Vin froze as panic erupted around him; people were screaming and scrambling away from the sudden rift in space. Friends and families broke down after seeing their loved ones who were just at their side vanish. Rash individuals bumped into Vin, nearly knocking him from his feet as they darted in every direction of the garden.

The pandemonium was muffled beneath Vin's despair. He eyed the bright rift speechlessly, waiting for the joke to be over and for his family to return to him. Another shocked individual darted into his view, screaming the name of his lover before tossing himself into the rift. Their body evaporated into the light, and more screams erupted.

An image of Vin's family flashed in his mind, and he, too, strode for the light. His rationality had left him; he only moved while muttering, "Wait for me."

He raised a shaky hand toward the rift, but before touching it, a searing pain tore through his mind like billions of small electric currents. Others seemed to be affected, and there were questioning murmurs; however, the pain jabbed at Vin the worst, and he collapsed to his knees.

An existence was slowly getting louder, overcoming his exerted heart's quaking. Soon, he heard, well, not heard because nothing had audibly reached his ears. But, somehow, he perceived another presence inside his mind.

It was frighteningly casual in tone, considering that place had been flipped upside down."Forgive any discomfort; it can be difficult to attune to everyone's various wavelengths."

Vin suspended and tipped his head upward. This voice in his head was formless, but the sky was the instinctive place to look.

"I am the soul of a dying planet named Auroraan."

"A process of assimilation has begun, and over the next 3 years, I will gradually consume all healthy matter from your world to repair the damages to my own. Don't worry; arrangements are being made to prepare your species to join the many others already inhabiting me."

There was a brief, unnatural pause after the mysterious entity's string of ludicrous statements. Then, a new voice picked up as if one had passed a spatial mic to the other.

"H-hello?" This new soul was many times more anxious and timid and spoke in a minor murmur.

"Yes, hello! Er, my name is Jerry, the elected leader of Earth."

Vin's mouth dropped without his will. He continued to peer into a blank sky, but a static image of a particular individual with a tin foil hat formed behind his eyes.

"First, let me reassure those who listened to my speech that I am safe. Everyone here was transported to some strange temple, but we don't seem to be in any danger yet."

Dumbfounded, Vin held still, adhering to the speaker. He was only glad to hear that his family was alive somewhere, even if on an alien planet. It didn't matter that an oddball whose followers were limited to a few inquisitive pedestrians had declared himself Earth's leader.

The man in the tin foil hat, now identified as Jerry, spoke with sporadic inflections. At times, his sentence began with a low, insecure aura and became louder at the tail end. "We still have three years to plan our evacuation to the new planet; it will be ok!"

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"Humans will prevail!"

Jerry's signal was cut, and the foreign entity resumed. "Auroraan is a world of magic and, soon to return, beauty."

"I am doing my best to control the locations of what space is assimulated; however, I am sick and starving. Please do your best to avoid the lesser bridges that have begun to appear."

"I look forward to our fated assimilation. Goodbye." As it concluded, the portal in front of Vin erased. Earth remained quiet for moments after the incident; however, Vin's eyes swelled, and he yelled, swiping at the space where the rift had been.

"Wait! Take me too!" he wailed. It was gone without a trace, and no amount of begging would bring it back. Strangers tugged on Vin to calm him, offering hopes of seeing his family again; after all, the transmission said they were safe. Vin wasn't listening to any of it. He had nothing except for his family, no additional relatives, and no friends; he hated life aside from the tenderness they exhibited.

While they altercated there, a second, smaller streak of light struck another location in the garden. Vin looked up at it, fought the people away from him, and sprinted through panicked crowds of the garden. He passed a shop and rows of flowers until he saw where the rift anchored.

He didn't slow down. In one unthoughtful moment, he ran and vaulted into the portal to another world.

There was a balmy silent flash when he crossed over. His body was plopped in the air, which was worrying enough that he released his cherished skateboard midair. However, he'd fallen from higher heights before and used his experience to land without a hitch.

He splashed in grayish-green, almost black-infused water that rose to his waist. The color was nothing like he'd ever seen naturally, like the liquid was somehow sickly, perhaps polluted.

Towering, thick blades of foliage grew from viscous mud on the ground, blocking most of his view. However, from what he could tell, he'd spawned in an incredibly foul swamp. The dead plants released a putrid, vegetation stench that made him want to cover his nose. It was foggy and humid beyond reason, instigating sweat from all his pores.

Vin looked around through the dense mist, immediately knowing he'd made a grave error. His heart lost its regular tempo, and his posture curled upon realizing he was nowhere near a temple. He was a fool to assume all the portals would lead to the same place.

A ripple in the steady water frightened him, and he hastily turned to see that this portal's arrival, like the last, had stolen someone from Earth.

Vin flinched in awe, opening his eyes to an unexpected individual. Lynn, the girl he knew from past skate competitions, was bolting toward him through the dense grass.

Her rash movements caught Vin off guard, and it took him a moment to register the sheer terror etched across her face.

Everything happened so quickly after that. There was a distant rumble as droplets fell from the sky. By the time the first raindrop hit the surface, Lynn's mouth had erupted open, and she screamed, "Run!"

The girl's glasses were fighting not to fling off her face as she sprinted toward Vin. She arrived and yanked him by his arm in the opposite direction from which she came. Her actions jerked his body into action, but as his legs kept up with her, his head turned rearward to see what had the girl in such a panic.

Before his eyes, a monstrous species of slug bashed through the tall grass. It was humongous compared to its Earth counterpart; it was twice Vin's size but clearly malnourished, as its skin had muddied and peeled like a zombie. Its eyes struck out on what looked like an antenna, and its mouth was slightly below and evolved into a row of razor-sharp teeth.

This creature wasn't at all curious about them. Its eyes, which extended from its body, were hungry, and it had already classified them as simple prey. Its ovalish body granted it maneuverability through the swamp, an ability it used to now hunt the two humans that stumbled onto its grounds.