonging to different species? After asking him, it seemed that even Rambo wasn''t sure why they obeyed him. After these events, Rambo had kept interacting with them each time we were outside or on the rooftop. To me, it felt as if Rambo was the alpha and not me. During this last month, I had also finished upgrading my equipment. My dragon skin riot suit had performed flawlessly so far, but this was not the only thing I had upgraded. I was now the proud owner of a king dragon necklace that the fat Alice took a week to complete. It was still the same red gold necklace as before but now had the yellow king dragon''s eye embedded into it. The only thing left to upgrade was a better blade. I needed a sword of some sort for close combat but I knew that making it out of steel was pointless. With that in mind, I began to experiment with red gold. From what Alice had said, gold was incredibly strong but was still weaker than diamond. Doping my body with red mist and trying to bend a link of my chain proved that I was strong enough to bend it, so red gold wasn''t strong enough after all. Since I couldn''t make a sword out of diamonds, I decided to go for something even better. Alice had mentioned before that dragon bones had a black core that was even tougher than diamond. Curious to experiment with such an amazing material, I grabbed one of the king dragon''s rib and threw it into a bonfire. What I wanted was the core, but the core was covered with the usual white bony type of material, so burning them should theoretically burn the white stuff and only leave behind the black core I was after. A few hours later as I had expected, the black core had been completely unaffected by the flames but all the white stuff had been turned to ash. Removing the bone around the core manually would have taken a lot of time and effort, so simply burning it had been the best idea after all. Now with a surprisingly light, elongated and slightly curved piece of black core, I could totally visualize the shape of a katana blade. Of course it would need a lot of work to turn this thing into a blade worthy of the name, but this was definitely a perfect raw material. For weeks, I kept grinding away at this damned piece of black shit. Making a blade out of this material had ended up being much more challenging than expected as even a grinder which could eat away at steel as if it was cardboard could barely put a scratch on it. I was perplexed but then began to use the very expensive diamond grinding disks found at the stores. (Which were now free...) Only then, did I begin to see some progress. I was able to grind 1 millimetre of it per hour, but at least now I could see some progress. I eventually ended up collecting the resulting ''core dust'' and began to use it as abrasive for the rest of the grinding process which seemed to accelerate things up quite a bit. Since I was spending hours everyday grinding away at my blade, the others (Marc) had begun to complain that I wasn''t doing my share around, since they were all very busy building the mobile headquarters outside, in front of my garage door. To that, I told him that if he wanted to be the one protecting them during the travel, that I was willing to switch places with him. To that, he threw an angry look but then never mentioned it again. The mobile head quarter was built like a giant sleigh. It was made out of heavy steel pontoons, welded together and shaped like a sleigh so it could be dragged/pushed around, but was also meant to float. Using this as a base, we would then build a two storey building on top of it and use a bunch of heavy duty winches at the front so we could move it around on its own. The goal was to build a road with heavy machinery and use bulldozers to drag the building along. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Anyway, going back to the sword. In the end, it took me 3 weeks to complete but the end result was a thing of beauty. I had ended up polishing the blade for hours, and had left an unpolished area near the cutting edge to make it look like the usual hamon of a katana. What I was left with was a beautiful black blade that seemed to be made out of glass, or black obsidian. The blade weighed almost nothing and its incredibly sharp edge should never become dull since the material it was made of was virtually indestructible. I had tried to break another piece of core while making this blade, but had failed at it. Even putting it under a 5 ton press had failed to damage it, so I knew I could use my full strength with this one without worries. Of course, grinding my blade had not been the only thing I had done during all this time. Only four days after challenging Annie to master the expulsion technique, the little girl had come to my place with a giant grin on her face. Guessing what it was about, I asked her to show me before I gave her her reward. She sat on the ground and closed her eyes as if she was about to meditate, then a soft current of red mist began to gently leak from the pores of her skin. She had succeeded, as expected of the one I had chosen to be my disciple. Proud of her, I patted her head while telling her how proud I was but jumped back in fear when she opened her eyes. Her eyes were glowing red like those of a dragon. Then remembering that you couldn''t see red mist through a mirror, I anxiously asked her. ¡°Do my eyes glow red when I use red mist?¡± The response was an instantaneous nod. No wonder she had been scared of me in the beginning. If I saw a guy popping out of nowhere with glowing red eyes, I would have been scared shit-less as well. Finally understanding a lot of things, I was caught up in my thoughts, recalling past events and Annie''s past reactions to certain things. Feeling Annie tugging on my clothes brought my attention back to her only to be met by the glaring eyes of a young girl expecting her reward. Giggling a bit, I went to one of my drawers and pulled out what I had prepared beforehand. Her reward was a gold ring, but not any kind of gold ring. This one was made out of red gold similar to my necklace. My experiments on dragon blood had given me some interesting results, and this red gold ring was part of it. I leaned closer to her as she seemed perplexed to get another ring and said with a smile. ¡°When you get back to earth, this ring will be worth a fortune. You will be a very rich girl.¡± The smile on her face almost blinded me with cuteness. Making this ring had cost me an entire barrel of dragon blood, so it was indeed valuable. It all began with the dragon dust experiments. I had all this dragon dust, and realized that if I ever ran out of red mist during a battle, that I could use dragon dust to refuel myself, a bit like those mana potions in games. More precisely, I was predicting dragon dust to come in handy after we made it back to earth, where there was no red mist in the air. Without a way to replenish the red mist in my body, I would eventually lose my powers. The problem was that having it in powder form was inconvenient. Because of that, I began to press the powder into pills with a machine found at a nearby drug dealer''s house. I pressed hundreds of 500 mg pills but soon realized that not only were these pills annoyingly big to swallow, but also that I needed 4 or more of these pills to completely refill my body with red mist. As I grew stronger, the necessary amount would keep going up as well. Seeing this as inefficient, I began some experiments to create a concentrated version of dragon dust. I needed to find a way to refine dragon dust even more than it currently was. This idea eventually led me to red gold. The amount of red mist gold could contain was simply mind boggling. My thoughts were like this; since I could absorb red mist though red meat, this meant that red mist could be absorbed through the digestive system and not only through the respiratory system. With that in mind, I ground the equivalent of 3 grains of salt of red gold from my necklace and placed the small red gold particles on a glass plate. Next, I dropped a drop of acid on it to recreate what would happen in the stomach but got an unexpected result. A giant cloud of red mist burst out from the gold, filling my garage in a dense red fog so thick, you could barely see your hands in front of your face. I quickly opened my garage door to let the mist out but ended up summoning the surrounding dragons in the process. The creatures were all standing in front of the door, staring at me with curiosity in their eyes when Rambo rose from his nap and without a word, ¡°stared them away¡±. Rambo seemed very good at ordering them around. I patted Rambo on the head and went back to what I was doing. Red gold was definitely the answer to obtain a huge amount of red mist in a very condensed form. The only problem was that it seemed to be a bit too condensed. Seemed like I would need to get a heck of a lot stronger before being able to stomach a red gold pill. I already had tons of regular dragon pills, so I placed a gold ring in each barrel of dragon blood to absorb all the red mist it contained. That way, I wasn''t going to waste anything by letting the blood spoil. Why bother with 6 huge barrels full of blood when you can contain the same amount of red mist in 6 small gold rings. One of the rings ended up being Annie''s reward, the other ground into dust and made into thousands of pills. Each pills contained the equivalent of 1 grain of salt worth of gold but were already worth tens of regular pills when it came to red mist content. To make sure not to mix the two kind of pills, I made the gold pills white, while the regular pills were brownish red. The gold pills were 99,9% powdered sugar with a tiny speck of red gold pressed into them. Back when I gave her reward to Annie, I had also asked her if she wanted to become my disciple. I told her that I could teach her how to become as strong as me. I was expecting her to jump at the opportunity but she didn''t. She wasn''t a young boy after all. To convince her I had to play on her feelings, so after seeing her hesitate for a while, I added that she could protect the others instead of being the one needing to be protected. Hearing these words, the young girl had eventually accepted my offer. I then told her to come later that day for her first training. She eventually left with Camille who had came looking for her. After all, Annie was always glued to her, so each time she lost sight of her, Camille would go on panic mode and search everywhere for the young girl. From then on, Annie kept coming to my place every evening to take some dragon pills and train her expulsion technique while I was doing the same but also training my telekinetic power as well. The Merge – Chapter 16 (Scouting) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Wordpress Version: Here ------------------- In the beginning, Annie could barely tolerate 5mg of dragon dust, but after a month of regular training, she was already able to tolerate 250 mg. As for me, I was now capable of tolerating over 3500 mg which was almost double what I could deal with before the dragon dust training. I was now also capable of using the telekinetic power to some extent. It was extremely difficult and strenuous, but if I concentrated hard enough, I could lift 50lbs up in the air as long as I was close enough to the object. The further away I was from my target, the weaker this ability became. Now to return to the present day, I was currently eating breakfast with Rambo while trying to chase away the nervousness of what was to happen later. Today for breakfast, dragon sausage, fried potatoes with some fresh plums. Rambo was eating his usual lump of blue meat next to me. Plums and potatoes you ask? Yes! Finally, our garden had begun to produce some vegetables and even some of the fruit trees in town had ended up producing some fruit. Seemed like they only needed the time to adapt to their new environment. Sadly though, it seemed like we wouldn''t get to use our giant pile of compost since we were planning to leave the area in only a few months. Just in case, we would need to carry some bags of fertilizer with us and create a new garden outside the red mist vortex we would live in. After all, we didn''t know how long it would take for a vortex to be ready to teleport us. The reason for my nervousness was because today would be my first time flying a plane. The plan was to take aerial pictures from the plane and note the locations of the denser vortexes around to help us select which one would be the easiest to move to. I was also considering the possibility of throwing a lot of red gold into a bath of acid and release a large amount of red mist into the air to accelerate the vortex''s growth once there. Fact remained that I needed to pilot a small plane over these foreign and dangerous lands. The chances for catastrophe were so high that I had prepared the entire month for it. I had a new watertight backpack loaded with tons of items I now knew were necessary. I had learned what was needed to survive in the jungle the hard way after my kidnapping misadventure. I had tried to keep it as light as possible but my bag was now twice as heavy as before due to my careful preparations. Noticing that I had barely touched my breakfast, Rambo inquired. ¡°Father not hungwy?¡± He asked with an oblivious expression. ¡°Ha! No, I''m just lost in thought. Are you already finished eating?¡± After the memory transfer thingy he had done with the king dragon, I was expecting him to suddenly speak perfectly, but it seemed that the transfer hadn''t been totally successful due to the dragon having been dead for a while beforehand. This sadly meant that Rambo had only received incomplete pieces of information instead of everything the creature knew. He had nonetheless progressed drastically since then. ¡°Rambo full.¡± He simply answered while jumping off the table and going back to his toys. Well, at least one of us wasn''t nervous. I was first planning to fly alone and leave him behind where it''s safe, but since Rambo still hadn''t learned how to fly, I thought that seeing the view from the sky would motivate him a bit. I had spent the last days preparing a road to be used as runway. I ended up selecting the road in front of the hospital which was protected inside the fenced area, had four lanes plus parking areas which made it 6 lanes wide, and was as straight as Hugh Hefner. Then I spent a few days taking down telephone and electric posts, fire hydrants and everything else that I could potentially hit during the landing. I was 99% certain to be able to take-off and fly safely, but the landing was the iffy part that gave me knots in the stomach. We had also brought the two small planes and placed them in the temporary hangar built alongside the runway, reattached their wings and did a full mechanical checkup. Luckily, we had Marc who even though unfamiliar with planes, was still a mechanic and could manage his way around them well enough. With the two planes in perfect working order and the runway ready, now was the day for my first experience as a pilot. From what the booklet found inside the plane said, these planes could cover as far as 1200 miles at 10k on one tank of fuel. This meant that I could safely travel 500 miles before having to head back home. I finished my breakfast, tied my katana and sniper rifle to my giant backpack, put my armour suit on and walked out with Rambo in tow. I crossed the parking area, then the small patch of long grass before reaching the runway. At the end of the road was one of the planes, in position and ready for take-off. I could see the others buzzing around it in a frantic run to complete everything. I walked up to them and saw what they were doing. They were installing miniature cameras under the fuselage in hope of getting some good footage of our surroundings. ¡°Hey! Captain Nate! Feeling nervous?¡± Asked Robert after noticing me. He was obviously trying to reassure me with his good mood but I had no intention of letting them see how nervous I really was. ¡°Nervous? Not really... Curiosity is what making me excited.¡± I answered in a confident voice which Robert obviously saw right through. ¡°Just don''t overdo it okay? Remember that we need you here.¡± He added in a caring tone. As we spoke, Camille had run up to me and started to inspect my equipment, take my pulse and ask me how I felt. After some awkward minutes, she eventually stopped and backed away. ¡°You better be careful alright?¡± She awkwardly said while avoiding eye contact. ¡°Don''t worry. Like I said, piloting these... Piece of cake.¡± I confidently walked up to the plane, placed my bag on the passenger seat, placed Rambo on top of it and turned around for an official goodbye. As I turned around to salute the others, Emanuela ran up to me and forcefully kissed me on the lips. ¡°Lucky charm! That way I know you''ll come back safely.¡± She gave me a wink and giggled before mischievously running back to her previous position. I was troubled, this kiss had certainly been very enjoyable, but I didn''t dare look at Marc or Camille, afraid to see their reactions. ¡°Alright, I''m off.¡± I quickly said before jumping in the plane and starting the engine before things got more awkward. Well this was the plan but after fiddling around the cockpit for a while, I eventually noticed there was no ignition key. These low budget planes didn''t have electric starters and needed to be started manually. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Realizing my mistake, I awkwardly looked out the window at the group of people who were laughing their asses off. Well excepted Marc who was visibly calling me a cretin judged by the movement of his lips and his body language. Eventually, Robert moved to the front of the plane and took a hold of the propeller with an annoying grin on his face. I pulled the choke lever and gave a bit of gas, waiting for Robert to give it a go. The surgeon in his forties jumped in the air and used all of his weight to forcefully make the propeller turn. The engine burped a few time but I successfully managed to maintain it alive by playing with the choke and the gas. Starting this thing was the same as starting a lawnmower or an old ski-doo. The engine eventually began to roar in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes and only needed to be warmed up a bit before take-off. ¡°Fly! Fly! Father fly!¡± Kept repeating the little overly excited lizard. ¡°I''ll show you how I fly. Then you will have to learn how to fly, like it or not. What would the other dragons think if your father who''s wingless can fly and you can''t?¡± I mockingly said, trying to play on his pride to motivate him to learn. ¡°Guaaa! Rambo fly too!!!¡± Bingo! He was still a kid after all. Once the engine was warm enough and seemed to run smoothly, I waved goodbye at the others and pushed the gas lever to the max. The plane roared and vibrated as it slowly began to gather speed on the hard surface. We roared our way down the road and mid-way through the total length of the runway, I began to gently pull on the stick while correcting my trajectory with the rudder pedals. Then, as if I had done this my entire life, the plane gently raised off the ground and nicely began to climb up and gain some altitude. ¡°Guuuuuuaaaaa!!!¡± Rambo had calmed down and was staring out the windows in awe. As we gained altitude, my legs finally stopped shaking and my breath returned to normal. Once in the air, I knew I could manage. All these years as an adept plane simulator player were paying off big time. I grabbed the compass, and aimed north. I was afraid of getting lost if I travelled aimlessly so the plan was to go straight north for 500 miles and come back. Next flight would be east, west, and south. Our goal was not only to find a suitable red mist vortex, but also to learn more about this world. The knowledge of humans living in this world had since then been one of everybody''s favourite subjects of discussion. We would ask each others existentialist questions like: Since their blood is of a different colour, can they still be called humans. Then another one would say: if we can crossbreed, then we are of the same species. Then if I remember correctly, the answer to that had been something along the lines of: Horses and donkeys can crossbreed, lions and tigers can crossbreed, modern humans and neanderthals could crossbreed, your point is wrong. To be honest I was puzzled myself by that idea. They looked human, but we knew nothing of them. Maybe they were murderous cannibals with absolutely no emotions, we couldn''t tell for sure until we met them. Some had argued that it was probably a bad idea to interact with them, giving examples of what had happened back on earth in the past. The Europeans coming to the Americas and accidentally and/or purposely decimating their populations with foreign sicknesses and viruses. But in the end, if it was only looking from the sky, it shouldn''t be a problem. As the town slowly became smaller and smaller, something else grew bigger. Tens of flying creature were trying to catch up to us and were quickly gaining terrain. As scary as it would have been a while back, I was instead calm and collected. I had totally anticipated this to happen. These dragons had been following me everywhere since they had come to town after all. I apparently had my own dragon bodyguard squad. The young dragons who were now as big as the plane I was in, instinctively placed themselves in formation like migratory birds. I took the time to count them and the total was 42. I repeat, 42 dragons were flying in formation through the sky with me, in a small yellow plane at the front acting as the leader. I couldn''t help but show a giant grin on my face. I quickly took a few pictures with my cellphone before turning my concentration back to the landscape below. After closely inspecting the ground for a few minutes, something immediately seemed quite obvious. There were no signs of recent circles in sight. I could occasionally see the mark of an old teleportation circle but the local vegetation had usually taken over and made the circle barely noticeable. As for the red mist vortexes, there were quite a few of them, but none at the level of the one I had visited a while back. Up in the air, I was covering a lot of ground very fast, and I knew that I was already too far to even consider moving the mobile shelter up there. At this point, the flight had become purely for information gathering purposes. Me and my crew flew for a while but eventually, the fuel gauge neared the half empty level, prompting me to turn around and start heading back home. During the entire flight, all I saw were forests, small mountains, rivers, lakes, ravines and some swamp lands. Very disappointed, I hadn''t seen any sign of anything worth investigating. No trace of human activity, no smoke, no nothing. During the entire trip back, I was plagued by swarms of butterflies in my stomach. A while later, the town appeared in the horizon, making the butterflies in my stomach go ape-shit and almost making me puke. Landing was the most dangerous part, the part I was the most nervous about. I circled around the town and approached parallel to the runway. Then, I did a few practices by making low pass over the runway at low altitude. After building up enough courage, I finally approached for the real deal. With sweat dripping down my forehead and my nose, I swallowed my saliva nervously and white knuckled the plane in position. I lowered the plane, lower and lower. Making my movements as gentle as possible, trying not to impact with the ground but graze it instead. The plane approached at the perfect speed, at the perfect altitude and perfectly aligned with the road, got closer and closer before gently touching ground. The landing had been so soft that I still thought that I was in the air but as the plane kept loosing speed, it became obvious that we were back safely on the ground. Even a veteran pilot wouldn''t have landed this puppy better than me. I gave a bit of gas and went up the road toward the hangars. As I approached, I saw the others rushing out of the hospital and running toward me. Robert and Marc had seemingly remained next to the runway and waited for me to come back. Sadly for them, north was apparently not the place to go. All there was up there was endless wilderness. Maybe tomorrow, maybe west was the answer. The Merge – Chapter 17 (Castaway) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Knock* Knock* Knock* ¡°Nate? You will need to come out of your room eventually. We know you miss Rambo but you can''t stay locked up in your room like that, you''ll get sick.¡± Said Camille''s gentle voice from the other side of my door. I could barely hear her voice over the heavy metal music being played through my computer. I was lying on my couch in my underwear, sipping on a bottle of German schnapps. Ignoring the people knocking at my door, I brought the bottle up to my mouth for one more sip, but realized that it was already empty. Annoyed, I threw it on a pile of similar empty bottles on the ground then tried to get up to fetch a new one. After struggling for a while, I finally managed to stand up and staggered around the room. Being too drunk to stand straight, I eventually collapsed and fell face first on the ground. I was drunk out of my mind, unable to think clearly, so why couldn''t I forget Rambo? He who had abandoned me a few days ago. Having started two weeks ago, something really weird had begun to happen with the dragons. It all began after encountering a few flocks of migrating dragons flying across the sky, heading north. There were hundreds of unknown dragons constantly flying overhead, some of which ended up joining the local group living in our town. Among these new dragons were fully grown adults as well as juveniles. I first thought that I had started a dangerous chain reaction where all the dragons in the world would end up joining us, but I was completely wrong. Everyday, we would see flocks of dragons heading north and for some reason, Rambo had begun to act restless after witnessing them. He would complain about pain in his wings and also mention how he felt compelled to fly north with them. What was even more strange was the fact that each giant flock of dragons flying overhead seemed to be led by small dragons looking similar to Rambo. Seeing this, I had guessed that dragons were a migratory type of creatures and suspected Rambo to be from a species able to guide other dragons on the proper migratory path. This would have explained why he felt this urge to leave north with them. Of course, I told him that as long as he stayed with me, migrating wasn''t necessary for him, but he kept frantically practising to fly anyway. Then one morning, as we were preparing to go on another plane ride, all the dragons in town gathered around us and stared in silence. Before I had time to understand what was going on, Rambo had already taken off, followed by all the dragons that had gathered in town thus far. Without even saying goodbye, my baby boy Rambo and all the other dragons left and headed north without even looking back once. I could have understood if he really felt the need to go with them, but he could have at least said goodbye before leaving. Since then, I remained locked up in my room and was even considering moving back to my bunker. If my son was capable of abandoning his father that easily, then what about the other survivors? They would probably throw me away at the first opportunity they got. Even as drunk as I was, Rambo was the only thing on my mind. Seemed like getting wasted wasn''t gonna help me forget him, and all I was accomplishing was to slowly destroy myself. Having reached a level of intoxication way higher than what''s considered safe, I passed out with my face pressed against the cold and dirty concrete floor. When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed on the second floor. Inspecting my surroundings, I noticed the voluptuous Emanuela sleeping on a chair next to my bed. Sensing an incoming scolding, I silently rose up from my bed, ripped the intravenous thingy off of my arm and staggered back to my room while being careful to avoid everyone. Seemed like they had broken through my door to get to me. I had clearly made them worry about me. Sigh* I needed to get a grip and get back to business. There was no need to cry over spilled milk now, Rambo was gone and it was his own choice. I had helped him as a baby, but it seemed like he needed to live his adult life on his own. Still hungover, I sat at my computer and silently continued to draw the map of the region with photoshop. These last two weeks had been spent flying one of the two planes all over the area, in hopes of finding more information about our location. I used to consider the possibility of staying in this world before, but without Rambo with me, I no longer had any reasons to stay here and intended to work on leaving as soon as possible. During my scouting flights, I had successfully identified a recently formed circle, only a few miles north east from our location that we would need to explore to gather more information. There were still many things I was unsure about like, shouldn''t there be some circles appearing on earth as well? What was now at the area where our town used to be back on earth? It should be a 5 km circle of nothing but dead plants and stuff. So why had we never heard about them on the news? Town or pieces of lands suddenly disappearing without a trace should be something worthy to be on the news or at least the internet. Was it a government cover-up or something else? My next discovery was a very dense vortex south east from town that seemed as if it would reach its critical point at any time. Our next objectives would be to explore the recently formed circle and make sure it contained plants from earth, then if it was indeed connected to earth, begin to move south with our mobile shelter toward the critical vortex. Robert and Emanuela were busy analyzing the captured camera footage, looking for anything worth investigating while Marc and L¨¦opaul were making some modification to one of the airplane''s fuel tanks. They were trying to install a secondary fuel tank to increase the range of one of the planes, and they were doing that for a very good reason. When I first flew east a few days back, I had noticed something very interesting. I had already reached the 500 miles limit and needed to turn around, when I saw what looked like a giant human made structure on the horizon. It was too far away to know for sure, but what I had seen looked like a giant stone wall. Maybe it was a simple natural rock formation, or maybe it really was a man-made wall. There was no way to know for sure unless I flew closer to it, which was why I had ended up asking Marc to increase the size of the fuel tank. As I was drawing the map, something began to bother me. I had mapped the entire area within the plane''s range except for one spot. I had voluntarily avoided an area south from here, and that was because it was a giant body of water. When I saw water for as far as my eyes could see, I got cold feet and turned around even though the plane could have kept going further. Because of that, I wasn''t sure whether it was an ocean, a sea or even a giant lake. If I managed to overcome my fear of being stranded at sea, I could possibly try to fly across this giant mass of water and know for sure if there were lands nearby to the other side or not. