Chapter 7: Changed World
Today was… I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it, but then why bother keeping a diary then? You know what, I’m just going to get right into it. The sooner I’m done, the better. Fuck everything about today, seriously.
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Day 2, Morning
If someone told me that I had been transported to yet another world, I might have believed them. The green, vibrant world I knew from yesterday was completely gone, replaced by a gray, bleak one oozing with the promise of despair. The air smelled like the aftermath of a city that was carpet-bombed during World War 2. I instinctively tried to cover my nose and mouth with my shirt before realizing it was pointless. What was a layer of fabric going to do against this level of pollution? I might as well pretend it wasn’t there and continue breathing like normal.
Ashes fell from the sky like diseased snow, covering the ground in layers of gray and black. I had never experienced a snowing in my life—seasons weren’t a thing for people living on the Equator—but I was pretty sure this wasn’t how I wanted my first time to be. Visibility was absolutely dog shit. In the best areas I could not see anything beyond say, two hundred meters, and in the worst areas I was sure I could wave my fingers before my face and not see a thing. It reminded me of Silent Hill, but without the abandoned buildings and existential horrors… yet.
Last but not least, the lush, hilly meadow that once adorned the cottage’s front had been completely replaced a by forest of gray and black stone spires. Yeah, I saved the best for the last. Out of everything I had seen since the world literally changed overnight, this was easily the most mind-boggling of them all. For one, I was one thousand percent sure they weren’t there yesterday, meaning that they had sprouted overnight after the giant murder cloud had passed. Two, the spires were absolutely massive. The smallest one was one-third as wide as the cottage and almost twice as tall, and the biggest spire within my sight was literally impossible to gauge because of the fog. I would not be surprised if it was the size of a small hill or even a mountain. My only wish was that the areas beyond my visibility weren’t populated by stone spires as well, or else we—well, I, because Miss Plant was surely far more prepared to deal with this situation than I was—were utterly screwed if that was the case. Speaking of which—
“The creek!” I exclaimed in horror before running to the back of the cottage. I didn’t know the first thing about the biology of eldritch horrors, but water was the lifeblood for squishy humans like me. If it was gone—
“Oh, shit.”
Where a stream of crystal clear water and eye-pleasing aquatic plants used to be, there was only an empty canal of earth, stone and ash now. The bottomless pit was still there probably because it would take an unimaginable amount of earth to fill it up, and the murder cloud only knew how to take, not give. The forest was also conspicuously missing, replaced by a flat, empty land with innumerable large pits. The holes were the only proof that the trees even existed literally a day ago. I could not help but feel both a kind of profound sadness and deep fear then. I was sad because the beautiful emerald forest was forever gone, and that I would never get the chance to plumb its hidden depths, secrets and dangers anymore. I was also afraid because both my source of water and food had gone poof in a single day. Even if Miss Plant could grow her fruits indefinitely, which I did not think was possible even for an eldritch horror, I could hardly subsist on them forever. If the excessive fiber didn’t do me in first, the nutrient imbalance would have eventually. All in all, it meant that my timer was even shorter than I had thought.
I started shivering uncontrollably. Holing up in the cottage and honing my skills in moderation was no longer an option. I would have to venture into the literal unknown to search for food and water as soon as possible. It sounded like a suicide mission, but the one silver lining was that it wasn’t completely hopeless. If the forest of rock spires could sprout into existence overnight, then an actual forest or spring could have sprouted somewhere in the fog as well. Could I really last until then though? Could I even navigate this foggy world safely until I found what I needed? To say I felt wholly unprepared would be an understatement. I felt like I was about to challenge Mike Tyson to a boxing match in my underwear and all my friends, family, colleagues, rivals, enemies and everyone else who recognizes me in the audience.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, finding the places was just the beginning. What if they were too far away from the cottage? What if there was nothing left? No, no, you can’t think like that, you have to assume that hope exists out there or it will truly be hopeless. But my mind just wouldn’t stop conjuring horrifying possibilities after another. Let’s say I managed to find a new forest. How would I know what plants were edible? How would I even hunt an animal? I didn’t know the first thing about fighting, much less killing a living creature! My throat tightened even further than it already was, and—
“!?”
Suddenly, something draped across my shoulder and caused me to jump a little. When I spun around, I realized it was just Miss Plant sneaking up to me without a sound once so. The thing draped across my shoulder was her “hand”, a hairy tendril. Normally I did not enjoy being jump-scared at all, but in this case I was all too grateful for for the distraction. It also reminded me that I wasn’t doing this alone. For whatever reason, Miss Plant had a continued interest in my survival. So long as I didn’t charge head first into the nearest spike, she would probably keep me safe for as long as she could. I would say I feel bad for taking advantage of her, but god, I was just relieved that there was someone else here to share the burden with me.
After taking a second to steady myself, I relaxed myself and shot her a smile to project friendliness.
“Hey. What is it?”
