“...”

“We...”

‘Huh...’

“wa-ai-t"

‘What the hell? Who's there’

“Wake...Wake up”

‘I don’t understand you- who is there!’

“Wake up...Shoba! He's coming”

Suddenly Shoba's eyes flashed open. He awoke suddenly in a strange frenzy where his breaths laboriously fought for freedom away from his tight chest. The airiness of his mind was not the only discomforting thing, he could feel his skin clinging desperately to his vest from the accumulated sweat lathered against his entire body.

'What kind of nightmare was that,' he wondered very much stuck in a whirling trance of discomfort, still trying to reason with whether or not he had been attacked or slept so long he fell into another dimension. Either all felt incredibly terrifying in the moment.

Since he couldn't remember the last time he had such a bad sleep. He wondered what the time was, so he gently moved his tired gaze across his bedroom. He never fully closed his blinds during the night, allowing a freckle of soft light filtering through from the outdoor moonlight. Against his floor he saw the pale dew shedding a small shape of light into the open space.

It wasn't completely dark per se, since he could see the outline and shapes of things inside. The digital clock placed on the center of the tallest wall in his room sat directly in front of him. Shoba squinted his eyes and narrowed his brows in hopes of making sense of the foggy shapes cast within the darkness.

"3:am ey? Sigh...It won't hurt getting something to drink" he said. He had a habit of talking to himself these days, 'Gosh, here's hoping I'm not going crazy.'

Shoba climbed out of his messy but soft quilted bed and stretched his limbs out like a feline, exhaling a loudening yawn whilst the feeling of euphoria ran through his body. Once his feet touched the ground he heard a soft creek against the floorboards. In response he lowered his gaze, realizing he was barefoot.

'Where have my slippers gone?' Sigh, he could bet his savings that Ringo took them again

Knowing one of the things he hated nothing more was walking around his house without anything protecting the soles of his feet. He inwardly knew she stole them to annoy him. 'Just my luck' another loud yawn escaped through his mouth. His original mission of acquiring cold water, before rushing straight back into bed before sleep thoroughly left him for the rest of the long night, had changed into grabbing something to drink first, then locating the culprit who pinched his slippers. The number one suspect was definitely Ringo. But he still held some thought that he might've left them somewhere.

After he left his bedroom, Shoba arrived on the familiar narrow hallway. Against the walls , he stole soft glances at the pictures of their family hung against the wall over the years. He measured his steps purposefully whilst taking a look at the baby portraits of both himself and Ringo . A light chuckle escaped through his parched mouth, he still couldn't believe they both used to be so small. Ringo was also one of the cutest babies he had ever seen if he was being honest. But, Shoba would rather get caught drooling in his sleep than anyone hearing him say that.

Shoba continued his careful measured steps along the hardwood floorboards. He could hear the faint sounds of whirring noises coming from the air conditioner through the walls. Accompanied by a cold air walking straight through him, he reached the end of the hall and shivered a little. It felt like someone left the windows open for the entire night, it was way too cold out here for that not to be the case.

'Or perhaps the air conditioner is broken' Shoba thought to himself, very much dreading being at home once their Dad found that out. He would insist on them both attempting to D.I.Y, just for them both to arrive at the irreversible truth of failure.

Shoba walked into the dining room, scanning the walls for any traces of an opened window. His brow raised upon the discovery of the parted drapes welcoming the outdoor moonlight into the apartment. He felt somewhat strangely attracted to the scene before him, the cool tones formed inside from the moons pale glow. The misshapen shadows casted against the ground from the furniture. For as far along as he could remember, he somehow always found himself mesmerized by the twilight skies.

The mysteries of such tended to remind him about the complexities of their world. The galaxies, the uncharted nebulas and the distant twinkling stars.

You couldn't help feel so tiny in a world filled with so much gigantic chaos.

‘Ah, where was that water he needed.’

Living in a same floored apartment, Shoba saw the kitchen from inside the living area. His mouth watered just from imagining the feeling of that soothingly cold water finally running down his throat. 'I need to buy a sizeable water bottle to keep beside my bed when I sleep,' he thought inwardly . To be honest he always told himself the same thing, every night when he was woken up in the middle of the night to quench his thirst. 'Let me set a reminder on my phone.'

He reached into his pocket and took out his smart phone. In a few seconds, thanks to the face ID, he had bypassed entering in his passcode and he was currently scrolling across the touch screen in search of his notes application.

"Ah-there you are."

His fingers got busy, and he began structuring his reminder for tomorrow morning.

"Must…get…water-bottle…wait what the…" he voiced abruptly seeing the touch screen against his smartphone suddenly begin to distort. He tried repeatedly tapping the screens edges, but all he seemed to be doing was creating dark splotchy areas against the surface.