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Many of us were speculating that maybe the reason we hadn''t seen any signs of humans around was because they lived on the other side of this giant body of water. Looking at my map, this area was the only one left to explore until Marc and L¨¦opaul finalized the long range plane, which would allow me to explore ''the wall'' to the east. As I was applying the last details to the map, the sound of footsteps running this way made me roll my eyes in annoyance. ¡°NATE! There you are! Don''t just disappear without a word like that! Do you know how much we worried about you?¡± Urgg. Emanuela''s high pitch voice entered my ears and scratched my eardrums like a cat on a new leather couch. ¡°Shhhhhhhh* Can you please lower your voice? My head is killing me.¡± I quickly interrupted. Tss, saying they worried about me and all that... I could now see through it all. They worried about me only because they needed me. As soon as I stop being useful to them, they''ll throw me aside just like Rambo did. ¡°Can you ask Marc to prepare the plane? I''ll go explore the ocean today, so tell him to make sure to double check that everything is in working order. If the plane stops working while over the ocean, I''m dead.¡± Not that I even cared at this point. Life on earth sucked, and life in this new world also sucked. I thought I was a defective human being. It was probably not the world''s fault, but mine. In the end, I was simply unable to adapt and become a normal person. I thought for a while that maybe I could, but I guessed it was all a delusion after all. Call it a DNA defect or not, fact remained that there was something profoundly wrong with me since I couldn''t manage to be like the rest of them. I would go back to earth, become very rich and live the rest of my life in solitude in the Canadian Rockies. Maybe this was the only hope for me. ¡°Are you listening to me?¡± Emanuela''s voice then broke my daydreams like a hammer through a window. ¡°Like I said, why not wait for Marc and old pop to finish the long range plane before exploring this area? It''s just plain reckless!¡± Sigh* What she just said was true but I wanted to be alone. I had grown fond of piloting the plane and seeing the world from above. It had a very calming effect on me and I felt like this was what I needed at the moment. It was a very good way to relax and empty your mind of anything you didn''t want to think about. ¡°Can you just, tell Marc please...¡± I repeated with a displeased expression on my face. I was not in a mood to be hammered on constantly like that why can''t women see when a man needs some alone time? For most men, talking about what''s frustrating them doesn''t help at all, so I was really hoping she could understand and leave me alone. ¡°I don''t think you should drive a plane while feeling like that.¡± She added with an annoyingly scolding tone. I didn''t really know why, maybe the built up stress, or the swirling pool of emotions boiling up inside of me, but hearing her say that made something inside of me snap. ¡°Feeling like what eh? How do you even pretend to know how I feel? And it''s PILOTING a plane! Not driving..... You think a woman who dropped her man like a dirty rag and immediately went for another can come and give me lessons about anything?¡± As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt disgusted with myself. I quickly turned back to apologize but she had already run away in tears. ¡°I''m the worst...¡± I said to myself while punching my leg, somehow hoping to punish myself for what I had just said. Now feeling even worse than before, I began to gather my equipment and put on my body armour. I made sure everything was in my backpack, gun and katana tied up to it, and checked all the bells and whistles that needed to be checked. Sigh, I needed to go apologize to Emanuela before leaving though. She hadn''t deserved me snapping at her like that. I grabbed my backpack and made my way up to the area where the others lived. Surprisingly, everybody seemed gone except Alice who was still in her room, working on something unnecessary as usual. ¡°Hey there drunkard. Looking for something?¡± Asked the rude lady. ¡°Yea, have you seen where Manu went?¡± I asked, worried that she might have run away of even done something stupid. ¡°Errrrrr she must be outside with the others. There''s a lot of work left to be done on that movable house crap...¡± She said before getting back to what she was previously doing. ¡°Alright, thank you.¡± Feeling as if I was disturbing her, I left the room and headed out to where we were building the shelter, in front of my garage door. ¡°Heyyy there! Feeling better?¡± Asked Robert with a compassionate look in his eyes. ¡°You almost died of alcohol poisoning you fool! Don''t you dare do that again, or I''ll destroy all the bottles of alcohol I can find in this town!¡± Added a very angry looking Camille who was currently learning how to weld. Feeling awkward, I rubbed the back of my head and apologized, then asked if they knew where Emanuela was. Camille simply pointed toward the plane hangars where Marc and L¨¦opaul should also be. So in the end, she had went to ask Marc to prepare the plane like I had asked her. This made me feel even more guilty. Seeing me fully geared up, Camille inquired. ¡°You''re flying today?¡± Robert also seemed curious about it. After all, they all thought I had explored everywhere. ¡°Yes, I decided to do a full range flight south this time.¡± Robert curiosity seemed aroused by the idea of finding out what was on the other side of that water. ¡°Be careful and bring nice pictures.¡± Added the surgeon before turning his attention back to his work. Still feeling as guilty as I could, I made my way over to the hangars with my head hanging low in shame. When Emanuela noticed me, she rapidly looked down and avoided eye contacts. She then said her goodbye to Marc and L¨¦opaul before trying to scurry away, but I ended up intercepting her as she tried to run past me. ¡°C-can I speak with you for a second?¡± I asked her, feeling unworthy of looking at her in the eyes. Or was it because of the shame I felt? I was expecting her to be very mad at me and ignore my request but she seemed like she was about to cry instead. Worried and apologetic, I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her away to a quiet place. There, I let go of her arm and gathered my courage to apologize for what I had done. ¡°I-I am really sorry for what I said, I had no right to be such an ass-hole to you back then. Even though I know this is not an excuse, but losing Rambo has- Never-mind that.. I want to sincerely apologize for everything.¡± I lowered my head and waited for her to verbally attack me as it was usually the norm with normal humans like her, but it never came. When I looked back up to her, I was in shock. She was silently crying while staring at me in the eyes. Tears were flowing so intensely that I worried about her possibly dehydrating herself because of it. The Merge – Chapter 17 (Castaway) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL Wordpress Version: Here ------------------- I was stunned. I was trying to apologize and make her feel better, but I had ended up making her cry even more instead? Urgg, humans were certainly hard to understand, but women were even worse. An endless pit of mystery and confusion is what came to mind. ¡°Is... Sniff* That why you always refused me? Sob* ¡± She asked in between sobs. ¡°Sigh*... It''s part of it. We are only 8 in this world, so your choices are limited, I understand that. But we will certainly find a way back home soon enough. That day, you will change and realize I don''t have the appeal you think I have. You will eventually find a better man, richer and or better looking than me. We both know that if we had met back on earth before all this happened, you wouldn''t have glanced at me more than once.¡± I could see that she was struggling to admit it to herself, but she was at least honest enough not to deny it. ¡°But anyway, does it really matter? You are the closest thing to a female best friend I''ve ever had, so I think we should enjoy and value what we currently have. Don''t you think?¡± These words seemed to have a positive effect on her as she stopped crying and wiped her face with the sleeve of her shirt. ¡°I understand.¡± She then said with a resolute expression. ¡°I won''t give up and wait until we''re back on earth to prove how much I love you.¡± She quickly said, gave a smile, and ran away before I could say anything. ¡°W-Wai-... That''s not what I-... Sigh*..........¡± She had no intention to stay and hear what I had to say, this much was obvious. With that apparently taken care of, I walked into one of the hangars and helped Marc and L¨¦opaul to complete the last preparations. Then, we pushed the plane out into position at the end of the runway, ready to take off. ¡°Manu told me you wanted to explore the ''suspected ocean'' to the south, so I double checked everything. It would be bad if the plane stopped working while you''re over the water right?¡± Said Marc with a teasing smirk which didn''t help to reassure me. ¡°Thank you, I''m relying on you for this.¡± We started the engine, then as it was slowly warming up, I began to load my stuff inside. This engine''s slow rumble, and the way it regularly coughed blue puffs of smoke, had already became familiar. I could already tell whether the engine was healthy or not. So far, everything seemed in perfect working order. I jumped in and proceeded to buckle up my seat-belt and put on my sunglasses. These sunglasses were not meant to look cool, but to protect my eyes. I had spent the first flights squinting because of the sun and now knew better. This world was almost always sunny in this time of year apparently, and it also seemed like we had first arrived during the rainy season. The air was cooler and the breezes were bringing a strangely enjoyable smell of dried vegetation. I took a hold of the stick and made sure the flaps and rudders were functioning perfectly, then signalled to Marc that I was ready to go. I had flown this plane 11 times already, and I never had any real incidents, except a rough landing which forced Marc to fix the landing gear. Even though 11 flights was not a lot, I was already feeling a lot more confident in my ability to pilot this plane. Adding to this the fact that clouds were nonexistent during this period of the year, and the fact that this region never seemed to get strong winds, this made flying a plane feel very easy and safe. I rolled down the runway and gently took off to the sky. I slowly climbed up to around 2500 meters and made a turn right toward south. With the help of my compass, I marked a point far away in the horizon, lit a cigarette and laid back in my seat for the long ride ahead of me. Finally alone high up in the sky, I could finally calm down and think clearly again. All my thoughts were aimed at Rambo and what had happened. Maybe his instincts to go wherever he went were more powerful that his own will. Such a small dragon, was he alright? Was he eating properly? How far had he gone? Could I find where he is in the future with the long range plane? Seeing the sky completely devoid of dragons gave me an eerie feeling. I also couldn''t believe I had just thought that. Seeing dragons fly around made me feel safer? What the hell was I even thinking. Anyway, if it was a migration like I suspected, this meant that Rambo should eventually return. Yes, he will definitely return and come back to me. H-he has to... Sniff* Sniff* With a newfound hope, I was finally feeling better. Taking this plane ride had definitely been the right thing to do. A moment later, I finally arrived at the river I had crossed on my way back from the king dragon''s cave. Since the river flowed south, I decided to follow it. A while later, came a fork in the river which told me that I had already travelled 1/5 of the way to the ''ocean''. A quick look at my instruments confirmed that everything was in perfect working order, and prompted me to push forward. I had to admit, Marc could easily be hated, but in revenge, his mechanic skills were top notch. Also, since his altercation with Robert, Marc had been very docile and cooperative. I had been suspicious at first but he seemed to make genuine efforts. He was not a bad guy after all. As for Emanuela... Well I didn''t know what to think of her. That woman had a knack to make my emotions go on roller coaster rides. She said she would keep pursuing me even after getting back to earth? Yea right. Who does she think she''s fooling. There''s not a chance for that to happen. After what felt like a very long time, the immense body of water finally came into view. Knots began to form in my stomach and my instincts kept telling me to turn around. Today was the day I would face my fear of open water. Thinking of all the alien atrocities that probably lived in these waters made me feel sick, but I just had to push these thoughts aside and continue on. I kept my eyes locked on the fuel gauge and tried to control this overpowering fear that became stronger as the land behind me slowly disappeared over the horizon. A few minutes later, all I could see was water in all directions. But there was something else going on. The further away from land I got, the more blue the sky became. After a while, I was finally admiring a blue sky like what I used to see back on earth. A tear escaped from the corner of my eye as I watched the blue sky. I hadn''t realized how much I had missed it before. Seemed like red mist didn''t gather over water, or this area was a giant dead spot. Maybe salt water absorbed red mist? Well it was not like I knew whether it was fresh or salt water, so it was useless to make hypotheses based on assumptions. The flight continued without any issues and soon the fuel gauge prompted me to turn around and head back home. Sadly, I hadn''t seen any lands on the horizon so it was safe to assume that this was indeed an ocean, and that it wasn''t worth investigating any further. Only a few minutes after turning around, the engine suddenly began to cough and behave strangely. ¡°You better not! Please, don''t you give up on me now.¡± Hearing irregularities in how the engine sounded was giving me a panic attack. If the engine was to give up now, I could never glide the rest of the way back to land and would be stranded at sea. My worst nightmare was slowly becoming a very plausible scenario. I just needed the engine to hang on until I could see land again. Then, as the fuel gauge reached the halfway point, the engine suddenly stopped as if it was out of gas. ¡°NO NO NO NO FUCKKKKKK!!!!¡± There was no way to start it up again while up in the air. I was fucked, I was going to be eaten by the Kraken! Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. I was panicking and having a hard time breathing. Knowing what was coming, I couldn''t help but feel despair. Would I be able to swim back to land? How far was I? Gradually, the plane lost altitude and it seemed obvious that my fate was sealed. I was going to live my worst nightmare and probably die from it. I took my sunglasses of, somehow feeling like I could concentrate better without them and clenched my fingers around the stick. With adrenaline filling every cells of my body, I began to violently expel red mist while trying to get the smoothest landing I could get on water. I glided a few meters over the water, slowly descending and as the wheels were about to touch the water, I pulled on the stick to lift the nose of the plane up. The tail touched the water first, shaking the small plane left and right then the landing gear touched the watery surface. This caused the plane to jerk and dive nose first into the water, making the plane do a front flip, rip the wings off and end up upside down in the water. Roofless, the water surged inside the cabin at lightning speed. The landing hadn''t been too rough and I wasn''t injured, but I was upside down in a rapidly sinking plane. Panicking and gasping for air, I ripped my seatbelt off and grabbed my giant backpack on the back seat. Since my bag was watertight, it had air sealed inside of it that allowed it to act like a flotation device. Well now I knew for sure, the water was salty. Holding tightly to my bag, I let it drag me up to the surface and was finally able to take my breath back. PhouAaa!* Pant* Pant* Cough* Cough* With all my heavy equipment and body armour, if not for my bag, I would have drowned. I reached my arms around my bag and held it close to my chest. I took one of the shoulder straps and wrapped it around my arm so that I wouldn''t accidentally let go of it. This bag was all that kept me afloat and without it, I was dead. A quick look around made it difficult for me to stay calm. All I could see was water, sky, blue and more blue. Worst of all, being neck deep in water prevented me from seeing the horizon. The waves, even though small, still reached higher than my line of sight and blocked my view. Even if there was land visible in the distance, I probably couldn''t see it because of those annoying waves. I was being slowly trashed around by the waves and all I could hear was the sound of water. I kept nervously looking around me, imagining all kinds of monster swimming under my feet. This feeling was the worst. If a mutant shark came after me, I at least had my handgun to shoot myself in the head. The endlessly deep black abyss below my feet and what possibly lived in it was all I could think of. Heck, I was panicking so much and was so afraid of this situation that I was already considering shooting myself. The chances of me surviving this situation were close to none. All I could do was slowly drift and wait for a monster to come eat me. Then, remembering something, I quickly pulled my necklace out of my shirt. Maybe this would protect me. This was all I could do. After what felt like an eternity, the constant sway of the water slowly made me feel seasick, but I knew that vomiting in the water would attract the wildlife, so I fought against the urge as hard as I could. Hours went by and my situation was still unchanged. Luckily, the water was warm so I wasn''t hypothermic, but I was still feeling the worst fear I had ever felt in my life. Not even the king dragon could compare to what was coming, and that was nighttime. Living my worst fear during the day was already more than I could take, but seeing the sun go down on the horizon plunged me deeper into despair. Luckily, I hadn''t encountered any sea creatures so far, but I somehow felt like this would change at night. Scared to death was not even close to depicting how horrible I felt. Soon enough, night fell and everything became dark. The water appeared as black as ink and all I could see were the stars and the two differently coloured moons. I was getting thirsty, but this was the last thing on my mind. I was still in a state of panic which drained my energy and slowly made me become lethargic. Looking at the blackness of the water wasn''t going to help me in anyway. There was no way for me to detect an incoming attack. I kept using small sporadic doses of red mist just in case of an attack but eventually fell asleep or passed out with my head laid on my bag. When I woke up, it was still dark. I had probably only closed my eyes for a minute but waking up in this horrible situation had given me a regain of panic. Some greenish glowing things then swam below my feet, making me jolt back in fear and grab my handgun, but no attack happened. A little while later, I lost consciousness once more and woke up only the next morning. The sun was out, but my situation was unchanged. I was now seriously thirsty so I reached for my canteen which was tied to my backpack and slowly drank the precious fluid. There was still no land to be seen and I was starting to wonder if I was drifting further at sea or toward some faraway lands. I wasn''t going to last long with so little water even if I didn''t get attacked by monsters. Hell, yes, I was in hell, there was no other way to think about my situation. I was still feeling seasick but the urge to puke at least seemed to be calming down. The sun was burning my face and making my lips crack due to dehydration. I had heard that rationing water was a bad idea, but I had no idea how long I was going to be drifting like that. I had heard that you could live 4 minutes without air, 4 days without water and 4 weeks without food. Watching all these survival show had given me a lot of knowledge, but hadn''t prepared me mentally for these situations. Feeling like giving up, I laid my head on my bag and closed my eyes. This damned world had defeated me. I was completely out of energy and feeling powerless. I then spent the rest of the day in the same position, already accepting my fate as a corpse. Soon enough, the sun had begun to set and it seemed like I would be spending a second night at sea. Just great... Tweet* tweet* tweet!* The sound of something familiar brought my attention back to my surroundings. Muffled by the sound of waves, was the sound of something I hadn''t heard since coming to this world. Birds! There were birds flying over my head! Seeing them, miraculously brought me enough energy to raise my head and look around. And there it was, around 200 meters in front of me, was land. Using red mist, I powered through and swam toward it before being dragged away by the currents. Emptied of energy and out of breath, I finally set foot on a beautiful beach of pure white sand. Finally seeing land was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. I kissed the wet sand and dragged my body and heavy bag further away from the water up to a cliff. On one side was the ocean, on the other was a naturally formed stone wall at least 15 meters high. On top of that cliff seemed to be more jungle, but there was something that instantly caught my attention. Coconut trees? I stood there, looking at the familiar tree with tears in my eyes as the red sun began to set on the horizon behind me. No monster in sight, coconut trees and even birds? There was no visible red mist in the air and the sky was blue. Sure there were still those red mist streams flowing a few meters in the air like everywhere, but these lands were different from what I had seen so far. Everything felt, very similar to earth. ¡°Where the heck am I?¡± I wondered. Survivors (Picture book) I have been using real life pictures as a visual reference for my characters, and thought i should share them with you. (I do not know these peoples and do not own any right to the pictures. Picture found on google image) Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. - - - Oo.Picture Book.oO - - - The Merge – Chapter 18 (Eden) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Weakened and exhausted, I didn''t have time to marvel at how beautiful the landscape was and needed to prepare for the night. As safe as it felt, I couldn''t risk to stay the night on the beach since I didn''t know how high the tides reached in this region. My first priorities were to find something to drink, and find a place to shelter for the night. With that in mind, the first thing I did was to kick one of the coconut trees and gather the few green coconuts that fell to the ground. Being insanely strong, I ended up piercing a hole through the hard shell simply by stabbing my finger through them. It was with a lot of expectations that I brought the familiar fruit to my mouth and drank the precious fluid it contained. Coconut water was sweeter than I remembered, or was it the difference between one freshly harvested from the tree and one bought at the supermarket? Then questions began to pop into my head. How could this place feel so much different from the area we had been teleported to? How many more plants and animals from earth had made their way here and colonized this world? With my thirst taken care of, came the urge to settle for the night. The sun was already very low and I only had a few minutes of sunlight left. It is with a regain of energy that I grabbed my backpack and began to climb the rocky cliff, hoping to get to a safer area. Being caught by the high tide seemed like something I should avoid. I had spent enough time in the water already and wished to find dryer grounds. Normally, climbing this huge cliff would have been something difficult to do, but with red mist doping, it was nothing worth fussing about. Once on top, I arrived at the border of a dense jungle filled with the noises of insects and nocturnal creatures preparing to get out for the night. Nervous about the fact that I knew nothing of this area, my second priority was to light a fire. Chopping small trees with my sword was child-play as the vegetation was so fragile, then lighting it afterwards was even easier since I was always carrying a few lighters with me. I didn''t have time to build a shelter or find a proper place to establish one, but with a fire next to me, all my worries seemed to vanish. All of my thoughts were aimed at what had happened. For the plane to suddenly stop working like that, it had to be sabotage. A frown appeared on my forehead as I guessed who could have done this, the answer to that was obvious. It was obviously Marc''s doing. With my teeth and fists clenched, I sworn to kill him if I ever made it back home. I didn''t even care about becoming a murderer anymore. I wasn''t a mechanic myself, but I believed I knew enough to detect if he ever tried to sabotage the plane, but it seemed he had taken his time and done it in a very smart way. He had most likely sabotaged the fuel gauge and only filled the tank halfway. This piece of shit was going to meet the devil in person when I get back. I was sitting only a few meters away from the cliff, right at the edge of the jungle, sitting on cold rocks with only a small fire as company. My hands were wrinkled so badly that they looked like cauliflowers and I wouldn''t even dare imagine what my feet looked like. I was reticent to take my body armour off at first but ended up stripping butt naked and placing my clothes and equipment on sticks next to the fire to dry for the night. I was still feeling like crap, but at least now, I was a piece of dried crap and not a wet one. My poor feet looked like they could grow mushrooms by how moist and gross they looked. You could imagine what your skin would look like if you spent 2 days in a bath. An hour later, the said skin had returned to its normal appearence, allowing me to finally feel human again. I opened my bag and pulled out a set of dry clothes that I had prepared for these situations. Not that I didn''t enjoy the feeling of being naked outside, but I was somehow feeling vulnerable that way. I had a black shirt, blue jeans, black underwear and a pair of black socks. I also had some running shoes but decided not to wear them for now. From the way they smelled, my feet definitely needed to breathe some fresh air. Hopefully my combat boots and armour would be dry by tomorrow. I was nervous and anxious because of my situation, but was also very grateful to have survived this ordeal. I was incredibly lucky in my bad luck when you thought about it. In this darkness lit only by the swirling flames of my camp fire, all I could hear were the sounds of the jungle and the sound of waves crashing against the cliff. All these insects and animals were alien to me, so the noises they made kept me up all night. To reassure myself, I kept concentrating on my sensing ability and noticed something very interesting. I could precisely sense every living organisms in a radius of hundreds of meters around me. This sensing ability of mine had never been this sensitive before but I already knew why it was now more effective. I had already noticed in the past how red mist interfered with my abilities and dulled them, and since there was no red mist in the air in this area, my senses were at their peak. At least that way, I knew I could sense danger coming in advance. Knowing that calmed me down quite a bit so I decided to try and sleep after positioning some strategically placed twigs that should make a sound and wake me up if stepped on. This was far from a perfect plan, but this place wasn''t giving me a dangerous vibe at all. As I was thinking that, a presence felt by my sensing ability caught my attention. It was very faint, but felt different from the others. Even though it felt weak and unimportant, I couldn''t shake this feeling deep inside of me. The feeling that whatever this was, it wasn''t something to be ignored. Worried, I grabbed my handgun and faced toward the presence which was a bit more than a hundred meter away from me, deep inside the dark and scary jungle. I stood up and gave a small burst of red mist to strengthen my body just in case, but as soon as I did so, the presence immediately vanished. A creature capable of hiding its presence? This thing was more dangerous than I expected. My gut feelings were telling me to pack my things up and run away from there, and for once, I intended to listen to my hunch and do just that. I quickly grabbed my backpack and opened it but before I had time to put anything in it, the presence reappeared again. This time though, it was right behind me. Startled, I abruptly turned around and pointed my gun at whatever this thing was, but what I saw was not what I had been expecting. Before me stood a dark cloaked humanoid silhouette, standing as tall as me. The flickering ray of light from the fire didn''t allow me to clearly see, but the humanoid seemed to be wearing a black featureless mask with only two holes for the eyes. I stood there in socks, with my gun pointed at a mysterious cloaked person in the middle of the night, in the middle of an unknown territory, in an unknown world. Useless to say that I wasn''t feeling in control of the situation. What was I supposed to say. It''s not like I knew what language the locals spoke. As I was waiting to see what this creature''s intention were, it then decided to break the silence first. ¡°Well~~ Hello me. Right on time like you were supposed to be. Not as glorious as I remember though...