Giant worms and deformed trees:
Yona and Evan's POV
Pain...
It's excruciatingly painful.
That was the first thought that came to mind as I regained consciousness. My body felt as though it had been swallowed by that void and spat back out; I was literally shattered. I opened my eyes with difficulty, moving them slowly to observe my surroundings. The first thing I saw was Yona's body thrown beside me. She looked still and breathless, as if she were...
I jumped up, approaching her and reaching out my hand in fear, as if I didn't want to know what had happened. When I pressed my fingers to her neck, I felt her pulse, and I released a breath I hadn't realized I was holding. I'd forgotten for a moment that Yona sleeps like the dead. I gently shook her shoulder in the hope that she would wake, and she opened her eyes with difficulty, pain etched on her face. She looked at me as if gathering what had transpired, then tried to sit up, so I helped her.
"Where... are we?" she asked in a faint, exhausted voice, as if she was struggling to speak.
I looked around to take in our surroundings. We were in a cave that seemed damp and dark, with small insects here and there. There was a faint, strange scent I had never smelled before. I looked back at her, shaking my head as I answered:
"I don't know. I woke up a few seconds ago, then woke you up. Hmm, but it's clearly a cave."
"What happened?... What about the others?" she asked me. Her expression was extremely worried.
"I don't know. I'm worried about them too, but I think we need light first to search for them," I said, looking into the darkness of the cave.
"Maybe we should get out. I hope they're okay. I only remember when the darkness swallowed us, and Luyian asked us to grab hold of those nearby... Luyian! I saw him! He couldn't grab Lewis's hand!" she cried out in panic, trying to stand up. I helped her, and we stood.
Oh God! This is agonizing! I feel my body tearing apart just from standing.
I held her hand to support her, and I felt her body trembling. It seems she's feeling the same pain; her face looked extremely pale up close. I wondered if my face was pale too.
"Calm down, Yona, don't panic. We don't know exactly what happened. Let's focus on the next step. Getting out of this cave is the priority," I spoke in a calm tone, as if I was trying to reassure her and myself, while trying to steady us both. I felt that if a strong wind blew for a moment, it would be enough to knock us down, given how unsteady we were.
I started moving slowly, examining the damp walls with my free hand. The strange smell grew stronger, a mix of rotten earth and something slightly metallic.
I dragged my feet with difficulty on the damp, rocky floor, while holding onto Yona's cold and trembling hand. Every step was agonizing, as if our bodies were worn-out rags. But the worry for the others was more intense than any pain.
"Look, maybe that's the cave exit," I whispered, pointing to a small light streaming into the cave. We walked slowly towards it, so slowly that we could see the light emanating from the exit more clearly as we approached, like a lamp at the end of a dark tunnel. It wasn't normal, bright sunlight; it looked brighter than usual. It seemed suspicious, extremely suspicious.
"Hold onto me tightly, Yona."
I gripped her cold hand, as if drawing strength from her to complete the remaining steps, or perhaps to prevent us from collapsing before we saw what this bright glare held for us. The smell of rot and earth was now battling a strong metallic scent that was becoming overpowering, and I realized it wasn't the smell of ordinary metal, but closer to the smell of... dried blood.
I shivered when I realized this, and my resolve to get out of here intensified. And as we stepped out of the exit and breathed in what I thought was "normal air"...
Suddenly, my feet froze at the edge of the exit, even as I inhaled the supposed "normal air." It was a visual shock, like a cold slap to my exhausted face.
Absolute silence hung over the scene. This was not a forest, nor was this a cave in an inhabited area.
We were on the peak of a mountain, sharp and jagged, situated in the middle of a vast, endless expanse of barren desert.
The bright light we saw was not ordinary sunlight, but a white, burning, intensely concentrated light that bathed the golden dunes in a pale, dead hue.
"Evan... what is this?" Yona whispered, her voice barely audible, yet carrying a terror worse than any scream. Her eyes were fixed on the pale horizon, unable to comprehend the scene.
The words were stuck in my throat; I couldn't speak. This was not a familiar world. The desert stretched into infinity, its sand the color of dead gold under an intense, artificial light that tore at the horizon. The mountain we stood on was like a broken tooth, solitary and isolated, as if it had been spat into this void.
I tightened my grip on her cold hand. The smell of dried blood here faded before another strange scent, the smell of ozone and extreme heat, as if we were very close to a massive power source.
"I don't know, Yona," I finally said, trying to make my tone sound more steady than I felt. "But we need to get away from this light."
I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the burning glare. I started to feel the heat penetrating my clothes; it was an unnatural heat, bearing the sharpness of a laser beam rather than the warmth of the sun.