She offered me a fruit, and I immediately recalled that I hadn’t had breakfast yet. My smile grew more genuine as I freed up an arm to accept it. “Thank you.”
I was about to eat it when an idea crossed my mind. I pointed a finger at the fruit, the creek, and at the empty space where the forest used to be. Then, I asked carefully, “Do you think you can find us more food? More water?”
As she was unresponsive, I assumed that she didn’t understand my meaning. I took a bite from the fruit, repeated the gestures, then asked the question again as succinctly as I could, “Food. Water. Where?”
This time she tilted her head to one side, though as usual I had no idea if she actually understood my question. It honestly felt more like an acknowledgement receipt than an actual response. Still better than nothing, I supposed. I quickly finished up my breakfast and put my diary in my backpack. Once I confirmed that I had everything I could possibly want on my person—I won’t deny that I was procrastinating a little—I finally breathed out and motioned for her to go ahead. “Alright, I’m ready. Please, lead the way.”
She didn’t move.
“Uh. Go to food and water. Please?”
Still nothing.
“I’m going to have to lead the way again, am I? Except this time I don’t have a clue where I’m going and could totally be running in circles because of this fucking fog?”
Staaaaare.
I sighed. “Well, okay. Time’s a-wasting.”
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I didn’t know what I was expecting to run into when I took my first steps into the fog, but “nothing” and “boredom” definitely weren’t high on my list of answers. For what felt like hours we walked aimlessly forward and found nothing but an, empty wasteland, more fog, and holes. God, the holes. The amount of times I nearly tripped and break a bone was enough to turn me into a hole hater, and the only reason I didn’t was because Miss Plant was there to catch me every single time, bless her eldritch soul. Now if only we could find something, anything at all it would make all this walking and tripping worth it… no? God dammit. My feet were starting to feel real chafed too. Oh yeah, did I mention that I was barefooted this entire time? It wasn’t a problem yesterday because I didn’t really walk all that much—the rest of my legs were more bruised than my feet because of the crawling, if you could believe that—but today… today I sincerely wished that I had a pair of shoes.
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Another minute of pointless walking later, I finally let out a sigh and said,
“Doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything here. Let’s head back to the cottage for now.”
The emerald forest used to be on the west side of the cottage, so when we took off I decided to keep the morning sun behind our heads as much as possible. It was the only way I could think of to prevent us from getting lost and ensure that we were traveling mostly in a straight line, especially since any landmark that might have existed had been ruthlessly annihilated by the giant murder cloud. If we decide to return to the cottage like now, all we needed to do was to turn around and travel toward the sun. It wasn’t a bad plan if I dared say so myself, but it did have some very obvious flaws. For one, it only works if we were traveling east or west, and since there was no way in hell I was going into the stone spires the plan was more or less used up already. Two, the sun could be blotted out by a passing cloud, or if the fog became too thick. In that case, we were stuck until it was revealed once more. This hadn’t happened to us so far, but after yesterday’s disaster I wasn’t counting on the good luck to last. And three, when I said we were traveling “mostly” in a straight line, I really was just lying to myself. Turns out, it’s really hard to keep a straight line when the ground is covered in holes that you have to walk around, and you couldn’t see too far ahead because of the fog. In my mind, our route looked less like a straight line and more like a snake path. It wouldn’t surprise me if we really only covered a couple hundred meters of distance despite all this walking.
Well aware that all this thinking was sapping my confidence like a drain, I decided to distract myself by talking. “So like, how are you doing, Miss Plant? Is the air doing okay with you? I know I’m not doing very well, but I’m not hacking out my lungs yet, so I guess it’s fine.”
Tilt.
“You’re the first alien I’ve ever met in my life, man. There’s so many things I want to know about you. What do you eat? Where do you come from? You didn’t always live in the cottage, did you? Maybe I’m biased, but you just don’t seem like the type to settle for something so plain. Are there more of you out there? Where are they right now? I’m so curious about you it frustrates the hell out of me that I can barely communicate with you.”
Tilt.
“That’s not all. This otherworld experience has been absolute ass so far. First, I almost killed myself because the dagger contains a ghost or some sort of strange entity. Second, I found out that there are goddamn cockroaches even in a different world. Er, sorry if they’re your snacks, by the way. Third, I was out to retrieve my things for less than half an hour, and I nearly got annihilated by a giant supersonic cloud that decimated all life and non-life in the area! And finally, this entire place’s been transformed into a hellscape that I can barely breathe without feeling like someone’s tickling my throat with a feather! Like what the fuck!”
Stretch.
“Oh, I’m not hung—actually, it might soothe my throat, so, thanks. Are you sure you don’t understand what I’m saying? You’re scarily good at reading me sometimes. Or maybe you do understand my words, but I’m the one who doesn’t get your responses because I’m just a lil ol’ meatbag of human. It’s certainly more plausible than practically everything I’ve experienced in this world so far…”
I was in the middle or ranting when suddenly, I realized the world was a little darker than before. I looked up and, yep, a goddamn cloud had blotted out the sun just as I thought it would eventually. So, I stopped in my tracks and explained things to Miss Plant,
“Sorry, but we’re going to take a break and wait until the sky clears up. Otherwise, we’re basically guaranteed to—woah!”