¡± Uh? Da fuq? It spoke English? Maybe not perfectly since what he said didn''t make sense but... Was this thing a human? ¡°Y-you speak my tongue?¡± I inquired, baffled. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. ¡°HahAhahHAhaha! Ho my god..... Mannn this is weird... Anyway, drop that gun already. It''s useless against me anyway...¡± Said the cloaked individual in an amused voice. Wait what?? I could barely stand on my feet. The questions were flooding my brain and I couldn''t do anything other than be confused. This was the voice of a mature man who spoke perfect English, and who knew about guns. Even his accent sounded familiar for some reason. I was really worried, I could clearly sense that this man was not someone I could fight on my own. ¡°W-who... W-what...¡± I blurted out in a barely audible voice. ¡°Ghuaaa, you make me cringe so bad. How embarrassing. Sigh* seeing you made me remember unpleasant things.. Tch* Anyway, I don''t have much time so let''s get to it.¡± The man''s voice had suddenly turned raspy, as if he had been smoking for decades. While I was still confused, the man extended his arm toward me and sent a wave of what looked like red mist, but was black instead of red. My pitiful attempt to avoid it, ended up being fruitless as the ''black mist'' collided with me and sent what felt like an electric current surge through my brain. I fell to the ground, perfectly conscious but unable to move or feel my body anymore. It felt as if my consciousness had been detached from my body, and my control of it taken away from me. This feeling was emotionally distressing since I couldn''t do anything, not even scream. The cloaked individual slowly walked toward me, then turned me on my back before pulling out a giant syringe. ¡°Now, let''s wait for the residual effect of your dokari to fade, shall we.¡± The man just crouched next to me with the syringe in his hand without saying a word for a few minutes. Dokari? Was that what he called red mist? Since he seemed to want to inject something into me, this had to be it. Since I had used red mist, or ''dokari'' not long ago, he knew he couldn''t pierce my skin with his needle, but he also seemed to know that he could simply wait for it to fade away. Completely powerless, all I could do was repeating this question in my head. ''Who is this guy?'' Five minutes later, the mysterious man finally spoke again. ¡°The effect should be gone now. Alright, don''t panic. This is a very expensive gift I''m giving you. These nanites have been especially programmed for your DNA and contain everything you''ll need. I know that you are well aware of what nanites are, and I can guess what you are thinking right now. Science fiction right? Well let me tell you this. You have no idea what mankind can accomplish when faced with annihilation.¡± As he said these last words, the cloaked man appeared to stab me in the neck with the syringe, but I wasn''t sure since I couldn''t feel anything. ¡°Cherish this gift. Hopefully you won''t follow in my footsteps. Unlike me, you can still have a good ending. Good luck Nathan.¡± My consciousness then began to fade as the man disappeared back into the dark jungle. ¡°GUHAAAAaaaaaa! Pant* pant* pant*¡± I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat, next to my now extinguished campfire. It was already morning and the sun was shining brightly over my head. My confused mind eventually returned to its usual calm state while being rocked by the sound of the waves and the songs of exotic birds singing their hearts out. ¡°S-such a vivid dream...¡± This dream had felt similar to that time when I dreamed of a giant dragon. Thinking back on it, didn''t dragons actually begin to appear after I had that dream? Could these dreams be the precognitive type? Not that I believed in such things but, I never had such vivid dreams in the past. Still feeling a bit on edge, I used my sensing ability and made sure there was nothing threatening around, then inspected my equipment. My boots and body armour were still humid but should quickly be dried under such a strong sun. What was I supposed to do now? After hesitating for a while, I then decided to focus on my immediate survival which meant food, water, and shelter. I had a good amount of dried dragon meat but knew that for digesting food, my body would need a lot of water. With that in mind, I knew that my first priority was to find water but this meant that I needed to explore my surroundings. I didn''t want to go exploring while leaving my precious gear behind, so I ended up lighting the fire again and waited for everything to dry. After an hour of cleaning my guns and maintaining my equipment, I was already unable to battle my thirst and decided that my things were dry enough. I put on my armour, my ammo belts, handgun and knife all over my body then pulled out my ghillie suit out of my bag. This suit was one of the things I had wished to bring the first time I ended up lost in a jungle. Since then, I had been keeping this one in my backpack, precisely for this kind of situations. This suit, beside making me look like the swamp monster, was also incredibly good at making me disappear in dense vegetation, as long as I remained immobile. The problem with that, was that I was now wearing clothes, armour and another suit on top of it all, and since this region was very hot and humid, the risks of heat stroke had become much greater. Because of this, I needed to constantly remember to take breaks and drink plenty of water, but all I had to drink at the moment were coconuts that would give me diarrhea if I drank too much of them. Diarrhea would result in dehydration, which would bring the opposite effect from what I wanted. Now looking like a bush, or a swamp monster depending on whether I was moving or not, I then attached my katana to my belt like a samurai and put on my backpack. I was now ready to go explore this new area and made sure to keep my attention focused on my sensing ability. This area was still a total mystery to me and the weird dream I had last night was possibly a warning from my subconscious. With light and careful steps, I walked forward and broke through the initial layer of vegetation leading to the heart of the jungle. The sounds and smells were all so strange, yet somehow familiar. This jungle didn''t feel hostile like what I had known so far, but felt more like some kind of garden of Eden. Most of the trees seemed to grow fruits of all shapes and colours. Some of them looked delicious, while some others looked scary. If I could eat fresh fruits, it would be very beneficial for my body but there was still the risk of getting poisoned by unknown plants. From past experience, I knew I was still vulnerable to poison in this world, so I decided to play it safe and concentrate on finding a lake or a river and building a temporary shelter next to it. I had no idea where I was, so even if I built a boat, I wouldn''t know precisely where to go. Also, I couldn''t simply build a raft and hope to cross a sea. A seafaring ship was a major undertaking for me to build on my own. Judging from my compass, the shore I had be washed off at wasn''t even facing north. So that meant that I could be anywhere. I stealthily walked through the dense jungle in my camouflaged suit, and was fascinated by what I could see. Flowers were growing everywhere and what looked like colourful butterflies and other insects could be seen in all directions. There were many types of bird-like creatures flying around and no scary creatures were in sight. The Merge – Chapter 18 (Eden) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Truly opposite to the lands I was coming from. I then travelled half of the day while following the coast before finally finding a small stream of fresh water. The trek had been exhausting and the headache caused by dehydration was killing me, but I didn''t take any chances and still decided to boil the water first before drinking it. I couldn''t afford to get sick, alone in the wilderness. I drank as much as I could and filled my canteen before considering my next steps. Since there were still a few hours of daylight left, I decided to walk deeper inland and follow the stream to its source. If it was coming from an underground source, collecting it from where it come out of the ground would allow me to skip the boiling step. Hoping to drink cold water instead of a smelly brown soup, I decided to push on and go further inland. I hadn''t walked for more than a few minutes, but a discovery prompted me to stop and investigate. I still hadn''t reached the water source, but up on a cliff-side was a cave and its location seemed simply too good not to be used as shelter. The only problem with it being at such a good location was that something seemed to be living in there already. My sensing ability was telling me that something was deep inside of it, but for some reason, I wasn''t feeling afraid or anything. Cautious about the possibility of whatever lived in there being a poisonous creature, I lit a fire near the entry then threw some bundles of burning vegetation inside the cave, hoping to smoke whatever lived there out. I ran a few meters back, grabbed a fist sized rock and readied myself to throw it as hard as I could. A few seconds went by without any sign of movement but I could feel the creature getting agitated inside. I tightened my grip on the stone I was holding, ready to throw it will all my strength. I had killed many creatures in the past by simply throwing rocks at them. My throwing arm was so powerful that the rocks would usually go right through the creature''s body like a cannonball. As I nervously stood near the cave entrance, the creature finally decided to make its move and run toward the exit. I immediately readied myself and adopted a throwing position, then finally saw a silhouette rushing out of the cave and running toward me. What I saw was a strange looking creature which looked like a mix between a big cat and a small bear. The creature had long and sharp looking canines and by the look of it, seemed to be some type of mammal. This was surprising since all the mammals I had seen in this world so far had been only to the level of rats. As I prepared to throw the deadly rock in my hand, the creature then spotted me and froze for an instant. It threw a quick look at me before turning tail and running away in the forest. Seemed like I wouldn''t need to fight it to take over its home after all. It also seemed like the creature was smart enough to realize when it was outmatched by a more powerful predator. With that taken care of, I walked near the cave entrance and put out the fire. I then entered the cave and began to explore it, but soon found a few bones which were clearly remains of the creature''s past meals. Going through the bones to know what type of creatures lived around, I found something I wasn''t expecting to see. Small human skulls and bones were piled up among what looked like deer antlers and other unknown creatures'' bones. This was not the cave of something like a dragon that could carry its prey over long distances, but something closer to a tiger, so that had to mean that humans lived nearby. I could hardly imagine this creature dragging corpses over hundred of miles just to eat them in his cave. Excited by the discovery at first, I then became nervous. The locals would most likely react aggressively if they saw me, which made me hesitate about the idea of making contact with them. I then continued deeper into the cave but soon reached a dead end. This cave was quite spacious, but was no deeper than 20 meters. With the entire cave now explored, I began to pile up the bones it contained near the entrance and burned them. The idea of sleeping next to human remains was a bit too creepy to be overlooked. I hid my backpack deep inside the cave and piled up a few rocks on top of it as camouflage. Next, I grabbed a tree branch and used it like a broom to clean the cave''s floor, then spent the rest of the day gathering grass to make a bed and collected firewood for the night. As long as I kept a fire burning near the entrance, I doubted the big bear-cat would return while I slept. Going back to my backpack to grab some dragon jerky, I then sat next to the fire and ate until I felt satiated. Afterwards, I drank the remaining water in my canteen and laid on my grass bed for the night. With a roof over my head, I was already feeling safer, but the foreign noises coming from all direction kept preventing me from sleeping soundly. There were also these constant thoughts about Rambo''s well being. While hoping for him to be safe wherever he was, I couldn''t help but shed a few manly tears. I spent the entire night, waking up every few minutes to put more wood into the fire and made sure to never let it die out. After one of the longest nights in my life, the sun finally showed itself and made some of my anxiety fade away. Not wanting to waste any daylight, I immediately began to boil water and filled my stomach with it before doing anything else. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I began to ponder about what to do next. This cave was probably the best shelter I could hope for, but staying here wouldn''t help me get back home. Since the wood from this world was too fragile and easy to break, could I really build a seaworthy boat? Wouldn''t I simply end up stranding myself at sea once more by doing so? The idea of getting lost at sea again was enough to make me consider building a house and living here. Thinking about it for a while, I concluded that I needed to explore my surroundings before deciding anything. There was a high probability of humans living nearby, so I first needed to know where and how far away from here they lived. Maybe they had already smelled the smoke from my campfire and would come to investigate. I needed to avoid such a situation if I wanted to avoid being caught in a fight. Having made up my mind, I grabbed my backpack and walked up to a giant boulder which was as big as a truck. I crouched next to it and positioned myself before ejecting a good amount of red mist. Then, as if the stone was a fake one made out of Styrofoam, I simply rolled it on its side and exposed what was underneath. Right after doing so, a few creepy crawlies scurried away, making me flinch and jump back like a frightened little girl. I might have looked ridiculous, but I remembered that back on earth, even the smallest and most inoffensive looking creature could be the deadliest. Those of you who have seen a black widow should understand what I meant. There was no way for me to know if these creepy crawlies were in fact murderous creatures or not. With the giant boulder now on its side, I went and found a flat shaped rock which I used as shovel to dig a hole big enough to fit my backpack in, where the giant boulder used to be. I then put my backpack in the hole, and rolled the boulder back on top of it. Just like that, my backpack should be out of reach from anything wanting to steal it. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The plan was to travel as light as possible by leaving my backpack behind. All I intended to bring with me was my sniper rifle, knife, handgun, some pipe bombs and what I could fit in my vest pockets. Wearing my ghillie suit should allow me to remain undetected if I come across the indigenous inhabitant. I immediately began to walk while following the coast, since any human population would usually settle near the coastline. Once again, I marvelled as how beautiful this jungle was. I walked for almost two hours and still hadn''t seen any sign of any human activities but soon found what looked like a delicious fruit. The reason why this fruit in particular had caught my attention was because of its smell. The sweet smell emanating from these golf ball sized blue fruits was mouth watering. Their smell reminded me of fruit punch, but their appearance was somehow scary. They almost looked like blue scaly living organism, making me wonder if they were eggs or something. Curious, I plucked one of the fruit and carefully dissected it. The scales covering it seemed to be a peel of some sort, while the juicy fleshy part beneath it was a beautiful, tasty, looking orange colour. Like most fruits, a big nut looking seed could be found in the middle. With my hands covered with the sticky juice, I decided to lick the tip of one of my fingers and wait to see if it would trigger a negative effect on my body. The sweet taste of this fruit was highly addictive as it reminded me of raspberries, which was my favourite fruit back on earth. Tasting such a small amount of it should be fine as long as it wasn''t the most poisonous fruit in the world. Knowing that it could take hours before I felt any allergic or poisonous reactions, I plucked a few more of them and stuffed them in my pockets before resuming my journey. I held one of these fruits in my hand as I walked alongside the coast, trying to resist the urge to take a bite out of it. ¡°I really wish I knew what they are.¡± I then asked to myself, unaware of what was going to happen next. ¨°kfah Fruit: This unusual fruit is covered in bluish scales, which must be peeled away to get to the flesh. Popular with the locals, the fruit is, often eaten by scraping the flesh over your bottom teeth to separate it, from a large internal seed. It is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and the pulp is also occasionally used to treat burns. When,fermented, it makes a delicious, exotic wine! Uh? Some green writing suddenly appeared right in front of my face, making me jump back in surprise, but as I backed away, the text remained as close as it was before. It was as if these writings were displayed right in front of my eyes, almost as if I was wearing a futuristic pair of glasses able to display information. I shook my head left and right, and even knocked on my head with my hand but the message stayed there. I then began to rub my eyes but noticed that the message could still be seen with my eyes closed. Puzzled at first, a memory then kept being replayed in my head. So it was not a dream after all? Nanites he said? Nanites where the only thing I could think of that would be able to do something like that. Seeing a message being displayed inside my eyes, or even inside my brain like that, made me feel as if I had become a cyborg or something ridiculous like that. "Nanites" refer to nanotechnology, microscopic mechanisms that could hypothetically be injected into living organisms to produce various effects. With this confirming that what I had went through hadn''t been a dream, I was left with an even greater amount of questions. This mysterious man sounded as if he knew everything about me. I certainly had many theories in my head but none of them seemed even remotely plausible. But then again, I had been teleported to a different world containing something similar to mana in the air. What had he called it again, dokari? Leaving what I didn''t know behind, I then decided to test out how this display thingy functioned by grabbing a flower growing next to me. I then stared at it, hoping to see some information but nothing appeared. The last time, I had said out loud how I wished to be able to know what the fruit was, so was that how it worked? ¡°What is this flower?¡± I skeptically asked out loud. Notrakuh Fruit: Native to the jungles of the central continent, the notrakuh fruit looks more like an orchid flower rather than a fruit. To get to its pineapple-like flesh, the scaly exterior must be flaked off and delicately prepared. Interestingly, this fruit takes as long as 2 cycles to ripen and to be safe enough to eat ¡ª it can be toxic if unripe. Woaa.. This was going to be insanely useful. I could finally start eating plants and fruits! I mentally thanked the mysterious man for his amazing gift before starting to identify every single plant I came across. Knowledge was what I lacked the most in this world, but this new found piece of technology was going to help me remedy this weakness. I kept walking alongside the coast, totally engrossed by my new found encyclopedia and even discovered that I simply needed to ''think'' that I wanted information on what I looked at, and didn''t need to say it out loud. After a few hours of that, I had completely forgotten to keep an eye on my sensing ability. It is later, when I heard the sound of voices coming from afar that my attention went back to my surroundings. These voices sounded human, and more precisely female. My sensing ability then confirmed that there were at least 50 entities, less than 200 meters away from me. I immediately entered stealth mode and crouched to the ground, hoping not to have alerted them. With my ghillie suit on, I should be almost impossible to see among all the bushes surrounding me. I then crawled to a location allowing me to see the beach, where I had localized some of those entities at, and was amazed by what I saw. Humans! There were at least 15 women on the beach, and the rest further away where I couldn''t see. I laid my sniper rifle in front on me, and used the magnifying scope to get a closer look. Looking through my scope allowed me to confirm that all of them were females, and that they were all completely naked. They seemed to be peeling some type of root with sharp stones while some others were turning in circle with fishing nets in their hands. Once again, these humans seemed to be very small, maybe 4 feet and a half tall or something. Once again, they had tanned/purplish skin, black hair and giant black eyes. Actually, their eyes seemed twice as big as they should be, but there was something else bugging me. The first woman I had seen back in the king dragon''s cave had Asian features, yet these people seemed closer to Native American or even Caucasian like me. They were all wearing feathers and various colourful trinkets in their hair and also had various designs painted on their faces. Their faces being painted like that seemed similar to war paints from indigenous tribes, but it was probably not the same since they were simply peeling vegetables. They didn''t seem ready to go to battle to me. Had I also mentioned that they were completely naked? ¡°Gulp* F-fascinating...¡± I thought to myself, completely mesmerized by the scene. The Merge – Chapter 19 (Stalker) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- The women appeared hard at work and seemed in a playful mood. I felt a bit guilty for observing them with such interest but it was more by fascination than lust. Truth was, my manly bit down there had apparently stopped working since coming to this world. Even as I watched all these naked women, my member still remained as flaccid as a sea cucumber. Maybe I truly had become impotent. Maybe due to stress, unknown environment or bad diet, but my manhood seemed dead. I had talked about it with Robert and he had told me that it was the same for him, that it was a natural reaction and not to care too much about it. But as a man, how could I not worry about my manliness being taken away from me. Among all these females, some appeared to be children, teenagers and adults but no elders. These people probably didn''t live long enough to die of old age. After an hour of watching them hard at work, I then decided to change location and have a look around. Not far from the women stood two serious looking men with long spears in hand, a bow behind their back and what looked like a stone axe tied to their waist. The men were wearing simple loincloths and handmade necklaces but nothing else. They also had face-paint and the more I looked at the designs on their faces, the more it seemed like a way to identify their ranks or their ''jobs''. One of the men had two blue lines on his cheeks and his chin, and a black line in the middle of his chin and around his eyes, (Raccoon eyes) while the other man next to him had the exact same lines on his face plus some others. Added to the blue and black lines, the other man had yellow lines right next to the blue ones plus two yellow dots above his eyes. By the look of it, these were something similar to the military rank badges worn by military officers on their shoulders. There seemed to be a lot more variety in the women''s face paints, but I had only seen two males so far, compared to at least 30 females. Some had blue and white lines over their eyes, a red line under their eyes, or green and black. All of these intricately designed face paints seemed somehow important to their culture, but all I knew was that they all used 6 specific colours, black ¨C red ¨C blue ¨C white ¨C green ¨C and yellow. By the look of it, the women seemed to be the ones doing all the work, while the few men I had seen so far seemed to be used as their bodyguards. Looking at their behaviours and well determined roles, I couldn''t help but compare them to army ants. Just like them, they had workers, and warriors. The two men were holding their long spears and looking around with their big black eyes, as if danger could appear at any time while the women seemed to enjoy themselves. Clearly, the women were trusting these warriors enough to relax and find pleasure in what seemed like hard work. Since these ''humans'' had such big eyes, I assumed they had a very good vision. Because of that, I had kept a very large distance between me and them. There was also the fact that if I could sense their presence, maybe they could do the same, but so far they hadn''t shown any sign of doing so. The group of women spent around an hour at the beach before finally loading up big baskets with what looked like freshly peeled giant elongated potatoes, and one more basket filled with a bunch of small aquatic creatures that looked like sardines from far away. The women then went to what looked like a bunch of flag poles. Each grabbed their own pole, took the pieces of cloth dangling at the top, and skillfully wrapped them around their waist, creating a perfect looking loincloths in the process. These were not flagpoles, but spears which they had stuck into the ground and placed their ''underwear'' on top of it before going into the water. They obviously didn''t want their ''underwear'' to get wet or dirty. Obviously, the women remained topless and didn''t seem to have any reason to want to cover their breasts. The women then used their spears as carrying poles and carried the heavy baskets as a group. They all headed deeper inland by following a large dirt path so well maintained that it could have been called a road. The entire time, the two males warrior closely shadowed the group of women while keeping their heads on a swivel. Male and female, both carried spears but only the men had stone axes and bows. Also the fact that they weren''t doing anything other than ''guarding'', seemed to indicate that it was either the only thing they were good at, or were so good at it that the women were willing to work hard to feed them in exchange for their protection. From the look of it, the males were probably the only ones I should have to worry about. Or maybe the reason for there to be so few males, was that the females didn''t need their protection. Curious, I kept following them from a distance. Eventually, the little group reached a large area cleared of all vegetation. Seeing such a large area without trees was somehow refreshing. It was as if I could breathe better all of a sudden. The ground was entirely covered in sand, probably carried there to prevent the growth of vegetation which predators could use to sneak up on them. The area was as big as 4 football fields and a small village was built in the middle of it. The village itself was around 3 to 400 meters in diameter and was surrounded by a giant wooden palisade at least 5 meters tall. The small houses built inside of it seemed to be of various sizes and designs. They seemed to be built using bark, grass, wood, dried mud, basically anything they could put their hands on. The size and design also seemed to change depending on what they intended the building to be used for. In the area furthest away from the door, was the biggest house of all. Since the palisade was so high, I could only see the roof, but this building seemed surprisingly big and was probably the chief''s house. I could be wrong about that though. It was not like I knew if they had a chief or anything like that but back on earth, most human societies had a leader. With everybody now in the village, I counted around 70+ individuals, but once again, I had barely seen any males around. I had a few theories in mind for why that might be. First, maybe the men were gone hunting. A hunting expedition could take weeks before returning. Second theory, maybe they were at war with a neighbouring tribe. If they were similar to indigenous tribes from earth, then the males were probably the ones going to war, so them being at war could explain why there were so few males around. Maybe I was overthinking this though. Maybe this was a tribe of women and the men were their bitches. [WARNING] [Body temperature: 38.9¡ãC] [Hydration: 20%] Uh? So the nanites also kept track of my body temperature and hydration level? It even went as far as warning me in case of overheating? I had to admit that it was quite amazing. I apparently needed to urgently have a drink and remove some of my clothing before having a heatstroke. Looking at the sky, the sun was already low on the horizon so I decided to call it a day and go back to my cave. On the way there, I gathered as many comestible fruits as I could and brought them back with me. Upon arriving at the cave, I noticed some paw prints on the ground near my extinguished camp-fire. The creature I had stolen this cave from was seemingly still hanging around here and I probably would have to deal with it eventually. I had a quick drink, gathered some firewood for the night and managed to light the fire just in time for nighttime. Exhausted, I sat next to the fire while eating jerky and fruits. Lost in thought, I wondered about what to do. How could I go back home? Should I make contact with the locals? If I did, would they be hostile? After turning the problem around many times, I then decided to take a few more days to observe these indigenous people before making a decision. