His hands shook, dropping his pen on the notebook, as a current of something passed over him. He jumped to his feet, making his head spin, his chair pushed behind to topple over.

  It had been like... many things, phenomena he hadn’t seen or lived through to actually use as descriptors. He did anyways. It’d been like a shockwave of an explosion or a jolt of electricity, hitting and shocking him on the way of its expansion, but it hadn’t been harmful, even though it felt like it should have been.

  Not immediately harmful, that is. There was no telling it hadn’t poisoned him or afflicted him with radiation, or altered the electric signals of his biochemistry, waiting for the trigger to fail.

  The reason he was going through all of these horrible comparisons and awful possibilities in his head, was that, the boy was not normal.

  He did bypass normalcy in many other senses of the word, with his hands covered in scars that gave them color and with his breath disordered at nothing more than getting up from his seat, but in this context, his abnormality was his affliction with the supernatural world.

  Well, phrasing it like that would get her mother complaining, talking about how there weren’t “natural,” “unnatural,” or “supernatural” parts of existence, about how you couldn’t seperate them like that. She’d also get angry at the implication that his involvement with such existence was a negativity, she’d correct him that it was a gift instead.

  His mother wasn’t here though.

  Semantics aside, unlike majority of people alive, he knew they were real, not just fiction or superstition. Creatures of stories like ghosts, trolls, mermaids and giants. Unexplainable events that defied science and logic.

  The supernatural.

  An with that, the humans who wielded it.

  Speaking of which, he hadn’t noticed because of he’d been devoted to painting upstairs, but weren’t his family late? Beyond the fashionable, no less?

  Worried, he got in his slippers to get down to the first floor, leaving his room, which had no windows, forcing him to take the stairs to take a look through the nearest window.

  Each step he took on the way, his nerves stretched closer to the limit, his fear doubled and tripled. He had known about the dangers of their world, but unlike his peers, he hadn’t been familiarized with them, causing him to develop an almost excessive amount of phobia and paranoia for them, for the monsters lurking beyond and below his sight. He was likely to get very scared easily, and according to his kin, he’d get scared out of nowhere, of nothing. He hoped it was one of those.

  But there was some excitement there, too. Cooped up in this house, not getting around, not travelling, not going to school, not visiting a friend or even having one he could write to... It was taking its toll on him. Drawing had been an escape and a passion, and an entire floor to himself was nice, undeniably. But inside, he wanted something to happen, a movement.

  He didn’t know what he had expected to witness, approaching the glass. But it wasn’t anything like he could have imagined.

  Outside, two moons hung in the air.

  He closed his eyes in... what? The tornado of emotions raging inside him was indescribable. He felt like he was going to explode, or rather he wished he had, but it was more like a balloon pushing all of the air inside it to go flying all around, before landing to the ground in the form of a wrinkly, pathetic piece of plastic.

  He collapsed on his back. High emotions had overwhelmed him, tired him out. They always did. A feature of his body, weak since birth.

  Two satellites hadn’t been the only off thing he saw outside. The terrain was rocky with a few trees and bushes here and there, much different from the forested area that covered the perimeter of his clan’s shelter for him. The air here had mist unlike the clear skies he was used to, not so much that it was necessarily hard to see, but it added to the look.

  Perhaps the most alarming should have been the humanoid figures shuffling in the distance, but what had been above had shocked him to the core enough, filling up his room for instinctual terror already.

  He run his hand on his forehead, pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Maybe the analogies for the current he felt should have been like “a gust of wind rushing in after opening the door” or “going through a tunnel while on train.” The first, he had experienced. The second, not so much. Both implied a displacement.

  His family liked him to stay at what was, in a manner of speaking, an alternate reality. From what he had been told, the practice was common in their culture. Their people, the supernatural folk, preferred to make pathways to other earths to settle, claim territory, establish bases of operations and hiding spots.

  Other earths, not other planets. The distinction was important. As far as he knew, no one had moved to Pluto so far, despite how unbelievable the things you could achieve if you had access to power like that were. No, they travelled to other earths, different timelines, possibilities of what Earth could have been. Places that existed in other planes, one could travel all over the cosmos on a spaceship and never find this earth, but it was in the same place as every other earth, just one in a different dimension. According to the word on the street, or rather the word of his cousin, many of these alternative existences were inhabitable. In one earth, there was eternal frost. In another, no atmopshere had formed. Some were viable for life, but hosted a variety of dangerous monsters, and some tales he’d been told by his gramps had claimed humans were the cause of that, exterminating the unnatural from the Earth and droving them out to alternate realities through tears in reality, way back in history. And in a few earths, things were bearable, like the one he stayed at. He had heard of similar concepts, like pocket dimensions and such, but what they had was the real deal, a whole planet to themselves.

