Chapter 1

Unknown Lands

Rex Lopiz-

05/10/25 1:00pm

It was Saturday, one of the few days I got off, I usually use my off days in the house to get the sleep that I missed during my work days, Or I'm outside trying to enjoy the day. but that does not happen as much as I wish it did.

Today I'm just going to take it easy and use the day to clean the house as well as watch some television, First thing I do is wash up, Then I do any chore which needs to be done.

I do the dishes which I left last night, once I did all of those I sat down on the couch and turned on the Television.

To my surprise the News was on, Usually I don't watch the news such my phone tells me the weather for the day, That's all that I cared about mainly but the way the news anchor was speaking was not the usual way.

The news anchor then began to speak.

"The president of the United States will now be making a statement about the matter now."

Then the president replaced the news anchor, Seeing this I knew that something was not right, The president at the time was Mark Hue, The man said he was going to change the United States during his election speech, He made more local jobs which was good but that's about it for now, Mark Hue then began to speak.

"Yesterday at 18:00 hours a new land mass appeared near the borders of Hawaii, the size of this land mass seems to be about the size of Rhode Island, the land mass also has grass as well as trees like any other piece of land." he took a breath

"The land mass has been connected to Hawaii by a new land bridge, the land bridge is as wide as a two way highway, while on the land mass is a giant doorway which after investigation leads to another world."

He paused for a couple of minutes to let that sink in, as he did the reporters were about to ask him questions but before they could he spoke again.

"The doorways that lead to the other worlds are being called Gates, yes you heard me Doorways."

He made sure to let people hear the S on doorways and kept speaking,

"We are not the only country to have land masses appear with a gate on it, It seems that a handful of other countries at this time are finding the same thing in their countries, the only difference is the gates design as well as the world which the gate goes to," he took another breath.

"A handful of countries have sent military forces into the gates including the United States however we all saw something else inside of the gates, we all encountered creatures that have their own civilizations inside of the world that the gates lead to and of course every country tried to communicate with their creatures." he paused before talking again,

"But all of the countries had a language barrier, meaning they understood none of the words they spoke and the creatures did not understand them, we did not have this happen to us, instead our military force was met with hostile actions from the start." he stopped while looking in the cameras.

"Which in turn led to us discovering that it was truly a new world besides the creatures that were not as advanced as us with technology, instead they had powers like magic.” he paused

“No, it was magic because there is no other way to describe it, none of us would have believed it until our military force returned with those creatures chasing them through the gate, into our world this is drone footage of the encounter on our side of the gate, we could not communicate with our forces on the other side or see footage from their body cam until they returned."

The president stopped speaking and behind him a TV was lowered in view.

The screen was switched to a video, the footage was taken by a surveillance drone that was circling the gate, the area was rather peaceful.

The gate was as tall as a multistory building and wide enough for a two way highway to fit in between with still some space left over, the design of the gate's pillars were amazing.

It was made out of materials never seen on earth just by looking at it, In between the pillars was another world which you can see on the other side yet if you went around the gate to the back there was nothing there.

It was amazing and I wondered how it worked but that thought was interrupted, on the other side of the gate you can see soldiers from the United States army running towards the gate from the other world.

They were looking back every so often and firing a few rounds in the opposite direction, as the drone moved to a better angle you could see creatures that were different in color and stood like humans but you just knew what they were.

They were one of the known fantasy creatures in games and in movies they were known as Orcs, they were taller than the soldiers and had war paint on their faces and other parts of the body that were not covered by makeshift armor.

They held a variety of melee weapons, some worse off then the others, one orc was dressed differently as well as wielding a staff and wearing robes.

it was speaking something that could not have been heard from this distance, the soldiers who were on the earth side of the gate begun to mobilize and get into defensive positions which were only trees and anything that could give them some sort of protection,

There was one vehicle on site and it was a Humvee with a mounted 50.Cal on it, the Humvee parked near the small tree line which was in front of the gate, the soldiers came out of the gate and ran to the others who were in defensive positions by the time they got to them.

The orcs stopped just on the other side of the gate, they looked to the one dressed differently and the one with the staff said something and lifted his hand out to another orc which was easily 6ft tall

The one with the staff spoke something, the orc which he had his hand out to began to glow a dark red color around its body.

It grew taller by a couple of inches and its muscles grew as well, the soldiers began to fire as the orc began to glow, the bullets hit the gate's portal but the bullets did not penetrate to the other side.

They stopped firing as they saw this and were forced to wait for them to cross over to earth, the orc with the staff smiled after seeing this unfold and begun to speak and made some of the other orcs glow the same dark red as the first.

By the time the orc with the staff finished his prep the number of orcs that were around 30 were now bigger and all glowing dark red besides the orc with the staff, one orc that was in front pointed its axe towards the portal and they all charged through.

The amount of time it took the orcs to prepare was about 5 minutes, which was not enough time for reinforcements to arrive, the soldiers now had to fight tall glowing orcs.