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The next day, I sneaked up on the village early in the morning, but it seemed that everybody in the village was already awake. I could sense people walking everywhere in the forest as well as a small group moving toward the beach. This time again, I decided to follow the group heading to the beach. Not because I wanted to see them naked, but mostly to analyze their food, how they captured and processed it. I was getting more and more curious about trying to fish myself but was worried about what I would end up pulling out of the water. After finally catching up with the beach group, something instantly came to my attention. This time, there were no men. The two guards from yesterday seemed to have been replaced by one single woman who was wielding the famous trio, spear, bow and axe. This time though, the face paint was something completely different. She had a face paint using red ¨C black ¨C and yellow. Unlike the males warriors from yesterday, her face paint had no blue lines, and generally looked different. There was also the question of why she was alone to defend the group. Did her being alone mean that she was stronger than the two males from yesterday combined? I was curiously observing these people, but I had absolutely no idea of what was going on and what everything I saw meant. Then, out of nowhere, the woman''s eyes turned toward me as if she knew I was there. Her eyes began to glow red as a frown appeared on her forehead. Crap crap, a dokari user. If she could use red mist (Aka dokari) like me then she could probably sense my presence. Panicking, I quickly crawled back further into the forest while trying to stay as silent as possible. Eventually her glare turned away from me and she just went back to join the rest of the group. My heart was beating rapidly and I was getting sweaty from the stress. Unsurprisingly, these people could use dokari as well, but maybe not all of them. Yesterday, none of them had noticed me after all. Was it the reason for her being alone as escort today? If she could use dokari, but not the men from yesterday, then she was definitely more powerful than the two of them combined even if she was a woman. This explained why they had replaced the two normal warriors from yesterday with this woman doped on dokari. But I was surprised that she had suspected something to be there, but hadn''t went to confirm it. Maybe her sensing abilities weren''t that good after all. But I still couldn''t afford to take them lightly since some of them could potentially be very powerful dokari users just like me. Once at the beach, the women then stripped out of their loincloths, placed them on the tip of their spears and stuck them into the ground like flagpoles. Seeing around 20 women getting naked all of a sudden might sound very nice to some people, but the fact was that many of them were definitely not pleasing to the eyes. Some of them had their things hanging low if you see what I mean. Some of them visibly have had many children, had weird body shapes, or rotten or missing teeth. Among them, 2 women were carrying babies on their backs, Adding to all these unpleasant body features, was the fact that they belonged to a very different species. Their big eyes and weird general appearance was making it harder to find them attractive. I ended up spending hours watching them, trying to gauge the female warrior''s sensing abilities by sneaking closer to them, then backing away when she noticed. During one of the times when she intensely stared at me, I closely observed her face through my sniper scope and as I was wondering what her face-paint could mean, this appeared; [Rank: Nolvak warrior] The nanites in my body apparently had knowledge concerning the signification of these peculiar face-paints, and would most likely come in handy if I made contact with them one day. Thank to my new found ability, the rest of the day was then spent trying to identify all of the ranks I could. They apparently had face paints for parent of a newborn baby, something that was called ''spiritual openness'', gatherer, fisherman, etc. This routine continued for a few days but on the 4th day, something different happened. Early in the morning that day, the sound of something similar to a trumpet or a horn echoed through the land, to which the villagers responded by rushing out of the village and huddling together. They all had their spears in hand but their behaviour didn''t seemed hostile. Instead of hostility, what could be felt was something closer to excitement. After re-positioning myself to get a better view of what was going on, I noticed a group of people approaching by a road leading further inland. Seemed like the males I had been wondering about where finally returning. Actually, the approaching group was not exclusively constituted of men but seemed to be evenly distributed between the sexes. By the look of it, there was a lot more women than men living in this village after all. With that aside, the approaching group definitely had a different vibe to them. Most of them had face-paints I had never seen before, and all had what could only be described as battle hardened faces. The look in their eyes, their muscular bodies and the way they moved screamed warriors. After a quick count, I estimated the group of warriors to be 50 people strong. The total village population was now confirmed at around 120 ''humanoids''. Aiming my scope at the face-paints I had never seen before, finally allowed me to identify some of their hierarchy rankings. This also allowed me to learn that the warriors ranking system was a lot more sophisticated than I had first anticipated. They had ''new warriors'' ¨C ''warriors'' ¨C ''seasoned warriors'', but also something called ''new nolvak warriors'' ¨C ''nolvak warriors'' ¨C and ''superior nolvak warrior''. My current theory was that normal warriors couldn''t use dokari, but nolvak warriors could. Among all the people in the group, one definitely stood out from the rest. Unlike the others, he was the only one wearing something that looked like an ornate leather belt and Egyptian style skirt worn over his loincloth. He also had many feathers and colourful trinkets in his hair, which made him look like someone important. The thing that gave him away the most was his unique face-paint. He was the first one I had seen with that much white in its design. Big white triangular patterns were drawn on his cheeks, with yellow and black pointy stripes under the eyes and over his chin. Focusing on him and identifying his face-paint only confirmed my suspicions. This man was the tribe''s chief. Shadowing him, was a scary looking old man which I had suspected to be the chief at first. He appeared to be the oldest person in the tribe, and also had a unique face-paint. Upon identifying him, I learned that the mysterious old man was a shaman. He had red hand imprints on each cheeks and a weirdly drawn red symbol on his forehead. It was the first person I had seen with a face-paint containing exclusively red paint. For some reason, my instincts were telling me to stay away from that old man. Being a shaman in this world probably involved mastering dokari after all. I remained at a safe distance and spent the rest of the day observing the village from the top of a tree. They lit a giant bonfire and seemed to be celebrating for some reason. The sound of what sounded like drums could be heard and even if I couldn''t see, I could imagine them dancing around the fire to the sound of the drums. The Merge – Chapter 19 (Stalker) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- As I was about to pack up and leave for the night, I noticed two people going out of the village. I leaned my rifle against a branch and observed the scene. The two people were the chief and a woman who seemed visibly distraught. She had a seriously angered expression on her face and was apparently yelling at the chief. Only one woman could possibly have enough power to yell at the chief himself, his wife? The woman had badly drawn black and yellow lines on her face, going vertically from under her eyes. My identification ability seemed unable to identify what it meant so I assumed that she had probably hastily drawn them, preventing the nanites from recognizing what it meant. After a while, the shaman also came walking out and went to speak with the both of them. After listening to him for a moment, the woman then stormed back inside with tears in her eyes, leaving the chief and the shaman behind. Seemed like there was nothing else for me to see, but as I was about to leave, the shaman''s red glowing eyes then abruptly turned in my direction. Yikes, had he managed to detect me from this far away? This old man was undoubtedly no pushover. Quickly gathering my stuff, I then swiftly ran back to my cave for the night. Now that all these powerful warriors were back home, making contact with them seemed less and less like a good idea. Now that I had learned a bit about the locals, it seemed obvious they couldn''t help me in any way. They seemed to be living in the stone age, and weren''t using boats or anything noteworthy. With that in mind, I decided to try building a boat myself tomorrow. It would probably take me a few weeks, but if I used enough wood and structural beams, maybe I could build a boat strong enough to travel over sea. In the end, all I needed to do was go north to get closer to home. From there I would have to wing it though... Right now, I had food, shelter, and enough trees around to be able to make it on my own. On the fifth day, I began to chop down trees and shaped them like the spine of a boat. I had nothing to make sails out of, and honestly had no idea how sailing boats worked, so I decided to make a paddle-boat instead. I was going to use leather straps as belts and make a pedalling system out of coconut tree wood, which seemed to be the hardest wood around here. Without nails or screws, the most difficult part was to keep everything held together by using dowels and joinery. Wooden cogwheels were nothing new and were pretty easy to make. The boat was going to have two pedal wheels, one on each side like the steam-boats that used to go down the Mississippi river back in the days. That way, I wouldn''t be dependent on wind and could use my dokari doped body-strength to make the boat move faster. Even if the wood was very tender and easy to carve, it immediately became obvious that it would take me a very long time to complete its construction. I had to juggle between foraging, wood collecting, water boiling, cooking, sleeping and boat building. Doing a few weeks of that was certainly going to be a pain in the ass, but it had to be done. Three days later, I already had completed what looked like a boat skeleton. At 8 meters long, it was definitely not a small boat but I wasn''t feeling comfortable with the idea of travelling at sea with a smaller one. Getting bored with this daily routine already, I decided to go have a look at the village out of curiosity. After living alone in the woods like that for 11 days, stalking the village had become my new television. When I arrived at my usual observation tree that day, something felt off. Nobody was out working, but were all inside the village instead. I wanted to get closer to get a better idea on what was going on but didn''t want to risk being discovered. An hour of nothing later, a horn made itself heard. Everybody then exited the village with gloomy expressions on their faces, as if something bad had or was about to happen. A small group of people eventually appeared in the distance, coming from the same road that the group of warriors had come from a few days back. A look through my rifle scope confirmed 10 people in total, 6 women and 4 men. The group was made out of 9 superior nolvak warriors plus one unidentified man. I had never seen this man''s face-paint design before so I focused on him and used my identify ability. [Rank: Imperial Panhak] Well now I knew what to call it, but I still had no idea of what he was. He had the same triangle design on his cheeks like the chief, but his were blood red instead of white. He also had the usual black raccoon eyes and a black line dividing his face in half, going over his forehead, nose and chin. I didn''t know if it was because he was the first alien humanoid without long hair I had seen, but the look of his weird face-paint and his bald head was giving me the creeps for some reason. The scary group consisting of highly powerful warriors seemed to keep their distances from the rest of the people and appeared to be waiting for something. After what seemed like chaos and confusion, a small woman emerged out of the crown, escorted by the village''s chief and the woman from yesterday. The young woman seemed distraught by the situation but wasn''t struggling. If looked almost as if the villagers were giving her away to the newly arrived group of warriors as hostage or something. Some of the villagers were weeping and tearing up as they gave the young woman away for whatever reasons. Identifying the young girl''s red and white face-paint ended up confirming my suspicions. This young woman was the chief''s daughter, and by the look of it, she was being given to a neighbouring tribe for marriage or something like that. Even if I had been unable to identify her face-paint, the sophisticated leather skirt she wore would have been enough in itself for me to identify her as such. The skirt she wore was ornate with wooden beads strings and even had what looked like metallic eyelets and studs where the laces were used to tie it up. Since I had begun to observe these people, it was my first time seeing anything made out of metal. I had first thought of them as being stone age people, but maybe I was wrong after all. The small group of warriors then took the chief''s daughter with them and left back to where they had came from. Seemed like they were the escort responsible of bringing her safely to whoever she was destined to get married to. I felt a bit bad as I watched the situation. The woman I had assumed to be her mother seemed on the verge of collapsing, while the rest of the village simply looked as if they were holding funerals. I could understand her mother''s sadness to see her daughter leaving the family nest, after all I had felt the same way when Rambo had left me, but why were all the other villagers looking so grim as well? Curious, but also worried, I decided to follow the group of warriors from a distance. My instincts were telling me that this panhak bald dude was not a good person, so I wanted to make sure nothing bad happened to the girl. Leaving the village behind, I began to stalk the small group from a long distance away, since all of them were superior nolvak warriors except the chief''s daughter and this panhak dude. I now knew that I needed to be very careful when it came to nolvak warriors. I followed the group for around 2 hours, while being careful to remain undetected. The young woman was walking in the middle, surrounded by the warriors, which made it look like she was more of a prisoner than a future bride. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. While they were walking on a road, I was following them by using a paralleled route through the forest. I made sure to never lose sight of them while keeping my distance, but as they arrived to a lake, my senses picked up a bunch of entities heading their way. Unsure on whether it was an ambush or welcoming party, I remained cautious and laid on the floor with my sniper rifle ready for action. As the entities closed in on the group, the bald panhak dude suddenly made a hand gesture to which the other warriors reacted by adopting fighting stances. It is then that the mysterious entities finally showed themselves. I was far away but through my rifle scope, I could clearly 8 dog/hyena looking creatures surrounding the group. The eyes of the ten warriors suddenly began to glow red, their body slowly being enveloped in a calm looking layer of dokari. The way they used dokari seemed different than me, which was quite interesting. The panhak dude remained next to the scared woman while the other superior nolvak warriors charged at the creatures. It was very chaotic, but these warriors moved with a lot of speed and fluidity in their movements. Seeing them fight was impressive but they seemed to slowly get pushed back by the evil looking dog creatures. The warriors were jumping in all directions, launching arrows at the creatures as they did so but the creatures seemed mostly unaffected by the attacks and simply kept charging. After two minutes of fighting, the group had managed to kill two of the dogs but were visibly at a disadvantage, since one of the warriors appeared to be dead and two more were injured. How could they struggle against such weak creatures? Weren''t they supposed to be among the strongest warriors out there? It seemed as if the group was going to be exterminated, but that all changed when the panhak dude decided to get into the action. The bald man suddenly began to leak what seemed like red tentacles of dokari out of his body, and rushed toward the beasts. In a few seconds, the panhak dude had managed to cut two of the beasts to pieces with his dokari tentacles which he used like deadly whips. For the first time since the start of the altercation, the monstrous dogs finally seemed to be pushed back. Seemed like I wouldn''t need to intervene after all. Seizing the opportunity, the chief''s daughter took advantage of the panhak warrior being distracted to run away into the forest. For the first time, I could confirm that the woman was being held prisoner. If she wasn''t a prisoner, why would she even try to run away from them? This didn''t look like the reaction of a willing bride. The woman was running as fast as she could, and seemed to be heading toward me. I remained immobile, cloaked by my ghillie suit, trying not to be seen as the woman ran past me and continued deeper into the forest. Turning my attention back to the road, I saw that all the monster dogs were already dead, apparently all killed by the panhak warrior. This weird bald man was clearly not on the same level as the other warriors. The nolvak warriors were all sitting on the road and taking care of their injuries, while the panhak warrior launched himself from three to three, in pursuit of the fleeing woman. Worried, I decided to follow them and see what was going to happen, but after only a few hundred meters, found the panhak dude immobile, staring at a hole in the ground. My sensing ability was telling me that the woman was either hiding in the hole, or had fallen into it. As I stealthily approached, the panhak man then suddenly turned around and stared in my direction. I was immobile, hidden behind a tree over 200 meters away but the man had instantly noticed my presence. The man firmly help his spear and seemed nervous. He kept looking around in my general direction and seemed to be panicking for some reason. ¡°YHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DAKU ARU NILA, TI DIARRR! NIART!¡± The man suddenly began to shout his lungs out. My first reaction was to wonder what the hell he was saying, and once again was surprised by what happened. Duliptani to English: ¡°YHAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN SENSE YOU, SHOW YOURSELF! MONSTER!¡± A google translate function? Now this was going to be very useful. This man could clearly sense my presence, but I didn''t know what to do. Should I show myself? If I fought against him, it would reveal my presence here and they could potentially send an army to subjugate me later on. Wanting to avoid trouble, I decided to try to scare him away without fighting him directly. I began to gather some dokari inside my chest, gathering and compressing it as much as I could. Then as I felt as if I was about to explode, I released all of it outward and sent a massive shockwave of pure dokari all around. The power behind this outburst made the giant trees surrounding us sway and crack under the pressure. Birds and various creatures took off and ran away from our location, as if death itself had appeared. The shockwave even sent the panhak dude flying a few feet back, and made him fall on his ass with a bewildered look on his face. I had remained laid on the forest floor, invisible to his eyes but had allowed him to sense my power, which had seemed to be very effective. The warrior then rapidly stood up, and screamed his lungs out while running away as fast as his legs could carry him. ¡°GUHAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa DEMON!¡± I waited for a few seconds, and when I finally sensed that no one was around, stood up and walked up to the crevasse where the woman was. When I looked down, I saw the small woman laid in a puddle of blue blood at the bottom. Seemed like she had fallen to her death. For a moment, I felt like puking. I couldn''t help but feel responsible for it. If only I had intervened before it happened. Seemed like she had been too busy running away to take the time to see where she stepped, and accidentally fell down the crevasse. Deciding to at least offer her a proper burial, I jumped down the crevasse and landed next to her small inanimate body. The crevasse was around 12 meters deep, which was not that deep for me. I believed to be able to survive a free-fall from a plane if I used dokari body strengthening. I turned the small woman on her back and placed my hand on her neck, trying to feel her pulse. Unexpectedly, the young woman seemed to still be alive. Maybe I was not too late, maybe I still could save her. Excited, I took her in a princess carry, doped my body with dokari and superman-jumped out of the crevasse. I then ran back toward my cave at a speed that couldn''t even be considered human anymore. Having her in my arms wasn''t slowing me down at all. I could barely feel her weight, and it was almost as if she was weightless, or made out of sponges. Among all the aliens I had seen so far, she was by far the most beautiful one. So beautiful that even her belonging to a different species wasn''t putting me off. She had a small mole over her lips like Marilyn Monroe and supple lips similar to Angelina Jolie. Truly a beautiful young purple alien woman. Also, not that it was usually the first thing I looked at, but her breasts were equally beautiful. Healthy, perky, well shaped, simply perfect in every way. At this point, my only hope was to make it back to my cave in time to save her. Maybe I wouldn''t be able to deal with such bad injuries on my own. ''If only Camille was here with me'' I thought to myself. The Merge – Chapter 20 (Creepy) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Special thank to Voroni ------------------- In a flash, I was back to my cave. I was actually surprised at how close it was from where the incident happened. Still holding the small inanimate body in my arms, I rushed into my cave and laid her onto my bed. It was only a pile of grass but it would have to do for now. The next thing to do was to quickly get to my backpack hidden under the giant rock and pull my first aid kit out of it. In this small satchel, was a bit of everything and anything. Vitamins, pills of all kinds, needles and thread, disinfectant, bandages and the list just went on and on. The next thing to do was to boil some water in a big clay pot I had made a few days back and put some clean cloth into it. To prevent infection, I needed to made sure that everything had been properly sterilized in boiling water, the needle and thread included. Once everything was ready, I gathered everything and rushed back into the cave where the little woman was still unconscious. The first thing to do was to make sure that my body was no longer under the influence of dokari. These little purple people seemed so weak that I feared the possibility of accidentally injuring her with my overly powerful body. Next up was to inspect her body and look for any injuries I could have missed, and make sure to treat the most serious ones first. She had bruises everywhere, which were unimportant. She also had a small gash on her forehead but the most serious injury by far was on her thigh. Of course, I was worried about her having a concussion or some type of brain damage, but the wound on her thigh was what seemed the most critical to me. On the outside of her left thigh was a big open wound which bled a lot, but not enough to indicate that an artery had been ruptured. After closer inspection, I finally managed to confirm that no artery had been severed, which was very reassuring. Maybe she could survive this ordeal if she was lucky enough. Having confirmed her visible injuries, I now needed to verify is she had fractured bones. As I laid my hands on her soft body, I couldn''t help but feel nervous. She seemed so little and fragile that I felt like a giant monster beside her. Compared to her, I definitely was a giant. I inspected her arms, neck, gulp* chest... I made sure to be very gentle and not accidentally break her ribs, but eventually confirmed that she had no apparent fractures other than her legs. Actually, she had most likely fallen on her feet, which explained her worryingly swollen left ankle. I wasn''t sure if it was a fracture or a simple sprain, but it had already begun to turn different shades of yellow and purple. This was highly worrying since I had no idea how to deal with fractures. I could immobilize her leg, but if the bones were fractured, they could potentially repair themselves back together incorrectly, which would make her a cripple for life. Camille had also talked about something called ''compartment syndrome'': Which is a severe swelling after a fracture that can put so much pressure on the blood vessels that not enough blood can get to the muscles around the fracture. The decreased blood supply can cause the muscles around the fracture to die, which can lead to long-term disability. Compartment syndrome usually occurs only after a severe injury. If she was lucky and it was only a sprain, then she could walk normally again in a few weeks. It all depended on whether she was lucky or not. Not wasting anymore time, I quickly began to wash her open wounds with the sterilized water and cloths. I cleaned the wounds the best I could, making sure no debris or other foreign agents could create infections and complicate the healing process, then applied disinfectant. She was very lucky to be unconscious, because this part would have been painful as hell for her if she hadn''t been knocked out. I was finally at the suturing part of the job, but I was nervous. I had only seen Camille do that a few times and knew that if I messed it up, she would end up stuck with a nasty looking scar on her beautiful thigh for the rest of her life. Since she was a woman, I assumed this was something she wouldn''t want to happen. First, I carefully opened the gash while sponging the blood with a clean piece of cloth, and took a look at the damage. No artery, no tendons had been severed either, but the muscle had been cut into quite deep. Seemed like I would have to suture the muscle first, but I was freaking out. I am not a goddamned surgeon. Luckily though, I knew that for an internal suture like this one, I would need absorbable thread. This type of thread would eventually disintegrate and naturally disappear without needing to be removed. As you could imagine, I had no intention of cutting her leg open again to remove the sutures later. I grabbed the right thread, and went to work. It was not really difficult to do, but to do it cleanly was different. I had little to no idea about what I was doing, but I needed to at least try to save her life. Keeping that in mind, I pressed on until everything was finally closed back up. I cleaned the wound one last time before admiring my work for a few minutes. Then, I placed some bandages over it, to protect against bacteria and germs that were probably rampant in a cave like mine. I then proceeded to clean her other wounds which were a lot less serious but still needed some attention and disinfecting. A wound on her lower back also needed a few stitches to properly heal, which I cleanly did. Once all the wounds were taken care of, I changed the water, boiled it with the rags in it, then used them to clean her body. I obviously avoided to touch anything my conscience told me not to, and didn''t take her skirt or loincloth off. If I did, she would most likely think I abused her in her sleep or something. Burned out, I sat near the campfire and lit a cigarette. I wasn''t smoking much these days since I was worried about running out. If I smoked only one per day, I could hopefully last a few more weeks. Hypnotized by my little glowing stick friend, I was lost in thought about what had just happened. She was still breathing, but she had taken a serious beating. Should I bring her back to her tribe in case she was living her last days? Unless they had some kind of antibiotics, sending her away was almost a death sentence. Or maybe she would end up needing an amputation. I stared at her a bit more, finished my coffin nail and went through my first aid kit. I needed to make her eat some meds, but I doubted that simply putting it in her mouth while she was unconscious would work. The mouth to mouth technique from mangas was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, so my only option was force feeding. I took a piece of rubber tubing from the medkit, and a big syringe meant for that purpose. Since she was so small, she didn''t need a very high dose of medication so I split the pills in four. One fourth of a morphine pill, one fourth of antibiotics and a half dose of sleeping pill. I didn''t want her to wake up, freak out and pop her stitches out. I knew very well what her reaction would be after seeing me for the first time and didn''t want to risk it. I took the small pieces of pills, put them in the syringe with a bit of water and walked up to my patient. I gently opened her mouth, delicately inserted the tube and made sure no air was being blown through the tube. