I look around to notice people from my neighborhood here. Tom the mechanic who always fixes my dad’s car, Karen my favorite baker, cashiers from Walmart, neighbors, teachers, classmates, relatives, etc. However what had truly caught my eyes and what had truly caught everyone’s eyes as well were the creatures that couldn’t exist in any other reality other than fiction. A giant fish made of water swimming through the air, a large gorilla with plates of stone instead of fur, a massive white wolf with tree branches for antlers, a giant floating earthworm with dragon-like wings and the tail of a scorpion, all these fantastical creatures along with numerous men in black buttoned up uniforms with red stripes along the shoulders and a red symbol of arising sun on the chest aiming muskets of some sort towards us.
Before I could comprehend what was going on someone of important-looking stature a general of some sort started yelling orders to his troops “Cappa el acka mooma o korra a rata!” he yells and soon after all hell broke loose. The soldiers closed in while the mythical beasts stood in place, and the soldiers shot their muskets into the crowd of people; everyone noticed how the muskets weren’t shooting bullets, but rather some form of condensed laser beams that would peirce multiple people at a time.
Screams and blood took hold of the scene as people began to drop like flies. People I had known since childhood were being killed without mercy. People tried to run away. However, those who did found only an incomprehensible monster in their path- and beyond that, a red rocky desert with no end in sight.
The only thing anyone could feel at that moment was pure unadulterated dread.
I clutch Athena’s hand as I try my hardest to think of something, I try to grasp the situation, I try to think of a plan, I try to figure out a way to escape, I try to figure out a way to escape, I need to do something. never had I felt so helpless and useless before as I witnessed those whom I had known my entire life get slaughtered like pigs.
As the frustration, panic, and anxiety built up inside of me I felt as if the world had started to slow down. Although things were still happening; acquaintances were still getting killed, strangely red-haired women were getting captured, and there was nowhere to run.
When I felt that Athena detached herself from my grip and was running in some random direction "ATHENA!" I scream, but by the time my voice left my mouth, she had been too far for my voice to reach.
WHERE THE FUCK IS SHE GOING! I feel my panic overtake me and start chasing after her. I looked into the distance to see where she was going; she was running at an average person's speed towards Catelyn, our elementary school neighbor; a soldier had taken Catelyn’s mother in one of his hands and was trying to point his rifle at Catelyn while Catelyn was screaming with tears in her eyes. She tried to fight back swinging her arms frantically at the soldier to protect her mother. However, her efforts proved to be futile. The soldier got sick of her attempts at resistance kicking the elementary schooler in the stomach and pointing his rifle at her.
Athena was running at her full speed trying to stop that from happening, despite us being practically half a mile away from her. Athena's worthless endeavor caused her to glow a little? However, Athena was not the only one to glow because as Catelyn’s crying intensified so too did a red-orangeish glow emitting from Catelyn. The glow had started to radiate through the entire field; soldiers began retreating from the elementary schooler, and the monsters began to ready themselves.
Catelyn began to gradually morph into some rocky magma creature that only grew with each passing second pushing everyone within a football field radius away from her. Eventually, Catelyn's morphing completed causing a gust of air to emerge from Catelyn pushing everyone back and causing Athena to fly backward in a wave of hot air, while I only recoiled back.
The most astonishing part of that instance was how Catelyn had grown to the size of a skyscraper with rocky skin, a human-like appearance, and magma leaking out from the pores and cracks on her body. Catelyn’s gargantuan size and superheated body led to everyone near her getting incinerated in the process.
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As the titan looked down, she noticed the burnt husks of charcoal; people she had known and cared about had turned into ash; the very husk of her own mother now at her feet. Tears of magma roll down Catelyn's face and she lets out a cry that would shake the very world.
When Catlyn’s transformation occurred the beasts that were blocking our escape earlier had begun to move into action and started attempting to scale Catelyn. The creatures who seemed so large before seemed almost small in comparison to Catelyn’s new form. The rock monkey attempted to scale Catelyn as one might expect a monkey to.