It happened without warning. One moment I was explaining myself, and the next I was being pulled back by one of Miss Plant’s tendrils. By now I had gotten pretty used to her manhandling me, so I didn’t panic. What did send my senses into overdrive, however, was the shadow dropping down from the sky and crash landing exactly where I was a second ago. I had prayed that we would find something in this wasteland, but it would seem that something had found us instead.
“What the flying fuck is that!?” I cried out even as my mind attempted to make sense of the never-before-seen creature. It was huge, easily a full torso taller than even Miss Plant and thrice as wide. It had a small, round, featureless head and a gray, bulbous body that looked like they were made of smoke or cloud. A pair of large rhombus crystals acted as its shoulders, and its arms were gray tendrils that slithered around like snakes. They looked surprisingly smooth and physical despite their vaporous nature, almost as if they were coated in a sheen of transparent plastic. There was also a third tendril right on top of its body. Finally, its feet—or rather lack thereof—were a massive cloud that allowed it to float above the ground like, well, an actual Nimbus Cloud from Dragon Ball. Minus the auspicious yellow color of course.
The words “golem” and “cloud elemental” immediately flashed across my mind. I had no doubt that it was here to kill us. Even if I pretended that the bastard hadn’t just tried to flatten me like a pancake, its whole demeanor radiated aggression and hostility. I instinctively unsheathed the dagger I kept holstered to my waist—wincing after realizing what I had just done, but thankfully nothing weird happened this time—and held it defensively in front of me. I realized I didn’t know what to do after that, however. Should I attack? Yeah, that sounded as stupid as it was suicidal. Should I defend? That was a worse idea than attacking because the golem’s reach was easily five times greater than mine. Flight would be the best option then, except there were also a couple of problems with that. What if it could move faster than I could run? It hovers on a fucking cloud, for god’s sake. What if Miss Plant had other ideas? What if—
My chain of thoughts ended when a tree trunk covered in vines, leaves and branches abruptly burst out of the ground and skewered the cloud golem from bottom to top. Then, countless spikes jutted out of the trunk like a cactus and scattered the golem’s gaseous body in every direction. Just like that, the golem was dead before it even got the chance to swing a tendril. It was clear who had launched the attack, and it was as awesome as it was terrifying.
“Wow.” My eyes goggled as I tried to find the right words to say. “That’s one way to deal with your enemies, I suppose.”
I was hoping that that would be the end of it, but as soon as the thought crossed my mind I heard more thumps coming from the fog in the distance. A few seconds later, what seemed like an entire squad of cloud golems glided into view and traveled straight toward us.
I saw this as our cue to run. Perhaps Miss Plant could have dispatched them as well, but what if they were as endless as the fog around us? Without hesitation, I took off in the opposite direction of the golems while shouting, “Let’s go! There’s no need to waste your energy against them!”
Thankfully, Miss Plant seemed to agree with me. She caught up to me in an instant and scooped me up like a puppy. Then, she zoomed deeper into the fog and left the army of cloud golems in the dust. I would’ve told her to follow the sun and take us back to the cottage—the shelter had prevented the giant murder cloud from crushing us into paste, so I thought it might protect us from the cloud golems as well—but the sun was still nowhere to be seen, and Miss Plant seemed to know where she was going. Not seeing a better solution, I decided to keep quiet and hoped for the best.
Even with her supernatural speed, it wasn’t the smoothest escape. From time to time, I would hear vegetations jutting out of the ground and skewering a cloud golem behind us, proving that the constructs were definitely faster than your average human being. Even better, some of them tried to drop down from the fucking sky and force us into a hard stop. What the fuck did we ever do to them, man? Too bad for them, Miss Plant was the one in the driver’s seat right now. The eldritch horror had run right through them—sometimes literally—like she was taking a stroll in her backyard. Most of the time, she just swerved out of the way and did not bother engaging them. In the rare case where dodging wasn’t possible though, she would swing her “arm” across the air and split them in half in one swing! Like, what even is this anime bullshit? I know that the cloud golems were neither fragile nor weak, I had seen them hit the ground hard enough to form tiny pits! I was just in total awe of her power by this point. Assuming it was possible for me to gain strength in this world, I wondered if I could ever get close to even a fraction of her power.
It was impossible to say exactly how long we were on the run, but fifteen or so minutes later I noticed that the fog had become much thinner, and the sun had reappeared on the sky. The cloud golems that had been chasing us relentlessly also ceased their pursuit all of a sudden, to which I let out an audible sigh of relief and wondered what was the connection between the clouds, the fog and the cloud golems. That was a musing for another time though. When the fog had cleared up completely, I saw a place I thought I would never see again; a landmark I had believed was destroyed by the giant murder cloud. We had arrived at the strange pond that never ripples.