Novels2Search
Shardspace
Chapter 2

Chapter 2

You suddenly find yourself lying on sand. You hear the sound of waves and smell salty sea air. You try to move and a sharp pain shoots trough your shoulder. You see blood.

I'm still wounded? huh, for some reason I expected to survive.

Your awareness dims... the blood loss is too much. Your anger and defiance slowly seeping out of you.

No! God damn it!

You start to move.

If I am to die, I'll die standing!

You manage to almost sit up... the sharp pain unbearable. And then you feel your heart stop. You fall back on the ground.

This is it.

The last thing you see is a purple sky with two moons.

You suddenly find yourself lying on sand. You hear the sound of waves and smell chilly salty sea air. Water splashes your onto your feet.

Water on my feet that's weird... wait a second!

The memories of your death flash trough your mind. You are fully awake now, and sit up immediately.

You look down on your body.

Your wounds are gone. You move your fingers and waggle your toes in amazement. Even your teeth are back. You rub your head but it appears your hair did not come back, in fact, you are completely bald. Not even having eyebrows. You are also naked.

I'm alive. But how?

You stand up and move away from the rising tide of the beach. You look around. You are standing on a beach with yellow sand, in front of you a large volume of water and behind you what appears to be a forest. The beach goes on in both directions... But then you notice something. Someone is lying near the water ten steps from your position, half submerged in the sea. that person looks familiar. An eerie sense of horror rises up within you.

What is this? How is this possible?

You slowly approach what appears to be a corpse, a corpse with a missing leg, a mutilated hand and scratches all over. Parts of it rotted and decomposing...

Is this really my body?

You nudge the body with my foot. A centipede moves out the corpses mouth and goes into its nostril. You jump back in fright.

Fuck this.

You start to slowly walk away, keeping your eye on the corpse, as if it would stand up at any moment. as you walk you feel a breeze of chilly air blow by you. Goosebumps rise on your body. Your eyes land on the hospital gown the corpse is wearing.

Well, it's not like he needs it anymore.

You move closer to the body and take off the bloody hospital gown he is wearing, make sure no insects are on it and wrap it around your waist.

Alright, time to get the fuck out of here.

You eye the forest.

I could go in the forest but that seems dangerous. I think it would be better if I followed along the beach, if there is civilization out here, it'll be near water.

You start walking along the beach, nothing the two moons in the purple sky. Or maybe different rules apply wherever you are. Walking along the shore to find civilization might not work. But it seems like a better idea than going into the forest so It's what I'll do for now.

You keep on walking as the sun rises. Minutes pass by and it's starting to get hot... You keep thinking of how your corpse came to lie there.

Did I die? Am I even myself? Or just a clone? What is going on?

You feel annoyed at having these unproductive thoughts.

Right, I should focus on the things I can do.

You can see that the beach still goes on for quite a while. You keep walking... but this beach seems to go on forever.

Maybe I can get to some high ground to see what is around. It might be a good idea to climb a tree to see what is around me.

You feel the warm sun on your body, and feel your dry mouth.

And maybe get some shade and somewhere I can drink water.

You keep walking until you notice one particularly tall tree. Near the forest.

If I can climb that tree, I might get an idea of what's around me.

You start walking towards the tree, you grow more cautious as you near the forest.

Who knows what kind of wild animals lives there.

You touch the tree and feel it's texture. Similar to a normal tree on earth. You jump up and grab a branch. You pull yourself up on the branch and start climbing upward.

After a few minutes of careful climbing, you are above most other trees and can see quite far in the distance. Unfortunately, the beach seems to go on forever, and the forest seems large. You can see mountains in the distance... and then you notice something in the distance. Smoke! Smoke means civilization!

If the some wasn't there I might have missed it!

You also notice something familiar near the smoke. A black obelisk.

I'll bet that I'll be able to find answers there. Looks like I have no choice but to go into the forest.

You note the direction of the black obelisk before you climb down the tree.

It might be a good idea to pick up a stick or a rock as a weapon. Just in case.

You pick up a stick on the ground, test it for strength by hitting a tree a few times.

Seems sturdy enough.

You start walking. The random things on the forest floor sting your feet occasionally, it isn't that bad.

I'll need to keep an eye out for tall trees. I'll need to climb them occasionally to make sure I'm still going in the right direction.

A few hours later, having climbed trees four times to reorient yourself, you are close enough that you can see the smoke from the ground.

Lucky I did not come across any wild animals.

As you get closer to the source of the smoke, you notice small children's footprints on the ground.

Huh, why are there children running around here?

You look around to see if there are any adult footprints. But you only see your own.

That's weird.

You start moving slower towards the source of the smoke, the amount of footprints increasing as you get closer.

You come upon a clearing, the trees nearby having been cut down. You can see what appears to be a wooden fort that is more or less falling apart. It great breaches in it's walls and a lot of the wood looks rotten. It has been built around the black obelisk. The smoke is coming from somewhere inside the fort.

At the entrance of the fort, there appears to be a sleeping child leaning against the wall... he has a wide head and yellow skin? There is a crude spear lying on the ground. Maybe it's not a child, an alien? Or, well, I'm the alien and it's just not human.

You continue observing the fort and the creature. They don't look that dangerous.

Fuck it. I'm so thirsty, I'm going to ask if they have any water. if they want to kill me, I can just run away. It's not like they'll be able to catch up to me with their tiny legs.

You wiggle your toes. Happy that you have both your feet. Then you recall that corpse at the beach and shudder.

You leave your stick near a tree, as to not appear hostile. You focus your eyes on the creature and start walking forward. The creature does not wake up as you get close to it, you hear it snoring.

What a crappy guard. Time to introduce myself.

“Umm, Hello, I come in peace” You say. But the creature still does not wake up and keeps on snoring.

Jesus Christ. I don't want to get close to the creature so I look to throw something at it.

You pick up a little rock from the ground and throw it at the creature. The creature opens his eyes slightly, chitters something and then closes it again. You feel a great bit of annoyance.

“HELLO! I come in PEACE!” You say a bit louder.

The creature opens his eyes looks at you and chitters something, it's mouth falls open.

Finally.

All the teeth in the creatures mouth are sharp, like that of a shark. A frown appears on your face.

Huh, would you look at that. But just because it has sharp teeth does not necessarily mean it will try to eat me.

The creature, fully awake now screams something and runs into the fort. Then runs back out, picks up his spear that it left lying on the ground, and then runs back in again. You stare at it's antics. Then you take a few steps back.

Maybe it is just wants to bring their leader to talk, it's not like you're unreasonable, you won't immediately assume the worst. You wait a bit and then you hear screams and chitters of multiple creatures a bit before five of the creatures exit the fort, running. Three of them holding spears and two having a bow and arrow.

“I come in pea...” You try to finish your sentence but one of them aims their bow at you and you duck. The arrow flies above your head.

These guys are not friendly. It's time to run away with my big legs!

You turn and run back toward the forest as fast as you can. You look back and barely manage to duck in time as another arrow flies in your direction. It glances off your left arm, it starts bleeding.

“God damn it! I just got this body!” You complain. And then you recall how your old body got its wounds.

Right.

You grab your stick as you run into the forest.