Sun here. Welcome to Dragon Ball Z… er my fiction (I just realized my fiction had Dragons, and power granting balls…). Well, it still original. Kind of. This chapter drags on about his emotion a lot, because I don’t want my character to seem emotionless. As for when the next chapter will be released, probably tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

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The boy awoke with a start.

How long had he been unconscious? It was already nighttime.

The first thing he noticed was, his head hurt. So much so that his thoughts were strewn about his mind with no particular focus.

Trying to clear his head, the boy repeated his thoughts to himself in an effort to achieve some composure.

‘My name is Otis Farren. I am 13 years old. I live with my Mom and sis in a village in the Forest…’

‘...The forest…’

Otis swiveled his head side to side, searching for the tell-tale trees that should have shrouded the moonlight. However, all he could spy was barren desert, stripped of the green that once covered the land and skies, and left with chips of weathered wood and bark.

Panicking, Otis quickly stood up. The world tipped and tilted, before he bent over and emptied whatever was left in his stomach. Crouching back down, he swiftly regretted moving so suddenly. Tears clouded his eyes for a moment, and his throat burned from the vomit. That pain was soon overshadowed by the aching soreness he felt throughout his entire body. Arms and legs creaked, and simply pushing himself up caused immense pain.

‘Where am I? This isn’t the forest. What happened?! How am I… ARGHhhh...!’

Otis clutched his head as a searing pain tore through his thoughts, before a cool feeling spread through his mind, numbing him. The feeling soothed the Migraine if only for a moment, but it allowed Otis to collect himself.

‘What should I do? I don’t know how to get back home. What should I do? Where should I go?! ...I guess I’ll just, pick a direction and walk that way. There isn’t really any other way. But what if I get lost!? What if I am going the wrong way!? What if…’

The soothing cold seeped into his mind again, but this time he fought it off. He wanted to panic. He wanted to be scared. And no outside force would hold back his true instincts once he was desperate.

The innocent village boy, not conditioned to take so much stress, plummeted to his knees.

Tears fell to the ground, and the dirt devoured the liquid as if it had never seen rain for thousands of years.

In a fit of rage, he struck the ground with all his might.

What happened next seemed to defy the capabilities of his scrawny body.

The ground shook, and the earth split apart around him, crumbling into cracked clumps before sinking downwards and compacting.

The impact created a crater 4 meters in diameter, and 3 feet deep.

Otis’s footing was destroyed, and he slammed into the now hard ground knees-first.

Otis’s scream spread across the desert, but there was no one to hear him.

He looked down towards his fist, and waited for the veil of tears to part before seeing his twisted, bleeding hand. In fact, it was hard to believe it used to be a hand at all, if not for the fact that it was connected to the rest of his arm. The fingers were bent at angles that no finger should be in, and he could see the dirt caked muscles and blood through his all-but-destroyed skin.

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Otis paled, and quickly turned away from his hand, raising it above his chest in an effort to slow down the bleeding. However, it proved unnecessary, as his limb went numb and fell asleep. Peeking back ever so slightly, he was greeted with the sight of a brand new hand, although covered in blood.

Looking beneath him, he scanned the indentation he made with a look of disbelief.

‘This has to be a dream. This can’t be real. No no NO! I felt pain. that was real. A hallucination? Maybe I caught a fever and am still in my bed at home? Yes, that’s probably it. No, it must be it. Calm down, Otis.’

Standing up and crawling out of the fresh bowl he created, he brushed off the dirt.

Feeling thirsty, Otis convinced himself the experience wasn’t real, and he would receive water when he returned to reality.

Standing up, he started walking in the direction of the moon. Since he was stuck in a hallucination, he figured he might as well explore.

~+~

40 minutes. That was the time it took before Otis came across the first sign of civilization. A broken piece of wood, seemingly worn away by a thousand rivers and winds. However, Otis recognized this piece of faded board. When looked at carefully, he could make out the engraved letters:

“Farren’s Potion Brew”

Otis laughed to himself. ‘What kind of sick joke is this? A prophecy of the future? Or my mind’s cruel tricks? My mom’s potion shop has been passed on for generations, and will be for many more to come.’

Grasping the sign, he continued onwards.

5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes.

He came across the second sign. It was blood.

Blood splattered across the ground, as if thrown from a bucket, creating angled stains across the earth.

And in the middle of all the red, was a torso.

Otis’s stomach lurched for the second time today, but nothing came out. He wanted to turn away and run from the horrid sight, but his eyes were trapped. Transfixed to the shining black object embedded in the disfigured chest. At the Dark scale of a Dragon.

And suddenly, his memories of the morning came rushing into his mind. The Monster, the six figures who killed it, the explosion, and the crystal. He knew somewhere in his mind it was all true. It seemed too vivid in his mind not to be. But he was unwilling to accept that. Accept that his family was gone. Accept that his life was destroyed. Accept that he had nothing.

The conflicting thoughts roiled around in his brain, constantly pulling his opinion around in a hurricane of emotion.

And at the moment, something inside the small boy’s mind snapped right in half.

~+~

Somewhere in a barren desert that stretched as far as the eye could see, a young boy wandered in a stupor. In his hands was clutched a piece of broken signboard.

His steps were heavy, but his gaze held no weight. The sun was shining, but the light could not reach through the abyss his heart had fallen through.

Somewhere in a barren desert, a young boy aimlessly walked.

Walked and walked, until he reached the edge.