I Went Missing for A Decade, Now I'm A Target.

Chapter 1:

“I don’t know why you keep questioning me! I know as much as you do.” I protested as I was being questioned by some government officials. “We just need to know more about what happened there, Skylo. Please be cooperative and we will make sure you are safe.” They said as they tied down my hands so I wouldn’t attack them again. “Alright fine! I spent over 10 years or so in that god forsaken place, I have more than enough stories to satisfy you people so let me start from the beginning.”

My name is Skylo Montana, a lot of crazy things have been happening ever since we have been in quarantine. My wife had gotten sick so our whole family had to stay indoors for the most part everything was semi normal, now that I really think about it everything got way out of hand in less than a day, one minute there was people outside, walking their dogs, children’s laughter, and the next a thunderstorm that seemed to appear out of nowhere making the bright blue sky instantly dark, pretty weird day if you ask me. We have only been dealing with a slightly less dangerous version of the flu around this time, hence the fact why we all were quarantined for a couple days, but something really strange happened on the final day of our quarantine. It was a slow lazy morning as always and I was awoken to my son crying next to me, he was only 3 months old at the time and I have been pretty used to having him sleep on the bed rather than the baby crib and he seemed more comfortable on the bed also, so I guess it was a win-win situation there. After I fed him and put him on his rocking crib, I went downstairs to fix some breakfast. My wife was in the living room with my father watching the early day news, I checked my watch and it read 9:30 A.M.

“Another day of doing nothing for me” I said jokingly to which my dad chuckled, while my wife rolled her eyes at. Me and her weren’t on the best of terms and well my dad had no idea, but I didn’t feel comfortable letting anybody in my personal problems, I’ve always been private about myself and a hell of an introvert, so I rarely shared anything. I’m getting off topic here so anyway, a couple hours have passed we went from eating to just watching tv and caring for my son basic routine stuff. We were in the middle of watching this Spanish comedy when suddenly. we got an emergency broadcast I’ll translate what it said:

“This is an emergency broadcast alert broadcasted by the U. S. T. F. organization. Around 3:35 P.M. some mysterious unidentified circular objects have appeared in the town of Sumbay, Indiana. Around 4:12 P.M. these circular objects have opened, and mysterious creatures have risen from them. This broadcast will relay instructions as to how to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. These instructions are paramount to your survival until a dispatch team rescues you. This is not a test. This is not a test. Do not go outside. Lock all doors, and windows go to a room preferably your basement that has no doors or windows, cover your ears, and keep your eyes shut. Make yourself as small as possible by going into the fetal position, do not open the door for anybody if you have pets outside leave them. LOOK AT THE MOON LOOK AT THE MOON. Do not look in the night sky they are waiting outside. Ignore outside noises and do not look into mirrors, close and secure all doors and windows. Switch off all lights and do not look outside. Do not answer any knocking remain silent, do not investigate any outside noises nor lights if you see any unidentified figure inside your home or the corner of your eyes do not attempt to investigate. Do not look at the ceiling and remain calm at all times. Should any family member go missing do not look for them.”

“What the hell?” She murmured under her breathe, meanwhile my father was doing as told and made sure everything was closed and said, “We have plenty of food and water and plenty of baby food for these types of emergencies, I have prepared for a situation like this for ages.” As they hastily started covering and boarding up the doors I went upstairs for my son, James. I was frantically running upstairs, and I had this creeping feeling that something was terribly wrong. I opened the door, and he was gone, I ran downstairs and there was nobody home “What the hell… Dad? Honey? Where are you guys?!” I was desperately calling out to them when suddenly I heard small but silent cries coming from my dad’s bedroom. I tried opening the door, but it wouldn’t budge so I repeatedly rammed into it with my shoulder until it gave in. As soon as it broke open, I saw my son on the bed sound asleep, “Oh god I’m glad you’re ok I was so worried!” As soon as I said that I realized I have not been following most of the instructions given and I felt a great feeling of dread as the room started getting engulfed in darkness. “Oh no, no, no, no, fuck fuck fuck! This can’t be happening!” As the worlds left my mouth, I felt my son being pulled away from my arms by the darkness, it was a tug of war fight at the moment I was holding on for dear life and I screamed “You won’t take him away from me you demons!!” I got pushed back while my son got taken and engulfed into the darkness. As I was losing consciousness, I felt my body slowly being covered by the cold feeling darkness, I was having trouble breathing until it covered my eyes, and I blacked out.

