Coolness like never before seeped into Rex's body as he fell into the space between reality branches. But truth to be told, the feeling was more akin to frostbite than anything, yet his skin did not freeze nor feel cold to the touch, there was only warmth when he touched it. And using the word 'fell' wasn't exactly it either, he was just entering the gaps between realities, but the effects felt more like freefalling.
Gasping for air as he floated in space, he felt like suffocating under a pillow, only to find that he didn't actually need to breathe afterwards. There was practically no air there, which contributed to him feeling like he did. As he opened his eyes and looked around, there was nothing at all, only inky darkness that threatened to assimilate anything that it could wrap itself around. He felt a little claustrophobic at that, but endured the feeling as he remembered what the Seeker had said.
"Will yourself to remember someone you know" was what he said. Rex tried thinking of someone he knows, but his memories of his friends were faint. It was as if his memories of his former life was already fading. Heck, he couldn't even remember the name of his parents and siblings. Now, he wasn't even sure if he ever had a sister. I need to get to another reality! the thought of forgetting everything in his world motivated him to try remembering at least the ones closest to him, but he still failed. In the end, the only person who he remembered was a boy about his age, yet the caricatured image forced him into a dead end.
He sighed, wondering if he would float around here forever until a Guardian passed by and destroyed him. Secretly, he was begging to return back to his old, peaceful life, but he knew it was gone forever since gaining knowledge about the Seekers and its division. There was a tiny bit of light at the farthest corner of his vision, and he looked at it, only to find a humanoid figure clad in black with a scythe on its back racing towards him. The figure saw him, he realised. Quickly, he tried to swim away from the figure which he supposed was a Guardian, but his efforts were in vain as it propelled him no farther than a metre away from the incoming Guardian. By now, the Guardian already had its scythe drawn and ready to slice. On a better look, it was actually a skeleton, and the eerie feeling that crept onto him was only amplified by his surroundings that was devoid of any natural warmth or light.
Rex accepted his fate and closed his eyes, but opened them the moment he felt a tug pulling at him. At the moment, the Guardian was near him, with its scythe readied to slice and dice. The second it swung the scythe, Rex was pulled backwards, effectively dodging the killing blow. The Guardian was a little confused before it finally realised its prey was being escaping, and so it pursued.
There was a grappling hook attached to Rex's back, and the coolness of the metal did not ease his fears at all. He was now aware of being dragged through space by somebody at the front, but he wasn't able to get a good look at the man. That person was wearing a cloak, covering himself from head to toe, and he was standing on a piece of plastic that looked and functioned like a hoverboard. Behind it, tied to a metal hook was the other end of the grappling hook's string. The both of them were flying through space with at least as much speed as a bullet train could muster, but the Guardian did not fail to keep up. It was determined to catch them and slice them up, but the man in the front was capable enough to avoid such a fate, even rescuing Rex in the process as well.
They flew a few more minutes before suddenly halting. The Guardian was unable to stop immediately and ended up passing them in the process of braking. The man yelled at the top of his lungs, "Let it rip!" and a pretty light show lit his and Rex's surroundings. At first, Rex thought those were just fireworks or flares, but as the projectiles got closer and passed him then hit the Guardian, he noticed the projectiles were actually filled with explosives. The second the fuse was burnt, the Guardian screeched before exploding into a brilliant batch of firework.
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"Nice one guys, and I've managed to secure the load," the man pulled Rex over with the string. There was nothing Rex could do except to hope that fate has better things installed for him.
"Kid, chill. We're not gonna slice you up or torture you," he looked at the cloaked figure who was flying over, "are we?"
"We're keeping him alive, that's for sure," the cloaked figure's voice was that of a woman's. She uncloaked herself and revealed to be a red-haired girl who looked no older than 7 years old. A child, Rex thought.
"Wow now, don't go thinking Lisandra is a kid. She'll burn you up if you ever let her hear you call her 'kid'," the man advised, and it was fortunate that Rex hadn't gone and call Lisandra 'kid' out loud yet.
"I believe he won't, Citrix. Not everyone's like you, you know," the man, Citrix, responded with a chuckle before laughing out loud. He still held onto Rex's string, which made Rex a tad bit uncomfortable.
"Oh, sorry. I'll release you now," Citrix retracted the grapple hook. When Rex stretched his hand to his back to check for any marks left by the hook, Citrix just reassured him "the hook doesn't leave a mark!" with a laugh.
Rex floated in the space he was left in. The two other strangers had hoverboards to move around on, but he didn't have one so he couldn't exactly move around freely like them. "Grab the hook, I'll toll you back to our base," Citrix had told him when he asked how he was going to move around.
The three of them flew off in the direction Lisandra had come from. She was silent on the journey and Citrix flew just beside her. Occasionally, Rex would catch sight of Citrix patting Lisandra's head like a child, and she would throw a playful tantrum to return the favor of annoying him. They had done this a few times on the journey, completely forgetting Rex's presence until they were near a round, red planet that looked like Mars.
"This isn't the Mars you know, it's the failed prototype of the one normies know of," Citrix said when Rex protested of entering the red planet without breathing equipment.
"There's a lot you won't understand now, Rex. But bear with us, we'll explain after we entered base," Lisandra continued. They were flying through the atmosphere, but no heat was felt at all as they entered orbit. The strange thing was, no one seemed to have difficulty breathing, and the even stranger thing was he could feel gravity pulling him downwards, but it didn't feel like the compulsory kind of gravity. It was more of a 'you'll be affected by me if you want to' kind of gravity rather than the 'you will obey my attraction without choice' kind of gravity which he was used to. It was strange having to constantly think of not wanting to get affected by gravity in order to float and get dragged by Citrix, but the two veterans seemed to not notice the effects.
Maybe they're natives, he thought. But he shook his head to clear the thought when he remembered the Seeker's words of wisdom, which were "once you return to your realm, you can't exit the realm anymore, unless there's a crack."
"I know what you're thinking about," Citrix said when Rex thought more about it, "but we're not the main characters of this reality. We're..."
"Hunters," Lisandra finished his sentence. Immediately, Rex let go of his hands and floated upwards again, heading back towards the space he came from. Citrix shouted "Wait!" at the sight of him floating upwards while Lisandra just sighed and muttered "they always do this whenever we tell them huh..."
He was rising now, and dust clouds were starting to obstruct his view from them. He thought about what to do when he got back into the space, and the only thing he thought of was nothing, because he could literally do nothing there. He sighed, thinkng there was no actual way to survive properly. He stared down, imagining Citrix and Lisandra panicking, but the movements of the dust cloud told him they weren't panicking at all. Citrix bursted out moments later, and he flew towards the still rising Rex. Rex tried struggling a little, but was immediately knocked unconscious by Citrix. The last thing he heard before unconsciousness took him was, "this is the only way, I guess," muttered by Citrix with an exasperated sigh.