This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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Not really having any other choices, I picked up Rambo in my arms and entered the spaceship while keeping my head on a swivel. Everywhere I looked, I saw something I had never seen before. The inside of the ship was white and grey, giving the impression of being extremely clean and tidy.

The walls were giving the impression of being made out of some type of metal but were warm to the touch. As soon as I entered the ship, the nanites in my body began to go crazy and kept displaying tons of information about the ship, our surroundings and many other things I didn't understand.

“Hehehehe amazing isn't it? I reacted the same way the first time I saw Nibiru's technology for the first time.” Said older me while guiding me to what seemed to be the main control room. He then showed me a seat next to his, where I sat with Rambo on my lap. I hadn't uttered a single word since coming aboard the ship, since I was completely overwhelmed and in awe before everything my eyes could see.

“We're all set, bring us home E.M.M.Y.” Then said older me as if someone else was in the ship with us. “Trajectory e.983-n2351 initiated. Arrival in T minus: 00.16.4” Suddenly said a female voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

“W-who's that?” I inquired. “Ha! It's Emmy. A highly advanced artificial intelligence. I wouldn't have made it this far without her.” Answered older me with what seemed like nostalgia in his voice. As he was answering, the ship could be felt moving. It was the same sensation as when you are taking an elevator. You could feel it moving, but you couldn't exactly tell at which speed.

“There should be a 'show window' option that appears when you look at any wall on this ship, try it.” Then said older me with a mischievous smile on his lips. Curious, I looked at the wall next to me and indeed saw the open window option. Focusing on it, what seemed like a computer window suddenly opened and offered me a view of the outside.

The entire ship was devoid of windows, but apparently they had some type of software doing that instead. No matter where you wanted to see outside, you could do so by simply opening one of these windows. They felt like these backup cameras installed in modern cars but were used to see through the ship's walls.

From the look of it, it also appeared that the person opening the window was the only one able to see it. These nanites truly were incredible, but if you had them work in concert with this advanced technology, nothing seemed impossible. Looking through the window allowed me to get a good look at what was outside.

The ship slowly took altitude, gently turned toward the programmed direction and BAOM! It took off so quickly that I could barely see the scenery. This thing was crazy fast and by the look of it, could take us anywhere on the planet in under a day. “Alright, you must be overwhelmed, so take your time to calm yourself. You've been through a lot after all. Ask any question when you feel ready for it.” Said my double while unpacking what seemed like astronaut food.

“Back then... Don't you think you overdid it? I mean... Killing Kuyani's parents and everything.. For fuck sake will I become this cruel in the future?” I asked. It is true that I still couldn't understand why he had been so cruel to Kuyani back then. Hearing this, older Nathan's expression became serious and he seemed to be struggling with it as well.

“I know... There's no doubt you will feel that way about what I did. B-but that's because we both experienced different outcomes.” He calmly said while toying with his snack's wrapping. “I am from a different timeline from you, but in both of our cases, everything up to my intervention remained the same. I crash-landed into the sea thanks to Marc just like you, drifted for days before finally washing up on Duliptani territory, etc.

But it is after this, that things went differently. When I saved Kuyani, unlike you I had no means of understanding her. I brought her back to her village, and just like you, I made a major mistake by showing her the colour of my blood.” Older me was appearing to be getting angrier the more he recalled his story.

“You know, I was happy after seeing her reaction. She seemed genuinely happy that my blood was red. I didn't know why, but I thought that maybe things would go well for me. The first time I was finally able to understand her, was when Rambo came back to me.” He said while tenderly looking at the sleeping dragon on my lap. His eyes were unmistakably watering as he appeared to be struggling with long forgotten memories.

“Like you, I thanked her for everything and told her that I needed to leave and go back to my people, to which she invited me to a farewell party... Well up to then, everything was pretty similar to what you've experienced yourself. Sadly though, unlike you I didn't have nanites to detoxify and protect my body against poison, so when Kuyani attacked us, there was nothing Rambo and I could do.

I instantly blacked out and when I regained consciousness...“ At this point, older me had stopped recalling his story and was gritting his teeth in anger while ripping to pieces the plastic wrapping he had been playing with thus far.

“W-when I woke up, they had already chopped Rambo to pieces, his small body had been drained of blood and they were in the process of cutting his flesh via his body's weak spots. Dragon skin is hard, but that day I learned that dragons could be dismembered if you went through the mouth or the anus.

These fucking monsters were celebrating, drinking his blood and feasting on his flesh.“ At this point, old Nathan's face was all contorted and twisted by anger. Being able to feel dokari, I could feel that his insides were boiling and on the verge of exploding.

“Why? Why did they suddenly turned hostile like that?” I curiously inquired. Old me then seemed to calm down as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Remember how quickly you got stronger after beginning to consume dragon meat? Well it's the same for them. These people spend most of their lives meditating and cultivating dokari in their bodies in order to get stronger.

Red blood and red meat are among the most valuable products in this world because of that. The last red blooded human to come to this world a thousand years ago ended up being made prisoner by the Nehobians, and used as breeder. That's why the Nehobians are currently more powerful than the Duliptanies...” He said with disgust and anger showing on his face.

