Part 1

- ARTHUR BLUESCALE'S POV -

It all happened in an instant. I was working behind the counter, as usual, tending to one particularly picky client. Julie and Liz were there too, more to keep company rather than working but it was a nice change of pace. That day, Julie was especially cheerful and energetic, and for a good reason too. Her brothers were finally returning from their five long years at the academy in Alamara. Following their letter, that day was supposed to be the day of their arrival so both girls couldn't simply stay back at home, waiting. Hence they came to pass some time in the shop.

I dreamt of that moment for long. The day I would finally see my sons again, seeing the fruits of their labor and see the changes in their bodies. I laughed at the idea of not being able to recognize them. Liz too was so eager to see them again that she spent five whole days cleaning the house, fixing their clothes, sending their furniture to repair, and lots more. And, while that was expected, what came to me as a surprise was Julie's reaction. I knew she would be excited but I never expected her to be restless as a winged rabbit. I underestimated how truly big of a deal having her brothers back was for her. Seeing how she had grown most of her life without them, I thought she'd be less engrossed, but it was a welcomed mistake.

It was with a slight tremor that it all began. A few bottles shook and the tingling sound of glass against glass. Nothing more. I checked the two girls and the shop but everything seemed fine. Minutes passed before the second tremor came. If the first one was the ultimatum, the second was the real deal. Before I could even hear the first scream, most of the wine bottles had already fallen into a puddle of red wine and broken glass. Even the windows were breaking apart, shooting their small, crystal shards like deadly arrows. I instinctively jumped out of the counter, grabbed Liz, holding Julie in her arms, by the hand, and ran out of the shop. That's when I saw it. The giant cloud of brown dust swallowing at an inhuman speed everything on its path. The houses closest to the wall had already turned into debris and, judging by the fact that houses were disappearing one after the other, a sinkhole was ravishing the city. We tried to run in the opposite direction, towards the west gate but it was futile. Soon, the earth opened beneath our feet. The sound of falling rocks and running water filled the air.

We were lucky, luckier than most. A shallow lake, the height of a grown man, stopped our fall. My body was hurting like crazy but I felt relief knowing that by sacrificing four to five ribs I had spared both my girls of any wound. I was the first to wake up from the shock, most likely due to the intense pain. The next moment I was dragging my family through the lake in complete darkness. The hole we had come from somehow closed and whatever source of light completely abandoned that cursed place.

I had been a soldier in the past and I pride myself on being a good one. I recalled my survival skills and waited for my senses to adjust to the darkness then, I scavenged for anything resembling a weapon. I picked up a metal staff and sat beside Julie and Liz, patiently waiting for them to wake up.

Only a few minutes later, a group of men and women from the city, with ragged and torn clothes, carrying makeshift torches and dented swords, approached us and offered us help. I was forced to close Julie's eyes to spare her the horrific sight of our fellow citizens' bodies torn apart and painting the lake in an eerie red color. Then, with that group, we traveled.

The journey was harsh. I had to pick up a sword again after years and with it, fight the hordes of ungodly monsters that came after us in the tunnels. Of the group of twenty we were at first, only half of it was able to cross the giant stone gate at the end of the tunnel and bathe in the sight of an enormous city in the middle of a cave. We camped in a ruined building on the outskirts and for the first time since the fall, I was finally able to think about my family. Liz and Julie were close to me, at all times. More than once I gladly suffered an injury to spare them a wound. However, what bothered me was my two son's whereabouts.

[Where are they? Are they fine? Are they even alive? Are they at least together? Maybe safe? Or are they fighting monsters just like us?.... What if... they have already died?]

It was torture. Nothing less but torture. I couldn't help but picture their bodies rotting in some corner of a dark cave, alone and graveless. That image haunted my nights and every time I saw a new body laying lifeless in the city I couldn't help but see their faces. It only took three days for my mental health to deteriorate. It was only thanks to my wife and daughter that I was able to stop my mind from walking over the line. I was scared.

Then, on the fourth day, chaos knocked on our doors. It was supposedly night but surprisingly none felt like sleeping. An omen, something ominous in the air was keeping us awake, attentive. And we were right to feel so. Something akin to an ocean of undead was razing the city. Screams and cries rose from the rubble together with the clouds of dust and the smell of blood. Our place was not safe anymore.

We ran. We had explored just a bit in the past few days and spotted some tunnels in the distance. That was our best bet, we thought. A mistake. Something was leading the undead, and was doing one hell of a good job at it. With just the ten of us we weren't able to do anything. So we ran. As fast as possible, as further as possible. Some fell and some fought, but they all died pointlessly. Only my family and two more people we able to survive long enough to meet up with a bigger group. A godsend, I thought.

At least a hundred people. They all ran in a somewhat organized manner with what looked like soldiers, and warriors in general, protecting as best as they could the civilians in the rear. They were all escaping to the tunnels.

[A godsend!] I thought.

I kissed my wife as I ran and patted my daughter's head. The realization in Liz's eyes pierced me with excruciating pain. I simply said "go" before punching the two of them in the middle of the escaping citizens and wordlessly signaled to the two remaining group members to follow them. When they were out of sight, I joined with the fighters to block the skeletons and those horrendous zombies from entering the packed-full tunnel.