Chapter 2:

As I started slowly drifting back into consciousness, I felt horrible pain around my body, and everything felt surreal. After I regained some strength, I dragged myself up against a wall and realized I wasn’t in my house anymore, but instead somewhere else with endless hallways and turns, everything looked so melancholy and empty. The walls had a bright beige and green color to it similar of that of a fizzling lightbulb gives out to a white room. As I stood there, I heard footsteps behind me as I turned, I saw a darting shadow hide behind a wall, a tall tell sign to let me know it’s time for me to go.

It must’ve been days before I managed to find a way out, that whole experience was rather strange. By the third day I nearly went insane, I was laying down for a couple minutes and I felt the floor itself start consuming my clothes, so I didn’t have a choice but to keep moving while hearing footsteps behind me just made me more paranoid to even stop at all. I don’t even know how I got out but it’s like I phased through the wall falling onto a hard concrete floor nearly pushing all the air out my lungs. As I was gasping for some precious air I heard a stream of water just behind me, as I turned around, I noticed that nothing was around me not even the place I was recently in. Against my better judgement and rationality, I rushed towards to stream to gulp down what might’ve seemed like gallons of water, it was bitter and rough tasting, but it felt amazing to finally consume something.

As I finally pulled my head out the water I paid more attention to my surroundings, even though everything seemed relatively normal it was also very different. The sky was bright purple with dark clouds, but there was no storm whatsoever even though I hoped it did rain. As I walked for the next couple days the sky never seemed to change only at nighttime, but it only darkened also never even rained once. I think I was focused too much on the rain I had completely forgot I’ve been walking for days without finding anything other than some rocks and trees to keep me company. There was one thing though, I swear I could hear footsteps around me and sometimes see things watching me from afar, after the whole hallway situation I couldn’t just brush it off as my imagination, although I haven’t eaten anything for nearly half a month now.

I think I must’ve fallen asleep after getting lost with my thoughts, because I have awoken during the night to a full-blown thunderstorm. I noticed almost immediately that this storm wasn’t normal. The lightning never seemed to strike the ground only the water I saw afar. “Water? Oh my god water!” I exclaimed as I ran towards the large river but as I got closer, I realized I must’ve been on an island since it looked more like an ocean than a river. That’s when I noticed how loudly everything was around me, although there was no rain there was a heavy storm brewing. “What is going on? Why is there-” Before I could finish my sentence, I was grabbed by the leg by this spider humanoid creature, it had the face of a man but 8 eyes and had an awful stench to it. “What the fuck is that?!” I screamed being caught off guard looking at this creature just then another tackled it which gave me enough time to run while they fought over the meal that was clearly getting away. As I ran, I noticed more creatures staring from the woods and some even chasing right behind me, I couldn’t even put into words the horror I felt which gave me the motivation to keep running. I must’ve been careless while doing so since I tripped over a root falling face first onto the dirt, and as I turned around to try to stand up a lanky creature pinned me down snarling at me and slowly its face contorting and transforming into my very own face. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out, just when I gave up all hope the creature’s face was split in half spilling all its blood onto my clothes. I turned to face a big wall I saw from a distance and people in watch towers signaling me to hurry to them as they covered me. Once again, I got up and took off faster than I did previously now seeing I had an actual destination. The gates were open to let me in and closed rapidly as I slid right in, but a creature managed to slip in with me grabbing me by the arm and breaking it simultaneously as it threw me onto the floor. As I tried to catch my breath after having the air knocked out me once again, I saw one of the village protectors tackle the behemoth and subdue it enough for the others to kill it. As I stared in awe, I felt my consciousness slowly fading away and that’s when the protector walked towards me, and as he stared down at me, he said in a rather odd but familiar accent “You will be fine, you will have a job appointed to you upon your recovery, also welcome to Beige Town.”