  Something, someone, some technique had transported him and the house from the safe reality they were in, to a foreign one. That had been the current, the crack he’d felt pass over him. He’d seen grass around the house go a few feet beyond the walls until abruptly cutting off, transforming into rock and dust. It was confirmation enough, in his mind.

  Questions ran through his mind. How could this happen? Had this been intentional, and if so, intended to harm him? Or a failure of luck, the magical equivalent of a natural disaster striking when it was least expected? Would his family figure this out, come looking for him? Could they, even if they wanted to? Or would they bother, not expanding precious energy and resources to rescue the ugly duck of the family?

  Procrastinating, he knew. At this moment, the answers to those didn’t matter. What he needed to do was keep himself safe.

  Easier said than done. There was a reason his family left him in the house while they were out for missions. He had physical shortcomings since before he could remember; a weak heart that strained too much by merely second of running, skin that got cut and scarred at any opportunity, ears at the hearing capacity of an elderly person, thin musculature that had him beaten in arm wrestling against even the frailest individuals, and a plethora of other things, most minor, but still limiting, including a malfunctioning immune system leaving him suspectible to catching diseases and having allergies.

  If only it ended there.

  The... energy and abilities utilized by the humans involved within the supernatural world had many names in different languages, societies and disciplines. Spirit, the well, magic, curse, the practice, flow, the air of the blessed, cultivation, power... Although the overwhelming majority of humanity remained ignorant of it, many had potential to awaken it within themselves and use it. Some entered the supernatural world from outside, either discovering it themselves and forcing their way in, or were scouted and recruited by someone inside. Others, like the members of his family, born included, by the virtue of having people around them already well versed in manipulating it. And like all things, some people were talented in it from the womb and some were simply not.

  Despite belonging to an old and strong clan, he fell in the second category. The affinity he had for the divine art was the worst of the worst, one in a hundred million or even a billion, in the words of a blunt relative. Practically disabled, he couldn’t do anything with it, not even feel it out within him. His father hadn’t relented, training him every day, not accepting he was nothing more than a genetic failure. Of course, it had failed to do anything other than attract the pitying glances of his siblings and cousins. All of them were very talented, the most talented generation even, according to his aunt.

  He was the runt of the litter.

  It didn’t matter. He’d come to understand a long ago that most things were decided by sheer luck and happenstance. There were people in much, much worse situations, both in bodily health and magical potential. There were people who couldn’t walk, threw up blood daily, people who had months left to live, people who were born with monstrous amounts of power who would live without ever realizing it, because no one had been there for them to point it out. Others were restricted by the family or the country they were born to, trapped. Some were even prisoners in their own bodies, their potentials stunted from either physical deformities or mental illnesses gifted to them by tthe genes of their parents. He supposed he fell into the last group.

  All in all, it didn’t matter. It was what it was. He couldn’t help himself. Either his family would come to his rescue, or...

  He got up. The flurry of bleak thoughts, memories and feelings had drained him, though feeling blank as a consequence of all of that seemed to be advantegeous for getting shit done. He glanced out of the window again.

  There were more figures in the distance, and they seemed to be inching closer.

  Pulling the sheets together, he moved to lock the door. The lights, made possible by a generator that was built way before he was born, were already off save for his own room’s. He grabbed a water bottle and a few snacks from the kitchen, climbed the stairs and put on a thick hoodie, pulling up its hood.

  He hovered over his desk. His drawing, a bowl of fruits, had been unfinished. He’d been going for a quince, an apple, and grapes, favorites of his parents. The way it looked, all rough lines and no colour, was ridiculous. He wondered if his siblings cringed whenever they saw one of his works in the middle of its conception. They’d never particularly liked the completed versions, either. Despite all the body parts of him that were hackled in some way or another, his eyes seemed miraculously untouched, spurring him to take up a endeavor, any endeavor he could perform atleast at a baseline level. He’d settled on drawing.

  Wasn’t sure that was the right choice, still.

  A sharp hit, the melody of the door getting knocked, interrupted his reflections. Thud.

  Another one followed soon after. Bam. Louder, tenser, more aggressive.

  It meant one of those creatures had made it the front of the house. The volume of the strikes were too much even for his muffled ears. His lips quivered.

  Bang.

  He got in his bed, pulling his blanket over his head.

  Bang!

  He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with his family back in the peaceful world, safe and sound-

  Crack.

  His eyes snapped open with the realization the sound was the door giving in to the pressure.

  A loud crunch announced the violent tearing of the door inwards.

  The creature was in.

