《In the Land of the Blind》 Arc 1 - Explosion, Chapter 1: Summoning In the Land of the Blind Arc 1 - Explosion Chapter 1: Summoning His back laid on the cold stone floor, for a moment he felt that he would never move a muscle ever again, he could barely make head or tails out of the situation, his mind felt as foggy as his vision. His body twitched as he started to move his arm up to reach his eyes, resting above them were a pair of glasses, useless at the moment, no crystal was resting in the frames. The young man was extremely confused at this. ¡®...did they pop out when I fell back? And how did I fall back into here?...¡¯ As he moved the hand away from his face the pain suddenly jolted through his body, making him feel like every nerve ending had been stabbed by a red hot needle, accompanied with the smell of charred hair, cloth and flesh made him think the worst. The excruciating sensation and strange situation made him look down at his body, and what was left of his clothes. Over half of them had been easily burnt down to smoking rags, the front half, the movements he just had done made most of the ashes move away to expose the untouched skin. ¡®...what happened to me?...¡¯ He tried to look around, each movement visibly bringing him enough pain to stop him from moving faster, but he either got used to it or it simply disappeared, because he was soon making quicker and faster movements. He looked around, his neck moving as little as possible as his eyes managed to get some focus on the room he was in, the walls were marble white, almost without any blemish, so pure looking that one would be afraid of sullying them with a simple touch, the ceiling was sculpted simply but with great craftsmanship, a simple geometric design on the same white marble. After looking around the room some more, the man managed a few conclusions; The room was around 25 or 30 square meters, the floor wasn¡¯t white, but instead a deep black, so opposite to the white marble of the walls that one would fear getting sucked into the void. As for second conclusion there was no actual way of falling into this room, the only set of doors were not only closed, but they also were a set of big and heavy stone doors, meaning he had either laid back on the floor or had been carried inside. Third he noticed the black marble floor wasn¡¯t completely dark, there was a strange smoking, white material drawing some kind of design on the floor, somehow similar to the one imprinted on the ceiling. The last thing he noticed was a young girl laying on the floor not far outside the circle on the ground, in front of her was a small golden bowl, a few wisps of colored smoke rose from it. ¡®...Did she suffer the same as me? It doesn¡¯t look like her clothes are as burnt as mine¡­¡¯ His slow movements brought him to his knees, the position revealed that his clothes were mostly okay on the back, sadly the lack of their front side made them start to fall off his body, one of his few lucky moments was that his belt had survived whatever had destroyed the rest of his garment, and the thick leather piece held some grace to cover his lower area as he tried to walk over to the female laying on the floor. Of course he would get one unlucky and another lucky moment in short succession, as something hard and blunt hit him hard and quick on the back of his head, making him fall down again. This had been an unlucky moment. As for the lucky moment, he had passed out before his face hit down first on the cold stone floor hard enough to break his nose, maybe this was another unlucky moment. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A few moments prior, in the same room¡­ The young women sighed once more, she had been against the ritual from the start, not only forced to lead it against her wishes, but also forced to use her own money to pay for the materials. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Well, not her money, but her city''s Treasury. This young women, who now stood alone in this white and black stone chamber, in front of a large pattern drawn on the ground with expensive ground gems, wearing a light white dress, her name was Crystalline, first daughter of the late Duke Bera. It''s not more than six months ago when her father passed away in mysterious circumstances and the months ago when the King had decided to push forward with the Hero summoning project, forcing all cities of the kingdom to use their own money to each one summon a hero. Her father had been one of the strongest opponents to this project, stating that a good number of cities didn''t had enough to produce a good summoning for lack of resources. The disappearance of her father from the political scene lead the opposition to quickly do too, retiring, naming successors or changing opinions. Didn''t help that the royal alchemist and Arch mage to offer multiple tiers of summoning ritual. Forcing a good number of the opposition to accept. Even then, her city was the poorest, standing just next to the Death Peaks. The bad water, poor soil, ghastly woods and dangerous mines gave this city small revenue. Making this forced expenditure to put the city deep down in the red. ¡®...And for what!? The amount expended was just enough to get the most basic level of ritual. Enough magic energy to bestow the summoned hero with a healthy and slightly above average body, not even a Divine Blessing and this city has long lost it''s artifact on the ancient war.