Chapter 2: Into The Fire

Aeden looked over the confused and frightened crowd and saw a plethora of people, from children, teenagers, adults, even the elderly. It was a hodgepodge group of people all mashed together from different ages, backgrounds, and professions. He thought back to the message that had shown before he woke up here. A ‘random lottery would be assigned’. I guess that made him a lottery winner. He didn’t win much in life, but he didn’t know if he wanted this prize. His attention was stolen once again by the older man who by now couldn’t say anything without yelling it.

“I need to get out of here, I must get back home! This can’t be happening to me!”

Aeden finally had enough of the man's complaining, he couldn’t think with this guy shouting every three seconds.

“Would you shut up! For fucks sake man.” Aeden yelled almost borderline screamed at the guy. When was the last time he raised his voice like that? Let alone to a complete stranger even though he had wanted to thousands of times before. Since they weren’t restricted to their norms anymore, maybe Aeden could have a little more spine.

Not only did the man shut up stunned at the outburst from his fellow strandee, but the people around him also did. They all turned to look at him while Aeden returned to ponder the current situation. Because if there was one thing, he was good at it was learning and thinking.

All in all, Aeden felt surprisingly calm about things. Even though he had just been plucked from his life and everything that he knew. Maybe it just hadn't hit him yet. The new reality of things or maybe he wasn’t taking this as seriously as he should be. After all, this whole situation did seem a little ridiculous. People plucked from their home by a mystical force, transported to another world. Aeden had read many stories like these. Next a ‘god’ was supposed to come and tell us we were all heroes here to save the world from evil… Blah blah Blah BLAH! But there was no message like that. If that was gonna happen it would have happened before we got here or right after we awoke. It had been a few minutes and it seemed like everyone was awake and there was no mystical message.

He thought back to the notice again that said we have been selected to preserve our species. Did that mean we were all that’s left? Has the world ended already? Or had we been plucked, and earth was still there? Aeden didn’t know and he couldn’t know. Then reality finally hit him, they were on their own.

The gentleman that Aeden had told to shut up clearly wasn’t happy at being told to shut up, while then being simultaneously ignored. He was clearly too important and above a peon like Aeden to be insulted in such a manner. He grabbed Aeden by his shoulder forcing him to turn towards the man in a harsh manner and he was about to start his yelling tirade, but it never came.

He began “Now you listen here you little shi…”

The man disappeared in a blur. Just like ‘poof’ there one second, gone the next. It took Aeden a second to process what had just happened. Aeden swore he saw a gray mass also fly past his vision. He turned his head to look in the direction he thought the man disappeared to. As he turned, he saw a big mass of fur and muscle shaking violently. The giant mass of fur was dragging something with it. It was a body… the body of the man that was about to tear Aeden a figurative new one if he had the chance. Aedens eyes widened as he focused on the giant mass. It was a wolf, or at least wolf-like because it was big. Massive was the only world to describe it, as large as a suv. It was throwing the man's body all over the place, never letting go of the man's throat. The man wasn’t even trying to escape the beast. No scream, no movement, not even a slight twitch from the teeth touching the nerves. The man was dead, probably at the bite alone. Blood was starting to leak onto semi concrete and grass beneath them, and every time the wolf-like beast thrashed, blood was thrown everywhere. A small splatter landed on Aeden’s face. He wiped it with his fingers and looked at them. Aeden’s breath caught in throat. His eyes widened in horror.

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That was when pandemonium hit.

All over people began screaming and running every which way, some running into Aeden knocking him over in the process. As he caught himself, he looked around and saw pure chaos. People were dashing left and right as strange creatures, some similar, others he had never seen before. They swarmed the place biting, tearing, chomping, stomping, crushing, melting, vaporizing, and eating everyone or anyone they could get their hands on. He looked over to see a woman having her head being eaten by a praying mantis looking creature four times the size of a human. Just slowly looking at him in the eye as it devoured the woman’s body. That was just the first wave. A large mass of confusion had morphed into one of utter chaos and panic.

