Chapter 1
Death Waits for No Man...But Why is He Taking so Long?
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What a beautiful, day. The crows are cawing, and the sounds of rain pouring down from the heavens above are like music to my ears. Even the sound of thunder brings a sensation to my searing bones... Is what I would say if I were in a better state than my current condition.
Everything feels ice cold, and the pain in my back is more of an irritation than anything after experiencing that agonizing torture of searing runes into my bones and body. Like an itch that can never be scratched, and is in an unreachable place, like your back. My blood has pooled under me, painting the grass underneath, and I feel my conscious mind slipping away, returning to the primordial soup.
An hour passed after I was thrown under the sunset sky, which was weird considering it was close to midday when I was stabbed in my behind. My mind couldn't even form any coherent thoughts because of this fog that had invaded my head. And the sound of downpours and lightning crashing above the sky doesn't help with my thinking at all. I am even surprised that I can still think while feeling the endless chill of my ever-growing cold body.
Where are they? I asked myself. The two perpetrators of my present body's condition are nowhere to be found, although, they may have just left and I just lost consciousness and awoke again under the sunset.
But why do I get the feeling this is a different world from Earth? It's hard to describe the sense that I'm getting since first, the sounds of the evergrowing storm are distracting, and second, I am dying. It's like I know that I don't belong here. Like there's something there that wasn't present before. An electrifying sensation that caresses my pathetic state. And with a loud crash of lightning that lit the world for a moment and blinded my unblinking eyes, I thought to myself Is this the end? Am I going to die here? It's a valid way of thinking after being stabbed by your believed friend and girlfriend. The past hour has been hectic and painful, but with each passing moment, I grew to accept death and hoped that there was actually an afterlife. Or I could be reincarnated as a baby.
Joking aside, the pain and sensations in my body have gone numb, and the only feeling that I have is a hollowness that increases every passing second. With a few minutes that I still got before everything inevitably turned black, I started replaying the life that had led me here. Starting with my hellish childhood.
I have experienced mental and physical abuse from my parents, going for the excuse of disciplining their child after giving out punishments when I cross a hazy line that was drawn by my mother and father. They have been at each other's throats since I was born, and my Uncle was the only one who actually took care of me. I would sometimes go to school with some bruises behind my calves or arms, covered by pants and long sleeves. My elementary school teacher noticed the bruises and called in my parents, but all that has done is up the punishment that I received to another level. And with every year till I got to university filled with curses and smacks from my parents, I grew numb to them and gained tolerance to the pain, physical or mental.
Now that I am reliving my past in my head, I am quite surprised that I didn't turn into a messed-up wreck growing up. I didn't grow into a bully or a kid with social anxiety. If anything, I grew confident and social whenever I was outside the house that I was in. I guess that was a testament to my Uncle raising me whenever he got the moment to bring me to his house a few miles away. He was a car mechanic and electrician. Actually, he jumps from one job to another, never settling on a permanent career path, which he said is a good way to be free from the boredom of our world. He taught me how to cook, do laundry, replace lightbulbs, and other things that a kid could do without getting his limbs crushed or chopped off. My parents don't even care when my Uncle drives me to his house from school, sometimes actually voicing their complete approval, which just shows their complete neglect and carelessness to their one and only child.
Uncle Eddie is the perfect role model in our small town in the middle of Flagstone, Arizona. A city surrounded by mountains, and patches of forest. The view would have been a much more satisfying scenery if it hadn't been muddled by my childhood. Anyways, Old Man Eddie was a social freak who always found a way to befriend anyone with a simple conversation, whether you were just a university student waiting at a bus stop, or a shop clerk working a dead-end job.
He just has that pull on people that always makes them laugh and happy, but the best thing about his character is that he never uses it for his own gain. I've never seen anything valuable in my uncle's apartment other than the Xbox console that he bought when I turned 8. Even his room doesn't look lavish, with only the minimal needs for a human to live. He said that it looked like that since he never really stays home much, which might be why I was always on clean-up duty whenever I came to visit. It wasn't until I turned 12 that he occasionally brought me with him to his workplace, teaching me along the way and helping me socialize with his friends that he made just a few days working there. Which helped me become the party animal when I first entered my first year of university.