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. If I had felt air, it would have meant that I had entered the respiratory tract instead of the digestive one. Doing it in the wrong hole here could potentially kill her by asphyxia. Once the tube was in place down her throat, I plugged the syringe in the extremity and gently forced the meds and water down. I would maybe have to feed her that way for a while if she never wakes up. Hopefully she wouldn''t go into a coma. With that done, I cleaned and sterilized everything in boiling water before packing everything up. Then, I went to my giant rock, lifted it and exposed my bag. Seemed like there were no creatures strong enough to threaten me around here, so I increased the size of the hole and placed almost everything in it. My necklace, armour, sword, sniper, everything except my t-shirt, pants, socks, combat boots, Rambo knife and pistol. After placing the rock back over the hole, I quickly went to work by making a proper, raised off the ground, bed by using flexible roots as cordage to weave something like a net or a hammock held by a wooden frame. I then padded the mattress with dry grass and weaved a small straw pillow. It would have been better if I had an animal pelt underneath the grass but I hadn''t seen many big animals so far. If I ever came across that hyena bear again, I would make a blanket out of it. Feeling like she was out of danger, I made myself another bed which I positioned not too far away from hers. The next three days ended up being spent gathering wood and maintaining the fire while regularly feeding her more meds, water and some fruit puree. Toward the end of the third day, I learned something I didn''t know. It would seem that if unconscious people are being fed, they will continue to have regular bowel movements. What I am saying is that the little woman had defecated in her sleep, soiling her panties and bed. A pungent smell of excrement was floating all over the cave and couldn''t be ignored. I felt guilty for stripping her, but if I didn''t, she could develop rashes and infections. Not only that, but the smell was intolerable so I took her skirt and loincloth off, cleaned them in the creek and hung them to dry. Next, I took some clean humid cloth and washed her entire body from front to back. She was a patient and I couldn''t afford to be squeamish or feel guilty about it, so I did what needed to be done. Doing that allowed me to confirm that she wasn''t a kid despite her small stature. It also allowed me to confirm that everything down there looked exactly the same as women from my world. I then washed the cave floor where the liquid diarrhea had leaked through the bed, changed the bedding and laid her back on a layer of freshly picked grass. Since she was now totally naked, I took one of my t-shirts from my bag and put it on her. She was so small, that a medium sized shirt looked like a small dress on her. I then made sure to maintain the fire and not let it die out. Knowing that she could wake up at any moment, I was anxious and kept trying to think of a way to prevent her from panicking at the sight of me. After thinking back on my encounter with the masked man, an idea came to me. A mask was obviously the best solution. Since masks could also be scary, I needed one without any features, just like the one worn by the mysterious black masked man. I took a piece of wood and began to carve it to fit my face. Inspiring myself from the one worn by my mysterious benefactor, I made a simple looking mask and used charcoal from the fire to paint it black. That way, my face should disappear in the dark and make it easier for her to look at me. On the fourth morning, I tried my luck at fishing in the creek. I had been surprised to see something that looked like a fish while cleaning the girl''s underwear the day before and really wanted to catch and eat one. I was already getting sick of my diet of fruits and dried meat at this point and really wanted some fresh meat. Since there didn''t seem to be any red blooded creatures around, I was hoping fish would still taste the same as on earth. I took some hooks and fishing lines from my backpack and turned some rocks around until I found something that looked like bait. After finding a bunch of what looked like slugs, I placed one at the end of my hook and threw the line in the water, hoping for a delicious meal. The hook had barely even had time to touch the water, but a fish was already wrestling at the other end of the line. I was an experienced fisherman so I had experienced this before, but it was a really rare occurrence which usually indicated that the fish population in the river was healthy and rarely visited by other fishermen. Worried that what I had hooked could potentially be a dangerous poisonous creature, I took a few steps back and pulled it out of the water. At first glance, this thing was exactly like the fish on earth, but I went on ahead and identified it to be safe. Ekunay fish: The ekunay fish is a species of freshwater fish usually found in small rivers. This species of fish can be found in the jungles of the central and south continent, but has also been artificially introduced in some lakes and rivers where the climate allowed its survival. Typical lengths of the ekunay fish vary from 25 to 65 cm (9.8 to 25.6 in), and weights from 0.3 to 3 kg (0.66 to 6.61 lb). Very tasty with ukhong and other vegetables, this fish is part of the diet of most carnivorous creatures as well as the natives of this world. Highly excited by my catch, I immediately pulled my knife out and began to scrape the scales off of its body, cut its belly open and removed the guts and various organs. Once that was done, I then cut off two fillets and went back to the cave and grilled it over the fire. As I was carefully overlooking the fish cooking process, a faint noise then attracted my attention. ¡°Hmmmm¡± Seemed like the young woman was slowly waking up. Panicking, I quickly put on my mask and continued to cook my fish while keeping a close eye on her. Maybe it was the smell of freshly cooked fish that was slowly waking her up, but I needed to prevent her from panicking at all cost. Popping her stitches out now could ruin all the healing she had went through thus far. I rapidly prepared one of the fillet with some nuts and fruits, placed them on a big leaf as plate and set it aside for her since she seemed to be slowly waking up. I ate my portion of the fish while keeping a close eye on the girl who was gradually becoming more and more conscious. Eventually, she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling for a while, then her eyes got attracted to the fire burning near her. As for me, I was hiding deeper in the cave, shrouded in darkness. The girl then tried to get up but only managed to sit on her bed due to the pain in her leg. She curiously looked around, then instantly noticed that she was wearing something she had never seen before. I had tried to put her loincloth back on as well as I could but having never tried something like that before, had ended up only rolling it around her waist. Anyway, my shirt was hiding all that needed to be hidden. The little woman tugged on the shirt, curiously inspecting the fabric it was made of. The Merge – Chapter 20 (Creepy) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Special thank to Voroni ------------------- Luckily, it was a plain black t-shirt, because if it had been one of the other ones I usually wear with skulls and snakes on it, she would have certainly been scared of it. Clearly very confused, she inspected her body and noticed the bandages around her leg, then noticed the freshly cooked fish left for her. She didn''t touch the fish but instead tried once more to stand up and slowly walked out to the cave entrance. With a puzzled look on her face, the small woman took a look around and noticed many signs of human activity around. ¡°H- Hello? Anyone here?¡± She asked with her tiny and barely audible voice. After looking around for a while, she turned around and went back to the fish and fruits I had left for her. Seemed like she was hungry after all. She suspiciously sniffed it and took some small careful bites of it at first, but once reassured that it was still warm and not poisoned, she devoured the entire thing like a starving wolf. Once her appetite was satiated, she then turned her attention back to her leg. Puzzled by the foreign looking bandages, she then tried to remove it. ¡°Don''t, I just recently changed them.¡± I said with my most soothing voice from deep in the cave. The girl jumped in fright and aimed her eyes to the dark depth of the cave where I was hiding. I knew she hadn''t understood a word of what I had said, but hoped I could manage somehow. The thing with the nanites'' translation ability, was that it translated in English what the others said, but wasn''t translating English to whatever their language was. I could basically understand them, but had no way of making them understand me. ¡°Who''s there? What did you say?¡± She asked with a worried look on her face. I slowly walked forward on my knees until she could make out my silhouette, stopped and sat on the ground at a safe distance. I had removed my necklace, my armour, my sniper and everything that could potentially scare her and even wore a black mask but my giant stature was more than enough to make her panic, which is was I had been walking on my knees, to make myself appear smaller. I could see fear in her eyes, and she seemed ready to take off running at any time. Doing that would most likely injure her leg, so I needed to calm her down first. ¡°Don''t be afraid, you are in no immediate danger.¡± I calmly told her, hoping the simple tone of my voice would be enough for her to understand I wanted her no harm. ¡°You don''t speak our tongue? W-Who- what are you? Are you the forest spirit that has been stalking our village recently? Did you save me?¡± She then began to bombard me with questions I couldn''t answer. Her voice was so high pitch that it sounded really weird. I guessed that small bodies also came with small voices. I could tell that she was on edge, afraid and confused. I really didn''t know what to do to make her understand that I was not hostile, so I decided to do something which had always been associated with human culture. I then began to snap my fingers, whistle and sing a song from earth titled, ''Don''t worry be happy by Bobby McFerrin''. It wasn''t perfect since my voice was muffled by my mask, but it was still a nice and soothing song that shouldn''t be perceived as anything scary. Not only that, but the lyrics strangely seemed appropriate for the situation we were in. I realized how dumb I must have looked but as long as she stayed calm, I was ready to do anything. She was staring at me with a complicated expression on her face and I could see by the way she was sitting on her bed, that she was ready to take off at any moment. I slowly pointed at myself and said; ¡°Nathan¡± Then pointed at her and silently waited for her answer. Seeing that she kept staring at me with a blank expression, I repeated the same action again and again until she finally seemed to understand what I was doing. She pointed at me and said; ¡°Nay-tu?~¡± She then pointed at herself and said ¡°Noomar¡±. Duliptani to English: ¡°Human¡± Urgg. She thought I was telling her ''what'' I was. Wanting to quickly fix her mistake, I pointed at her and say ''Noomar'' before pointing at myself and repeating the same. I then pointed at the both of us and said ''Noomar'' again. I wanted her to at least understand that I was human just like her. (To a certain degree) She frowned and confusedly asked. ¡°What? You''re a human? Are you not the forest spirit? Wait, is the forest spirit a human? Are you wearing a mask?¡± Having seemingly reassured her by telling her that I was human as well, her fear then turned to curiosity. ¡°Why are you hiding in the dark?¡± She finally asked while leaning forward and squinting her eyes to see me more clearly. Making sure to move slowly to not surprise her, I extended my right arm forward toward her in an attempt to show her that my hands were really human but also quite bigger than hers. I doubted that she would also notice the difference in colour in the darkness. One surprise at a time was more than enough at the moment. She curiously looked at my hand, then her eyes became big in surprise. She extended her own hand forward and even if there was two meters between us, she immediately noticed how big they were. Fear came rushing back into her eyes as she inched backward on her bed. ¡°A-are you a g-giant?¡± She asked with her eyes constantly twitching and throwing glances at the exit. ¡°I guess you could call me a giant. But I am a ''Noomar''¡± I answered while retracting my arm back. She slowly regained her composure, clenched her fist and asked in a gentle voice. ¡°D-did you save my life?¡± Hoping that nodding for yes and shaking your head for no was something universal to all humans, I said yes while nodding my head slowly. Apparently she had understood my answer, since she then pressed her two index fingers together, closed her eyes and slightly bowed forward. ¡°You have my most sincere gratitude Mr. Giant, but it was not necessary. My life has already been forfeited. Now if you''ll excuse me, I need to get back to my village or they will send someone else to get sacrificed to the forest spirit. Protecting my tribe is my duty.¡± She then tried to get up but winced in pain as she put a bit of weight on her leg. Panicking, I quickly rushed to her still on my knees and carefully held her. My sudden intervention scared her a bit but she remained relatively calm since I was barely touching her. All I was doing was supporting her. I tried to explain her that she couldn''t walk with the injury on her leg and to stay put on the bed but she didn''t want to hear anything. She kept on insisting to leave and was gradually growing more and more agitated so I gave up and took her in a princess carry. For the first time since she had woken up, I then stood tall on my feet and slowly walked out of the cave with her in my arms. At this point she was kicking and screaming but when she finally noticed how high off the ground she was, she went silent and looked down at my legs. She quickly looked back at me with fearful eyes, but at least now, she had stopped struggling. I walked up to the creek, and laid her on a patch of green grass. I grabbed my canteen, dropped a bit of water on the ground so she understood what it was, then gave her a drink. Since she had seen me in the daylight, she had remained silent. She was constantly staring at me with big eyes and had also became very obedient. No doubt, it was because she was scared to death of me. I was thinking of bringing her back to her village, and if necessary go there daily to give her antibiotics, but from what she had said, she was supposed to be a sacrifice or something. Now this fact wasn''t sitting very well with me. I had no intention of letting the woman I spent so much effort saving, leave here to get killed right away. Should I drug her and keep her asleep here for a bit longer? What the hell, I now felt like a rapist after thinking that. Then there was only one option left. Bringing her back to her village, and keep an eye on her. I would need to regularly go and give her medicine, while protecting her from the shadows if they ever sent her back to be sacrificed. The villagers would most likely panic at the sight of me, but from what I had witnessed so far, they were nothing more than cockroaches compared to my strength. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I still needed to be careful since I knew there were talented people around like that panhak guy, but with my pistol at my belt, I should be able to overcome anything that''s thrown my way. It is with resolve that I took her in my arms once more and walked down the path I usually took to go to her village. I could feel her little body shaking like a frightened kitten but immediately calm down when the beach came to view. Finally getting her bearings, the little woman in my arms finally understood that I was taking her back home and seemed overjoyed. ¡°Y-you are bringing me back home? Sniff* sniff* T-thank you Mr. Giant.¡± At this point, I could tell that she was beginning to get curious about the difference in our skin colour and was trying to catch glimpses at what was under my mask. I decided to put her down on the warm sandy beach, took a few steps back and slowly removed my mask. By now, she probably knew that I meant her no harm so even if my face scared her, she shouldn''t try to run away. When my blue azure eyes met her big black eyes, many emotions seemed to be shuffling through her mind. There was a bit of fear, fascination, curiosity, but the one which annoyed me the most was a slight disgust. ¡°What''s wrong with your eyes?... So small... And... Blue?¡± Since she still seemed calm, I decided to show her a bit more of our differences. I reached to my belt and grabbed my knife. Then, I sliced the tip of my finger and drew a bloody red line on my forehead. For the first time, her eyes went so big that I thought they would pop out of her skull. ¡°D-dragon blood!!!!!!!!!¡± She screamed. ¡°A... A man with dragon blood?¡± She then added while blushing for a reason unknown to me. I wondered why she had immediately called it dragon blood, since dragons were not the only creatures with red blood. I then assumed that maybe dragons were the only red blooded creatures they had seen so far. After all, only flying creatures could make it onto an island. ¡°S-so Mr. Giant... i- is the one she spoke about....¡± She muttered to herself in a voice almost too quiet for me to hear. Hearing her call me Mr. Giant again, I decided to try once more to get the names thing right. ¡°Nathan.¡± I said while pointing at myself. The woman then tilted her head and finally seemed to understand. ¡°Haa! You, Nay-tu?! Me, ......Kuyani.¡± She finally answered while blushing once more. Finally! I finally knew her name. Happy to finally breaking through the language barrier, I repeated her name a few times. ¡°Kuyani, Kuyani...¡± Her name had a good ring to it. At this point, her face was as purple as an eggplant, which worried me enough to check if she had temperature. While I did so, I also noticed that the cut on my finger had completely disappeared. Not only healed, but no trace of it remained. Were the nanites also capable of healing me? Things were getting weirder and weirder by the minute. Not wanting to waste anymore daylight, I took her in my arms again and continued to go down the beach. We eventually arrived at the area of the beach where I used to regularly see naked women. This time though, there was nobody to be seen but I could sense that most of the villagers were inside the village further inland. With the strange blushing woman in my arms, I continued onward and eventually reached the village. Immediately, the guards noticed us approaching and they began to yell and run around to gather the troops. I stopped and stood a hundred meter away from the giant palisades with Kuyani still in my arms. In only a few seconds, I was surrounded by around 50 warriors pointing their bows and arrows at me. ¡°Don''t shoot! He is not our enemy! He saved my life and brought me back here.¡± Anxiously pleaded Kuyani in my defence. She was visibly worried about what would happen to me but there was no need for her to worry. ¡°Daughter!¡± Screamed a man I recognized as the tribe''s chief. This time though, he didn''t have his usual face paint. This time he had these black and yellow lines which looked like tears flowing down his cheeks. [Face-paint: Mourning] Ha! So that''s what it was. This face paint was for those who mourned someone. They had obviously thought she was dead after her disappearance. ¡°Father!! Tell the warriors to drop their bows NOW!¡± She instantly responded with joy in her voice slowly letting place to anger. ¡°Bows down!¡± He finally ordered the warriors. Some immediately obeyed, but some others kept pointing it at me, because the fear I instilled in them was too great. ¡°LET GO OF HER YOU MONSTROUS MONSTER!¡± Screamed an angry looking superior nolvak warrior. The man was surprisingly muscular compared to the other. There was no doubt that this man was among the strongest in their tribe. Why was he so emotional? Could it be because he had feelings for her? ¡°Yurhon! You big piece of shit! Drop that bow IMMEDIATELY!¡± Apparently she didn''t like him very much. It also appeared that the little miss had one hell of a temper and quite the potty mouth. ¡°Urgg...¡± The big man faltered a bit before finally dropping his weapon. I took a few steps forward toward the chief, but as I did so, the warriors began to panic and some of them even used their bodies to shield him. I looked at the chief and made slow movements that indicated that I only wanted to give her back to him. Kuyani once again began to yell at the warriors and extended her arms toward her father. The chief finally came forward and took his daughter in his arms with tears in his eyes. ¡°My baby, what happened? Why did the forest spirit give you back to us?¡± Asked her curious father while staring at me. ¡°I-I...¡± She was about to say something, but never finished her sentence and began to blush like an idiot again. I could hear the murmurs of the peoples around me. It was a mix of fear, distrust and disgust at my appearance. Not wanting to stir them up anymore than necessary, I turned around and began to walk away. ¡°WAIT! You saved my life, we should give you a reward and a feast! Right father?¡± Energetically said Kuyani from her father''s arms. By the group''s reaction, it was obvious they had wished her to never have said that. Even her father had a complicated expression on his face. ¡°Daughter!!!!¡± Came running a small woman who I recognized as the woman who had yelled at the chief not long ago. Sensing that I had overstayed my welcome there, I gave Kuyani a warm smile and said my goodbye. ¡°I will come again to give you medicine. Bye bye Kuyani. Wave* Wave*¡± CROWD GASP!!!* All the women present simultaneously gasped in what felt like a choir of surprise. ¡°D-Daughter, ......you gave it your name?..........¡± The chief had a look of disbelief on his face, then suddenly. ¡°GGHAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!¡± The big warrior Yurhon came charging at me, spear in hand. I called him a big warrior, but the truth was that I was still 3 heads taller than him. ¡°Naytu?! NOOOooooooo!¡± Screamed Kuyani who thought I was about to get murdered. The angry warrior came charging at me with rage in his eyes, but his efforts were in vain. Before his spear could reach me, I grabbed a hold of it with my left hand and slapped the mini man with the right one. The warrior then fell unconscious on the ground with blood coming out of his ears. I had avoided using dokari and even avoided using all my strength against him, but he still had dropped to the ground like a bag of potatoes. Worried to have overdone it, I crouched and checked his pulse. Luckily, he was still alive. But what was that even about? Don''t tell me they had a stupid rule like, women have to marry the man who they tell their names to. That would be really stupid. When I looked back up, all I saw was a bunch of people with their jaws hanging down in disbelief. ¡°D-daughter, you really want to marry this monster?¡± She then answered her father by blushing even more than before. For fuck sake, I hate being right about this kind of thing. It was time to book it! I used a burst of dokari, and superman jumped back into the forest. I had no intention of marrying a woman I had just met. I now needed to hurriedly finish my damned boat and get the hell out of there. The Merge – Chapter 21 (DragonBorn) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Chapter made extra long thank to NopiSoul ------------------- After a night spent wondering about what my next course of action should be, I woke up early the next morning at the sound of birds, competing to know who was the loudest and most annoying one. Today, I needed to go to the village and give Kuyani her daily medicine. I had first feared that Earth''s medicines wouldn''t work or even be toxic to these people, but their striking resemblance to us had convinced me otherwise. Two completely different species shouldn''t look that similar to each others, which had made me assume that we had common ancestors. These humans were probably ancient humans having been transported to this world from Earth a long time ago, and were therefore separated from us by thousands of years of evolution. Since we seemed to have the same biological makeup, the medication had very little chance of being poison to them as long as the dosage was scaled down for safety. What I was wondering was whether they had an equivalent of antibiotics in this world. If they did, then I wouldn''t need to go back to the village and regularly give some to Kuyani. The only reason why I still felt the need to go back was because I was afraid of them sacrificing her to whatever spirit they were trying to appease. I kept wondering about what they had said so far, about them calling me forest spirit and them also claiming that Kuyani was meant to be sacrificed to said forest spirit. Did it mean that there was more than one ''forest spirit'', or did it mean that they were trying to sacrifice her to me? Maybe they had felt my presence nearby, and decided to give me a woman in hopes of appeasing me, or some other obscure reasons. If that was the case, then I needed to set things straight with them. Today''s plan was to go give some medication to Kuyani and rush back here to work on my stupid boat. The weather was very hot and dry, but the sky seemed different than usual. Usually, all you could see was blue sky, but today, a dense layer of grey clouds could be seen coming from the north and slowly making their way down to us. These ominous looking clouds were probably announcing the coming of yet another rainy season. By the look of it, these clouds should be covering the sky by the end of the day, which could potentially mean that I had missed my chance for a safe boat trip. The sea had been very calm so far, but maybe things would change during the rainy season, and force me to remain here for a few months. I needed to quickly get to work on my boat, and I hoped it wasn''t too late. I had spent a few days leaking large amounts of dokari, while eating dragon pills in the hope of attracting one of the dragons from my pack, but it seemed like it wasn''t going to work. Maybe they were too far away from me, or maybe the sea blocked dokari from travelling across. After all, I was on the other side of a sea or an ocean, while they had left for their migratory area which could be on the other side of the planet for all I know. On the other hand, maybe the locals had went nuts with the sacrifice and stuff exactly because they could feel the large amount of dokari being leaked from me. No matter how I thought about it, my situation was hopeless. This boat was probably my only hope at getting back to the continent I came from. Without something to fly me back there, this stupid boat was all I could think of. When it came to food, I had already eaten most of the fruits in my immediate surroundings and was now almost exclusively relying on fishing to fill my belly. After eating a delicious fish breakfast, I grabbed Kuyani''s medication and headed toward their village once again. This time though, as soon as the village arrived into range of my sensing ability, I instantly noticed that something was different. There were way too many people over there for it to be normal. I could sense around a thousand people, all gathered together at the same place. Worried, I immediately stopped and jumped in a tree for a quick assessment of the situation. I had heard in some documentaries that before the modern age, the telephone and the internet, that information still managed to spread around to other tribes at amazing speeds. Never underestimate humans'' ability to gossip, often said my mother back in the days. The news of me visiting this village had probably already become the main topic of discussion for all the tribes on this island. I had this sinking feeling deep in my chest, telling me that these people were probably gathering there to catch a glimpse of me if I ever returned. Annoyed at myself for not considering this possibility, I still decided to sneak closer to get a visual on what was happening. I was still worried about Kuyani after all and hoped they weren''t there for her. I stealthily went to the same tree I had often used to spy on the village before, climbed on a big branch and took a peek at the village from a distance. What I saw puzzled me a little bit. The sandy area around the village, was littered with tents and various temporary shelters, and the entire place was swarming with face painted mini humanoids. Fires were lit everywhere, and the presence of a bunch of other, smaller groups of them could be felt in the surrounding forest all around us. It was as if the village population had suddenly multiplied by ten and I couldn''t help but suspect it to be because of me. The first thing to know was whether they had hostile intentions or not. I didn''t have my sniper with me, so I couldn''t see exactly who they were but I could at least tell that most of them were warriors. