Kayne's body felt weightless as a sensation of floating and being pulled simultaneously washed over him. He also felt exhausted, like he could drift off into oblivion.
Just as he was about to give in to that feeling, memories of the vicious attack flooded back to him, causing a phantom sense of pain that stopped his descent into slumber.
His mind was now more alert, even though a feeling of utter exhaustion permeated his very being as he tried to open his eyes. He realised he couldn't move his body, but he managed to eventually force his eyes open, shocked at the sight that greeted him.
Bright Purple and blue light entered his vision as he looked at a slow swirling vortex surrounding him. He could see through the transparent mixing colours into an abyss of blackness that spread out in every direction as far as the eye could see.
The scene before him reminded him of those sci-fi shows where someone travelled through a wormhole or some kind of faster-than-light travel aboard a spaceship.
The colours seemed to twist and mix as they rotated past him, and he wasn't sure if they were the ones moving or if he was or both. If not for the growing panic and confusion, he might have been captivated by the beautiful dancing lights that enveloped him.
What is this place?
Kayne looked on in awe before finally snapping out of his wonder. Returning to himself, his analytical mind began to take stock of everything. He realised some strange points to his situation besides the apparent light show. Although it seemed like he could move his head and look around, his body remained unresponsive.
The feeling of floating still encompassed him, but so did a conflicting sense of being restrained. He could not see anything when he looked down at his body, causing some bafflement that gave way to a hint of fear that crept in.
The only reason he could tell he was even moving to look around was by using the surrounding colours of the glowing tunnel as a point to orient from.
Does this mean I'm dead if I don't have a body? Is this the afterlife?
At least I won't have to work tomorrow.
Kayne mused as he tried to use dark humour to mask his growing unease, but his feeble attempt failed as thoughts of his friends and his life flittered through his mind. He thought of Paul, his best friend, who would be half the world away when he learned about his death. There were also the guys he had been working with from his shift for a few years.
Even though she never wanted children, his aunt Margery had taken him on and done the best for him in her own way. She would be away on holiday with her long-term boyfriend Richard, which would get cut short once she found out. Thoughts of his friends and family made his mind pivot to a new direction.
Will I get to see my parents again?
Thinking of this, a sense of longing spread over him. If he reunited with his parents, things might not be so bad and being dead might have upsides.
Snapping out of his self-pity, he looked around to see if there was anything else he had overlooked. When he glanced in the direction he seemed to be moving away from, Kayne noticed a bright light obscured slightly by the glowing purple and blue tunnel he was in.
He also thought he could make out a sea of stars glistening against an inky backdrop between the gaps in the colours before and after they mixed. Before he could think of this any further, an influx of exhaustion engulfed him, clouding his mind with a relentless fog as he fell into slumber.
Snapping his eyes open sometime later, he felt refreshed and invigorated. He looked around again and took in his surroundings. The bright light in the distance was much smaller now.
The vortex looked more stretched, like someone had taken both ends and pulled it tight. He could have sworn he was looking out into space through the gaps in the colours the stretching created.
Time passed, and a new object that had started a tiny dot of light in the distance grew larger. It was now a brown circle, but Kayne couldn't make out much more.
As he waited for it to get closer, he thought about his life more candidly. There were plenty of opportunities that he had been given that he squandered or let slip past, deciding to instead just live a life of mediocracy. Because of this, there would be nothing he would be leaving behind, no evidence of his existence other than those few close connections, and it bothered him more than he realised.
The lack of continued education, friends and relationships he could have had, he knew deep down that he was to blame for pushing them all away. If he had to be honest with himself, he knew it all stemmed back to losing his parents and his inability to let anyone be close enough to hurt him like that again. Even Paul, his best friend, was never truly let in as close as he should have been for all those years of friendship.
If this really is the end, then I regret it. If I could do it all again, I wouldn't waste my time. Life really is too short.
He let out the grief he had been holding on to over the years but could not cry physically. However, that didn't prevent his mental cries of anguish as the enormity of his lost mortality crushed him.
Sometime later, he pulled himself out of despair and peered toward the object. It was now taking up a large section of his view on one side of the tunnel. He wasn't sure if he had a jaw in his new form, as he could not feel or see any kind of body. But he knew that if he did, it would be hanging wide open right now.
Floating in front of him, past the rippling glowing lights, was something that he assumed most people would recognise. Swirling clouds of yellow, orange, and brown dominated his vision. As he moved past, a rolling giant red eye seemed to lock onto him.