After reminiscing about my past, a loud bang of lightning crashed near me, striking a tree just a few meters from my left. Waking up from my stupor, I noticed that there were more crows perched up on the nearby trees that I saw in my peripheral vision. But with nothing else to do because of my dying state, I recalled the time of the incident when I was 13. It was just like when me and my former girlfriend were camping in the middle of nowhere.
Me and my uncle drove to a nearby river surrounded by trees and mountains in the distance. It was also in the middle of winter, so the air was cold and chilly, unlike the coldness that I am experiencing now. We were supposed to be gone for 5 days, but it was cut short into 3 because me and my uncle got injured by a rabid cougar.
We were just about to go back to our campsite after fishing up some dinner near the river when a giant cat walked toward us, emerging from the woods. My uncle, with his quick thinking, grabbed a fish in our coolbox while moving me back sideways off the riverbank, shielding me with his remaining free hand from the salivating cougar. The big cat slowly took their step towards us, and when uncle and I were just a few meters away from the tree line, he cautiously lowered the fish to the ground while keeping eye contact with the cat. We slowly backed away, hoping to make it inside the forest, and for the wild animal to stop paying attention to us. But rather than eat and stop for a meal, the cougar rushed toward Uncle Eddie and pounced.
With me behind him, Uncle couldn't move away to risk me being bitten to death, so instead he pulled out a Swiss army knife that he used to cut meat and fish and shifted his body in a defensive stance. The cougar swiped at my uncle's arms, but instead of screaming, my uncle clenched his jaw and stabbed the cougar in its right side. When the large cat let out a pained scream, my uncle yelled at me to run to our campsite and hide inside the tents. But before I took off with a dash, the feline had already pounced again, this time towards me. My instincts flared, and my fight-or-flight kicked in. However, I stood frozen in fear as I stared with horror-filled eyes at the cougar flying towards me. Its jaws were wide open, showing its jagged teeth and saliva-covered tongue. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, with my left arm being stabbed and crushed by the wild animal.
I still remember the pain that I felt when that unbearable pressure was put upon me by the cougar's jaws and body, pushing me down on the ground. My screams fell on deaf ears as the large feline kept its jaws chomping down on my arm, blood dripping down on my chest and face. After what felt like hours of suffering, my uncle stabbed down the cougar's right ear, digging deep into its earhole. With a knife poking out of its ear, it released its grip on me and stomped me down before moving to the side, losing its balance and stumbling slightly. My head felt light, and the world showed white, but then I felt two arms carry me and lay me down behind a tree. My uncle flashed me a smirk, before retrieving a switch knife from my pocket that was given to me earlier that morning.
The screams of the cat are still in the background, but those didn't matter to my younger self back then. Back then, I was staring at my uncle's back, holding a switch knife with his clawed-up arms, and staring down the mountain lion that brought pain to his nephew. The next moments were a blur as my mind slipped from being conscious and unconscious, but seeing my uncle fight that large cat was most definitely the coolest experience of my life.
The next moment I knew was lying in a hospital bed with my uncle next to me. His arms were bandaged up, and he was in a prayer pose beside the bed. When I called out to him, he broke and hugged me tight, pain flaring again on my left arm and clawed chest, which then earned him a loud shout from a nurse across the room. But that was the day that I really came to know my uncle, and how I set out to be like him. He is kind, goofy, considerate, and most of all, kind. He is a loyal man, with strong beliefs and morals, earning him a good set of friends that surrounds him. I wanted to be a man, just like him. The kind who is brave and selfless. Who never runs away from danger when there is someone who he needs to protect. He was a hero that day, and I will never forget that moment in my life.
Sounds of loud cawing awoke me from my recollection. Focusing my unblinking eyes a bit, I saw a silhouette of multiple crows, now flying over me. It seems that the storm has passed, and light showers of rain fell from the evening sky. It looks like I have been daydreaming for some hours since I didn't sense time passing me by. But there was nothing I could do but wait for death to claim me. I could still numbly feel my heart beating ever so slowly. each pulse growing weaker and weaker until it completely stops supplying my brain with the meager amount of blood I still have left. With the acceptance of death running through my slipping consciousness, I started replaying the time of my darkest days when Uncle Eddie passed away in my 3rd year of university.
