Chapter 33

Swirling darkness surrounded me, as I fell into the rift. I felt the fluttering of something flying by as if I were falling from the sky, and felt a sudden explosion in front of me, sending me rocketing into the unknown. The darkness suddenly peeled away, and I was left falling, alone, and far above the clouds. Looking down, I could see forests and life everywhere. The ground below seemed to be segmented into different farms for agriculture and I could see cities everywhere. Continuing to fall, I shifted my weight, and aimed for the ocean, hoping to at least partially slow my fall, as no tree would be near strong enough to brace me. Nearing the ocean, I planted my feet down, and fell like a missle into the ocean. Slam! I might as well have been an asteroid at my weight and speed, as the water surrounding me boiled, and was pushed by such strong force that it created a massive tsunami.

Pushing myself out of the hole I had created on the ocean floor, I pushed myself to the surface. Taking a deep breath, I sunk again from the weight of my armor and weapons. Thinking quickly, I began crawling on the ocean floor, towards the land I saw in the air, and jumping from the floor every so often to take a breath. Pulling myself out of the water, I finally made it to what used to be the beach. Looking around, I saw mass destruction from the waves rushing inland; flooding into the farms, villages, and cities. The water was up to my waist, and I could see, trash, buildings, and even…cars? Floating around me. Watching a white van floating into the ocean as the waves receded, I was stunned. Where am I?

Examining the buildings being pulled into the ocean and the trash being swallowed I was in shock to find the trash was plastic and the buildings looked like they were from the 21st century. I could see hundreds of people standing on the tops of larger buildings, and even a few unlucky ones holding onto trees and fire escape ladders. There were people everywhere, even so far away from the major cities. The wave was coming back into the ocean like a mudslide, and a mountain of trash and nastiness was coming with it. Disgusted, I began to rush towards the open mountains surrounding the area as I began to hear hundreds of people screaming in excitement and fear. Looking around, I could see people on the top of a three story building screaming in front of me and pointing at me while they were recording with their phones. “Shit.”

Thinking for a moment, I thought to myself, “Well, I’m already fucked, might as well have some fun with it.” Turning towards the group above the roof, I began making my way forward, as the people began to scream in fear. Some were even so frightened they jumped into the river of sludge, taking their chances with the tsunami. Making my way until I was next to the three story apartments, I looked down at the group of people at stomach height. Listening to group screaming in terror, I realized, I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They were speaking Chinese. Thinking for a moment, I looked around the sludge waste rushing into the ocean, and reached out, grabbing ahold of a massive pile of sludge, plastics, and decaying material. Pulling it above the crowd, I let it fall, dumping all over them, completely covering the group, as I heard what I would imagine was cussing and disgust coming from the humans. Fortunately, a few of the people continued to record as they seemed paralyzed in fear and were frozen. Looking into one of the phones and lifting my visor, I began to speak, “Take back your trash!” “If you continue to destroy my mother, you will find much worse things than I coming to stop you.”

Walking away, I could see the few humans still standings and recording collapsing in terror and screaming to those around them. Trudging through the waist high water, I couldn’t help but have a smirk on my face as I recalled the fear and shock as I dumped the peoples garbage on top of them. “I’m sure this won’t come to back to bite me” Talking to myself, I made my way towards the mountains, as I slipped on the necklace from my mother, making me invisible. “I wonder what happened to the Hecatoncherie and Kristina?" "If I ever see her again I’m going to have a few words with her." "How the hell did she know what my weapon was, when even I didn’t know, and how did she know I would be able use it?" Trudging up the mountains, I made my way over, and disappeared into the nearby wilderness. Walking as I followed the coast I planned to distance myself as far from the people who recorded me as possible. Traveling hundreds of miles along the country, I carefully avoided larger cities and populations as I made my way through the land, finally discovering a massive ghost city in the mountains and directly next to the ocean.

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Walking through the ghost city, I was in awe at the pure scale of it. Hundreds of buildings were sprawling all over the area, completely overgrown and dilapidated, without a soul around. Some of the buildings were massive, standing 7 and 8 stories tall. They were even taller than I was, and many of them were not fully built, allowing me to squeeze through some of the larger ones. Continuing my tour of the strange city, I felt an odd feeling around the town’s edge as I made my way forward. Making my way towards the feeling, I found a massive mountain, with a large building pressed against it. Feeling this was where it was coming from, I grabbed ahold of the building, and pushed forward, cracking the buildings pillars, and pushing it off of its base. Crash! The building toppled over and disintegrated under its own weight making a loud rumble and shockwave.

Examining the area after the building was demolished, I discovered an underground cave, leading into the massive mountain. The cave looked large enough to fit me as I squeezed through the entrance and began to explore the area. It was pitch black, so I pulled out my sword and lit the area up as I made my way in. The cave grew larger and larger the farther I went in. The fire from my sword was no longer enough to see the whole cave, as it opened up into a multi mile wide section. Further along was even a massive natural lake sitting against the back of the massive cavern. Sitting aside the caves lake were hundreds of human sized: stone, wood, metal, and even bone and fingernail crafted coffins. Moving closer, I felt the strange feeling from before but much stronger. Reaching out towards the stone coffin closest to me, I pinched its lid and pulled it off with my pointer finger and thumb, revealing a pale, stiff corpse, with ancient Chinese cloths on its body, still somehow intact and as beautiful as they were the day they were buried. It was wearing a silk robe dyed black with silver and gold embroidery depicting dragons and Phoenix. Looking at his face, he appeared around 45 and still had bright red lips.

Putting the lid back on the coffin, I moved around the underground lake examining the other corpses and was surprised to see they were mostly similar to the original one I pulled up, with the exception of a few dozen. The last few dozen appeared to be from a later time, and one was even wearing a very nice and expensive western suite and had a red booklet on him. Examining the red booklet, I realized, this must be a Chinese leader. Examining the man, he almost looked like Winnie-the-pooh if he were a person. Stifling my laughter, I put the lid to the solid gold coffin back and looked to see if I could find anything else of importance. I couldn’t find anything in particular, but I did find a bamboo hut stocked full of gold and treasures. Choosing to ignore the strangeness, I made sure there wasn’t anything else in the area and took off my armor and clothing after uprooting a bunch of trees and started a fire to dry myself off and warm up. Falling asleep a few hours later, I was awoken by a strange sound in the cavern. Grogginess was still surrounding my mind as I sat up and looked around. By the time I had awoken my fire had burned to a smoldering pile greatly reducing the area I could see. Sitting in the relative darkness barely lit by the embers off of the dying fire I kept hearing a strange sound of thumping on the ground. It almost sounded like someone was hitting something with all their strength, or perhaps that big bastard, the Hecatoncherie had found me, and it was the sound of the monster trying to sneak up on me.

Steeling my nerves, I pulled out my sword from under my head and unsheathed it, lighting up the area. With the area illuminated, I finally saw what was making the noise….Pooh bear?