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Knowing that most of the newcomers were warriors, the chances of them being there to catch or kill me seemed to be highly probable. What I had suspected to be hunting parties in the forest around me, were maybe not hunting for dinner but for my shelter instead. Then, images of Kuyani being tortured to force her to tell them the location of my hideout came rushing into my head and made my blood boil with anger. If this was the case, then she had probably kept her lips sealed because they hadn''t made it to my cave yet. Maybe I was only imagining things, but there was one thing for sure, I needed to meet them again and see what was going on for myself. This time though, I quickly rushed back to my cave and put on all my equipment. My dragon necklace, my armour, my sniper, my black katana, my pipe bombs and my backpack. This time, I didn''t leave anything behind and prepared myself to fight or flight. I finally put my black mask on, ate a few dragon pills to max out my dokari and began the long trek back to the village I had just come from. Once I was back in the outskirts of the village, I took the time to dust myself, rearranged my hair which was now reaching below my ears and pulled my necklace out to be clearly visible. Feeling like I was ready to rumble, I then made my way toward the village while expelling a constant wave of dokari. Dokari filled my surroundings and crawled everywhere like an ominous fog leaking out of the forest to announce my arrival. Wanting them to know that I was coming, I then began to knock a few giant trees out of my way and down to the ground, giving the impression that a giant monster was approaching. When I finally arrived a few steps away from the sandy area, I gathered a massive amount of dokari inside my chest area and concentrated on manipulating it. Just like I had seen the panhak guy do, I focused and tried to shape it out of my body like a tentacle. It was the same technique I had practised before and called telekinesis, but in fact, it seemed to be more accurately described as ''dokari manipulation'' rather than telekinesis. To someone who couldn''t see dokari, it looked as if you were using ''the force'' from Star Wars. Having finally managed to form a 4 meters long dokari tentacle, I then began to make it rotate around me. I gradually increased the speed and the length of the tentacle which made it act like a giant lawnmower blade, destroying the surrounding trees and vegetation as I did so. After only a few seconds, I had already gotten the hang of it and was making it spin up and down and in all directions like a whip, creating something like a giant storm of debris in the process. I steadily continued to walk forward until all the trees separating me and the sandy area were no more and gave me a clear line of sight of the village and the large army of panicking humanoids. With fury in my eyes, I slowly made my way toward them, one heavy step at a time. I was trying to infuse as much fear in them as I could by doing so and my reason for it was simple. The more they feared me, the less likely they would be to attack me. I knew that feeling, when I had first come across a dragon, my entire body had screamed at me to run away. The sand I was stepping on was being blown away and swirling into the air like I was a giant leaf-blower or something. The tiny humans were panicking, screaming and running in all directions while some of them seemed to be doing the exact opposite and gathered together in fighting formation. Among the warriors who seemed ready to fight me were some superior nolvak warrior, but those were not the ones I was worried about. Among these warriors were a few panhak warriors like the bald guy from back then. Actually some of them seemed to be even higher level than the panhaks. They seemed to have the same face-paint but with even more markings. From what I could tell, the panhak rank was only a superior beginner level leading to these other two superior ranks which were denlong and foorya. So far, the order seemed to go like this; ''New nolvak warrior'', ''nolvak warrior'', ''superior nolvak warrior'', ''imperial panhak'', ''imperial denlong'' and ''imperial foorya''. I already knew not to mess with the panhak, but if there were two ranks even higher than that, then they were definitely not to be underestimated. For them to send such powerful people here meant that they had judged my subjugation as priority number one. Of course, this was all speculation, but everything seemed to point toward me being right about it. ¡°Kuh!* Such power!... It''s him! The black faced demon that the Nehobian spoke about!¡± Yelled one of them with panic in his voice. Hearing this made me wonder who these Nehobian people were? How did they know about me? As I was pondering about it, a sudden realization came to mind. I was not the only powerful being wearing a black mask in this world. These people were most likely talking about the man I had first met when coming to this place. I was now regretting having made this black mask which had caused these people to think I was him. I also probably couldn''t fix this situation by simply taking it off now. Annoyingly enough, my plan to scare them away had most likely worsened my situation instead of helping it. ¡°What are you waiting for you fools!!! You have angered the draknari-kirishui''shrakum (Dragonkin), KNEEL NOW BEFORE IT''S TOO LATE!¡± Yelled an old man who came running at the scene. Judging by his face-paint, this old man was a shaman but not the same one I had seen a while back. The Merge – Chapter 21 (DragonBorn) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- I therefore assumed that he was part of the recently arrived group of people. This old man looked very frail, but a definite strength could still be felt coming from him. The warriors instantly placed one of their knees down to the ground at his words while still firmly holding their spears ready to defend themselves. ¡°Don''t make eye contact with it. It might perceive it as a sign of aggression.¡± Hearing that remark annoyed me a bit. What was I to them? A dangerous animal or something? The old shaman definitely had a lot of authority since even a man who had a tribal chief face-paint followed his order and placed a knee to the ground like the others. Seeing a thousand little humans kneeling in front of me, I couldn''t help but feel like some type of king or something similar. Sensing that it was the perfect opportunity to end this without a fight, I immediately stopped releasing dokari and adopted a relaxed posture. Just like that, the atmosphere surrounding us had changed and even though everyone was still visibly tense, the little people finally showed signs of being able to breathe normally and calmed down a bit. ¡°Kuyani?!¡± Wanting to give the medication to Kuyani and leave as fast as possible, I decided to call her name and see if they would bring her to me. ¡°Kuyani?¡± Repeated the old shaman with an intrigued expression on his face. ¡°Naytu?!!!¡± Screamed a high pitched familiar voice from behind the group of unknown people. She was being helped up by her mother since her leg had yet to recuperate, and was strangely still wearing my t-shirt from the other day. Ignoring everything and everyone around me, I quickly walked up to her and held her in a princess carry before heading inside the village with her. The warriors surrounding us seemed puzzled by my behaviour but remained silently on their knees and kept avoiding eye contact with me. Once inside the village''s palisade, I looked at her and managed to have her guide me to where her bed was by simply using body language. Following her directions, we eventually arrived to a big wooden house looking a bit like the Native American long houses from back in the days, in which I had to crouch to enter since the top of the door barely reached my shoulders. It was a sturdy looking building at least 20 meters long with many beds built on platforms alongside the walls on each side. The centre hallway had numerous fire-pits at around 5 meter intervals between each other. The beds were laid with animal pelts, while various plants and blue meat were hung from the ceiling to dry. At the end of the hallway was what looked like a wooden throne with a giant statue carved from a big tree trunk looking a bit like a totem poll. I had no idea what the creature carved on it was, but it looked more like a caricature of something rather than a realistic depiction. ¡°I knew you would come back for me.¡± Said the cute little woman while leaning her head against my chest. I carefully laid ''my fianc¨¦ '' on her bed and took her medication out of my pocket. Someone had apparently tended to her wounds, since they were now covered in some weird pasty green stuff which probably was something like a natural herbal medicine. I took a quick look at her leg while failing to notice her blushing face, but was satisfied to see that her stitches had remained intact. While I was trying to explain to her how to swallow the pills and not chew on them, people began to gather behind us and started talking among themselves about very intriguing topics. ¡°Seem like we were very lucky. This male dragonkin seems to be quite friendly, especially to your daughter Farhun.¡± Said one of them to Kuyani''s father. ¡°I don''t think it''s the same dragonkin as the one who''s been attacking the Nehobians recently.¡± He then continued. It was the second time I heard about these ''Nehobians'' and I was really annoyed not to be able to ask for more information about them. Who were they? Was my benefactor truly the one attacking them? ¡°What do you think is going on? It had been many generations since the last dragonkin appeared, but from what we know, there might be two of them walking around as we speak. Could it be related to the unusual monster invasion to the north?¡± Inquired Kuyani''s father to the old shaman. ¡°It can''t only be coincidences. From what we learned from our spies up north, the great Xamryu wall could fall at any time. The onslaught of monsters has apparently been relentless since a few weeks ago and if the wall falls, they might even end up reaching as deep south as here.¡± Worryingly answered the old shaman. After hearing them talk about south and north like that, a sudden realization came to my mind. Could it be that the area we were at wasn''t an island after all? Did it mean that I could get back home by foot without the need for a boat? Also, from what they were saying, I apparently wasn''t the first red blooded human to get transported into this world, but it also seemed like it was a rare occurrence. ¡°Are you sure it can''t understand us?¡± Asked another tribe chief I had never seen before today. ¡°My daughter told me it couldn''t speak our language but seemed highly intelligent. I mean, look at its clothes and equipment, such craftsmanship. Even the Nehobians can''t produce something this refined.¡± Answered Kuyani''s father. Being done with Kuyani, I still wanted to stay there and listen to their conversation, so I simply turned around to face them and calmly sat on the floor. ¡°Eek!* These blue eyes, don''t make eyes contact or they will suck up your soul!¡± Said one of them while quickly turning his gaze down to the ground. ¡°What''s that on its neck? HIIIIiiiiiii! EVERYBODY GET BACK!¡± Screamed the old shaman which prompted panic in the tent. I could understand if they were scared of dragons, but I had assumed them to be smart enough to know that a simply eye couldn''t hurt them. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°W-what is it Urufra?¡± Asked Kuyani''s father to the old shaman who now had cold sweat dripping all over his body. ¡°Its neck decoration... Is made out of crimonite!¡± GASP!* Everybody in the tent backed away from me as far as they could which left me puzzled. Was red gold called crimonite in this world? Why were they so afraid of it ? Confused, I remained seated and showed a curious frown while staring at the old shaman. ¡°Crimonite?¡± I asked. Astonished to hear me repeat a word he had just used, the shaman then decided to try to communicate. ¡°Yes~~ Crimonite.very.dangerous.BOOM!¡± He said while gesticulating with his arms. I had perfectly understood what he meant. I had seen the reaction caused by only a minuscule amount of red gold being touched by acid and could only imagine what the reaction would be if a bigger amount was used. It was quite appropriate to call it a potential ''dokari bomb''. ¡°And.. isn''t that a wyvern eye? By the gods, could this dragonkin be a wyvern killer?¡± Observed the old shaman in awe. Wyvern? Weren''t these creatures dragons? Did that mean that four legged dragons also existed in this world? Tossing that aside for now, I then decided to continue with a small joke to lighten the mood. ¡°Crimonite, boom... Boom.. HA! BOOM!!!¡± I mischievously said before pulling my handgun out, pointing it at the roof and firing a shot. BANG!* ¡°GUAAaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! KYAAAAAAaaaaaaaa!¡± Screams echoed through the hut as everybody rushed outside, leaving me alone with Kuyani who was now stuck to the wall like a scared spider in the corner of a room. Seeing my little fiance so scared, I couldn''t help but let a giggle out. I put my gun back in its holster and extended my arms forward for her to come, which she slowly did like a scared dog being bribed with a treat. After having calmed her down, I stood up and headed toward the exit. ¡°W-Will you come back to see me tomorrow?¡± She asked before I left with a timid expression, to which I answered with a simple nod before exiting the hut. When I exited the tent, hundreds of people were waiting and staring at me as I got out. Many of them were whispering and saying various things I couldn''t understand, but I managed to hear many of them wondering what I looked like under my mask, while others wondered if they were safe in my presence or not. Strangely enough, those who seemed to be the most scared of me also appeared to be the strongest warriors. Maybe because they were the only ones capable of sensing how much dokari my body contained. There were no children around, probably put away in case I turned out to be hostile. From what I understood so far, these people seemed to be hoping for me to become their ally or something. They had heard about a black masked dragonkin creating chaos up north and had hoped to make me their ally instead of antagonizing me. They didn''t seem to know how to act around me and from what I could tell, they also considered me more as a monster than a human. Since they wanted me as a ''friend'' and not as a ''fiend'', I concluded that these little humans weren''t a threat to me. As I was leaving, I also caught parts of a conversation where the old shaman said that a Nehobian sacrifice should be prepared for me in the days to come. Having no way to tell them that it was unnecessary, I ignored it and disappeared back into the forest I had come from. Finally back at my cave, I sat next to the fire and grilled a fish I had just caught. By spending only a few minutes with the natives, I had already learned more about this world than I had managed to learn on my own for the past months. I had also learned that this place was maybe not an island after all and that I could possibly ''walk'' back home. I still had to confirm it, but I couldn''t help but feel anger while looking at my half finished boat. For some reason, I wanted to set the damned thing on fire. I had wasted so much time because of it. I was considering leaving right away but was torn by the idea of leaving Kuyani before her leg was healed. ¡°Only a few more days, then I''ll leave here and walk down the coast.¡± I said to myself. If this wasn''t an island, following the coast should normally bring me back to the lands I had came from. These people most likely wanted to use me for their own political or territorial agendas and I wanted to avoid that. I was still not perfectly comfortable with people, especially strangers, so being faced with a thousand strangers all staring at me like what had happened earlier, had given me the creeps for some reasons. I could learn a lot from hanging around with them, but I still felt a lot more comfortable in the solitude of my cave. I spent the rest of the day gathering firewood, building drying racks and trying to catch as many fish as I could. I then carefully filleted them and placed the meat to be smoked over gentle fires. If I was to walk back home, I needed to make all the necessary preparations. The place I was currently at felt like a safe haven, where no dangerous animals lived and where food was abundant, but I had no way to know if it would remain that way higher north from here. For that reason, I needed to prepare as well as I could while I still had the opportunity. The ominous clouds I had spotted earlier that day were now completely covering the sky and blocking the sunlight. After a while, snow even began to fall. Well, I thought it was snow at first but soon realized it was in fact ashes slowly falling from the sky. Maybe a volcano had erupted somewhere north from here, creating smoke clouds in the process. Ignoring this weird natural phenomenon, I went on ahead and continued with my preparations. While I was still busy cleaning some fish, my sensing ability then caught six life forms heading straight toward me. By the way they felt, I guessed they were six of those little humans from before. They had avoided coming to my cave up till now, so why were they coming here now? The Merge – Chapter 21 (DragonBorn) Part-3 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Worried, I quickly put on my equipment and headed in their direction. I eventually arrived at a great vantage point from which I could stealthily observe the intruders from above. ¡°Daughter, please reconsider this. It might be true that it hasn''t attacked any of us yet, but there''s no way to know for sure what''s going through this monster''s head. Our best warriors clearly stated that only dragons emanated this much strength. If it decides to attack us, there''s nothing we can do to stop it.¡± Said the man I recognized as the chief, Kuyani''s father. ¡°Stop calling him an ''IT'' already dad! Naytu? is definitely not a dangerous monster. He simply is from a different race of humans birthed from the love of a dragon and a human. Just like the oracle told me when I was still a young girl, Naytu? is the one I am destined for.¡± Said Kuyani who was being transported on some kind of rudimentary palanquin, supported by 4 muscular warriors. Oracle? Birthed from the love of a dragon and a human? What the fuck was she even talking about? Humans and dragons can''t crossbreed. Seemed like they had a lot of legends and folklore that dwell on make-belief and storytelling. Anyway, by the look of it, the small father and daughter cortege seemed to be heading straight to my cave, so I assumed that Kuyani wanted to pay me a visit. ¡°B-but daughter, Urufra the shaman said that we shouldn''t go to his lair. Those who do would get their souls sucked away and be condemned to roam the earth as spirits forever.¡± Worryingly added her father. At his words, the warriors flinched and stopped in their tracks. ¡°Stop being silly. I''ve been there before and I am still alive and well. I doubt this old man even knows what he''s talking about........ You four, who told you to stop?¡± Added Kuyani. The four warriors had cold sweats and their legs were visibly shaking but Kuyani showed them no pity. ¡°Daughter!!¡± Suddenly yelled the tribe''s chief with anger in his eyes. ¡°I know I know, never speak ill of a shaman if you don''t want you and your family to be cursed... I know that, but I am speaking the truth.¡± She then confidently said with determination in her eyes. Having confirmed that they truly were heading for my cave, I climbed down from my elevated spot and showed myself. ¡°Urgg* UWAaaaaaa!¡± After spotting me, the four warriors who had been carrying Kuyani''s palanquin dropped her to the ground, turned tail and ran away from me as fast as their legs could carry them. The chief seemed angered by their reaction but simply crouched next to his daughter and used his body to shield her while observing my reaction. ¡°Naytu?!!¡± Kuyani eventually broke the awkward silence and tried to stand up while extending her arms toward me. Wanting to prevent her from injuring her leg again, I quickly walked up to her, tossed her father aside and took her in my arms again. Thinking back on it, I felt like I had spent most of my time carrying her around like a princess than anything else. The young woman then enveloped me in her arms and leaned her head against my chest, showing a level of trust toward me that felt undeserved. ¡°D-daughter!...¡± Her father was still on the ground, looking up to us with tears in his eyes as if he was slowly losing his daughter to me. Feeling pity for a father seeing his daughter growing up to become an independent woman, I couldn''t help but see myself in his eyes and also think about my baby Rambo. I knew very well the pain felt by a father seeing his children growing big enough to leave the family nest. Turning my attention back to Kuyani, I noticed that her face-paint was different than usual. She had red and white pointy lines going down her cheeks and something looking like a black number ''8'' drawn on her forehead. [Face-paint: Bride] Crap!... Feeling like things were getting out of hand at first, I eventually decided to ignore it. They probably needed some type of ceremony to make it official and as long as I didn''t partake, it didn''t matter whether she had a bridal face-paint or not. None of it would matter once I left this place anyway. Sensing an opportunity to learn more about this world, I decided to invite him to follow us down to my cave. I had a small notepad where I had been writing all the words I had learned so far, and hoped to learn enough to be able to communicate with them, even if it was in a rudimentary way. As we walked through the jungle, Kuyani kept rubbing her head against my chest and below my chin like an affectionate cat which seemed to irritate her father for some reason. She had talked about an oracle before. Was it really possible for people to be able to see the future? What were the odds for someone to be right about the coming of a red blooded human to this isolated region? Maybe this oracle truly had foreseeing powers. How could she thrust the words of this oracle so much, going as far as being this affectionate to a ''monster'' who she barely knew. I had learned a lot recently, but new questions just kept piling on as I learned more. As we were walking toward my cave, I could have sworn I saw Kuyani glare at her father before he finally decided to speak again. ¡°I-I need to get back to the village. If the other chiefs learn that we came here without them knowing, they could see this as a serious offence. Sniff* Please take c-care of my precious daughter, oh great draknari-kirishui''shrakum. Sob sob*¡± Said the man before turning around and heading back to the village on his own. I was a bit puzzled by his reaction, but Kuyani seemed overjoyed and began to snuggle even more intensely against my body. Was she a cat or something? I couldn''t shake this feeling that the most dangerous person here wasn''t me but her. She looked like a woman ready to do anything to get what she wanted, and the thing she desired right now seemed to be me. We eventually arrived at my cave, where the many fish I had caught were still in the process of being smoked. Kuyani closely inspected everything around and seemed restless for some reason. Maybe she had understood that all these preparations meant that I was going to leave soon. I put her down next to the fire, sat next to her and took my mask off. She was the only one who had seen my face so far and I intended to keep it that way for now. There were so many things I was curious about and wanted to ask her, but I first needed to learn more about their language to be able to do so. Sitting awkwardly a few feet away from her at first, Kuyani kept subtly decreasing the distance between us by gradually shimmying her way toward me one centimetre at a time. Since she kept wanting to remain glued to me, I couldn''t help but start feeling self-conscious about my body odour and decided to go wash up in the river. I went through my bag, pulled out my axe body soap, deodorant and a bottle of shampoo smelling like mango and other fruits. What? There was nothing wrong with a man enjoying smelling like fruits. What mattered was that I liked the smell and that it was a heck of a lot better than smelling like a gym locker room. I made a hand gesture for Kuyani to wait where she was, while I went toward an area of the river where she couldn''t see me. Once there, I removed my armour and clothing before jumping the the water. The water was so cold that I couldn''t stay in it for too long so I quickly began by washing my hair, rinsed myself, then washed my body and rinsed again. As I was doing so, I could clearly sense Kuyani crawling her way up to me. What was she? A voyeur? I used to think that only men were the type to peek at people washing, but I was apparently wrong when it came to people from this world. I used to be very timid when it came to showing my naked body, but for some reason, I didn''t mind it too much if it was her. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. After all, I had seen every inch of her body while she was unconscious so I wasn''t really in a position to judge her. She was probably curious to know if I was built like a normal man down there the same way I had been curious about her. Still feeling embarrassed after all, I quickly finished washing myself and hurriedly put on a pair of clean pants. After doing so, Kuyani''s head finally popped out of a nearby bush, then quickly disappeared after realizing that I had noticed her presence there. Only wearing pants and giggling to myself, I went up to her and took her in my arms once again. ¡°You truly are a weird woman. Peeking on me while I take a bath? You little perv. Giggle*¡± She remained silent while blushing but suddenly realized something. Sniff sniff* ... Showing a curious expression, the little woman began to sniff my hair and body, then even began to lick my skin energetically. Yep, she was a cat alright. Who would have thought that axe body soap truly had the effect seen in their commercials. ¡°Hihihi* that tickle dammit.¡± Being dragged in by her playful mood, I decided to take revenge and tease her a bit by licking her as well. We both began a licking battle and messed around a bit before I eventually began to explain and show her the soap produce I was using. The little woman was fascinated by the vivid colours of the soap bottles and was already trying to use them as hair ornaments. She then ended up taking her/my shirt off and began to rub her body with the soap. She couldn''t be submerged in the water because of her wounds, so I took a clean cloth and helped her wash her body. I obviously avoided her most intimate areas and finished by washing her hair. We were finally sharing the same delicious smell which seemed to make her very happy. She kept combing her hair with her fingers, seemingly fascinated by how soft it had become. No matter how I looked at her, that little woman seemed to be enjoying herself a lot in my company, and for some reason, so did I. The way she acted around me was still very strange to me. How could she be so comfortable in the company of a ''monster'' like me? Was it because of that oracle she spoke about before? Once she was clean, she went to put her shirt back on, but I stopped her and pulled another clean shirt out of my bag and gave it to her. After cleaning herself, it would have been bad for her to put a dirty shirt back on. This time, it was a red shirt with an Adidas logo printed on it. She kept looking at her new piece of clothing with fascination in her eyes, not because of the printed logo but because of its colour. She had apparently never seen a piece of fabric with such a vivid red colour. I quickly washed her old shirt and put it up to dry next to the fire. We then spent the rest of the day messing around and trying to communicate with each other. I would point at certain objects and note the names she gave them on my notepad. The point was to gradually write as many words as possible and make some type of dictionary for me to communicate with them. At the end of a very productive and instructive day, I eventually carried her back to her village before nightfall. Just like that, an entire week went by in a flash. I no longer needed to go to the village anymore since Kuyani kept coming every morning after that, and would spend the days with me. She ended up teaching me many things during these last days, but mostly taught me how to speak their language. My vocabulary was still very limited, but I had managed to learn the basic words necessary to communicate simple thoughts. It was finally time for me to consider packing things up and leave, but I wasn''t sure how to announce it to Kuyani. After all, she had kept wearing her bride face-paint since that day. There was also the fact that I had grown quite attached to her. Leaving her behind wouldn''t be an easy thing to do and I was already dreading the moment I would have say my goodbye to her. Because of this, I had decided to spend as much quality time with her as I could. Her leg seemed to be doing a lot better now and she could already walk around properly, so it had also became obvious that she didn''t need me here anymore. The number of people gathering at the village had also grown exponentially. The palisade around the village had been extended and now covered the entirety of the sandy area. More than 1500 people were now permanently living there. From the way it looked, all the surrounding tribes had gathered and formed some kind of coalition based around me being there. Sensing that the longer I stayed there, the more complicated things would become, I had decided to pack my things up and leave in no more than a few days. Because of that, I had spent the day playing on the beach with Kuyani who had now finally learned how to pronounce my name properly. ¡°Nathan! Look look! Hehehe!