'What kind of…damn it- did I get this wet somehow?' he was getting annoyed, and he was still tired. Shoba tried performing the factory reset on the phone as his last resort. He had only just gotten this upgrade recently, now his mind was whirring with possibilities as to what might've caused it to fail. The phone company would be seeing his dead body before they saw his money again so soon. And so, In a brief few moments, those familiar maniacal cogs within his unique mind began to whirl.

Shoba's eyes slowly opened wide, and he adopted a crazed, vacant look, where his gaze refused to even blink for a single moment. Within this intense focus, Shoba could see it all…the placement of each screw, the motherboard, and all those tiny colored veins that firmed the little intricacies of the phone itself.

Whenever he would fall into this state, which the doctors labeled as low latent inhibition, it was imperative that he forcefully remove his eyes away from the obsession. Or immediately look for his emergency medication before he blacked out or fell into a fit.

Shoba thought back to the previous 'falling out' as Ringo liked to call it. He ended up sitting in front of his microwave for 12 hours straight dissembling and putting it back together again. 'Damn it! This isn't the time for this.' He could feel every fiber within him yearning to switch its entire focus on the problem of his phone no longer responding. Just when he was at his wits end with the noise within his head. Just when he thought all hope was lost...

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There was a loud bang from the outdoors.

He heard a blood-curdling scream. And sounds of blaring alarms

And just like that, Shoba broke free from that mental hold. But he didn't waste time basking in his victory, 'that crash sounded way too close by.' So he approached the slackened drapes and peered through the thinner white fabrics layered between himself and the glass glazing. There wasn't a lot of visibility afforded to him from this height. But he sensed commotion in the apartment complex stirring in the air. A crowd of voices appeared not so long after that crashing sound, which only fueled his curiosity a little more. Shoba took a questioning look at the grandfather clock standing regally poised against the wall against the shadows. It was incredibly too late to be venturing anywhere at this hour. He knew that was the sensible thought. And yet...

Amid his cognitive dissonance, he was actively searching for his slippers already putting on his robes to brave the frigid night air.

'Ah what the heck, what's the worst that can happen, and it's not like I'll be sleeping anytime soon.' And so off he went, he got modestly dressed as one could do at this hour. He tapped his pockets to make sure he had secured his keys and his phone. He grimaced slightly remembering the state his phone was in. But that was a matter he needed to put aside for now.

Their apartment was located on the 2nd floor. Shoba quietly slipped away from his household and headed towards the stairwell. Venturing down the cold, stony steps he passed by a few of his neighbors who were surprisingly still awake at this hour.

'I'm guessing that disturbance woke everyone up, Well, almost everyone since I imagine Dad, Mom, and Ringo are still lost in the sea of their dreams.'

The closer he drew towards the ground floor the more apparent and loud those voices became. Shoba descended the last staircase where he was greeted by what looked like 1/3rd of the entire complex gathered. Now he was starting to feel tense. 'What has happened at this time of the night.' He squeezed himself through the bodies in his way,

"Excuse me-s-sorry-coming through --sorry about that. Excuse me."

He finally reached the other side of the crowd, curious to see for himself what the large group circled. But perhaps hindsight was a wonderful thing, since the moment he laid his eyes upon the scene in front of him. An intense wave of nausea muddled with a callous sensation of fear ran down his spine. There was a half torn car placed in the middle of the gravel walkway. The back of the car was missing, as though it had been torn away from its front. Leaving only the engine, the front two wheels, the driver, and the passenger seat.

The doors were also missing. So inside he could see what was undeniably a corpse. Yep, the bloody remains of a young man sprawled against the passenger seat. The terror of seeing his bulging lifeless eyes had birthed something horrid inside of Shoba. Halfway torn between throwing up the food he had eaten the previous night or running away as far as he possibly could. Surprisingly to himself, he did neither. Shoba stared at those lifeless white eyes without a single rational thought swirling within his mind.

After a short while he did eventually snap free from his nightmarish daydream. He rubbed his sweaty palms against his trousers listening to the erratic voices around him trying to explain what had happened here.

"It's just like the old man said. We heard a loud bang and then suddenly…l-look what we find." A fellow who lived on the same floor as him said.

"It doesn't make any sense." Another chimed in from the back, after the initial shock had subsided. A series of overlapping voices filled the frigid air.

"There's no signs of a car crash or anything? "

"It's almost as if it was dropped out of nowhere."

"You don't think it's…aliens?"

"What a foolish and incompetent thing to say."

"Show some respect to the dead, you idiot."

"I-I didn't mea-mean it disrespectful. But come on, this is…"

"He's not completely absurd! Which one of you can explain this madness?"

"Yeah but…aliens? Really."

Shoba casually lost focus and steered his attention towards one side of the area. In particular, against a stoned wall he noticed a peculiar pale spiraling sequence etched against it. He surprised himself unsure how he managed to even notice it from afar. He counted 7 rings orbiting around a center. Curiosity got the better of him, and he ended up stretching out his hand, lightly brushing its dust-covered surface with his fingers. As expected it coated the tips of his fingers in a thick white dust.