  For the first time in his life, he was hearing acutely. He could sense the vibrations of each movement of whatever it was that had invaded the house, it steeping inside, rambling around from room to room as he hit and knocked away the furnitures on its path.

  Something shattered loudly understairs. The boy clutched his sides under the blanket, trying to prevent himself from making the littlest sound.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  It wouldn’t have helped, it turned out, as the inhuman steps on the wooden stairs reached his ears soon after.

  It was coming up.

  His breath hitched as he tightened his hold on the blanket, squeezed his feet together and shook in mortal fear. Altough he had never seen one, he’d been told about how the monsters acted. How they would kill, hunt, eat their victims.

  As the monster prowled around in the second floor, the anxiety in his rose second by second. When it came close enough for it tortured, uneven breathing to be heard, the boy held his own.

  It entered the largest room, the one he was hiding in, his living quarters.

  It was close enough that he could see its shadow through the sheet he was under. It was indeed humanoid in shape; torso, two legs and arms, bipedal, standing straight, vaguely the shape of a person, maybe a little rough around the edges with how the muscles seemed to be bulguing out at sharp angles like its shoulders... except, its head looked... the shape of an ant’s, with pinchers and everything.

  It was neither the time nor the place, but suddenly, he was reminded of playing hide-and-seek with his siblings and cousins a few years ago. A snort escaped his mouth, despite his efforts to clamp down on it. Maybe he was one of those people who laughed in stressful situations?

  He couldn’t have known. He’d never been in danger before.

  The monster, which was busy inspecting his fallen chair, cranked its neck around. It came to the side of bed, all the while he was busy trying not to piss himself. Looming over him, the shadow great, it reached for him, and the boy saw it had a hand of five digits just like a human before he- he leaked urine on his bed.

  Gripping the blanket, the monster yanked it off him.

  First thing he noticed, was that he had sweated under there. The cool air hit him like the first moments of being out of the shower. Contrasting terribly with the hot and wet feeling he was enduring between his legs, he wanted to rip his pajamas apart and dash to the toilet.

  The second thing he noticed, was the disgusting eyes of the creature on him.

  They were pitch black, indeed that of an ant. That was the case for its entire head, a type of ant complete with twitching antenna. Everything below the head, its neck, torso, arms and legs, all belonged to a man, or rather to the corpse of one, being dark shades of purple all over, with mutated shapes like bulging, disgusting muscles threatening to pop out of the thing and declare their independence and hard chitin growths penetrating out of its skin on the middle of its chest, the back of its left arm, and a dozen of smaller ones signalling the inhumanity of this abomination.

  His brain circuited at the sight, and it was more instinct than thought that had him rolling over to fall at the end of the creature’s toes.

  The strike on his bed sounded just like the sickening sound of destruction that had rang from the front door a few minutes ago.

  Shit. If only his room had windows... though it wouldn’t be of much help, even if he could beat the odds and jump out without immobilizing himself in the process, he was stuck in this universe as far as he knew, with similar monsters climbing out of where this one had come from.

  He crawled on his hands and knees, struggling to get to his feet and jumped to the corner of the room, attempting to reach the corner of the room. Turning around when he did, he saw the ant-human hadn’t given chase, standing exactly where he was when he punched down the bed, aiming for his head. Its fist was inside the mattress.

  Hundreds of signals passed across the neurons within the boy’s brain, screaming about a crowd of subjects and feelings; Hopes, love, hate, possibilities, regrets, curses. They settled on one thing at the end, fight, dismissing the two other choices of freeze and flight. This was half-fueled by the primitive drives that governed every animal’s brain and half-fueled by the more modern conflicts of expectations and disappointment of the human mind, of the desires the boy had held in his heart all along.

  For once in my life, he thought, I want to move. I want to punch, I want to hit with everything I have and I want to run out of breath in a struggle.

  The ant-human raised the mattress, its hand still stuck in it. It flung the mattress at the boy with terrific force.

  I want to give fight.

  Putting his hands in front of him, he parried the thrown object to the side, but the power behind it was too much. He spun on his toes, struggling to not fall. When he had asserted his balance, the monster had closed the distance, its arm in the middle of a swing.

  I want to give it my all!

  He swung his own fist, a ferocious scream tearing its way out of his throat, giving his last stand. His eyes were closed, expecting the longer limb of the monster to connect the coming punch to him sooner than his own could reach its temple.

  The moment never came. In its place, there was an overwhelming impact on his knuckles, so great and hot that he feared something in his hand broke.

  One eye openingly slowly, he witnessed the sight of the monster laid across the ruins of his bed, the frame snapped in half.

  What?