Aeden’s brain was firing on all cylinders, but he was too stunned to think let alone move. He was hyperventilating his legs like Jello. He couldn’t move. It seemed even his instincts had been overwritten with fear. The only thing he could do was slowly look around him to watch the carnage surround him. He watched people being killed or dragged away screaming. That is, until he heard a high pitched almost squeaky voice close to him.

If he had to describe the creature it was small, round, and misshapen. It had a round bulbous head with a long thin nose. Its mouth was wide with sharp and rotten teeth. It was covered in a patch work tribal tunic. It had slightly long pointed ears. It was small, probably half the height of Aeden, its complexion was green, wearing rags and holding a crude looking dagger covered in blood.

The only thought that came into Aeden’s mind was… ‘is that a goblin'?

It looked at Aeden hungrily. It slowly marched forward holding the dagger ready to strike. Then it began to run. This snapped Aeden out of his daze to replace it with adrenaline fueled terror. At least now he could move and think again. He quickly picked himself off the ground but not fast enough to start running away. He was operating on pure instinct now. His body swung to face the impending creature just fast enough to only be grazed at his waist as the goblin had tried to stab him directly to his midsection. Aeden howled in pain even though it had barely grazed him, it still managed to cut him, and the crude dagger was serrated, not by design though, by usage. It had torn the flesh rather than a clean cut. Aeden could see small amounts of his blood starting to trickle down his waist. Thankfully he wasn’t bleeding too badly.

His mind went blank, but his body still moved, and he felt a strange feeling welling up inside. The creature charged again but Aedens body reacted as the creature lunged again. He brought his foot up and kicked the goblin right in the head. It stunned the creature sending it backwards right onto its back. The kick had been either more forceful than he realized or the goblin was much weaker than it appeared. Unfortunately, it was the former. The goblin was already standing back up but holding its head. Thankfully the kick seemed to finally wake up Aedens mind up again and now the fight mode of his instincts kicked in. Realizing the goblin was slowly coming back to its own senses. Aeden sprung into action, finally recognizing the feeling that had been welling up inside him, something he hadn’t felt in years… RAGE.

Aeden only had mere seconds to do anything he looked around and saw the most reliable weapon since ancient time just resting on the floor. A rock. He grabbed it and charged the goblin releasing the anger that had been building up as a primal yell. He ran into the goblin knocking it over and he quickly scrambled on top as it tried to push him off. Despite his quick action on pinning the goblin, it still had control of its arms, a big mistake for Aeden. One he wouldn’t forget in the future. The goblin quickly thrust the blade stabbing him in the thigh. Aeden felt a searing pain run through his leg. He let out a yell only furthering Aeden's rage. As the goblin pulled the blade out to go for more blood. The wrestling match continued both shifting each other's weight to either hold the other down or get out of each other's grasp.

This time Aedeen managed to pin both arms under his legs as he sat on top, then raised the rock high and brought it down savagely on the goblin’s face. It let out a high pitch howl, but Aeden wasn’t about to stop. He brought the rock down again, this time blood splatter from the goblins face. He brought down another powerful strike again and a large gash appeared on the creature’s face. He brought down another and another. He started to hear bone crack and the face was starting to become even more misshapen. The onslaught continued as he brought the rock down repeatedly releasing hate filled roars every time the rock made contact. With each impact he swore he felt something, not physically, something emotional, something he had forgotten. As the pummeling continued, he began to feel a new emotion slowly creeping in.

He couldn’t recognize it at the time but he began to feel joy, a sick and twisted sadistic sense of joy. Releasing anger and frustration that had been building for years, locked away that he swore no one would ever see.

He pushed that to the side and refocused his efforts at the beat down he was giving. Eventually the goblin stopped moving but he continued to bash the skull over-and-over again. Soon only a squelching sound could be heard from the clobbering. This continued until he began to tire out.

He looked down to see the scene of the pulverized skull of the goblin, a mix of blood, brain matter, and shattered skull fragments leaking into the ground. Aeden’s fists were covered in a weird blue viscous fluid. ‘Was this the goblin’s blood’? He thought to himself. He was breathing hard from the exertion and his arms began to hang loosely to the side. Trying to calm his breathing then heard a scream behind him.