"I don't feel good about the cave, so let's get down from here," she turned, looking at the dark cave entrance. It looked as if a massacre had happened inside. I nodded to her; we couldn't stay here, my instincts were warning me.
"Yes, you're right. Let's get down. Anywhere is better than this," I said, trying to ignore the shiver of fear that ran down my spine. Climbing down this sharp, jagged mountain was another challenge in itself. I started examining the edge with my eyes, trying to find a less steep path, one that wouldn't throw us straight onto the scorched sand below.
"I could climb down from here if it weren't for the pain. Don't forget I've climbed bigger peaks," she said with forced calm, as she pointed to a side of the wall and continued:
"This side looks more clustered, so let's climb down here. But first, I don't have a good feeling." Suddenly, she let go of my hand, bent down, and picked up a stone.
"I'm afraid something might intercept us while we climb down, so just in case," she threw the stone downwards, and I watched it, hoping nothing would happen to it. When it landed as if nothing happened,
Yona let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn't enough to dispel the worry that enveloped us. I looked at the small stone that bounced on the sand without any reaction, then turned my gaze back to the unnatural scene. Blazing white light, and dead desert beneath our feet, as if we had fallen into a giant experimental cage.
"Okay, let's move very carefully, Yona," I whispered, as if the mountain itself had ears. "The slightest mistake here could be the last."
"Wait, Evan, do you have any invention that would help us climb down? A rope? Something like that? You always carry strange inventions with you," she asked, as if hoping I did have something. I searched my clothes, recalling something I had been asked about a while ago. I felt a small cube in my pocket, and I took one out. It was red, and I gave it to her.
"Luyian and William previously asked me to sneak a rope into the school for an escape... Oh, don't tell Luca about this, it's a secret," I said, putting my finger to my mouth to indicate it was a secret.
I saw her smile faintly, then she pressed the button, and it transformed into a rope. She held it in her hand, measuring its length and the height of the mountain, while saying with her usual sarcasm:
"Well, I'm not surprised, it seems totally expected of them... However, I'm grateful for their folly now. Let's tie it well around this rock mass. We need to make sure it won't budge an inch."
I approached the protruding rock mass that Yona pointed to; it looked the most stable among the other clusters. We worked together to tie the rope, knot upon knot, and the tighter we secured the bond, the more the fear seemed to diminish, replaced by a deadly focus. We needed to get down, and fast.
"Ready, Yona?"
I asked, after climbing over the edge slightly to test the rope's stability. My body was still screaming in pain, but the adrenaline, the fear of the metallic smell in the cave, and the greater fear of this burning white light, all acted as a temporary painkiller. The red rope was perfectly taut.
"Make sure to hold on tight. Remember, move slowly and distribute your weight. This mountain is sharper and more jagged than it looks." Her voice was stern, as if she were a real mountain climbing instructor.
I nodded to her and started climbing down behind her. I carefully lowered my left foot, searching for any small protrusion or crack in the rock to place my weight on. I relied more on the strength of my arms than my trembling legs. The sand below looked like a sea of burnt gold, and the light stung my skin with every inch I moved away from the cave's shadow.
"The rope is sturdy, don't worry. Climb down calmly," I told her before noticing that she had already covered half the distance.
Fast... incredibly fast. No wonder; she did win the gold medal two years ago.
I felt a slight relief when I saw Yona descending with astonishing lightness and stability, despite the clear pain on her features. She moved with professional training, expertly utilizing the small protrusions on the jagged mountain, as if defying gravity.
"Amazing, Yona," I whispered, though my voice was faint and lost in the absolute silence of the place. "You're moving better than I expected... your skills haven't failed you. As for me, my hands are going to fail," I said, as I felt them aching.
I looked down, watching her every movement, trying to replicate her stability as much as possible. My body was still violently protesting, every torn muscle letting out a cry of pain with each pull on the rope, but the sight of her overcoming the pain was a driving force.
Minutes passed.
My arms started trembling uncontrollably, seizing up with every grip on the rope. The pain was so sharp, as if I no longer had muscles, but torn threads. In contrast, Yona was like a light black shadow steadily fading downwards, strong, stubborn, and amazing as usual.
"I've reached the bottom! Evan, the rope extends fully. Its length seems just right!" Yona's voice came from below, a reassuring whisper, yet carrying a tone of urgency.
I took a deep breath, the hot, burning air filling my lungs with the smell of ozone and metal. "I'm coming, Yona, just wait a minute..."