¡± Said Kuyani who proudly displayed her new braided hair. I had braided some strands of her hair with red strings taken from her red shirt, which had apparently made all the other women in the tribe jealous. ¡°Kuyani.pretty.¡± I laboriously said in her native language. She blushed, then jumped into my arms to give me a kiss on the cheek. The more I thought about it, the more nervous I became at the idea of telling her that I intended to leave soon. As we were playfully messing around on the beach, something picked up by my sensing ability instantly made me react. Something was heading straight toward us at an unbelievable speed. One worrying thing about it was that it was coming from the direction of the sea. The most worrying thing was the fact that whatever this thing was, the energy emanated from it was above anything I had came across so far. Whatever this thing was, it was very fast and was either swimming of flying. For a creature to emanate such strength, it had to be a red blooded creature for sure. Panicking, I grabbed Kuyani in my arms and bolted in the direction of my cave. There, I told the confused Kuyani to hide inside, then grabbed my sniper rifle. Before I could finish preparing myself for the incoming fight, the creature was already upon us. ¡°ROOOOOOOOOAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!¡± The familiar mighty roar of a dragon shook the entire area as the creature flew above us for a few seconds before finally landing right in front of us. ¡°KYAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!¡± Seeing the beast, Kuyani screamed her lungs out and fell to the ground, her legs having apparently given up due to her intense fear. The creature wasn''t that big, barely bigger than a large dog, but I was rendered speechless by what I was seeing. The creature standing in front of me was a real dragon, and by that I meant that it had 4 legs and a pair of wings. So the locals had been right all along when talking about wyverns. Rambo, as well as all the other flying creatures I had seen so far had not been dragons, but wyverns. This time though, what was standing in front of me was a real motherfucking dragon. I loudly swallowed my saliva, shaken by fear and apprehensions. I felt like this creature was not something I could take down on my own. My legs were shaking but I couldn''t run away and leave Kuyani behind. I needed to protect her at all cost. Ready to fight with my life on the line, I let out a massive burst of dokari and pointed my sniper at the beast''s head. This dragon was black and red, and its colour patterns strangely resembled Rambo''s. Remembering some ''dragon tongue'' words taught to me by Rambo, I decided to try speaking to the beast before attacking it. After all, the creature didn''t seem to act aggressively toward me for some reasons, but before I could say anything, the creature spoke first. ¡°FAWTARRRRRRRRRrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!! Rambo finally found fawtarrrr!!!¡± Said the beast. ¡°Eh??? R-Rambo?!!!¡± - The Merge – Chapter 22 (Departure) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- ¡°Eh??? R-Rambo?!!!¡± The creature in front of me was different from what Rambo looked like before, but the way he spoke to me was simply too familiar for me not to recognize him. This beautiful young dragon was without a doubt Rambo, but why the change in appearance? Feeling a mix of powerful emotions invading me, tears began to flow down my cheeks as I looked at him. ¡°M-my baby boy... Sob*¡± I lowered my weapon and slowly walked toward him, overwhelmed by happiness. ¡°Fawwwtarrrrr¡± The little dragon then began to run in my direction which prompted me to run toward him faster. We eventually collided with each other and collapsed to the ground, each holding a firm grip on the other. Rambo was as strong and sturdy as ever which forced me to use dokari to avoid being ripped to pieces by his powerful claws. We were rolling on the ground, hugging and showing how we missed each other while crying like babies. My son had returned. He hadn''t abandoned me. ¡°Rambo! I thought I would never see you again. Sniff*¡± I said, barely able to articulate. ¡°Rambo never abandon Fawtar!¡± He then said. Hearing these words made me even more emotional. ¡°How come you grew new limbs? Are you a tadpole or something? How did you find me? Have you been to where the others are? How are they doing? They probably didn''t recognized you right? Hehehe¡± I had tons of questions, but I was also curious to know if the others were still alright. ¡°Hmm Rambo worry. Rambo go to Fawtar''s home but find nobody there. Only monsters there now.¡± He then answered with a puzzled voice. ¡°What? There was nobody? Wait.. The thing we were building, is it still at the hospital?¡± There was the possibility that they were already gone to the dokari vortex which would explain why nobody was at the hospital. ¡°The house thing, still there. Not finished and not moved. Also forest burning, mountains spewing liquid fire and sky covered with smoke. Rambo and the others forced to fly away somewhere else, but Rambo eventually felt Fawtar''s energy and followed it.¡± No way, were they dead? The smoke clouds I had been seeing these last days were coming from these lands after all. It sounded a lot like volcanic activity. Was it the cause of the monster invasion to the north I had heard about? Had the others died due to that natural disaster? No, I couldn''t assume them to be dead just yet. They might have fled somewhere to escape this natural phenomenon, but if they had ventured into the jungle, their chances of survival seemed very slim. I needed to leave now. I had wasted enough time taking vacations here. ¡°Rambo, you''re too small to fly me back home but are the others around as well? Could Big Boy fly me back home?¡± I anxiously asked. Even if I could walk back home, doing the travel by foot would most likely take me more than a month, so the option of riding one of them back home seemed to be the obvious solution to the problem at hand. Rambo tilted his head a bit before answering. ¡°Hmm sure, but... Who''s that? Fawtar got another female?¡± He inquired while staring at the small purple woman, sitting awkwardly on the ground not far behind us. In the heat of the moment, I had totally forgotten about her. I turned around to make sure she was alright but was met with the weirdest eyes I had ever seen. She was sitting on the ground, her eyes wide opened, agape mouth, and a facial expression that couldn''t be comprehended. Her facial expression gave me the impression of being one I would make if I ever saw a UFO fighting an alien unicorn in the sky. It was a face of complete confusion and astonishment. I quickly took my homemade ''Duliptani'' dictionary and assembled a sentence to calm her down before she had a panic attack. ¡°My.Child.No.Danger.¡± I eventually managed to laboriously say. ¡°W-w-w-what? Y-you.. You have a d-dragon child?¡± She blabbered while still looking terrified. I answered her by nodding and giving her a warm smile as I patted Rambo''s head. I had missed him so much that I couldn''t stop touching and petting him. ¡°Arh tunak Akdarokhar darumy gavoor ir tirium tum dinaiya.¡± Said Rambo. Duliptani to English: ¡°My name is Akdarokhar, happy to meet Father''s new female.¡± Urgg.. What the hell? Rambo could speak Duliptani perfectly. His childish way of speaking English was only because he had yet to master the language after all. This also meant that Rambo could play the role of interpret between me and these people. But after hearing what he had just said, another question kept bothering me. ¡°Rambo, from now on, you can speak the language you are the most familiar with. I should be able to understand you. But, you said your name was Akdarokhar? Where does that name come from?¡± The obvious assumption would be that dragons were born with a name or something like that. Had I been wrong to call him Rambo all this time ? ¡°Rambo is Rambo. Akdarokhar is the name given to me by the others of my kind.¡± This time, Rambo answered me in a language identified by the nanites as being ''dragon tongue''. Rambo suddenly sounded a lot more mature and well spoken. So the other dragons had given him a name, most likely given during the period of their life when they grow those front limbs and become fully fledged dragons. ¡°Does your name have a specific signification or something?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, the old ones said that it meant '' Son of man''. But I refused the name. Rambo is Rambo.¡± Firmly stated Rambo with a voice filled with pride. While Rambo and I were catching up with each other, Kuyani remained frozen in place, looking like a statue staring blankly at us. A red blooded human, aka dragonkin, was happily chatting with a young dragon who called him Father. Nothing in the world could have prepared her to witness such an unbelievable scene. ¡°So dragonkin truly do give birth to dragons and vice-versa.¡± Whispered Kuyani to herself. I was over the mood after finally being reunited with Rambo but I still couldn''t shake my worries for the others I had unwillingly left behind and couldn''t wait to get back to. ¡°How long would it take for you to bring Big Boy here? We need to get back to town as fast as possible in case something bad happened to them.¡± ¡°They follow me everywhere so the others are nearby. The one you call Big Boy could be here in only a few kilps.¡± This was exactly what I had hoped to hear. (Assuming kilps were something similar to minutes...) As much as I had dreaded this moment before, I wasn''t feeling guilty for leaving Kuyani behind anymore. The thought of the others being in danger was all I could think about at that moment. ¡°Rambo, can you translate this for me please. ''I have been very happy to meet you Kuyani, but now I need to go back to where I''m from. Sorry but I can''t marry you since I already have a women waiting for me elsewhere.''¡± This wasn''t exactly the truth, but if she thought I already had a woman, it would probably be easier for her to let go. It would also prevent her from feeling rejected since that way, the problem wasn''t her but the fact that I was already taken. Hearing this, Kuyani didn''t react the way I was expecting her to. Strangely, I could have sworn her expression had turned to anger for a second there. ¡°N-Nathan''s woman... Is she a dragon? Is she this young dragon''s mother?¡± She asked with a complicated expression on her face. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Err... Well.. She''s... A red blooded human like me...Not a dragon..¡± I awkwardly answered with Rambo translating everything on my behalf, but also adding some unwanted stuff here and there. ¡°It''s Nwela!!! Rambo''s mom and Father''s favourite female is Nwela! But Father also has two more females he hangs with, Cami and Annie... Ha! There''s one more, but I don''t think Father likes the fat one.¡± Energetically added Rambo. Since I was going to leave soon anyway, I didn''t even feel the need to correct him on his mistakes. Kuyani responded with a shocked expression and a slight look of anger on her face. After somehow managing to explain that I needed to leave immediately and that I couldn''t become her husband, her behaviour had subtly changed. Somehow though, I had the feeling she still hadn''t given up. ¡°Y-you can''t! I mean... We were bringing Nehobian sacrifices for you from very far away.¡± She desperately pleaded. Finally able to communicate, I instantly took the opportunity to clear the misunderstanding. ¡°I have no need for any sacrifices. I actually believe that human lives shouldn''t be taken so lightly. It is by creating a peaceful nation which respects other lives, that your race will grow stronger and advance.¡± My words seemed to leave her puzzled and filled with questions for a while, but she eventually shook her head and counterattacked. ¡°T-Then, you at least have to accept to come to a farewell feast tonight at our village before you leave. You should at least allow us to bid you farewell properly...¡± She finally said with a timid and saddened voice. Well it wasn''t like staying a few more hours would change anything anyway, so I accepted her invitation. As soon as I did so, she stood up and said that she needed to go tell the others before taking off running back to her village. I wondered why she seemed to be in such a hurry. I hoped that she wasn''t going to pull off a weird stunt like bringing her luggage and saying something like ''I''m coming with you''. That would be very awkward if it happened. Then it hit me. Rambo had more or less told her that I had 3 or even 4 women. So maybe she had assumed that she could be number 4 or 5 as long as she was ready to leave her people and follow me. Now this was a very bad situation and I was mad at myself for not thinking about the possibility of this happening while she was still here a moment ago. I scratched my head in annoyance while wondering what I should do if such a situation truly happened. ¡°Rambo was wondering... Why is Father so far from home? What happened and where are the others? And how come Father can now understand dragon tongue?¡± Suddenly inquired my baby boy, preventing me from overthinking things too much. His questions made me remember just how much we had to talk about. Since we didn''t have to go to the village before nightfall, we luckily had a lot of time to catch up. We sat next to each other, then I began to recall the events since the day he had left, while affectionately petting his head. How I ended up stranded here because of Marc''s betrayal, my experiences with the locals and my meeting with a powerful and mysterious benefactor. Hearing my story, Rambo became angry and agitated. After arguing for a while on who between us should have the honour of killing Marc, Rambo then finally began to recall what happened to him during his time away from me. His story was very difficult to understand since Rambo himself didn''t really understand all of it, but what I understood could be resumed like this; Dragons were not a specific species, and only a few of them had the potential to become dragons. Even if they were born as something looking like a wyvern, some of them were special since birth and wouldn''t follow the same life cycle. In their first stage of life, these juvenile dragons would remain smaller compared to the others. Other wyverns would also naturally gather around them, forming something like a pack or a flock. Then, once every 70 cycles, the oldest dragons in the world would migrate and gather to a certain mountain range near the area where we used to live. They would then send powerful signals, having for effect attracting all the young dragons and their wyvern followers with them to the said area. When they arrived at the migrating area, the young dragons would then do the eye contact thing to all of their wyvern followers, assimilating all of their knowledge and experiences in the process. All this knowledge would then become their strength for the final contest, in which they had to do the eye contact thingy again, but this time against other juvenile dragons. From what I understood, when two dragons entered such a contest, the one with the most knowledge and experience would end up overpowering the other. The winner would gain the loser''s knowledge, while the loser would lose his life. From what Rambo said, he had undergone this mental battle with 20 young dragons and won them all. Apparently, having absorbed the knowledge of the monstrous, demon, king dra- wyvern back then had given him an edge over the others. He also added that this king-wyvern wasn''t a normal wyvern, but was what they called an aberration. This basically meant that it was a mutant that could have potentially started a new race of dragons if it had survived long enough. Having won all of his ''mental contests'', Rambo was therefore allowed to grow into adulthood by the other dragons. This is where his story became weird. Rambo spoke about a cocoon, and a hole filled with dragon spit, in which he slept for weeks. When he woke up, his appearance had changed and two new limbs had grown. This reminded me of a tadpole growing limbs, losing its tail and becoming a frog. Pretty bizarre for a dragon if you asked me, but then again, it wasn''t like I knew anything about dragons to begin with. We ended up talking about many things and eventually lost track of time but seeing daylight rapidly fading, Rambo and I decided to go to our farewell party and get a move on. Finding the other survivors needed to be placed as a top priority as soon as this ''party'' was over. The sky had been covered with smoke clouds for days now, and ashes were still falling from the sky, blanketing everything around us in a thin layer of white ash. The plants, the ground, even the rivers were slowly turning grey and murky. The wind was also blowing more energetically than usual, but for someone from earth like me, it was still nothing more than a strong breeze. We quickly walked down the beach and eventually reached the village as night fell. Upon our arrival, more than a thousand little purple humans rushed toward us and stared at us in silence. They were all lined up in a way that formed a path going toward the village entrance for us. They all looked strangely friendly and passive for some reason. Seeing them act so timidly made me wonder what Kuyani had exactly told them. ¡°Hmm Father, I don''t like this. The look in their eyes is creeping me out.¡± Worryingly said Rambo. Before I had the time to respond to him, Kuyani came running toward us as we were about to enter the village. ¡°Nathan and Wambo, you are just in time. Come with me.¡± She said while waving us to follow her. The inside of the village was filled with little people who cheered for us as we walked in. Some of them seemed very happy to see us, and most of them had radiant smiles on their faces, but somehow, something felt off. Seeing Rambo acting strangely, I knew I wasn''t the only one to feel that way. The Merge – Chapter 22 (Departure) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Deciding to trust my gut instinct, I leaned in closer to Rambo and whispered into his ear. ¡°Don''t eat or drink anything while we''re here.¡± Hearing these words, Rambo subtly nodded and kept following me. In the centre of the village was a giant bonfire with people dancing around it. Everybody wore face-paints different than their usual, but after a few verifications, they appeared to be ''festival'' versions of their normal face-paints. Hunters had a ''festival hunter'' face-paint and so did the others as well. These paints were more intricate and more colourful than their usual ones. Kuyani then brought a cup of something smelling like sweet alcohol for me, and a bigger bowl for Rambo before offering a toast. Being the paranoiac type, I decided to subtly dip my finger into the liquid and touch the tip of my tongue with it to test for poison. Luckily, nothing seemed to be wrong with the strange liquid but I still decided to stealthily throw it on the ground anyway while nobody watched me. As for Rambo, he seemed to have decided to heed my advice to the letter and simply left his bowl untouched. Suddenly, a loud drumbeat echoed through the entire village and made everybody act frantically. Wondering what was happening at first, some people wearing face-paints looking like they had drawn a blue beard on their faces appeared holding huge drums in their arms. The nanites identified these people as being musicians, which seemed logical seeing what they were carrying. The musicians then installed themselves near the fire and began to beat their drums in a very entrancing tempo. Everybody began to dance and act wildly all around us. Kuyani kept pestering me to come dancing with her and have more food and drinks, but I kept stealthily throwing away everything she gave me. I wasn''t fearing them, but I wasn''t stupid enough to trust food given to me by strangers of an unknown species after all. Rambo and I were sitting next to each others close by the fire and were astonished by the natives'' ability to party. It had been no more than an hour since our arrival there, but the party was already going on full swing with people dancing and screaming all around us. I was expecting this party to be more about us, but most of the natives were seemingly ignoring our presence there. A few minutes later, the drumbeats changed as well as the atmosphere all around us. Everybody suddenly became quiet and began to stare intensely in our direction. The drumbeats began very slowly and quietly, sounding almost like a war march. The atmosphere was giving me goosebumps, but Kuyani then stood up in front of me, and began to dance in a very seductive manner. She kept staring at me in the eyes with lustful eyes as she kept shaking her hips to the music. The drumbeats gradually became louder and faster, and so did Kuyani''s dance. The movements of her arms and hips remained in perfect sync with the music which seemed to be gradually reaching a climax. Seeing her dance so seductively for me, made my heart waver. She was so elegant and attractive in the way she danced, that I wondered if her ultimate goal was to seduce me into staying here. Sadly for her though, it wasn''t going to happen no matter what she tried. The music kept intensifying as Kuyani got closer and closer to us, and as the music reached its peak, Kuyani grabbed two small sacks tied to her waist belt and threw them at us. As she did so, the two bags emptied themselves in the air, sending clouds of powder straight at our faces. ¡°Cough* Cough* Cough*¡± [Poison Detected] [Detoxification initiated: (5%)] -- [(14%)] -- [(21%)] Eh? Poison? While I was still confused and trying to piece things together, the thousand plus little humans then suddenly began to scream savagely. They all immediately began to dig up weapons they had hidden buried under the sand and came charging at us with visible killing intent in their eyes. I was feeling dizzy and could barely keep my eyes open. So this was what she had come up with? If I didn''t stay, then they wanted me dead? Quickly looking to my right so see how Rambo was doing, I saw my little boy wavering and having a hard time staying on his legs. ¡°Father, Rambo is feeling bad, a-and scared-...¡± He managed to say with his voice quickly weakening. Seeing him like that, made my blood boil. These fucking aliens had poisoned my baby boy? Unforgivable. As the rabid aliens were about to strike at us, the awaited message finally appeared. [Detoxification Completed: (100%)] ¡°UNFORGIVABLE!¡± Blinded by rage after seeing Rambo lose consciousness, I let out a giant wave of dokari which blew all the nearby aliens away from us. The massive amount of dokari being released in my rage sent shock-waves capable of destroying the buildings and making some of the aliens faint under the pressure. Arrows were launched in my direction, but all bounced off of me like they were toys. The last thing I had ever wanted to do, was to kill a human. But these motherfuckers had come at us first, so this was self-defence. I could also rationalize this by considering these purple fucks as monstrous aliens instead of humans. Not feeling any hesitation anymore, I pulled out my handgun and rained lead upon them. BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* BANG!* These shit-bags'' bodies were so fragile that a simple 5mm bullets acted on them like .50cal ones. Simply put, the bullets could go through 8 of them before stopping, so a small 10 rounds magazine was dealing with a surprisingly large number of them. As soon as the magazine ran empty, I lit all of my pipe bombs and dragon-juice incendiary grenades, and threw them everywhere around me. No matter where your eyes landed, only chaos, fire and destruction could be seen, and all that had happened in only a minute. Most of the aliens had quickly turned tails and were running away into the forest, but one of them had remained at the same spot the entire time. Kuyani was among the only ones still in my immediate vicinity at this point. I had been careful not to lose sight of her this entire time. At this point, I was even prepared to torture her to get the antidote for Rambo if necessary. So no matter what she did, she was not going to get away from me. If a glare could kill, she would have been shredded to pieces on the spot. Terror could be seen in her eyes as she slowly backed away from me. Following her speed, I slowly walked toward her while still expelling a monstrous amount of dokari. A few meters later, I sensed a few aliens running toward the unconscious Rambo behind me. So even after all this, Kuyani had still tried to distract me away from Rambo so they could kill him behind my back. I rapidly formed a dokari tentacle and sliced the stealthy aliens in half without even looking back. My control over those dokari tentacles had greatly improved these last days. Just like that, the last bit of affection I had left for Kuyani vanished. Not knowing the word for ''antidote'', I opted for a word she would understand. ¡°HEAL¡± I threateningly said in a voice filled with killing intent while pointing at Rambo. By now, she should have realized that she had messed with the wrong person, but before she could say anything, my sensing ability caught something unexpected. Something else was happening. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. All around us in the forest, the presence of the retreating aliens were disappearing at a very fast rate. They were either teleporting away, or being killed off at an incredible speed. Among them, a familiar presence could be felt moving around at a speed I could barely keep up with. ¡°N-n-no need f-for an a-antidote.¡± Finally blabbered Kuyani, bringing my attention back to her. What did she mean by no need for an antidote? Was she saying that it wasn''t a deadly poison? Or that it was impossible to save him? I rushed up to her in a swift movement, grabbed her by her hair and lifted her off the ground so we could meet eye to eye. ¡°Will he survive?.....¡± I calmly asked with veins popping out of my forehead. ¡°ANSWER ME YOU BITCH!!!!¡± I then screamed in her face as my temporary composure began to fall apart. ¡°Rambo is safe now.¡± Unexpectedly said a manly voice coming from the forest. I recognized this voice. It belonged to the mysterious man I had felt going around and killing the retreating aliens a few minutes ago. It was the voice of my mysterious black masked benefactor. The man then suddenly appeared as he walked out of the forest, and headed toward us. He was still wearing his famous black cloak and black mask, and seemed to be holding two severed heads in his hand. After walking a few more meters, the man eventually stopped and threw the two heads in our direction. The severed heads rolled for a few meters and stopped near my feet. Instantly recognizing who these two heads belonged to, I unconsciously let go of Kuyani''s hair, making her fall to the ground with a thud. ¡°1843 numio zo karna. Iz khool farni za opaz ziru kasham, Kuyani-jho~~¡± Said the masked man in a playful voice. Duliptani to English: ¡°1843 people in total. I didn''t spare a single one of them, dear Kuyani~~¡± ¡°UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!¡± Recognizing the heads of her father and mother, Kuyani let out a heart wrenching scream which seemed to be coming from the deepest part of her soul. First came the screams, followed by tears, then sobs, but eventually her boiling emotions turned to anger. She then grabbed a stone axe she had found on the ground, and ran toward the masked man with fury in her eyes. ¡°GRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrr*¡± Seeing Kuyani scream and growl like that, made me see her in a different light. She had suddenly lost all of her charm and looked more like a wild beast, rather than the cute and gentle woman I had first thought her to be. ¡°GYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa- Kuh!* Urggrgggggggr*¡± What happened next was simply too fast for me to clearly see. Kuyani began to run toward the masked man with the axe in her hand, but had already lost her head a few steps later. After witnessing such a gruesome scene, knots formed in my stomach and almost made me vomit my lunch out. My legs were shaking so much that I could barely stand up straight. Quickly snapping out of it, I ran back to Rambo and shook him a bit to try to wake him up, but no matter what I did, Rambo remained unconscious. ¡°Don''t worry, he will wake up in a few hours. The poison they used was meant to temporarily knock the both of you out.¡± Eventually said the masked man. I was incredibly confused and my head was filled with thousands of questions, but all I could focus on right now was Rambo''s safety. ¡°Are you sure? Will he really be alright?¡± I inquired whilst still panicking. ¡°I would not have let you come here with him if I hadn''t been sure of his safety...¡± He finally answered. His answer sounded weird to me for some reasons. He ''let us'' come here? Making sure of Rambo''s safety? Didn''t it sound awfully weird? The way he spoke almost sounded as if he knew this was going to happen, but didn''t feel the need to tell us because he knew we weren''t in real danger? Isn''t that an ass-hole thing to do, or even to say to someone? ¡°I know how you feel, trust me I know it very well... But you can calm down now, no one is in immediate danger anymore.