¡¯ She could only sigh deeply, she hoped that the poor victim of this scheme was kind enough to not blame her for the situation, she was promising she would extend a helping hand to him to try and help him survive A deep breath could be heard on the almost empty room, doors had been locked for the procedure as she started to channel her will through the summoning circle on the ground, the many precious gems on the golden bowl in front of her released a strong luminescence. She could feel her grasp on the spell escape her, the circle using her to channel the mana on the ambient and mixing it with the inherent magic on the many colored stones she had sacrificed the treasure of her city to acquire. Then, the unexpected, as the whole design on the ground lighted up, overpowering the dimming magic bulbs on the room the suddenly explosive noise drowned everything in the room, a ring of air pressure exploded from the center of the array, hitting her and sending her tumbling back a few meters as something heavy hit the ground, a smoking body now laid on the ground. The gems had extinguished their light, crumbling down into smoking dust, similar to the ceiling of the closed room, the summoning circle¡¯s design had carved itself on it, the magic and the explosion had made a white powder fall down and redrawing the design on the ground around the body. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - After a few moments the door opened, a slightly hunched over figure walked into the room carrying a heavy-looking staff on her hand, the old woman looked at the situation, her eyes stopping first on the unmoving women, noticing her still breathing her eyes moved back to the man, watching him start to react. The old woman had heard the explosion, knowing instantly that it wasn¡¯t the expected reaction for the event, she still had to unlock the door before coming inside, the resulting scene put her at a bad mood, she held a similar point of view to the Duke¡¯s Daughter about how things were going. ¡®...Oh no, you aren¡¯t moving till I hear what she has to say¡­¡¯ The woman moved forward and skillfully hit the back of the man¡¯s head as he started to stand up, also hearing quite well the crunch sound of a nose breaking with the weight of the falling body. ¡®...well, better ask for forgiveness if he does remember this, after all, this man should be our hero¡­¡¯ Arc 1 - Explosion, Chapter 2: Prologue Chapter 2: Prologue A little before, in another world, in a country similar to the rest¡­ He felt the class was boring, and it wasn¡¯t entirely his fault, that¡¯s what you get when you flunk and have to do it again, first few classes turn out to be even more boring the second time over, teachers¡¯ presenting themselves, going over the schedule for the class along the months, tests, projects, groups, etc¡­ He could only sigh once more and stop with the scribbles at the edge of the page, it was just the first class, and on the page was the name of the new teacher, a few important dates and a few books he would have to look into. ¡®why the fuck they insist with a different book each year, this cost a fortune.¡¯ he though while checking the prices online and quickly moved to a site where they could be freely downloaded ¡®thanks to technology they won¡¯t get a cent out of this man¡­¡¯ he kept a couple cells on his brain to pay attention to class as he watched the file download. No bells rang, but the clock marked the end of the hour and the teacher still took a few more minutes to talk about the future classes while he had already started to pack things into his bag, not much to move around, without physical books he could carry a few pens, a couple notebooks and maybe something to eat, no need to tire himself with heavy papers. The young man had already stand up for the moment the teacher declared the class as finished, walking out of the classroom through one of the back doors, sitting near the last rows of seats made it conspicuous enough to let him do that without drawing too many stares, after all, most people on the last rows were deep asleep for who knows how long. He walked silently through the hallways, having rushed out of the classroom made it much more comfortable as less people were now filling them. Reaching the Cafe and sitting with some other people who were already talking between each other before he sat. ¡°Look who the cat brought in, Julio, was the class that boring?