“To these people, red blooded creatures are nothing more than a means to grow stronger. Be it themselves, or their entire clans. Seeing a juvenile dragon is an unbelievable stroke of luck for these people. Annoyingly enough, they also had their own plan for me. From the first time Kuyani saw my red blood, all she thought about was how to obtain my 'seeds'.

Having hybrid children with a red blooded 'dragonkin' was the best way to bear powerful offspring and strengthen their tribes in the process. So after waking up, even as I saw them dismember by baby boy, I couldn't do anything. I was chained to a bed with tons of gold shackles which were draining the dokari out of my body.

They kept giving me small doses of poison and regularly took samples of my blood for their personal consumption as well as to keep me weak. To make things worse, the tribe women continuously raped me in the hope of getting pregnant. They were using this drug that kept making me go hard against my will, I was nothing more than a sperm sac for them...”

As he recalled this part, it seemed obvious that he was trying to avoid the details as he was struggling to forget about these horrendous memories. Seeing how emotionally scarred these events had made him, I couldn't help but feel anger as well, but for some other reasons. “If you knew this was going to happen, why didn't you get me out of there the first time we met?” I angrily asked.

Apparently aware that this question would eventually come up, 'future me' took a deep breath and continued. “For many reasons... I knew that as soon as I made a major change like taking you somewhere else, the predictable future I was aware of would immediately take a different path and change. This place was the area where you would reunite with Rambo so I couldn't recklessly change things around. It was also because I wished to give Kuyani a second chance.

I did some changes, like giving you the ability to understand her, and went as far as commissioning an 'oracle' friend of mine to 'embellish' the story given to Kuyani a few years prior. I had been wondering if her actions were a result of pure barbarism, or if they were some type of societal indoctrination.

Truthfully, I wondered what she would have done if she thought of you as being her 'destined one'. That way, maybe she wouldn't follow the same path but... Seem like this ending was unavoidable after all.” He said with a complicated expression on his face before continuing his story where he had left it off.

“Anyway, I don't know how long I remained their prisoner, but one day something happened. The Nehobian sacrifices they had originally brought to bribe me arrived and were put in jail, but that had been a miscalculation on their part.

It appeared that these Nehobian prisoners were more important than they had first thought. No matter who they were, the Nehobians judged them important enough to send an army to their rescue. Their army eventually reached the village, and a full-on war broke during the night in which Kuyani and her tribe members perished.

The Nehobians, who happened to be these weird purple Asian people I had only seen once before, eventually found me, but of course, they had no intention of releasing me. They intended to do the exact same thing I had been put through by the Duliptanies. They loaded me on a carriage, and began their journey back to their territory, but one night an opportunity struck.

Taking advantage of a monster attack, I managed to escape, but for weeks after that, they kept hunting me down like dogs stalking a red fox. I eventually came across an area filled with dokari, so I regained my strength, then struck back. I killed thousands upon thousands of them. I was filled with anger and blood-thirst, and could barely remember who and what I used to be like at this point in my life.

It took me months to finally get back to Cabano. (Name of Nathan's town) When I finally made it back there, just like Rambo had said, the others were nowhere to be found. The mobile shelter was still incomplete, and monsters were crawling everywhere. I went back to my house and hid in my bunker for a few more months.

The reason I hadn't gone out looking for them was because of something I found. After searching the hospital, I came across Camille's diary. Can you believe that I didn't even know she was writing a journal? Most of its contents were quite personal so I won't tell you the details. After all, 'your' Camille is still alive as we speak. Anyway, what devastated me the most in her journal were the last pages.

From what Camille wrote, the group had been plagued by a sudden illness which rapidly killed Léopaul, Alice and Annie, since the elderly and young children were more susceptible to these foreign pathogens than the others. Camille and Emanuella were the only ones who hadn't gotten seriously sick, so they were spending all of their time nursing the sick and trying to save their lives, but one day, something happened.

Marc who had been severely sick for 2 days at the time, happened to talk in his sleep due to high fever. He apparently mentioned having sabotaged my plane as Emanuela was taking care of him. Hearing that my 'death' had been caused by him sabotaging my plane, ended up affecting Emanuela in an unexpected way.

Having apparently lost her mind, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him 33 times on his hospital bed before Camille could arrived at the scene and stop her. Marc died on the spot, and later, maybe unable to bear with her situation or what she had done, Emanuela took her own life by swallowing an entire bottle of out of date sleeping pills. How stupid was I to never realize how much this girl loved me... No offence to you.” He then jokingly said with a voice that sounded more sad than amused.

“The entries in her journal stopped at this point, so I assume Camille died not too long after that. I never learned how Camille died, but when I arrives, there were no corpses. The cockroaches had gotten to them before me so there was no evidence left for me to analyze.

Since I was the only one left in this alien world, I slowly let myself go and fell into a deep depression which lasted a few months, but eventually something forced me out of my bunker. Earthquakes, flash floods, mysterious monster migration and even volcanic eruptions appeared to be happening everywhere so I eventually had to flee my bunker in order to survive.