The first one crossed the portal to Earth and was met with a volley of gunfire, the mounted 50 Caliber gun began to fire in short bursts, the first orc was easily taken down by the hail of gunfire.

The orc was not expecting for the weapons that the soldiers were carrying to be that devastating, the orcs body was like a pin cushion, holes filled its body and green colored blood splattered on the ground and all over the orc behind him leaving his fellow orc to be dazed.

The other orcs saw one of their fellow orcs die in front of them and then the dark red color began to get brighter, the orcs bodies began to harden from the looks of it, which was confirmed when a bullet from a rifle hit an orc and it did not flinch even though the bullet went into its skin.

The orc let out a loud battle cry and the rest followed in suit and let out their own battle cries, the orcs then charged the soldiers who were firing their rifles while other soldiers began to reload.

The mounted 50.Cal let loose into the small horde of orcs and stopped them in their tracks, It seems their skin was not tough enough to stop the 50 caliber bullets as it began to cut through the orc's skin.

Splattering the orcs blood on whatever was near the orcs, the orc with the staff began to talk this time you knew that it was not just normal speaking but chanting, the tip of the staff formed a large swirling ball of fire which was launched into the Humvee.

The fireball impacted the Humvee and it was engulfed in a ball of flames the gunner screamed in pain as the vehicle blew up in a ball of fire, any soldier in the range of the explosion was sent flying soldiers were killed or wounded.

One soldier had shrapnel from the Humvee fly into his side which ended up killing him instantly, the orcs let out another cry but this one was not a battle cry but a cry of happiness that the machine that was killing them was no longer a threat.

The orcs charged as a handful of soldiers kept on firing at the orcs which were now only a couple of steps away from there injured soldiers, as the first orc got in range of a soldier who was caught in the explosion the orc simply swiped down with his makeshift axe and nailed the soldier in the chest.

The soldier's body armor did nothing to stop the crude axe the man had no time to let out a scream as the orc kept swinging into the soldier, the amount of force of which the orc had swung with made the soldier's body spray blood onto the orc.

After the other soldiers saw one of their friends being chopped into and saw his blood on an orc who was now smiling made them go mad, they began to fall back into the woods even more but in a tight formation to better protect each other while making sure to have the orcs always in front of them.

One of the soldiers took out a grenade and tossed it at the orc who was occupied with chopping away at their fellow soldier. the orc was blown into pieces and their fellow soldier was now avenged.

The other orcs kept running at them while the one with the staff began to cast another ball of flames but this one was much smaller than the first ones as the soldiers saw this they scattered and kept their distance to avoid another incident from happening like the Humvee.

The soldiers begun to throw grenades in hopes of stopping the advancement of orcs and hoping one would reach the orc with a staff, most of the Orcs were blown to pieces and became confetti as the grenades blew up, all that was left was the orc with a staff.

Most of the injured soldiers were finished off by the orcs and most were no longer recognizable all that remained were 7 out of the 20 soldiers who were facing the orc horde, the orc with the staff finished casting and launched a fireball towards a soldier who was reloading behind a tree.

The tree was engulfed in flames and the soldier behind it was now nothing but ashes, seeing the smaller fireball and the damage it caused made it clear that it might have been smaller but it was also more deadly then that of the larger version.

Which meant instant death to whoever gets hit by it, the one with the staff was then gunned down by the remaining soldiers who were now down to 6.

The feed of the fight ended and went back to the president.

"We don't show combat footage for a reason but this one we had to, in order to show that this is not a threat which we have encountered before, other countries had a similar response with very few having good relations off the start" he paused before continuing

"I don't think any country had a good interaction with their creatures but they were different then our creatures, ours look like orcs and that's what they are now being referred to, other countries had a far worse experience then us while we had orcs others had far worse creatures which also showed up to their gates." he paused before speaking again.

"We are quite fortunate to have these orcs instead of the other ones for an example South America had to deal with goblins, they are small as you could have guessed as well as far more in numbers then the orcs, By showing you this we hope to send more forces into the gate and bring some of their natural resources back to earth we have seen new materials and new life in that world" he looked at the cameras and continued

"Orcs may not be the only civilized creatures in that world, In addition we are also increasing military pay and are going to expand more into the world we are doing so in order to defend earth and the united states" he then looked at the cameras once again in all seriousness

"We hope more young men and women join the United States military so that way we can protect the United States and Earth from danger that the gate has to offer. That is all."

He then turned and walked out of the camera's view, the broadcast ended Just like that.

The world now knows about Gates and the Danger they bring to earth and the new possibility it also comes with, people all over the world were in a state of panic for some time but nothing major happened.

Most people knew it would not fix the problem that the gates brought to earth, some countries still did not care and turned a blind eye to the gates, the UN and NATO had begun having discussions about the matter of what to do with gates.

Eventually they agreed to allow countries to call the gates in their respective countries their own, they said that they can do what they see fit for their country.

This made people feel a little safer as the countries respected military power were now setting up bases near the gates, they also made sure nothing went too far out of the portal no matter what the creature was which gave the civilians a little more peace of mind.