¡± He then added after seeing the annoyed look on my face. ¡°Why are you speaking as if you knew this was going to happen?¡± I asked the man while trying to calm my anger. ¡°Haaa but that''s because I did know... You must have many questions, but what about adding even more questions to those?¡± Immediately after saying these words, the masked man raised an arm and reached for his mask. He then slowly took it off while feeding the suspense but eventually allowed me to see my mysterious benefactor''s face. Looking at the man''s face almost made me lose my mind for a moment. I couldn''t quite comprehend what I was seeing but the man standing before me, was me. An older version of me certainly, but there was no doubt that it was me. ¡°W-what is this?.. How is th-¡± Unable to finish my question, I was starting to feel like I was losing my mind. ¡°Hehehehe, I waited to see that face for a looong time, ''younger me''. Hehehe¡± He simply said with a giant grin on his face. ¡°Now, how about I answer all of those pesky questions of yours once and for all? Ha! But let''s not do this here shall we.¡± After saying these words, ''older me'' reached for a tactile screen tied to his wrist, and pressed a finger against it a few time. He then pointed his finger up at the sky, indicating me to look up. As my eyes went up to the sky, something suddenly began to appear out of nowhere. It was as if something had been there all along, but was hidden by some type of cloaking device. Like something from a sci-fi movie, electrics sparks then began to appear in some areas where we couldn''t see through anymore, gradually allowing us to see the basic shape and size of the flying object above our heads. Finally able to see the giant object that had been invisible up till now, I was floored. I was a very rational man, but what my eyes were seeing didn''t make any sense. I was gradually falling into a pit of confusion. I sat next to Rambo, placed my right hand on his head and kept looking at the flying object in awe. I was in such disbelief, that I thought my jaw would dislocate itself. ¡°Hahahaha! Yes yes! That''s the face I was really waiting for! Hahahaha* My sides, my sides hurt! Hahaha*¡± Older me was laughing his ass off because of my reaction but it was impossible for me not to react this way. ¡°A-A....A fucking spaceship????¡± Until a few minutes ago, I was still in the stone-ages, but now this? ¡°Khukhukuku How about we go for a ride. We''ll have time to talk on our way there.¡± Said older me. ¡°Go where?¡± I worryingly inquired. ¡°To where your friends are, obviously...¡± He nonchalantly answered. ¡°You know where they are? Rambo said they weren''t in town anymore!¡± I was worried about them, and maybe this older me knew where they were. I was still really wondering who this person really was, but his voice, the way he moved, his face, and even every mole and scar on his body seemed to be similar to mine. There was also the fact that I knew that if he wanted me dead, he could have killed me a long time ago. All of this put together made it a lot easier for me to trust him. ¡°Of course they aren''t there anymore... I brought them somewhere safe. They would be dead by now if I hadn''t. And trust me, I know that for a fact.¡± He eventually answered with seriousness in his voice. The spaceship then slowly began to descend and softly landed right next to us. ''Older me'' then walked up to the ship, and by doing so, prompted a door to open out of nowhere. Before getting on board, ''old me'' turned toward me and waved his arms with excitement clearly visible on his face. ¡°Come on, bring Rambo and let''s get the fuck out of here already. Stop spacing out for fuck sake....... That face earlier though. kukuku¡± The Merge – Chapter 23 (Armageddon) Part-1 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- Not really having any other choices, I picked up Rambo in my arms and entered the spaceship while keeping my head on a swivel. Everywhere I looked, I saw something I had never seen before. The inside of the ship was white and grey, giving the impression of being extremely clean and tidy. The walls were giving the impression of being made out of some type of metal but were warm to the touch. As soon as I entered the ship, the nanites in my body began to go crazy and kept displaying tons of information about the ship, our surroundings and many other things I didn''t understand. ¡°Hehehehe amazing isn''t it? I reacted the same way the first time I saw Nibiru''s technology for the first time.¡± Said older me while guiding me to what seemed to be the main control room. He then showed me a seat next to his, where I sat with Rambo on my lap. I hadn''t uttered a single word since coming aboard the ship, since I was completely overwhelmed and in awe before everything my eyes could see. ¡°We''re all set, bring us home E.M.M.Y.¡± Then said older me as if someone else was in the ship with us. ¡°Trajectory e.983-n2351 initiated. Arrival in T minus: 00.16.4¡± Suddenly said a female voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. ¡°W-who''s that?¡± I inquired. ¡°Ha! It''s Emmy. A highly advanced artificial intelligence. I wouldn''t have made it this far without her.¡± Answered older me with what seemed like nostalgia in his voice. As he was answering, the ship could be felt moving. It was the same sensation as when you are taking an elevator. You could feel it moving, but you couldn''t exactly tell at which speed. ¡°There should be a ''show window'' option that appears when you look at any wall on this ship, try it.¡± Then said older me with a mischievous smile on his lips. Curious, I looked at the wall next to me and indeed saw the open window option. Focusing on it, what seemed like a computer window suddenly opened and offered me a view of the outside. The entire ship was devoid of windows, but apparently they had some type of software doing that instead. No matter where you wanted to see outside, you could do so by simply opening one of these windows. They felt like these backup cameras installed in modern cars but were used to see through the ship''s walls. From the look of it, it also appeared that the person opening the window was the only one able to see it. These nanites truly were incredible, but if you had them work in concert with this advanced technology, nothing seemed impossible. Looking through the window allowed me to get a good look at what was outside. The ship slowly took altitude, gently turned toward the programmed direction and BAOM! It took off so quickly that I could barely see the scenery. This thing was crazy fast and by the look of it, could take us anywhere on the planet in under a day. ¡°Alright, you must be overwhelmed, so take your time to calm yourself. You''ve been through a lot after all. Ask any question when you feel ready for it.¡± Said my double while unpacking what seemed like astronaut food. ¡°Back then... Don''t you think you overdid it? I mean... Killing Kuyani''s parents and everything.. For fuck sake will I become this cruel in the future?¡± I asked. It is true that I still couldn''t understand why he had been so cruel to Kuyani back then. Hearing this, older Nathan''s expression became serious and he seemed to be struggling with it as well. ¡°I know... There''s no doubt you will feel that way about what I did. B-but that''s because we both experienced different outcomes.¡± He calmly said while toying with his snack''s wrapping. ¡°I am from a different timeline from you, but in both of our cases, everything up to my intervention remained the same. I crash-landed into the sea thanks to Marc just like you, drifted for days before finally washing up on Duliptani territory, etc. But it is after this, that things went differently. When I saved Kuyani, unlike you I had no means of understanding her. I brought her back to her village, and just like you, I made a major mistake by showing her the colour of my blood.¡± Older me was appearing to be getting angrier the more he recalled his story. ¡°You know, I was happy after seeing her reaction. She seemed genuinely happy that my blood was red. I didn''t know why, but I thought that maybe things would go well for me. The first time I was finally able to understand her, was when Rambo came back to me.¡± He said while tenderly looking at the sleeping dragon on my lap. His eyes were unmistakably watering as he appeared to be struggling with long forgotten memories. ¡°Like you, I thanked her for everything and told her that I needed to leave and go back to my people, to which she invited me to a farewell party... Well up to then, everything was pretty similar to what you''ve experienced yourself. Sadly though, unlike you I didn''t have nanites to detoxify and protect my body against poison, so when Kuyani attacked us, there was nothing Rambo and I could do. I instantly blacked out and when I regained consciousness...¡° At this point, older me had stopped recalling his story and was gritting his teeth in anger while ripping to pieces the plastic wrapping he had been playing with thus far. ¡°W-when I woke up, they had already chopped Rambo to pieces, his small body had been drained of blood and they were in the process of cutting his flesh via his body''s weak spots. Dragon skin is hard, but that day I learned that dragons could be dismembered if you went through the mouth or the anus. These fucking monsters were celebrating, drinking his blood and feasting on his flesh.¡° At this point, old Nathan''s face was all contorted and twisted by anger. Being able to feel dokari, I could feel that his insides were boiling and on the verge of exploding. ¡°Why? Why did they suddenly turned hostile like that?¡± I curiously inquired. Old me then seemed to calm down as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ¡°Remember how quickly you got stronger after beginning to consume dragon meat? Well it''s the same for them. These people spend most of their lives meditating and cultivating dokari in their bodies in order to get stronger. Red blood and red meat are among the most valuable products in this world because of that. The last red blooded human to come to this world a thousand years ago ended up being made prisoner by the Nehobians, and used as breeder. That''s why the Nehobians are currently more powerful than the Duliptanies...¡± He said with disgust and anger showing on his face. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°To these people, red blooded creatures are nothing more than a means to grow stronger. Be it themselves, or their entire clans. Seeing a juvenile dragon is an unbelievable stroke of luck for these people. Annoyingly enough, they also had their own plan for me. From the first time Kuyani saw my red blood, all she thought about was how to obtain my ''seeds''. Having hybrid children with a red blooded ''dragonkin'' was the best way to bear powerful offspring and strengthen their tribes in the process. So after waking up, even as I saw them dismember by baby boy, I couldn''t do anything. I was chained to a bed with tons of gold shackles which were draining the dokari out of my body. They kept giving me small doses of poison and regularly took samples of my blood for their personal consumption as well as to keep me weak. To make things worse, the tribe women continuously raped me in the hope of getting pregnant. They were using this drug that kept making me go hard against my will, I was nothing more than a sperm sac for them...¡± As he recalled this part, it seemed obvious that he was trying to avoid the details as he was struggling to forget about these horrendous memories. Seeing how emotionally scarred these events had made him, I couldn''t help but feel anger as well, but for some other reasons. ¡°If you knew this was going to happen, why didn''t you get me out of there the first time we met?¡± I angrily asked. Apparently aware that this question would eventually come up, ''future me'' took a deep breath and continued. ¡°For many reasons... I knew that as soon as I made a major change like taking you somewhere else, the predictable future I was aware of would immediately take a different path and change. This place was the area where you would reunite with Rambo so I couldn''t recklessly change things around. It was also because I wished to give Kuyani a second chance. I did some changes, like giving you the ability to understand her, and went as far as commissioning an ''oracle'' friend of mine to ''embellish'' the story given to Kuyani a few years prior. I had been wondering if her actions were a result of pure barbarism, or if they were some type of societal indoctrination. Truthfully, I wondered what she would have done if she thought of you as being her ''destined one''. That way, maybe she wouldn''t follow the same path but... Seem like this ending was unavoidable after all.¡± He said with a complicated expression on his face before continuing his story where he had left it off. ¡°Anyway, I don''t know how long I remained their prisoner, but one day something happened. The Nehobian sacrifices they had originally brought to bribe me arrived and were put in jail, but that had been a miscalculation on their part. It appeared that these Nehobian prisoners were more important than they had first thought. No matter who they were, the Nehobians judged them important enough to send an army to their rescue. Their army eventually reached the village, and a full-on war broke during the night in which Kuyani and her tribe members perished. The Nehobians, who happened to be these weird purple Asian people I had only seen once before, eventually found me, but of course, they had no intention of releasing me. They intended to do the exact same thing I had been put through by the Duliptanies. They loaded me on a carriage, and began their journey back to their territory, but one night an opportunity struck. Taking advantage of a monster attack, I managed to escape, but for weeks after that, they kept hunting me down like dogs stalking a red fox. I eventually came across an area filled with dokari, so I regained my strength, then struck back. I killed thousands upon thousands of them. I was filled with anger and blood-thirst, and could barely remember who and what I used to be like at this point in my life. It took me months to finally get back to Cabano. (Name of Nathan''s town) When I finally made it back there, just like Rambo had said, the others were nowhere to be found. The mobile shelter was still incomplete, and monsters were crawling everywhere. I went back to my house and hid in my bunker for a few more months. The reason I hadn''t gone out looking for them was because of something I found. After searching the hospital, I came across Camille''s diary. Can you believe that I didn''t even know she was writing a journal? Most of its contents were quite personal so I won''t tell you the details. After all, ''your'' Camille is still alive as we speak. Anyway, what devastated me the most in her journal were the last pages. From what Camille wrote, the group had been plagued by a sudden illness which rapidly killed L¨¦opaul, Alice and Annie, since the elderly and young children were more susceptible to these foreign pathogens than the others. Camille and Emanuella were the only ones who hadn''t gotten seriously sick, so they were spending all of their time nursing the sick and trying to save their lives, but one day, something happened. Marc who had been severely sick for 2 days at the time, happened to talk in his sleep due to high fever. He apparently mentioned having sabotaged my plane as Emanuela was taking care of him. Hearing that my ''death'' had been caused by him sabotaging my plane, ended up affecting Emanuela in an unexpected way. Having apparently lost her mind, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him 33 times on his hospital bed before Camille could arrived at the scene and stop her. Marc died on the spot, and later, maybe unable to bear with her situation or what she had done, Emanuela took her own life by swallowing an entire bottle of out of date sleeping pills. How stupid was I to never realize how much this girl loved me... No offence to you.¡± He then jokingly said with a voice that sounded more sad than amused. ¡°The entries in her journal stopped at this point, so I assume Camille died not too long after that. I never learned how Camille died, but when I arrives, there were no corpses. The cockroaches had gotten to them before me so there was no evidence left for me to analyze. Since I was the only one left in this alien world, I slowly let myself go and fell into a deep depression which lasted a few months, but eventually something forced me out of my bunker. Earthquakes, flash floods, mysterious monster migration and even volcanic eruptions appeared to be happening everywhere so I eventually had to flee my bunker in order to survive. The Merge – Chapter 23 (Armageddon) Part-2 This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL ------------------- The entire town then got destroyed by a volcano which appeared out of nowhere and burned everything. Feeling like I had nothing left in this world, I took a risk and entered a vortex which seemed on the verge of going critical in the hope of getting back to earth. Unexpectedly, it ended up working perfectly, but this is when I learned something I hadn''t thought about. These vortexes were connected between our two worlds, but were also distorted between space and time, so I ended up at around 10,000 BCE at a time when humans were only hunters and gatherers... I had left the stone age to be plunged right back into it. I then ended up spending 6 months there, but eventually managed to create a new vortex back to this alien world with the dokari contained within my necklace. There wasn''t enough to open a 5 km wide vortex, but... Well the details aren''t important. What is important is that I managed to get back to this world and hoped to try my luck again at getting back to earth. If I was lucky this time, I would be transported in the future instead of the past. But once again, something unexpected happened. When I came back to this alien world, it was totally different from the one I had left. This alien world had roads, ships flying in the sky, enormous cities... They were visibly more advanced than the world I had originally come from. I obviously assumed that this was the future of the timeline I had first travelled there from, but it ended up being the past of this world. I don''t know actually how long before the time we currently are at, but I can say for sure that it can be counted in hundreds of thousands of years. At that time, there was strangely very little dokari in the air. Being a highly developed and populated world, it didn''t take them long before noticing and capturing me. These humans called themselves Nibiru and were red blooded humans just like us, but their facial features were a bit different. I ended up spending 15 years in this timeline... First a prisoner, then later used like a hunting dog for my ability to ''sniff'' dokari. I made sure to be very cooperative and did everything to make myself useful to them. That way, I was slowly gaining their trust and therefor, more freedom. During these years, I learned their language and also learned a lot about their/this alien world. I learned that they were exploiting a liquid dokari mining operation on the ''red moon''. The material extracted from its soil contained a lot of energy which was being extracted and compressed into liquid form. This ''liquid dokari'' was thousands of times denser than red gold. They were using this to fuel their power plants, ships, well basically everything. The same way petrol exploitation result in carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, their technology was doing the same thing but was releasing red dokari in its gas form instead. Many brilliant scientists warned that releasing this pollutant into the atmosphere could destroy their world. Some even theorized about a possible wormhole apocalypse, but dokari was too precious to be abandoned and greedy people didn''t care if the world was to come to an end in the distant future. Well in the end they did end up destroying their own world. High levels of dokari in the air made it unlivable and the population gradually began to dwindle. The small purple people you saw living in this world are in fact the Nibiru''s only descendants. My time in this timeline ended up not being as bad as it sounds though. I unexpectedly made friends. I somehow ended up becoming their government''s secret weapon and was being deployed at various top secret locations. That''s how I came across Arshunfiartan, or as I call it ''EDEN''. Aware that their world would one day come to an end, the rich and powerful had a giant underground complex built for them. It''s what they called an ''earthship''. Similar to my bunker, but this one was a self-sufficient city instead of a small bedroom. It had a capacity of 5000 people and had so much liquid dokari stored in it that the entire facility could be kept running for a million years. This facility was filled with their most advanced technology and they were even working on a way to make it travel across the worlds like I had done with vortexes thus far. They still hadn''t completely understood how it worked, but were well on their way to master world travel. It also turns out that both worlds weren''t different planets, but were in fact the same one. Travelling from one world to the other isn''t like going from a planet to the other but more like crossing parallel universes. Anyway, after spending a few weeks working at this facility which they considered as their race''s only hope for the future, I ended up learning even more about their technology. I learned that the only way to control most of their ''machines'', was via the nanites. Without going too much into the details, I ended up stealing a shot of nanites, which weren''t programmed for my body but still allowed me to control the EDEN facility. Then I unleashed war upon them. I killed everyone in the facility, then activated the wormhole procedures. Just like that, I was back on earth but this time, I had an entire underground city at my disposal. I kept travelling between the two universes, hoping one day to get back to the timeline I was from, but by pure chance ended up coming back to this alien world only a few years before I had first been teleported here. I was wondering if I would see another ''me'' if I stayed here and waited for Cabano to be transported, so I waited and as predicted, it really did happen. While you were still in your bunker, completely oblivious to the situation outside, I was out there saving as many people as possible and brought them to EDEN.¡± He explained. ¡°What? There are survivors from our town in your underground EDEN place?¡± I anxiously asked with surprise in my voice. ¡°Yes, one thousand people to be exact. I wanted to save more, but this is the best I could do. Well since I am finally bringing you there, you can relax now. After a few years, I finally found a way for you and I to get back to our respective time-lines. The struggle is finally over for you and I.¡° He then added with a smile on his lips. Was I really about to get back to earth? To the place and time I belong to? Hearing him say that, I was happy and relieved, but then my attention focused on Rambo. ¡°B-but.. Rambo.. What can we do about him? We can''t bring him to earth, people will hunt him down...¡± I worryingly asked. ¡°Don''t worry, when we arrive at EDEN, I''ll show you the solution I have found to this problem.¡± He then responded in a reassuring tone. What could he be talking about? What had he planned for Rambo? The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. I was in a state of shock, overwhelmed by an overload of information that I could barely process. I still had thousands of questions but was soon interrupted by the monotone voice of the A.I. named Emmy. ¡°We have reached our destination. Approach procedure initiated.¡± ¡°Finally! Look! Open a digital window and see for yourself.¡± Said older me, prompting me to do as he had suggested. The ship was currently in the process of descending toward a giant mountain that looked like a smaller version of mount Fuji. As we approached, the top of the mountain then began to split and a giant opening appeared at the top. The ship then slowly went down into the hole which dwarfed our ship by its enormous size. ¡°The dokari shield has been reactivated.¡± Said Emmy as we entered the mouth of the mountain. As we went down, I was mesmerized by what I was seeing. All around us were bridges, doors and corridors going in all directions. This underground facility was simply enormous. The ship eventually reached the bottom and the ship''s door opened. ¡°Alright, you must be anxious to meet with the others. Let''s go!¡± Said older me as he walked out of the ship. Still holding the sleeping Rambo in my arms, I stood up and followed him closely. I was wondering what would the others'' reaction be after seeing me. ¡°Did you tell them that I was still alive?¡± I curiously asked. ¡°Nope. You will have the chance of seeing their surprised expressions yourself hehehe.¡± He answered with amusement clearly audible in his voice. In the giant area where the ship had landed, were various vehicle and machines I had never seen before. From the way they looked, I could guess what they were used for but could also tell that these weren''t from our world. Ignoring all of that for now, I obediently kept following older me with butterflies in my stomach. The prospect of seeing the others after so long was nerve wracking to me. We walked through a massive automatized door which was big enough to let a giant dump truck go through and eventually entered an elevator. We then walked down a few corridors before finally reaching a giant room containing tons of tubes, wires and other machines beeping all around. In front of us were rows upon rows of glass pods illuminated with blue ambient lights. No matter how I looked at them, they seemed quite similar to those cryogenic pods seen in sci-fi movies. Older Nathan then stopped in front of some of those ''pods'' and turned toward me. ¡°There they are.¡± He simply said while looking at the pods. Confused, I walked next to him and had a look inside one of the pods he was standing in front of. What I then saw made me take a few step back in confusion. Emanuela, Camille, Robert and the others were being kept inside these ''hibernating pods'' for some reasons. ¡°W-Why are they in there? Are those what I think they are?¡± I worryingly asked. ¡°Yes, they are exactly what you think they are. I, myself spent many years in these pods... It is quite convenient to jump decades or even hundreds of years in the future without getting old. Well anyway... The two empty pods next to theirs, are for you and Rambo...¡± He nonchalantly added. ¡°W-WHAT?¡± What was he saying? Why would we need to go into cryogenic suspension? Weren''t we supposed to go back home? I began to slowly back away from him, now unsure and worried about older Nathan''s intentions. ¡°Was all this a trap?¡± I asked, ready to fight my way out. ¡°Of course not... I just haven''t told you all the truth.¡± As he said these words, he then launched a wave of black dokari which paralyzed my body just like the first time we had met. ''Not again, future me is such a fucking ass-hole!'' I desperately thought to myself, certain that I had fallen into yet another trap. Being paralyzed, I fell to the ground and couldn''t hold Rambo anymore. Older Nathan then crouched next to me, took Rambo out of my arms and placed him in one of the cryopods. He then grabbed my body and placed it in the other pod next to Rambo''s. ¡°Sorry for lying to you, but knowing myself, I would never have agreed to do what needed to be done. Truth is, what I discovered over the years happened to be a lot worse that what I had first expected. The two parallel worlds we know are about to come to an end. The dokari vortexes and everything... It''s only the beginning of an apocalyptic event that''s currently happening. No matter how many times I travelled across universes, space and time, I never made it further into the future than the timeline we originated from. Emmy and I theorized about it and came up with a conclusion. The two parallel universes are currently merging. Since it''s a never seen before event, there''s no way to know what both worlds will end up looking like, but one thing''s for sure is that the two universes will merge into one. This ''merge'' is a phenomenon that is happening beyond space and time, which means that even if we travelled into the past, we wouldn''t be able to escape it. The only way toward a safe and stable world, is forward into the ''post-merge'' future. Going back to our world, to our original timeline is impossible. This is why I decided to make you my ''plan B''. Since the worlds can''t be saved, all we can do now is try to save the human race. EDEN is protected by a dokari shield and should be protected from the incoming ''merge''. You and all the other humans I saved will sleep for a few thousands of years until the merge is over, then it will be your duty to rebuild human civilization and this time, hopefully protect the new world you will be given. I hope you won''t be too mad at me for doing this, but this is the only way for us to have a future. Farewell, younger me.¡± I couldn''t believe what he had just said, nor could I believe the situation I was currently in. Older Nathan then closed the glass door of the pod I was in, typed some numbers on the control panel and walked away as my vision began to fade. I was going to sleep for thousands of years? Then wake up in a strange and newly ''merged'' world with a thousand other people from my original town... We were supposed to be the last hope for humanity? So this is why he had called this place ''EDEN''. This facility was the garden of Eden from where the human race would be reborn into the future. Then as I was about to fall asleep, a thought kept floating into my mind. ''Next time I see you, Emanuela... I won''t hesitate anymore.'' I thought to myself as I drifted into Morpheus'' arms. . . . The end? . . . . (End of Ark1)