The news of his passing was like cold water waking me up from my stupor. I was doing great in my university life. I joined the local soccer team, made friends left and right, and even lost my virginity at the 5th party that I was invited to. But hearing the news from one of my uncle's friends that he had a heart attack while he was sleeping shattered something inside me. After that, everything passed by so quickly. I attended his funeral with the last of his relatives, including my parents. It was supposed to be a solemn ceremony, but my heart grew heated when my mom asked about my uncle's insurance money while my father was stone-faced looking at Uncle Eddie's casket.
I don't know what happened that day because I blacked out, but when I came to, I was beaten up and thrown outside of the building for causing a scene. But after walking a few blocks away and turning a corner in an alleyway, I broke into a sobbing mess of tears and snot. Going back to the university dorms, my friends grew concerned for my health, because I locked myself inside my room. My once roommate Frank was the one who took care of me during my period of mourning. He had been there since my first year of uni, but I grew less and less sociable day by day. I stopped attending soccer practice, and some of my professors even gave me a break from their classes. That was the loneliest I've been during my life back on Earth.
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I told myself to move forward every day when I woke up in the afternoon, but I always ended up in a negative spiral of depression. Even my friends couldn't help lift me up from my spirits, so when I started seeing that they were worried, I just sucked it up and rolled with the pain. I put on a mask that I was okay and I even went back to my regular regime from when I learned of my uncle's death. But it just wasn't the same anymore. Cracks started coming out from my facade, and I grew more reckless in my last year of uni. I guess the thought that my life in the dorm rooms and my friends moving away to have an opportunity to grow big in a different city has finally punched me back into reality. Learning that, I started fading away from the social world, occasionally going to events that I was invited to and avoiding bothering my friends with my lackluster energy. Months flew past in the blink of an eye, and 3 months away till graduation, I met Katrine.
Katrine was what I would call a bookworm. She holed herself up inside the university library, which is why she didn't register on my radar. But with the finals coming, I finally got the motivation to stay inside the library for more than 20 minutes without growing restless and fleeing away from books and silence. I was just minding my own business, reading a book about Landscaping and Engineering, until a girl with reddish brown hair tied in a pony-tail, green eyes that made my heart jump from how magical they were, and her snow-white skin with a warm color underneath to indicate that she is still alive, sat across from my table and opened her book. I was stupefied, to say the least. I've never seen a girl so beautiful before, and I almost regretted not coming to the library just to see her. Almost.
I guess that I had been staring for too long because she threw me a look and asked, "What are you looking at?"
Even her irritated voice felt sweet in my ears, which finally awoke me from my staring, giving her my honest answer;
"An angel", after a few seconds of staring at each other. The girl threw me an annoyed look and went back to reading her book about microbiology and some science stuff.
To not embarrass myself further, I also threw my eyes to the book I was reading. But after seeing someone so beautiful, I couldn't focus on what I was trying to do. I mean, who could concentrate when you're sitting together with a gorgeous woman? I couldn't, and I prided myself on my ability to tune out things when I was focused. So with a few glances every now and then, she finally said;
"Could you stop taking a look at me, you creep?"
Hearing that, I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the picture of a petite woman throwing an insult towards me who towers over her head. Which earned me another annoyed look from her.
I stopped myself from laughing and said, "Sorry, sorry. I'm Callum by the way.". I said with a big smile on my face.
She hesitated a bit but then answered. "Katrine, now stop distracting me and go back to studying"
I couldn't help but smile again and went back to writing notes and studying. Hours went by in the blink of an eye, and when I saw her get up, I asked her out, which she instantly declined. Days went by in the library, and my only motivation for going there now was to go study with Katrine, which she clearly disliked, but her defenses against my dashing looks and neverending quips finally relented, and she accepted my invitation for a date. That day was the most magical of my life, just below the memory of my uncle saving me from a cat attack. We went out 2 times a week, and in the final days till graduation, I finally asked her to solidify our relationship, which she surprisingly instantly accepted. I guess my sociability did come in handy after all.
