Chapter 8 - A Different World

1/26/2020 11:30 AM

There is was. It was the growl from his dream. Blind, overwhelming fear welled up within Ryan, filling his being with terror. Ryan then spotted the eyes, the goopy, dried-blood red eyes.

Ryan turned to run as the creature pounced forward. Sharp claws dug into his back, slicing and tearing. The creature released a feral snarl. Ryan screamed in terror and pain as many needle-like teeth sand into his shoulder.

Suddenly, Ryan heard a shout and a sound of sliding metal. He then heard something that sounded like a shovel piercing wet clay and sand. The creature on top of him unleashed a wailing yowl of pain. Ryan felt the creature jerk off of him and felt some gooey liquid spatter on the back of his neck.

The creature fell to the ground and was silent. Ryan felt strong hands seize his upper arms and haul him to his feet. “Well, you look alive and that’s good,” said a confident, baritone voice with and Irish lilt. Ryan turned around to face his rescuer.

Ryan found himself face-to-face with a muscular male who towered over him by several inches. He had fiery red hair and bright blue eyes with a sparkle of friendliness and humor. The figure radiated power and confidence. “The name’s Robert Brightling” said Ryan’s savior, “Nice to meet you.”

Ryan, remembering his manners said numbly “Hi, I’m Ryan Davis.”

“Nice name.” Robert replied.

“Thanks.” Ryan turned to look at the creature that attacked him. However, all he found was a pile of a black ash-like substance.

“Yeah these suckers disintegrate pretty fast after you kill them. Consider yourself lucky it was just a small one and a male at that. Otherwise you would be looking at poisoned wounds. Although if it was a large one you would have been killed before I could save you.”

Ryan shuddered. If that was just a small one, what would a big one be like? Ryan thought “Thanks for saving me.” Ryan said, just remembering he had forgotten to thank Rob.

“Ah, no problem” said Robert with wave of his hand. “We can talk about how you got here after we treat your wounds.”

Ryan then felt his shoulder and back begin to sting like crazy where he had been bitten and clawed. Ryan also felt a trickle of blood down his back. He reached back to touch it.

“Don’t touch it” said Robert. He then pulled off his backpack and opened it, taking out a roll of bandages. “Please remove your shirt” he asked, unrolling some bandage. Ryan complied wordlessly.

Robert then took some salve out of his backpack and applied it to Ryan’s back wound before bandaging him. Wordlessly, Ryan put his shirt back on gingerly, since any movement caused him to wince in pain.

“It is a bit of a walk to the nearest safe-haven. Why don’t you tell me about what you were doing in that building on the way?” inquired Robert.

“Okay, what do you want to know?” replied Ryan.

“What was that pod-thing near where you were?” So Ryan launched into the explanation of what brought him to where he was starting with his birthday and Michal’s death. After hearing Ryan’s story, Robert was silent for a while. “Wow, man I am so sorry, that sounds pretty rough.”

“You mean you actually believe me?” Ryan asked.

“Hey, it checks out with everything I saw.”

“Still, I wonder why I did not time travel.”

“Well you said that your dad said the machine could provide time travel as well as inter-dimensional travel. Maybe they accidently sent you to another dimension, in other words here.”

“That would fit in with how things are so different here then what I am used to.” Ryan replied.

“Yeah… well we made it! Let’s finish our conversation inside. It’s getting pretty dark out. The Eviscerators will be out soon.”

“What are Eviscerators?”

“You know the thing you got attacked by?”

“Yeah”

“That’s one of them.” Robert led Ryan up to a metal gate attached to a stone-brick wall topped with barbed wire and torches. On top of the wall were guards armed with crossbows loaded with metal spikes.

Inside the walls were many stout buildings made from solid stone bricks. On top of the buildings were more guards with crossbows. Ryan walked with Robert through the town. Ryan gawked at the impressive fortifications.

“Welcome to Fort Stalwart Ryan. This is one of the strongest safe-havens in this continent even if it’s not the biggest or prettiest.

“Wow” said Ryan, awestruck. It all reminded him of some crazy post apocalyptic war movie. How terrible those monsters I got attacked by must be to require fortifications such as this Ryan mused.

“The outer walls here are solid stone three meters thick and fifty feet tall. There are five-hundred soldiers all extremely well trained and experienced in combat against the monsters we face. In addition to the guards, we have two-hundred citizens all of whom know how to fight well. Our children learn to fight in hand-to-hand and ranged combat from five years old. From age seven, they are trained in advanced combat strategies.” Robert bragged.

“It’s quite impressive,” said Ryan, staggered at the strength of the fortress.

“Oh, and we are home,” said Robert, leading Ryan into a stone home almost exactly like all the others.