Heavy rain poured down from the heavens steadily like that of sand in an hourglass. It's accompanied by loud thundering and harsh winds, creating a cacophony of noises. Bearing witness of this chaos was a young girl huddled underneath a blanket on a bed in a small, dimmed room. A sense of urgency nestles itself into her mind as she glances around the room that was both unfamiliar, yet dreadfully familiar. She woke up a couple of hours ago in this strange room and at first, still groggy from sleep, she assumed that she was just dreaming. But, as the hours went by, she was still here in this room. Her mind became more frenzied at the realization that this room was a place she knew. But that wasn't right, she had no recollection of such a thing, and so now here she was trying to wrestle with this dissonance. An overwhelming feeling of nausea made her head throb as she licked her chapped lips, trying to distract herself from the ache. Her throat felt parched like she swallowed a ton of sweets. Every sensation threatens to send her back into unconsciousness.

But she clings onto wakefulness, eyes staring intensely at a bright screen of a phone she found in the room. Her ears ring like flies' buzzing and watches on in disbelief at scenes incredulously unbelievable to the average person. She sees humans fly or jump across the screen at impossible speeds, showing off what seem to be CGI-like powers. Bright, colorful and immense in force, evident from how they swept away everything in their path. Those that should only exist in fantastical stories, that rip apart what were grotesque-looking monsters into piles of flesh and liquid. She hears piercing screams of horror and gleeful cheering meld into an unpleasant symphony. In another video, she spots tall, dark towers that stretched unimaginably high into the sky, gleaming like obsidian in the background of destroyed cityscapes. Again, in another video, she even sees a round and small feathered creature floating and giggling, showing off its rows of sharp teeth. It then pauses and proceeds to speak in an alien language to a crowd of terrified humans. With eyes dilated, it points to a random human with one of its fluffy paws. A second pass before that human's head explodes, splattering the surrounding humans in gore. In an instant, the crowd scatters in panic, desperately trying to make sense of what is going on. This one video was the oldest of the many that she watched and a rough translation of what happened was in the description, explaining that this creature was an Administrator of a power that no one could even fathom or understand. The explanation was pulled from the website of the Association for Humanity's Protection and Liberation, often shortened to the AHPL. They were sent down to Earth to watch over the humans and 'help' humans combat the monsters coming in through the so-called gates. Terms and information that she had no idea of and knowing how to interpret slowly made her lose herself to the macabre and fantastical nature of these videos.

She blinks as she sees a human get crushed under a monster's foot and decisively clicks off the phone before haphazardly throwing the phone back onto the bed. The blanket that she was huddled under falls off her shoulders as her lips begin to tremble in unexpected laughter. She covers her mouth with the back of her hand, trying to no avail to stop her laughter. Her laughter escaped her in short, wheezing staccato before descending into a full-blown laughter attack that squeezed her heart painfully. She couldn't stop laughing until she was out of breath and hiccupping. A hint of desperation in her demeanor and coupled with wet eyes made her look like a madwoman. She curls into herself a little, body tense and head bowed as she reorganizes her mind. Silence in the room became her friend, helping her ground herself back into stability. She lifts her head then, wet eyes glazed over and unfocused. Gritting her teeth, she shakes herself out of her stupor and takes a few stuttering breaths. She felt lost, incredibly so, legs shifting uncomfortably on the bed. Unable to sit still, she swings her legs over the bed before staring down at them in shock. They were burned up from her toes and all the way up to mid-thigh, red blotches of skin peeled back and melted into a waxy sheen. She gags slightly and shut her eyes tightly, breath haggard. After a minute, her eyes twitched open. She stares at her legs again, feeling more prepared. Shelving her questions of the burns, she began to try and piece out what was going on.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

In order to understand what she has just seen so far, she needs to be calm, as calm as one can be in this kind of absurd scenario. First, was all of this real? She slows down her breathing, feeling the soft fabric of the bed underneath her. She then turns her head to the window watching the dark clouds brighten every once and awhile from the strikes of lightning. The incessant rain continues to pour down, not stopping anytime soon. It obscures the outside world and she could see nothing but gray. She takes a breath, suddenly smelling a lingering, milky scent in the room. She looks around for the source and located piles of mini milk-cartons next to a messy desk. Piles of books and papers were scattered on the desk. Black ink spilled from an open container as it pools underneath the desk. She wrinkled her nose at the unkemptness of it all. She signed, shoulders loosening up from tension. She can confirm that this was real. That hit her like a ton of bricks as the implications of that made her afraid of what was to come next.

Furrowing her brows, she moved onto her next question. Were the videos real? That was somewhat easy to answer as well. Yes, it was real. In fact, it had to be real. Throughout all the numerous videos that she watched, they all had something in common. It was a large, jagged crack in the sky, iridescent and mysterious in nature, with unknown particles sprinkling down onto Earth. Although the obsidian-like towers were also eye-catching, it was only featured in some of the videos that she watched, so she couldn't confirm that part. But this crack was consistently everywhere, global networks and internet users from all over the world reporting seeing this crack. There's no rhyme or reason for hundreds of videos to show that crack in the sky, unless it was real. She knows that she's not really in the right state to be judging what might be real or fake, but nobody was crazy enough to pull this kind of prank over the world. The magnitude, the time, and the resources to do this and coordinate with hundreds of people was too inconvenient and unrealistic as well.

And to prove her point, as she turns to look at the window again, there it was. Standing out completely against the darkened sky was the glowing iridescent crack. In fact, it seems brighter than it was in the videos she saw. Its appearance made her feel uneasy and somehow, she seemed to be hearing a humming from the crack. It would be impossible as it was at such a distance from her in the sky, but it wasn't. It was real as can be. Her face sours as she turns away from the window, balling up her hands in her lap. This was not her world anymore, point blank. A weird ache in her chest distracts her from feeling too hysterical and she quietly mourns in her mind.

She continues with another question. What does she last remember before waking up here? She closes her eyes, thinking carefully. But nothing turns up, like she was pulling at cobwebs instead of much needed memories. She opens her eyes with a frown. She couldn't remember. That felt all too planned. Why were there no personal memories at all? She could remember a world different from this one, where she can form a picture of, but when she got to herself, there was nothing. Anything that made her who she was and all that should belong to her was gone now. An abrupt feeling of anger sweeps through her mind making it hard for her to focus. She clumsily smothers that anger until it was nothing but an ember in the emptiness of her mind. So, she had no memories of anything, of how she came to be here and nothing pertaining to her identity. What was most overwhelming to her was the fact that she felt a sense of permanence in this world that she knew was not her own. It's as if she is living in this world and that doesn't make any sense. Unless she was a different person now.

Stumbling out of the bed, she hesitantly walked over to the mirror across from the bed. The milky scent coupled with suddenly standing up made her feel disoriented. It also didn't help that she felt like a tall bean sprout that was going to keel over and die. She steps closer to the mirror, watching as a stranger appears before her. In the dim yellow lights, stood a tall and slightly chubby girl with messy black hair. Her fringes fall just slightly over her eyes, hiding them. Her nose was crooked, swelling slightly with a bandage stuck over the bridge. She had a yellow pallor to her tan skin, which made her look sickly. She was wearing simply a sweater and shorts, gray in tones. The mirror reflected back the extent of the burns up her bare legs, looking even worse than she thought. Leaning her head closer and gripping the edges of the mirror, she gasps as her fringe swings and reveals her eyes more clearly.

Wide silver eyes in the pattern of a kaleidoscope stare back at her.