Holy shit, is that Jupiter?
If that was the planet Jupiter, and he was indeed out in space as he thought, did that mean he wasn't dead and had been abducted by aliens instead?
Have they had a shelf-stacking emergency back in their home world that only I can solve?
He tried to use self-deprecating humour to stave off the rising dread. Being abducted by aliens or dying, he wasn't sure what was worse. If it was aliens, he hoped they liked mundane as he felt there was nothing special about him.
With how the gas giant visibly moved across his sight as he watched, he inferred that he must be moving at an extreme speed for such an occurrence. The planet's movement wouldn't be as apparent if he travelled so slowly.
After a while, Jupiter slowly faded into the distance, mirroring his descent into unconsciousness. Overwhelmed by a fresh wave of exhaustion, he succumbed to its embrace.
As he woke again, he couldn't think about the amazing sight from before and the implications. The new goings-on with the spiralling tunnel robbed his train of thought.
He noticed before that the vortex lines of purple and blue seemed to mix and rotate around the channel, leaving little gaps here and there. These new lines were thicker and primarily stationary, with few gaps between the colours.
Through the small holes he could find, he noticed that he could see what looked like dark clouds that billowed around with an almost frenetic energy. As he looked out, he wondered if perhaps he was now inside a gas giant or maybe a nebula instead.
As he pondered the subject further, he observed with awe that the colours on the tunnel wall appeared to contort and bend in peculiar ways. Suddenly, he was enveloped by an inexplicable sensation—a feeling of being unnaturally stretched, as if his very essence was pulled in unfamiliar directions.
Just when he felt like his existence was about to be torn, the sensation disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving him wondering if it had even happened.
What the hell was that?
Just as he tried to process the fleeting sensation from before, a new one hit him. The questions bouncing around inside his mind seemed to slow and extend infinitely into a never-ending contemplation.
His mind tried to grasp hold of thoughts that never seemed to come. It was as if he was trying to remember something just on the edge of his intellect, something he knew but would slip away as he got close to it.
The feeling continued as though his reality was expanding out into perpetuity. Then, the experience ended with a barrage of questions hitting his mind simultaneously, with one quickly rising above the rest.
What the fuck?
He was buffeted by differing sensory implosions, one after the other, similar to the ones he had just experienced. Trying to stay calm, he reached out for that logical part of his brain that would cast aside his worries and allow him to focus on the present. However, he failed due to the dissonance affecting his mind.
The storm in his perception continued unabated as he felt himself sliding closer to insanity. The only thing stopping him was his inability to gather himself for long enough to do even that.
As the constant alterations of reality blended his mind, he finally started to gather himself for longer and longer between the impacts. The reality-bending waves still hammered at him, but like a hot piece of metal pounded against an anvil, he slowly felt himself being shaped and affected less and less by them.
He wasn't sure if he had lost count or been unable to register how many times he had slipped into dormancy as all this happened, but it felt like he had existed like this for countless lifetimes already.
Eventually, he noticed that the vortex had returned to its previous spread-out, rotating patterns, and the angry clouds from outside had vanished, leaving nothing but the inky blackness of the void in their absence.
Before, when he stared out at the emptiness of space, he felt and saw nothing. When he looked out now, it was as if he could feel something there, an ever-present force on the edge of his perception.
He couldn't feel anything exactly, but on an instinctual level, he knew that something out there felt familiar, but he could not think of what it could be. Pushing the unusual feelings to the side, he evaluated his current predicament to determine what had happened to him.
I know I was attacked and either killed or left badly injured. I can't rule out that I did die, but I seem to be travelling through this wormhole thing and seeing Jupiter appears to rule that out.
I could be in a coma imagining all this, brain-damaged.
Aliens could have abducted me after the attack.
I could be dead but reincarnating, as I don't seem to have a physical body that I can see, and I cannot feel my tongue or jaw moving either. In fact, I'm not even breathing.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Kayne fired off some suppositions to himself as he tried to piece together the clues to this bizarre situation he had ended up in.
This is a waste of time. I cannot prove or disprove anything, so it's pointless guessing. I'm travelling somewhere, so waiting to see is my best bet.
Kayne had also noticed that ever since his passage through the ominous clouds, he could think a little more clearly, and his mind was faster to arrive at destinations than before. He also felt like he had been changed somehow on a fundamental level, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what was different.