After graduation, everything was a blur. I got a job and rented a two-person apartment with my savings when I worked part-time, and we moved in to live our monotonous lives. We both didn't really care if the day seemed to pass by with work always around the corner, since we always had the time to talk and have a conversation. Every Friday, Katrine would always have a movie picked up to watch in our sorry excuse of a living room, which is just one couch, a coffee table, and a small LED TV across from us on top of a small Ikea shelf. That was our life for the past 3 years that we were together, but I guess it wasn't enough.
With my reminiscing done, I finally got to thinking about how this all happened. My first thought was that Jake and Katrine, who now I know was actually Katrina, were hooking up behind my back, hence why I saw Jake coming out of our apartment when I got home from my overtime. But if that's so, then why say something about a ritual? And Katrina seemed like she still loved me even if she said that it was supposed to be a quick...death. That was what my mind was blanking about. Why did they try to kill me? And why was it supposed to be quick? I mean, it would have been nice to not feel my bones and body being seared with runes, I guess. But why do I have to be dead?
Does it have to do something with the ritual they're talking about? I didn't really know a lot about Katrina's past now that I think about it, which I found weird since I usually ask about that stuff when I feel that they're closer to me relationship-wise. I know who Frank's parents' and grandparents' name was. Even the children or relatives of my professors and coach. So how did my mind slip to ask about Katrina's background for the past 3 years? That doesn't make sense. It's like I've been thrall to her and under some influence to stop thinking about her past or something.
Was it magic? Now that's just bonkers. There's no way. If there was magic, then Earth would have known a long time ago, unless...
As the sound of crows drew closer, and the occasional thunder crashing in the dark sky, I came to an unlikely, farfetched, and impossible realization. What if both Jake and Katrina weren't from Earth? And with that thought, I felt something perch upon my chest. My mind focused on the sensation, and my unblinking eyes tried to see what was sitting on top of me. However, after seconds of trying, I came to another realization. Wait. Why am I still alive? Thinking about it now, I could still feel my body, and some sensations were coming back to me slowly. But I couldn't feel my heart beating.
My hazy mind grew sharp all of a sudden as I felt the crow peck my jacket away, exposing my grey sweatshirt underneath. Panic came over me as I came to, my vision coming back, more focused than ever before. I could see my surroundings now, even though everything was supposed to be pitch-black. Outlines of things are being fed to me as I saw multiple crows land beside my unmoving body. As they flapped closer and closer, my thinking grew frantic and alarmed. The first crow that landed on my chest started moving my sweatshirt toward my head, slowly exposing my stomach. The other crows waited, eyes gleaming with intelligence and hunger, sending a shiver down my spine, but no movement was made on my body. I could still feel, I could still see. I could also still hear, but I couldn't move, taste, or smell anything.
With my abs and chest exposed now, my sweatshirt riddled with small holes and tears, the other crows jumped onto my stomach. A few seconds of terror went by, and then pain followed.
I expected the pain to come, but I didn't expect it to be so drastic. I wanted to scream from the stabs of beaks digging into my skin and breaking through flesh. Even a small movement would have been enough just to give me a small respite from the insurmountable discomfort I was feeling. The sounds of crows flapping their wings and pecking didn't help with the situation, and I couldn't tune out the pain by focusing on my sight or hearing. After a few minutes of torture and agony, I saw the first crow's head suddenly appear above my face. I swore I yelped like a scared girl in one of those haunted houses every October, but no sound came out from my body at all. Without a way to get free from the pain, I just accepted it and tried to tolerate the digging of flesh and intestines from my now-opened stomach. However, what happened next could not be tolerated, and I screamed in my mind for the pain to stop.