¡± An ash blonde, short haired man asked the young one who had just sat down. ¡°Not like you would know, you didn¡¯t even come¡± Julio stretched after dropping the backpack on the ground, a few popping sounds came from his articulations, making one of the girls sitting close shudder. She smacked his arm ¡°Come on, don¡¯t do that next to me, your joints will be like an old man¡¯s¡± Julio chuckled at the brown haired girl¡¯s words. ¡°Come on Sandra, you know it¡¯s one of the few pleasures I have, sitting on a class for so long only makes it better¡± he proceeded to slowly crack his fingers noisily. The rest laughed as Sandra smacked his arm a few more times, the group soon chatting peacefully as the rest of the people came out from the classrooms and filled the large College¡¯s Cafe. Didn¡¯t took more than an hour before something caught their attention, it wasn¡¯t something impressive, it was just one of the waitresses turning on the television, the large screen showing the news where it showed that the list of strange accidents had increased. By now Julio was aware of at least a dozen in the city, and it wasn¡¯t something local, all over the world strange things had been happening. It had started with some small things that everyone attributed to bad luck, a truck exploding on the highway: a malfunction on the gasoline tank, a building falling over: faulty construction, multiple boats capsizing on the coast: a strange water current. Of course things had slowly turned more and more weirder, harder to explain with mere coincidences, planes touching down on the wrong airports, people waking up at strange places, bed and all, and a global down-time of the internet, all types of digital connection had fallen for thirteen minutes and twenty-six seconds exactly, the strangest thing is that all systems marked 3 minutes earlier than the start of the down-time after recovering. He hadn¡¯t payed much attention to the current news, but most of the place was now silent, making it harder to just ignore. The latest news marked that in the latest mysterious incident a some-what known woman had perished as her car had lost control and ran straight into a wall. The rescue groups were astonished as no body had been recovered, even when the traffic cameras caught her in the car during the incident. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. Julio excused himself after noticing the time and left the building, taking the first bus empty enough to not make it a nightmare. As the vehicle neared his destination a strange tingling sensation made Julio¡¯s scalp grow itchy, the sensation only increasing and making it awkward to just stand there, he decided to step down a stop prior and walk the rest. Just stepping down from the bus was like a breath of fresh air for Julio, both metaphorically and literally, taking the bus on winter had that added pleasure of sharing body heat in an enclosed space. The tingling sensation passed and he soon was already back on the way home. He didn¡¯t had a problem with walking three or four blocks more, it was a nice day, not too hot, not too cold, slightly cloudy, people were on the street but it wasn¡¯t too crowded. Good day to walk and look around, it wasn¡¯t exactly everyday he walked this few blocks instead of waiting inside the bus to get to his destination. Block after block, nothing different in them than any other, beside the different kinds of shops, a school here or there, maybe a restaurant or cafe. He just let this time wind his mind down, relaxing and just emptying silly thoughts and worries. But against all odds, something came into his mind, those strange incidents, they kept happening, and no one was sure what was behind them. Even the crazy guys weren¡¯t sure, or unified on the reason. Lizard People, Aliens, the government, the FBI, mutants, etc¡­ A few of the things that Julio had read about and given enough of a good chuckle. But one didn¡¯t make him laugh, for what he managed to piece together, an ex-physics teacher had stated that this were all connected, he had even shown the relation between time and position of all events. Julio hadn¡¯t laughed when a few of the most recent incidents had been prophesied by this person. And the thought that really filled his mind is that there should another incident on his way back home from college, maybe that small paranoia was that made him step down from the bus. As he mulled on that, his perception seemed to slow down, he moved his head to see how a couple workers accidentally dropped a live cable while they were working on the street. His eyes followed the sparkling trail that left the cable, the question of why wasn¡¯t the cable secured before working filled his brain. Then the cable hit the ground, touching a large puddle on the street a few meter or so from him. Whatever the liquid was, it was obviously not water as it exploded with an unexpected might, the ball of fire rising and expanding, hitting him straight on the chest and front of his body. He felt the extreme heat wrap around his body, his clothes scorched as the shock-wave hit him next, his body flying back and crashing through the large window of an empty store. His world went from normal, into a raging inferno and then full black, his back hit the ground, but there¡¯re no glass shards, now large window, no fire, he laid on the cold, dark marble floor, white walls and ceiling surrounded him. It took a few moments before his brain caught up to the situation.
Author Note: Just making a small note here, will try to update once a week, I have more or less planned 5 arcs, each one composed of 7 chapters, hopefully I will manage to keep the rate of release, also working on a Bios for the characters, but won''t release them anytime soon, the idea is start once the info in it is not spoiler-ish on any way and more in a way to keep track of characters.