Deep down, There was a feeling that he wasn't the same anymore. He sensed things slightly differently somehow, and it all confused him. It was as if his eyes had been opened to a hidden reality above the one he knew.
Well, there's nothing to do but wait.
Kayne resigned himself to the situation as he set his mind back to trying to figure out what that feeling was coming from the space outside as he continued to float onwards. With nothing to do but focus on the strange feeling he was now getting from outside or retreat inside himself, he decided to do the former.
I won't spend what could be my last moments being a fucking mope!
Time trickled past as he entered a routine of intense focus, studying the exterior of the tunnel and the presence he felt there, eventually sleeping when fatigue set in. His self-imposed study wasn't without success, as he was slowly able to distinguish different sensations from the outside.
He had no way to classify numerous different ones other than they each gave off different 'flavours'. Two of them, in particular, were the ones that had been giving him that familiar feeling, like he was encountering long-lost friends. But as of yet, he had been unable to pin either of the two ethereal flavours down to an understanding.
All of the others he had noted tasted different. For example, one tasted hot, with an aftertaste like he had just drunk scalding water. This flavour didn't give him a familiar feeling, unlike the other two. It was quite the opposite. It was more like encountering a stranger on the street who tried to move away at the sight of him as if in disgust.
Because he was digging deeper into the many tastes and trying to categorise them in his head, it took him a while to realise that he seemed to be approaching something new that slowly grew in the distance. Eventually, he stopped his examinations and focused on trying to make out details of the object he was now closing in on.
Unlike Jupiter, he wasn't heading past it but directly towards it. As a humongous planet rose to dominate his vision, he couldn't be entirely sure without anything to provide a frame of reference, but to him, it seemed like even Jupiter would be dwarfed by such a vast planet.
The glowing tunnel he was in seemed to lead directly to a pristine green and blue world ahead, but he noticed that it didn't appear dead-centred on the world as he got closer.
The tunnel's purple and blue rotating colours seemed to shrink as he drew nearer, providing more gaps to see out from. He noticed that the planet seemed bathed in a mass of light from his left as he looked over, seeing a distant glowing yellow-white orb that was this world's sun.
Below him, as he continued to close in, he could see that his destination seemed to be somewhere to the far north of the equator, as it looked like he was heading towards a small circular green and white continent that merged into the planet's northern pole.
To the right of that continent seemed to be a bigger, mostly green one that was more of an oblong shape, but he could not fully make it out as it obscured within the curtain of darkness that the sun had yet to reach. There was no light on the dark side of the world hinting at a civilisation that he could see.
Sitting below these continents and covering more than double the surface area of the two before combined was a massive belt of land that took up nearly all the equator region. This colossal continent was mainly green but had arid-looking parts that he suspected were deserts. The biggest one was almost the size of the small continent to the north.
There were even some white bits here and there across the green of the world that he suspected were substantial mountain ranges blanketed in snow due to being at a higher elevation.
All of this was surrounded by what he guessed were oceans of blue water. To the left side of the vast continent seemed to be many small islands surrounded by even smaller ones he couldn't even begin to count. The numerous island chains reminded him of the Caribbean but on steroids.
Just as he turned his attention back to the more northern continent that appeared to be his destination, something between it and the much larger continent to the south caught his eye. As the gap continued to close, he could see something massive in orbit, surrounded by swarms of smaller glowing objects that weaved around it.
It really was aliens!
Kayne stared in astonishment at what looked like a giant space station surrounded by many smaller spacecraft. As he continued to watch, his surprise turned to confusion as he passed close enough to one of the spacecraft to get a decent look at it.
The spaceship resembled a kind of wooden seagoing craft with masts sticking out all around the top and sides that supported glowing rainbow-coloured sails that left a beautiful trail behind them as the ship moved.
Kayne wasn't close enough to see much in the way of details or spot anything moving aboard it, but it was not how he expected an advanced alien spaceship to look. The ship didn't react to him and just continued flying away lazily.
The ships and the station faded into the background as he dropped towards the planet. He couldn't see anymore or get a better look at the diamond-shaped station.
For a time, he waited in anticipation of what awaited him on this new world and if the aliens here would be friendly as he edged closer. He would be lying to himself if he said he wasn't afraid of what any aliens might want with him. Hopefully, they wouldn't want him for some nefarious reason.