  The monster struggled to get up, flailing on the ground.

  I did that?

  It rose to its feet, wobbling.

  H-how?

  The boy was a child, a middle schooler by this time had he went to school. He wasn’t particularly tall or big, just the opposite, he was even shorter than peers and thin like a toothstick, thanks to his problems with food. He wasn’t trained in any martial art, and he was supposed to be barren, completely devoid of any spiritual ability of note.

  He noticed it then, the little tells. Before, accidentally hitting his hand to the wall would have been enough to left scrapes on the back of his hand, but he felt no pain, saw no injuries on it. His body’s usual reactions to any high intensity activity such as hyperventilation, his vision going dark, his head spinning was nowhere to be seen. His hearing felt boosted, as if suddenly a doctor had arrived to swap his ears with the best available. He could hear every creak, every notch of sound around.

  And he felt... energized. As if he’d been running on half a night’s of sleep his entire life, as if he’d been walking around drugged all this time, the grogginess, the drowsiness, it was all... missing! He’d never, ever, ever existed with this much charge, the possibility to do without slowing down and dropping to the ground soon after.

  His heart thrummed like an engine inside his chest.

  The eyes of the boy locked onto the monster. Its demeanor had changed, it was gazing upon the boy, its arms raised beyond its face in a shielding gesture. It took a hesitant step towards him.

  The posture of the ant-human had given him ideas. Drunk on the moment, and excited at the newfound power, the boy raised his arms as well. He might have never been in a fight before, but he’d watched plenty of boxing bouts, courtesy of his uncle, a fan of the sport.

  Ant-human approached him with small, precise steps. Circling. The boy was backed to a corner, technically, and the monster had the advantage.

  The boy chose to rush.

  He was upon the beast in mere moments, his elbow thrown back. The blow rang loud on the monster’s forehand, pushing the limb away to expose its face, which the boy landed the best he could muster on to. The monster reeled back, looking like it was about to collapse, but threw a punch back, landing clean right under the chest of the boy. As the breathe fled out of his lungs, his feet left the ground. His back hit the wall behind him, pain exploding inside. For a moment, he froze for the possibility of paralyzing his spine, but it passed and he ducked under the swing of the monster. The metallic taste on his tongue was the only thing familiar in this foreign situation, shining as an unexpected point of comfort. His kick crushed the testicles of the monster, making it jump on the spot, revealing a nice opening in between the legs for the boy to take. Suddenly, the positions were reversed, and he was the one shooting against the one in the corner. His fist grazed the mandible of the monster, but it got away lightly by dropping onto one knee.

  The boy leapt back to avoid a leg grab. Not good, that one. Turning this into a grappling match wouldn’t do him any favors, he felt. The monster was full of strength, while the power of the boy’s punches was from his speed and acceleration. He’d lose that on the ground. Not to mention if that thing decided to bite him...

  Thankfully, it got up. He kicked its leg at the first attempt of a step. He did it again.

  He’d seen this in the footage of cage fights. Anytime there was an opportunity, he kicked it in the leg. If executed correctly, it was low risk, low energy, and stacking enough of them took the legs of the opponent from under them.

  It didn’t take long for the creature’s leg to start twitching and dragging. It was slower, more predictable, had less danger in its fists. He danced out of the way of a grab.

  Could he do it? Could he beat it? He was almost afraid of thinking it, but the way this was going...

  He would end this.

  Ant-human finally snapped, having a fit, swinging its arms around, stomping its foot, shaking its head. Anger. It jumped.

  Right here, right now. He threw a step forward, to plant his foot firmly on the ground for the incoming hit aimed at its head, a left hook.

  The creature suddenly stopped, shifting to the right.

  What? Predicted?

  It spun, its arm tight around its body. An extreme close range punch.

  Outsmarted...

  I’m dead.

  His vision fell, his arm swung down, coming down on the ribs of the creature, on the lengthened and unprepared muscles of its right side. The monsters punch, its own left fist, swooshed above his head and he felt it drag over as it went back the way it came, following the rest of the ant-human’s body which had been blasted away.

  The boy looked down.

  The foot he had thrown beyond to derive power from had penetrated deep into the floor, making one side of his body fall downwards.

  Huh.

  He wasted no time. The monster had one hand on the ground, its arm bent at a delicious angle. His leaping kick, landing perfectly, broke it on the joint.

  He’d won.

  Although the monster had gotten up again, one side of it had been rendered useless.

  He destroyed its third limb with another kick to the joint, its left knee this time. It fell horribly on its back.

  He pounced. The flurry of hits pounded on and on on the monster’s head. He grabbed one pincher, twisting it, and struck with his other hand on the side. With the balance needs met, he was free to deliver full power hit after full power hit.