The first crow that landed on top of me and is now peering close to my face, pecked my left eye out. The action from the evil bird hurts like a motherfucker, but what it did next is in another realm of hellish pain. After my left eye was gobbled up by the bird, it pecked inside my now empty eye socket and went for my brain. Imagine that one headache that you wished that you were forced asleep or dead but the pain keeps you up no matter how hard you try to tune it out. It is like that, but a thousand times worse. I feel my brain matter being destroyed by the bird's beak digging into me. Sometimes, the damn bird would fucking miss and peck the edges of my now gouged-out eye, adding more pain rush into my soul. And even though my left eye had been destroyed and stolen by this lunatic of a bird, I could still see the world and its outlines. But I couldn't focus enough to watch my surroundings because of the most painful migraine that I am experiencing right now.
With the first crow feeding on my empty eye socket, another corvid fucker landed on my neck and started pecking my throat out. I'm not going to compare the pain anymore since everything across my body is now being drenched with acid, which in short, is just pain juice, and that is what I am going through right now. Minutes in and my right eye was gouged out, the right side of my brain is now being eaten and destroyed by the corvid fucks that are satisfying themselves with my body.
After a long grueling night of being eaten while still conscious of everything going on around me, my soul felt sapped out of energy. The phantom pain is still there even when the birds from hell are nowhere to be seen. It took hours for my mind to stop panicking and start thinking some words again. And the first thing that came to my mind was I wanna die. It was only natural to wish for death when you were literally dead and eaten by corvids. And thinking about corvids, my consciousness fell into a frantic state of terror and horror again, looking around for any other carnivore that would like to eat my desecrated body. But nothing came out after hours of hushed silence, sometimes being broken by the wind and the sound of leaves rustling and swaying. Hence I started thinking about the situation to try and forget the pain.
Even when my brain has been literally eaten by satan's hellspawn, I could still think. I'm pretty sure that isn't supposed to happen since thoughts and memories are tied to the brain. Thinking at all shouldn't be possible if my whole brain has been turned into mush, and bits of it are sticking out of my eye sockets. And that's another thing, eye sockets. I could still see the world around me as outlines, but everything is so monochrome now unlike before my eyes were gouged out. This borders on the theory that I thought up before everything felt like hell. Maybe this is hell, and this is what I get for pranking Frank by pretending to burn his credit card. But hell was supposed to be surrounded with eternal hellfire that burns the soul for eternity, but I don't feel any pain now. So that lives me to the point that I really am in another world. A world of magic.
If this really is a world of swords and magic, just like that one time I played D&D with John Curt, then I hope I turn into an undead so I can curb-stomp those fuckers who ate my eyes. And I am proud to say that my eyes were great to look at. They were once blue that matches my dirty blonde hair, but now they're gone, inside the stomach of those corvid fucks. The thought of those birds shitting my digested eyes made me fume with rage, which helps with forgetting the pain, which is my primary goal right now.
Lost in my thoughts, I was awakened from them when I felt immense pain from one of my calves. Focusing on them, I could "see" a wolf tearing the muscles of my calves away from the bones. Of course, the feeling is painful, but compared to the sensation of your literal brain being eaten? Then it ain't got nothin'. But pain is pain, so I screamed in my mind, trying to find an outlet for the pain to stop, which is, surprise surprise, nothing. I couldn't move my body, I could only feel. And trying to close my eyes is impossible since there are no eyes to close to. My vision isn't limited anymore to my eyes and gives me a spherical view of a few meters from the center of my body. beyond that line was an eternal darkness that I am yearning for so the pain could stop. However, after screaming and begging for death to come pick me up, he never came. I even started to think about bargaining for death to send me to hell since that seems lukewarm now after experiencing those hellish birds.
Actually, scratch that. I'm fucking sure those hell spawns are going to wait for me in hell and find a way to gouge out my eyes and brains even though there's nothing left to eat. While trying to lighten up my mood, the pain subsided since the wolf seemed to have satisfied itself by eating my left leg, leaving some flaps of flesh and exposed bones. And of course, the wolf would have gone and made my left foot a chew toy, the bastard probably felt bored out of its mind wondering the forest all day, not getting laid and all.
Trying to forget about my screaming and pained cries and whimpers, I retracted my mind and tried to tune out the world around me. But after a few hours of darkness filled with outlines of trees and grass, I was awoken by a loud ding from my "sleep". Wait...Ding?
System Integration Successful
Welcome to Memoriya
...
Huh?