Kayne wasn't sure when it happened, but he only noticed a change of perspective when a sort of inbuilt genetic fear rose inside him. He thought nothing of it as he first travelled towards the planet.
At first, it was just moving towards a distant object. Once he got close enough, his mind flipped that perspective from moving towards it to falling instead, giving rise to a building fear.
He wasn't scared of heights to such a degree as having an unnatural phobia of them, but he still couldn't help the rising panic inside him as he breached a small layer of clouds. A part of his mind registered the lack of atmospheric friction by his passing, but other more primal thoughts blocked that out.
I doubt they would drag me all the way here just to splat me onto the surface of their world, right?
As he continued to fall towards the ground, he noticed that the continent he was heading towards seemed wrapped on its left side by an extensive mountain range.
If the continent was a clock, then this range ran from the seven o'clock position to the eleven o'clock. He was heading towards these mountains at just about the nine o'clock position and to the right of the mountain range, just on the edge of it.
He couldn't see much in the way of civilisation, but as he got closer to the ground, he saw a large city surrounded by tall walls in the distance. This city didn't look like the modern ones back on Earth and reminded him more of ancient ones instead, baffling him even more.
After a short while, he was now close enough to the mountains that some of the larger ones' peaks were higher than he was as he dropped at the same rapid pace. He tried not to panic at the swiftly arriving ground below him and instead tried to use this vantage to see what was around the place he was heading towards.
He noticed that under him was a valley surrounded on three sides by mountains. The valley's Western side had a sheer cliff edge with a flowing waterfall that dropped into a small lake at its base.
No river was visible on the surface, and he guessed that an underground river must be responsible for taking the water elsewhere. His mind doing anything it could to stave off the feeling of impending doom caused by his fall.
The valley was like a large flat basin, providing plenty of flat open ground sectioned into square farmland. The nearby mountains and entrance of the basin-like valley were covered in a forest of giant trees that reminded Kayne of pictures of the Canadian Rockies back on Earth, but the leaves on the trees were a few shades more blue than green.
Around the waterfall's base, he could also make out many small buildings wrapping around the tiny lake. Kayne spotted a small, rough path and a dark wooden palisade at the edge of the village, which made him realise how low down he was now.
Turning to gaze directly under him, he tried not to, but he failed as he let out a mental scream from seeing that he was a few seconds away from impacting the roof of a small wooden building. He winced in anticipation of the pain to come. His vision faded to black as he directly impacted a small farmhouse outside the village.
Kayne didn't realise that during his screaming plunge, a ghostly figure had appeared on the cliff edge overlooking the village and was staring intently at the location of his arrival.
The figure was that of a serious-looking man wearing a set of ancient-looking clothes. His entire being was a wash of hazy white and grey tones that flickered with static as his image rippled in and out of existence.
The only part of him that wasn't made up of washed-out tones was his hypnotic eyes, which spiralled in a mix of colours. Their intense, piercing stare held an almost magnetic power, drawing you closer into their enigmatic depths with but a glance.
No one else in the house or nearby village seemed to notice Kayne's arrival or the ghostly figure on the cliff.
As it opened its mouth to speak, the figure winked out of existence, leaving an unfinished sentence behind to be carried off by the wind.
"Descend.."
* * *
Kayne woke up to the sound of distant crying. The noise echoed, seeming to be both beside his ears and far away simultaneously.
Is that a baby crying?
Pushing himself up off the warm ground, he took in his surroundings. It looked like some kind of cave system, but the strange thing was that it was all lit by a faint light source from somewhere he couldn't see. It was as if the light came from the walls themselves.
Wait, I have my body back now?
Glancing down and holding his hand out. He was shocked to find that his entire body seemed made up of some glowing purple energy in the shape of a human form. His hand looked made up of some semi-clear membrane with purple veins running everywhere that glowed brightly with a rhythmic pulse.
As he turned his hands over, staring in fascination, he heard a noise to his right. A small yellow figure flew into his vision. He raised his arms reflexively in defence and turned towards it instinctively, feeling a burning pain on his right arm that made him throw his hand out.
He flung out his right arm to dislodge whatever had attacked him to see a small ugly yellow rat bounce off a nearby wall as the pain faded. The rat, foaming at the mouth, righted itself and sped back over to him, jumping again once it was close.
On impulse, he stepped back and booted out as hard as he could with his right leg. He cheered as his foot connected, and the rat rocketed off the same wall, exploding into a spray of yellow sparks that quickly faded away.
