I sat wide-eyed as I watched his body stir. I grew tense, and a feeling of unease washed down my back as I watched his body subtly twitch.

It started with his head jolting to the side, his hair falling alongside it, then his arms started twitching, similar to how mine did when I first woke up.

His body grew eerily still, but not for long, as his chest suddenly lifted upward, convulsing, before quickly falling to the ground with a solid thud.

‘What the fuck..? Is that how I looked when I woke up?’

I pushed myself off the wall and began making my way over to the boy.

Walking over to him and carefully avoiding any other bodies so as not to step on them, I scanned his face.

He had a serene expression plastered on it, as if his mind was wandering through a pleasant dream.

He had striking silver hair, a small and straight nose, small lips, and a narrow chin.

He looked to be about the age of a young teenager; how he got here was a mystery, along with the countless other children strewn about in the immediate area.

Casting a sweeping gaze over the other children, I let out a sigh.

‘I wonder how long it’ll take for all of them to wake up.’

How long would I be stuck here by myself? I looked up and off into the distance, gauging if I should take the liberty and go explore the long hallway.

But ultimately, I decided against it.

I shifted my attention back to the boy and shook his arm. I waited with bated breath to see if he’d awaken, but nothing happened. Just as I went to shake it again, his eyes suddenly opened, revealing his bright blue eyes as he began gasping for air.

Startled, I stumbled backwards.

I looked back at him; his unstable breathing slowed down as his ice-blue eyes started to gain some sort of clarity.

“Hello..?”

His eyes slowly glanced towards me, seemingly in distress at the situation he found himself in.

++++

My head briefly pounded as blood rushed through it. All I remember was suddenly waking up with a feeling like I was suffocating.

My mind felt hazy, and I couldn’t remember what was going on.

I heard a voice calling out to me, and I looked up to see a boy who appeared to be just entering puberty crouched not too far in front of me.

He had black hair, a small nose, sharp lips, vibrant green eyes, and smooth, pale porcelain-like skin.

He appeared to be worried about me, anxiety riddling his face as he tried to discern if I could understand him or not.

“Who are y-you? Ah, w-where are we?”

My voice cracked in between words.

‘Fuck.’

Panic was starting to set in. I didn’t know where I was; I couldn’t even remember anything…

His face shifted as a more serious expression took over. Furrowing his brow, he began speaking.

“I…I don’t know. I’m wondering those same things.”

He released a small sigh before giving me a brief rundown of his situation.

“I woke up some time ago, just over there, and haven’t really moved from this spot. We appear to be in some sort of hallway, and I don't know much more beyond that.”

He motioned for me to look around as I slowly began to turn my head.

‘What the…’

Countless kids were laid out on the dirt floor, all of whom appeared to be incapacitated, with only us two awake.

His voice cut into my thoughts like a knife.

“How do you feel?”

His expression morphed once again into one of concern, his question echoing through my empty mind.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’m not sure, I…My head hurt a moment ago, but I suppose I feel fine now.”

He slowly lifted himself up and flashed me a smile.

"You, uh, want to go look around?”

++++

I held out my hand to the boy, beckoning him to grab it as I assisted him up to his feet.

We both took one more glance at the bodies surrounding us before we began walking forward.

He looked troubled, his face contorting as a myriad of emotions swept through it in a matter of seconds.

Looking forward, I truly began to realize just how many kids there were.

‘They’re out this far too. huh’

It had only been a couple minutes, but we quickly got to the edge of where the other kids' sleeping bodies were.

“Just how many of us are there…?”

The silver-haired boy muttered, sparing a glance at every person we passed.

He turned to look at me, clearly about to ask me something, but before long, a large yellow wall appeared in front of us.

Loosely resembling a thin sheet of clear yellow plastic, it shimmered in and out of view.

“What the…”

I began lifting my arm toward the odd wall, but just past it, what appeared to be a large black animal got on its hind legs and looked dead at us.

It then started running towards us at an astonishing speed.

Panic shot through my body as I processed what the hell was going on.