Chapter 3:

“Alright Skylo, hurry on with it already.” The agent said as he positioned the light towards my face “Get that shit out my face, it’s a long story so you either let me finish it or I’ll keep my mouth shut and take this story to the grave” The agents exchanged looks briefly and stared at me and said, “Alright then, continue.”

As I woke up, the protector walked into the room I was in and asked “Are you feeling any better? My name is Helmo, what is yours?” I was more focused on how he looked like than the question itself, he looked human but with blue darkened skin. “Oh right, my name is Skylo nice to meet you.” I said as I extended my hand just to have abruptly smacked away. “Are you trying to start a war?!” he exclaimed which caught me off guard fully, but it turns out the politics around here are way different. As I talked more to Helmo, it turns out a simple handshake can start a whole war which explains why he reacted the way he did. I was given a job to work as a wall guard to make sure no creatures climb over or get passed the walls protecting the village, but sometimes they will get a little too close for comfort. It’s been like this for a couple days and the food they eat was weird which got me to believe I am not in my own world but in a different one altogether. They have these bars that look like granola snacks, but instead have all the nutrients needed for the human body to keep working the taste is rather disgusting but its nutritious.

“Is this the future?” I asked to one of the guards stationed with me “What are you on about son? This life is all we know, as long as I can remember we been fighting these creatures our whole life.” The thought of that made me question where exactly am I or what happened that caused this world to become like this. As I talked more to them it turns out we are one of the few small cities with a thriving community in this world, but there’s only one big city everyone is trying to escape to which is called Sky city. “There’s also another city which isn’t nearly as good, but people prefer to be there called Starlight.” “Pfft, Starlight sounds better than Sky city!” I interrupted, he stared and said, “Don’t be fooled by the name son, Sky city is the one place you would rather be while being in this hellhole.”

As I talked more to them to find out more about this place, I fully disregarded the fact that I was under a purple sky rather than the blue one I woke up to every day since I was born. I asked them about it turns out there was a war that took place that completely wiped out most of the population in most areas while leaving a few survivors scattered all over the place left to rebuild. The change in color was caused by nuclear warfare which turned the blue-sky purple, following with dark clouds that at times rained down acid. They still can’t explain how the creatures came about but the more I find out about this place it seems that I somehow got teleported to a different planet.

I also learned the amount of creatures in this place are nearly endless they actually gave up on giving all of them names, but the ones that did have a name were the Shifters which take your facial features and blend into communities to invade them. Also, the humanoids which were creatures with human resemblances, but you can tell right away they were not human at all. “This sounds like a nightmare how did I end up here?” I thought to myself as we shot at a humanoid spider. Just then, Helmo came from behind my post and said “Skylo, we are having visitors from the town over, make sure you stay alert while they enter, we don’t want nothing slipping in.” I nodded in response holding up my rifle to my chest “Who are those that will be visiting?” I asked, “They’re from Sky City, we have an agreement which they give us ammo and weapons in exchange for a super soldier which are children born with latent potential you’ve already met one, Helmo.” I was frankly stunned upon hearing this, turns out in this place 1 in 1000 children born are born with superhuman speed and strength which explains why Sky City wants to have them to protect their community that is 10 times bigger than ours. They also give the parents of the super child a place to live in Sky City which is what everybody wants but not everyone is allowed in there unless you break in, which sadly also explains why parents don’t form any significant relationships with their children, the morality of it all is unethical and just simply wrong when it comes to choices involving children. I just hope what comes next isn’t something I should be worried about.