He didn’t get very far because the moment he got past Catelyn’s knee height, Catelyn squashed him instantaneously turning him into a powder. This show of strength didn't even seem to faze any of the other fantastical creatures, as the wolf ignored its companion's immediate demise; summoning tree roots from the ground in an attempt to restrain Catelyn, but his efforts ended up being worthless as the tree roots disintegrated into ash upon contact with Catelyn.
The water fish and the dragon worm were a bit more complex as they were creatures that could fly they both were scaling by flying around Catelyn in unison seemingly to try and disorient her and in a sense it was working.
Catelyn was struggling to attack the creatures as they would dodge and swerve around her swipes. Eventually, the monsters reached head level with Catelyn, which initialized their assault. The water fish summoned a sphere over its head and channeled energy through it. When the sphere was brimming with energy, it started shooting out highly pressurized water at Catelyn leaving slightly engraved marks on her rocky skin, but the water mostly just evaporated into mist.
Catelyn attempts to swipe back at where the fish had attacked only to be met with only air. As Catelyn was distracted with the water fish the flying worm got up behind Catelyn stuck its stinger between some of the cracks within her body and plied off one of Catelyn’s rock plates leaving an open wound of pouring magma causing Catelyn to scream out in pain. However, Her plate came as quickly as it had left. After losing her magma plate Catelyn had rapidly regenerated another that took its place.
From then on it was a game of cat and mouse as both the worm and the fish would take turns grabbing Catelyn’s attention. The water fish would attack Catelyn to create a smoke screen and the worm would use that smoke screen to attack Catelyn’s blind spots. Catelyn’s frustration was showing itself on her rocky face and she had started channeling energy within herself causing her to glow once again.
If all my times of playing video games with my friends were any indication; this attack was gonna be big. I knew I had to run but all I could do was be dumbfounded at the scene in front of me. It was like watching a 5D movie the possibility of death was higher than the expectancy of survival for both the viewers and the characters to create a truly immersive experience.
“What are you doing!? We need to run now!” Athena grabs my hand and takes me out of my static position. Due to the monsters being preoccupied with Catelyn those who were still alive were running wherever they could. Some of the soldiers were still firing at people who were fleeing. Athena and I were no different from all the other people who were running to god knows where. We were running in a random direction while laser beams zipped past our sides; dozens at a time. we continued running for what felt like half an hour, to the point where no soldier was shooting at us. We thought we might have been safe before an ear-piercing sound reverberated through the entire desert; a multitude of scorching red beams of fire swept by us overhead.
Both me and Athena scream at the sudden earth-shaking attack. However, even though we fell and stumbled we still ran for our lives. After we ran for what felt like hours, we could no longer see the form of Catelyn. we tried to catch our breaths in a nearby cave that we stumbled across. “W-what The h-hell was that!?” Athena asks with battered breath “T-those u-uniforms look l-like they’re f-from R-Ruthel Redemption-” I wheeze trying to catch my while trying to catch my breath on the floor “A-Athena in i-isekai the protagonists typically never what if-” Athena Cuts me off “S-Shut up! It’ll be fine i-it’s gotta” Athena tries to reassure herself and me “B-but what if we’re never able to go home what if we never see our family or friends what if we just lose our lives in some strange world without having accomplished anything” My breath starts picking up and my heart starts hammering. I can hear my heartbeat vividly in my ears and a ringing noise in my ears picks up soon after. Are Liam and Catie okay? Are Mom and Dad alright? What happened to Catelyn? Where are we? Are we really just going to die in the middle of some foreign world without knowing what the hell is going on? Why were those people waiting for us? Why were those people trying to kill us? Will we ever be able to go home? Where will we live? How will we survive? All these thoughts filled my head and more then I realized I couldn’t breathe.