Exploding Rats?
This new bout of confusion left him numb. Too much had happened in such a short time for him to be freaking out.
The sound of crying increased in volume and pace, snapping him out of his thoughts. Without thinking, he ran off in the direction of the cries. He wasn't sure why, but he felt drawn to respond to the urgent bawling.
Sprinting through a maze of tunnels, encountering more fierce-looking rats. He quickly dispatched them with stamps and kicks, even grabbing one that jumped at him and launching it off a nearby wall in a shower of sparks.
His determination to save the crying infant overrode any misgivings about the current situation, as he prioritised action over thought. He tried to call out as he went but realised he couldn't make a sound.
He killed half a dozen rats and reached a wide-open chamber within the cave system. Running in, he noticed a small glowing white ball being knocked around to one side of the large opening as pouncing rats tried to tear into it. Inside the glowing orb was a small figure of an irate baby that cried out with every attack.
Without thinking, he rushed over, stamping on rats and kicking out his feet. He jumped over the last few between him and the baby and bent to scoop it up. Clutching the ball tightly in his left arm as he spun, he defended himself against the angry vermin.
The baby made a mewling noise, and he looked down at it, wishing he could give it words of comfort. Instead, he sent thoughts of warmth and protection, hoping it would calm the infant down.
The white energy surrounding it faded as the child made weak noises. He felt connected with the infant as he protected it against his chest. He kicked away a few rats and ran around the chamber, dodging and knocking them outwards.
As he was thinking hard, trying to devise a plan, he noticed more rats had entered the area. Just before he arrived at a strategy, he felt a bolt of warmth hit him in the chest. He looked down, and the baby was no longer crying. Their eyes met, and a sensation of togetherness struck him.
At that moment, he knew that the child wasn't going to survive on its own and that it wanted to join together with him. As the baby sent back feelings of warmth and affection, Kayne accepted. A revitalising tide of energy washed over him, restoring his power and blowing away many circling rats.
Looking down, he was no longer carrying the baby. He knew that he had merged with it on a fundamental level. They were no longer separate but one and the same.
As he was much older than the nascent consciousness, a large bulk of the merged thoughts and personality came from him. However, he could feel tiny fragments here and there that he knew were from the infant. These fragments didn't do much but helped him remain calm as he turned a cold gaze on the regrouping rats.
One of the larger rats in the rear raised on its hind legs and let out an ear-pounding screech that reverberated throughout the cave system, causing more of them to run in. Seeing this and not wanting to be overwhelmed by numbers, Kayne attacked without grace and stomped, punched or kicked his way through the mass of yellow.
Countless rats died, and he had lost count of how many he had killed or how long he had been fighting them, but more and more seemed to be arriving no matter how fast he dispatched them.
Seeing that he was in danger of being overrun, he sprinted out into the cave system, fighting a running battle as he moved. Eventually, he ended up at a dead end.
Now that he was out of options, he dug deep, finding the second wind he always seemed to get when running. He put his back to the wall and faced the tide of scurrying rats.
Watching as they came round the corner, they ran over each other to get at him, making the ground look alive in the dim light. He fought with everything he could muster, shrugging off scratches and bites, methodically killing them as efficiently as he could manage.
He managed to push the tide of rats halfway back up the tunnel with his efforts, but he felt himself running on fumes by the time he got there. Falling to a knee, he watched as a tide of yellow closed in. Closing his eyes, he mentally said sorry to the parts of him that were the child and awaited his fate.
Before the rats could close the final distance, a heaven-shaking howl vibrated through the tunnel, forcing him to open his eyes. He watched as a sizeable azure-coloured wolf sped past him, ploughing into the wave of rats, destroying many and launching even more all over the cave.
Kayne remained kneeling and unmoving, confused as he watched it flash around unnaturally, ending one rat after another. When the wolf finished killing, it was at the entrance to the tunnel he was in.
It turned to regard Kayne as he remained motionless, trying to appear non-threatening but watching the wolf in return.
After a few moments, it howled and jumped into a wall nearby, phasing into it and creating an azure pulse of energy that washed over Kayne but ignored him.
In the distance, he could hear the pained screeching of many rats.
Thunder and lightning came from all over as a world of azure surrounded him. He felt a sucking sensation engulf him as he fell backwards, losing consciousness as his head hit the ground.