The last five minutes passed with agonizing slowness. I focused on placing my feet, pressing against the rock with every remaining ounce of strength. I wasn't just climbing down the mountain; I was fighting for every inch, trying not to look at the scorched sand and potential death below. Every time I looked up, the dark cave entrance looked like a giant empty eye staring at us, as if waiting for our return, or perhaps blessing our escape.
Finally, I felt my right foot touch something softer than rock. The sand.
I slowly released the rope, and pulled myself up with difficulty to stand beside Yona. My back collapsed onto the hot sand for a moment, and I took a deep gasp. My body was a torn piece of cloth, but I was alive.
"My God, we made it..." I whispered, unable to prevent the relief from sweeping through my voice.
Yona looked at me. Her face was pale, her dark hair stuck to her sweaty forehead, but her eyes glowed with unmistakable determination.
"This is just the beginning, Evan," she said sternly as she pulled the red rope, which began to shrink and revert to the shape of a small red cube in her hands. "Now, we need to find the others and understand where we are. And this light..."
We turned together to the scene. We were now standing in the mountain's shadow, but the burning white light filled the horizon, casting our long, distorted shadows onto the hot sand. This was not a comforting light; it was a visual oppression.
I took a step closer to her and looked at the sand beneath our feet. It was so hot that I felt it piercing the sole of my shoe.
"Where should we go?" I asked, my hand instinctively reaching into my pocket. "Towards the light source? Or...." My questioning was cut short by a faint vibrating sensation in the ground. I turned towards the direction it came from, and I noticed something resembling a storm in the far distance. It wasn't clear due to the distance, so Yona turned and looked in the same direction I was looking, standing still for a moment, then grabbed my arm and said:
"Run fast," she said, her features filled with panic. I didn't argue, and I ran behind her as fast as I could.
"What? What did you see, Yona?" I said, knowing her sight was the strongest among all of us. I didn't stop running, I ran my fastest.
"A herd... can we even call them a herd?!!! I saw a group of giant earthworms. But it's strange, did you feel what I felt? Their movement is strange," her expression was odd, as if she sensed something she didn't understand. I reached into my pocket. The cubes were few, I mean, if we exclude the chairs, they're few. I took one out and pressed it, and a small compass appeared, not just to determine direction, but to determine ground pressure, but there's a problem.
"Yona, run! As for me, I have to confirm their direction," I said as I stood and quickly placed it on the ground. But Yona didn't run, she stood watching me and watching the storm, as if trying to analyze it. I wanted to yell at her and tell her to run, but her eyes held a look:
'Don't you dare ask me to leave you here.'
Well, nothing can break Yona's stubbornness.
Yona and I stopped on the hot sand, my eyes fixed on the small compass whose indicators started dancing wildly. The vibration under our feet became clearer and closer.
The compass! I screamed in my mind. The small needle indicator wasn't just shaking; it was spinning madly, losing its direction completely, as if the magnetic field itself had shattered. As for the pressure gauge, its curve rose catastrophically and frighteningly, not a straight line for something coming, but wild, jagged lines that translated into untuned ground vibrations, confirming Yona's words: their movement is strange.
"Evan," Yona whispered, her voice this time was cold and calm in a way that worried me more than her previous panic. "They aren't coming towards us. They are... moving in place. They are hitting the ground periodically, like giant pestles in the same spot!"
She turned to look at the same place but froze.
"Wait... something came out of the path. A worm diverted from its course towards us."
My heart stopped for a moment. That look in Yona's eyes, the quiet terror she emitted, was worse than any scream. There was no time to think, not for the frantically shaking compass, nor for the burning ozone smell. Only instinct.
"Which direction?!" I shouted, grabbing the hot compass and pulling her arm hard, but I didn't wait for an answer.
I darted towards the far right, away from the path of the trembling worm. I wasn't running, but falling, lifting my feet to avoid the hot contact with the sand, while trying to observe my surroundings. The movement was incredibly painful, as if I was tearing the last threads holding my exhausted body together.
"Evan, there," Yona pointed to a forest, or what remained of a forest. The trees were many times bigger than us and extremely dry. The shape of their trunks was strange, in fact, at first glance, they looked like sad faces.
The scorched sand is merciless! I shouted in my mind, as my feet were practically melting on the inflamed ground, every grain of sand stinging the skin and reminding us that this place was not for us. But the pain diminished before the sight of that thing rushing from the ground, that giant worm that had changed its course, leaving behind the absurd dance of death of its herd.
"Damn it... Damn, damn, damn! If only I had my invention bag... my BAAAAG!!!!!" I shouted in despair at the situation. That bag contained crazy things that could save us from this predicament. And suddenly, without warning, I felt something hit my back and throw me to the ground hard. Yona stood up in surprise, looking at the thing that knocked me down.