'It's just like chalk.'

The strange substance bothered him somewhat, but then his attention was swiftly captured by the sounds of more commotion from his rear.

It looked as though an argument had broken out between the crowd. Meanwhile, two slightly elderly women approached the half-torn car, they formed the sign of the cross before lowering their heads in prayer.

It was clear to see the atmosphere was getting tense. So Shoba casually broke away from the gathered bodies and walked a little further past the small wreckage and that dead body. He was still getting goosebumps just picturing those vacant bloodshot eyes staring back at him. Another rogue thought surfacing his mind was the fact he should be at home right now. Instead, he was roaming around outside and possibly a witness to some kind of freak accident, or even worse...a murder.

'Ringo won't allow me to live this down.' He thought darkly.

She would make sure everyone was reminded about that one time he snuck out in the middle of the night and was drawn into a conspiracy which left their families name plastered all over the papers.

By the time he had walked a few 100 steps away, Shoba could still hear the numerous vocal voices behind him, but from this distance, nothing audible reached his ears. He wasn't sure what he expected to find here. He simply obeyed his instincts and walked ahead. He suddenly noticed the rigidity of the air, as though the temperature had plummeted to a dangerously low level. Bearing in mind his only wears this evening was his thin loose shirt and pajama bottoms.

He felt every biting movement of the cold winds drifting to and fro around him. He heard a noise likened to a small owl's hoot echoing in the air at a sudden. Shoba nervily raised his head towards the heavens but found nothing short of the usual starry skies alongside the pale cold eye, lodged deep in space. For an untold reason, his eyes lingered twice as long against the moon. A sense of fear crawled against the nape of his neck.

"AHHHHH!"

"HEY WH-WHAT'S THAT!"

"AHHHH! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!"

The screams from his rear pulled him swiftly away from his daydream. At first, Shoba felt annoyance, but then his entire body turned numb and cold. He narrowed his eyes and widened them in quick succession, before he found himself almost gasping out of shock. Staring at it almost made it feel less true, but he couldn't deny the thing in front of his uncertain gaze.

What he could only describe as a telltale shimmering distortion within the very air itself.

Now, Shoba had played his fair share of fantasy and horror games in his lifetime, so recognizing a portal from an initial glance wasn't difficult. Only, this wasn't a game...so what the hell w-was that.

His footsteps hurryingly approached the direction in which he had moved away from initially. His bones stiffened with each step he drew closer to it. Shoba's chest tightened and he held his feet in place. Standing about a few feet away from the aberration against the formless air. That look of terrible surprise affixed securely against his face. This wasn't a trick, nor was he dreaming. He saw a dark crevice marked in-between the slightly stretched oval shape of the shimmering bubble. Standing this close the bothersome eerie echoes from static and crackling cries filled his ears, reminding him of burning firewood.

"A... a portal? That's...impossible." Shoba mouthed almost disbelieving in the reality itself. He wasn't the only one, everyone else wore faces filled with the same incomprehensible dread as his own. But despite the shared horror, a few bravely stalked around the thing.

"Is this...real?" An old man dressed in fishing garbs asked. There was a shorter and younger fellow beside him, the sallow-skinned youth rather boldly took a step closer towards the whirring distortion cracked against the air and slowly moved his hand towards it in awe.

The old man panicked and swatted the boy's hand away.

"Have you gone completely mad boy?"

"O-ouch...I... Just wanted to check if it was real."

There was a slightly chubby lady, who lived a few floors beneath their apartment. She always cradled her ginger kitten (rather forcefully) in her bearish hug. And so it was no surprise to see the kitten had also been dragged along with her tonight.

"Mr Fujiwara" she said pleadingly towards the shrewd eyed man standing beside her. He carried a slim build and squared horned-rimmed glasses.

"Wh-what is that thing?" she pointed towards the portal shakingly.

Mr Fujiwara in his usual cool manner of doing things, straightened his glasses a little before smoothing his prickled chin in silence for a few moments.

"It appears to be some kind of rift, only...it shouldn't even be remotely possible." He said in deep thought. Shoba noticed he had half a cigarette resting between the top of his ears and his head. Usually you wouldn't see Mr Fujiwara without a cigarette glued between his fingers or resting against his lips.

"We should tell someone?" Said one of the bystanders

"Y-yeah like who?" Another chimed in

"Don't worry I'm already contacting the police..."

"Wait! Look something is...happening."

All of their eyes fell against the floating portal in front of them. Within that dark crevice gaping in the middle, Shoba began to see something slowly unearthing away out from the void. Something pale...a hand? Yes it was a hand and then the sleeve slowly appeared behind it. Someone's arm? He could feel the tense atmosphere around him. It was almost suffocating whilst they endured the stifled patience of awaiting what would happen next.

Shoba couldn't say what he thought might've emerged. But once the full sleeved finally appeared, he wasn't expecting to see what he did.