The ground collapsed. The tunnel closed. I knew I had succeeded in defending them. There were warriors within the group that went inside the tunnels, hopefully even mages. I wasn't worried, Liz knew a little of magic. She could fend for herself. And Julie, ohh Julie had a strong spirit. So strong that I was surprised to see how she rarely cried in those trying times. I had succeeded. Even if it meant my life had to end. I was...satisfied.

I woke up who-knows-when, drenched in a mixture of water, fluids and blood, with the pale and bloodless face of one of the warriors I fought together. My shoulder was misplaced and my ankle was twisted. I tried to move my body but it felt like every muscle was filled with lead. Yet my heart still beat. I was alive. I had survived once again and I was just about to rejoice for it before a skin-curling sound resounded through the dim-lighted cave.

I moved my head what little my strength permitted me so that I could properly face the source of that distant sound. Then I saw it. Although fuzzy, I saw it. An enormous being, dwarfing a man by twice his height was standing on the bank of the river, chewing on the bleeding corpse of a woman. The being had stubby arms and legs while its torso was slender, almost skeletal. Yet I saw no shape of bones. It had no neck and no hair. Its head was simply a sphere with a teethed gap in it's middle and two black holes for eyes. It was made of flesh. Pink, fibery flesh, and it emitted it's peculiar smell when rotting.

It gulped down the woman, chewing her until only the clothes were left in the abomination's mouth. It spat them, then focused on the body of water where it picked up another corpse to chew. Then one more appeared. And another. And another more. And another more until my dizzy vision was filled with monstrous abominations snacking on my fellow humans. I repressed the need to puke. Staying still and pretending to be dead took precedence over my human feelings.

I knew that my turn would come sooner or later so I bid my time. I gathered strength and breath then dived underwater, slipping under the river of corpses. As fast as humanly possible, ignoring the pain and the lack of oxygen, I swam to the far end of the body of water. Parts of body, most likely rejected by those monsters, were piled in a corner of the cave. A man, severed from the waist down yet still somehow breathing, looked at me with pleading eyes from the front of that pile. He extended the stump of his only left arm in hopes for me to grab it. He hoped for me to somehow help him. I knew. I knew that he still wished to live. I could see it in his eyes. I saw the eyes of a soldier who wished for death, the same eyes my eight-month-old child had, and they lacked what that man still had. A flame, a light.

But I couldn't help him. I knew ignoring him would haunt me for the rest of my life. I knew well that the face of that man would appear in my nightmares, but I couldn't help him. My selfish wish for survival was too strong. I turned my back to the pleading man and staggered and crawled and dragged my tired body through a tunnel mixed with buildings of chiseled stone and old, grey columns.

I found a hole, not far from there. I crawled inside and waited. Waited for my body to heal and for my energy to replenish. Sometimes I heard voices, shouts and screams. I heard the blood being splattered. I smelt the stench of rotting flesh. I ate moldy and soaked bread while drinking water contaminated by blood. It was all I had. All I could do.

Sometimes I would even hear the voices of my sons. They were bickering. Picking on each other on who the strongest of the two was and blaming one another for their lack of orientation skills. I knew I was going crazy. It was all in my head. Or perhaps some kind of monster was fucking with my mind, manipulating my memories and my thoughts. The voices, they were deeper, more mature, maybe even rougher. Like the voice of an almost grown man. It was exactly as I had imagined my two sons to grow.

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to believe that it was all just a nightmare. That I had just fallen asleep while at work. I prayed the gods, all of them. I prayed for all of this to be just in my head but deep down I knew. I knew it was real.

Days passed. Sometimes slow, others fast. At some point, I stopped sleeping and my already-crumbling mind suffered another heavy blow. Before I knew it, all my food was gone and I was forced to leave my hiding spot. Limping and walking on a cane made of some sort of flexible stone, I staggered around the maze-like tunnels. In other more sane circumstances I would've glanced curiously at the representations on the walls, the ruins of columns, and the runes engraved here and there. Alas, I was anything but sane. I walked and walked. Then hid from the flesh monsters and walked again.

The only way for me to know the time was to count my steps. I had forced myself to walk with a certain cadence so that every five seconds I would take three steps. That rhythmic sound kept me from bashing my skull against the wall. Thoughts of joining my sons and family in death kept creeping up on me like ghosts. I blamed myself. For no apparent reason but I blamed myself. That's what a true father would do, I thought.

After I walked 414851 steps, my legs gave up. My body crashed onto a wall and cracks began to fall on its surface. I fell and sled on a solid slope covered in thick dust, slipping in and out of consciousness. When I hit the ground, my already hurting ribs and shoulder woke me up by sending fire through every nerve in my broken body. For the first time in a while, I saw light. Not the dim light coming from the stagnant water or the bluish torches here and there in the tunnels, but true light. As if shone from the crystals surrounding the unadorned room, the lights bathed me, giving my skin some sort of placebo relief.

It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness, but when they did I remained struck in awe. The room was simple. There were no carvings, no sculptures, no columns or anything of the sort. The only thing standing inside the squarish unadorned room was an arch-like structure made of uneven white stones with runes glowing gold and purple that seemed as ancient as the world itself. Inside the arch, a silverfish liquid swirled and waved vertically, as if to defy gravity. I was attracted, engrossed by it and the words came out of my throat as natural as my name.

"I-...Is this...a portal?"