And I screamed in despair:
"Damn! What is this that fell... MY BAG!!!???? Impossible!"
I shouted in surprise as I looked at the bag. Yona quickly picked it up and pulled me to run, and I got up and we ran towards the forest, which we instantly regretted entering. The trees had human faces with extremely distorted features. My entire body shuddered as I looked at them. Then Yona gave me the bag, while her eyes asked the silent question that needed no uttering. But we didn't have the luxury of answering. The sound of sand rushing behind us was increasing, confirming that the giant worm had breached our safe zone.
"MY BAGGGGG!" Suddenly Yona screamed at the top of her lungs and I reached out my hand, ready to catch it; we don't need anything to obstruct us now. Suddenly her bag also fell, so I quickly grabbed it and gave it to her, and I told her:
"Yona, check if the pressure pistol I gave you is still there," I said, hoping it was, and I held her hand while she searched the bag so she wouldn't trip. She was searching quickly, then her face filled with hope, however slight, as she said:
"I found it! I found it! But what good is it? It's just a pistol that needs bullets, and that worm is huge!" Yona's voice was sharp, mixed with urgency and despair, as we quickly plunged deeper into the forest of twisted trees with sad faces. The air here was heavy and still, and the burning ozone smell was replaced by a suffocating, ancient rotten smell. I felt the fingers of the carved faces on the trunks staring at us, as if blessing our ill-fated escape.
I caught my breath with difficulty, putting my hand in the bag and taking out vials shaped like bullets. "Yona, do you remember the day we watched that movie and you asked me how they could cause such damage with one shot? Your face back then was as if you envied them, so I made this for you. It's a preliminary experiment, it was supposed to be a birthday gift, but... well, take it early and save us." I noticed her eyes widen with intensity and excitement, gratitude evident on her features.
Then the expression on Yona's face quickly changed to cold, deadly focus. She pulled the pressure pistol out with one hand, and with the other, she picked up the bullet-shaped vial from my hand. Her movement was fast and trained, as if she were in a training ground, not a nightmare. She had inserted the "experimental bullet" into the pistol's muzzle, sensing the raw, caged power inside.
"Hold onto me tightly, Evan!" Yona screamed as she held me and the bags. I darted forward while she faced the worm.
"Yona, please focus well. I think its skin is thick, so try not to waste the shot. Our survival depends on you," I told her, worried, not about Yona's shooting accuracy, but about the giant worm's thickness. This worm didn't look like any natural worm; it looked extremely ferocious, and had no features except its fanged mouth.
I pressed my worn-out legs to increase their speed, running at a pace I never thought I could achieve, and I felt the hot sand swallowing my shoes with every step. It wasn't just the sand and the ozone heat anymore; the rotten smell in the forest became suffocating, mixed with the silent screams of the distorted tree faces we were passing.
"Hold on tight, Evan," she said in a calm tone, as if she were just a firing mechanism. She was stable despite my frantic running. Her eyes were like a hawk waiting for its chance, then:
"You're hard on the outside, I wonder if you are on the inside?" she said, and her tone was crazy and harsh.
Her eyes narrowed with focus, as if she wasn't seeing the giant worm, but the small target in the hollow of its fanged mouth. There was no sound of a scream, no hesitation. Just a cold, decisive squeeze of the trigger.
The trigger pull was followed by a sharp, brief whistle, not the sound of a gunshot, but the sound of an enormous release of energy. The shot was fired, not a traditional bullet, but a small capsule of the ultra-pressure I invented. It hit its target the moment the worm opened its mouth to devour us, rushing straight towards the soft tissues in the throat.
It wasn't a simple internal explosion; it was massive. The worm exploded and tore into shreds.
Oh my God! Damn... what is this?
Yona was suddenly shaken, pushed by the force of the massive explosion, and I felt her stiffen under my hand. The scene behind us, where the giant worm was attacking, had turned into a lava flow of sand and torn flesh. The explosion was so huge that it shook the ground beneath our feet, pushing us forward hard, scattering hot sand everywhere. The smell of ozone and rotten metal was now replaced by the disgusting smell of burning.
We didn't have time to process it. Yona was gasping, her eyes disgusted and fixed on the burning remnants of the worm, and on a huge black hole that appeared in the sand where it exploded. It wasn't just a crater; it was a deep abyss, as if the earth had split open.
"Evan... the shot's... power..." Yona stammered, her voice a mix of admiration, awe, and horror, looking at the small pistol in her hand. "Are you sure you designed this to be a birthday gift?"