As the beast got closer to the wall, I began to make out some of its features.

It closely resembled a rat but was much more morbid and grotesque.

Shifting my attention to its hair, it had some weird fungal growth jutting out of its back in random places.

Its pitch-black hair was a matted and tangled mess. It opened its mouth, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth and an extremely long tongue.

The grotesque monster was mere feet away from the wall, its disgusting features becoming even more clear.

All of a sudden, I felt my knees weaken, almost buckling under my weight.

My eyes began to lose focus, and my head started to pound as it released an extremely high-pitched screech.

The boy let out a stifled scream, the color draining from his face. His legs gave out as he fell backward, his face locked in some sort of horrific trance.

‘Goddamnit!’

Cold sweat formed all over my back as I sprinted over to him and pulled on his arm with all my might, my own knees shaking from the monster’s scream.

“Get up, come on! We got to fucking go!”

I screamed, my emotions running rampant and adrenaline filling my veins.

He rose from his position as his feet shuffled to find balance, and we both began our sprint back to where we woke up.

I turned my head as I watched the massive rat monster jump, suddenly remembering a rather familiar scene play out in my head.

Clenching my teeth, I focused on running.

As its feet left the ground, what sounded like a tiny shockwave blew from under it, a cloud of dust and dirt rising from its strength. It let out another high-pitched screech before meeting the wall.

BOOOM~-

My ears rang as I stopped and turned around. My breath was ragged from having to pick up another kid my size while also sprinting away from whatever the fuck that was.

Looking at the yellow wall, the center of it looked more opaque than when we first saw it. The solidity of the wall began dissipating as it returned to its prior translucence.

What lay beyond it was a corpse. The rat monster hit the wall, and...

Fucking exploded.

The ground beyond the wall was painted in a dark crimson sludge.

No other solid piece of it was left; the only thing remaining were its hind legs. With bits and pieces of the monster plastered all along the floor and walls.

Looking at the legs, the fur was utterly revolting. Caked in what appeared to be dried feces, blood, and rotting flesh.

I shuddered at the thought of it getting through the wall.

Continuing to catch my breath, I turned to my side.

“You’re okay?”

“Yeah, just…”

He trailed off without finishing his sentence. He instead gave me a nod without taking his eyes off the monster’s corpse.

“Let’s head back; I don’t want to attract more of these. Who knows if this wall will even hold...”

I glanced at the yellow wall, noting how it seemed to extend all the way upward, similar to the stone walls that it was connected to.

I quickly turned around, wiping the sweat off my face.

“Good idea, and thank you; I really appreciate it. It screeched, and I just…collapsed.”

He looked downward as we walked, lost in thought about what had just happened.

“We should stick together; I don’t know why, but this place…I feel like we’re going to need to. There’s no way that was a one-off coincidence. There has to be more of those monsters roaming around; I feel it.”

He then turned to look at me and flashed a weak smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

He seemed tired, and I couldn't blame him.

We were both ruminating over our individual situations.

I felt my head start to hurt.

Thinking about what happened on my way to the convenience store felt rather…burdensome. And no answers were going to be given, so there was just no point in wasting time on it.

One thing was brutally clear in my mind, though: I had died when I got attacked that night.

Wherever I was, it didn’t seem to resemble the Earth I knew at all.

That weird wall was proof of it, and the even weirder rat-monster hybrid solidified my thoughts even further.

I couldn’t do much with the information, but knowing it helped me feel at peace, as if a small weight was lifted from my shoulders, even if a boulder still clung to them.

Seeing the familiar sight of the numerous sleeping children, I noticed a girl with fiery red hair and a tanner complexion than both the silver-haired boy and me sitting upright.

Stopping in my tracks, I felt my heartbeat speed up.

‘Another person woke up.’

And before I could call out to her, the words fizzled out and died in my throat because she turned around and we locked eyes.

She had red eyes that matched the ferocity of her hair, a sharp nose, thin lips, and a narrow chin.

As I took a step in her direction, her eyes lost focus.

Then she collapsed.

------

End of Chapter 2.