  He did exactly that, destroying the monster, not allowing it a moment of breather.

  For the finisher, he interlocked the fingers of his two hands and brought the fist on the forehead of the creature.

  It stopped moving, stopped twitching.

  He had done it.

  He had won.

  He breathed, heavily and excessively, as his brain sang songs of victory and success. It was a cocktail he’d never tasted before, and it was overwhelming, trapping him where he sat, on the unmoving body of the monster.

  Eventually, he got up. Running bloody hands through his hair, he thought. The batle had burnt his lifeless spirit with flames of passion. The fight had been scary, but the aftermath? It was pleasant just to listen to his heart beat.

  But still, what was he going to do now? Where was he going to do?

  Having kept his eyes on the lifeless body, he received the answer.

  The torso of the corpse split, torn through by shining rectangles emerging upwards... teeth. Two squishy bits of flesh formed at the edges of the tear. Lips.

  A mouth had appeared on the body of the creature. "Greetings! This is a pre-sent message! I won't hear or reply to whatever you'll say! So listen, and listen well," it spoke, throwing out spit and chunks of meat everywhere as it did, forcing the boy to take a step back. The augmented voice of the gigantic organ was like a deep and had a bass to it, almost like the of police.

  The ones that he'd seen on videos, anyways.

  He closed his eyes as the mouth opened once again, intending to take its advice for listening. An hour ago, he’d been scared to death by a mouth on a corpse. Now though, he had come face to face with death, adrenaline still surging through his veins. He was willing to hear out whatever this thing was going to say.

  “I am the God of Aid and Assistance.”

  His brows climbed to disappear behind his bangs as his heart rate picked up speed. He had... heard of Gods. Some people argued about the naming of them, partly because it was a sensitive issue and partly because there wasn’t much else to talk about them. They were throroughly unattested for his family. A cousin had confined in him of her not believing in their existence to him, even.

  Here, though? He was willing, desiring even, of accepting they were real. Especially because of its name. Aid and Assistance? Was it going to help him somehow?

  “I’ll be frank.”

  ...That couldn’t be good.

  “The dimension you fell into is hidden.”

  As in?

  “Meaning that it’ll be next to impossible for rescuers to locate where you are.”

  Fuck.

  “And even if they do, the door has been locked twice and the key has been thrown into the lake.”

  His head dropped as tears welled up in his eyes. The euphoria of his fresh victory was leaked alongside the drops of water.

  “The good news is, you can still survive, or even get out of here, all by yourself!”

  He wiped the tears out of his eyes.

  “I’ve been informed you’ve been lacking in the Shine your entire life.”

  Shine? He’d never heard that term for spiritual energy.

  “If you are hearing this, it’s safe to say you have realized you do possess some, surely.”

  He had. The magnitude of the moment hadn’t allowed him to dwell on it, but curiosity reared its head as he took in the god’s words.

  “It’s a play of fate, a stroke of luck, chances missed, assumptions found incorrect! You have what it takes to travel to the end of this earth and see to your freedom! My consultions with the God of Future and Fortune have bore fruit, and I know the exact path you need to follow to keep air in your lungs!”

  He didn’t dare breathe or blink, lest he miss a cruical detail.

  “Fight! Fight back against every monster your prison throws at you! Fight, grow and win! Never run from battle, ever! Seek it out! Don’t forget, fighting is your ticket out, your lifeline! Don’t waste any time hiding, waiting, planning, just throw yourself to it! Heed my words, and eventually, you’ll pave your path out!”

  The speech filled the boy with something new, something beautiful, flowing along his blood and heating him up. He shook as pure emotion threatened to spill over to the floor.

  “That was all, boy,” the mouth said. “I am sorry I couldn’t be of better help, truly a disappointment of my name, but there are forces even stronger, even less chained than me at play. I hope we get to meet on the other side.” With that, the teeth started to rot, the lips shrinking.

  “Though I do wonder,” the disappearing mouth whispered, “if all of this is really mere happenstance,” the boy came closer to hear, “or it is by design...”

  What a foolish God. Could it no think those last words would plant hesitation in a person’s mind, would slow them down, causing the opposite affect of what had been intended with its entire speech?

  No matter. In his case, the God had succeeded. He was not going to waste time looking for answers, solving mysteries or anything alike.

  He heard the creak of the floor as something stepped inside understairs. The heat he was enveloped in, the energy he was bursting with, intensified to the next step as if someone had just turned the control button a notch up.

  He raised both arms up.

  He squatted as he swung down.

  His fists met the ground where his step had made a hole in.

  The floor broke.

  He fell.