At first, he could hear nothing but silence; a silence that hung around him, enveloping him in a chilling embrace. The darkness surrounding him was total, as if he had gone blind, covered by a thick black mist that floated like a ghost.
He floated in nothingness for a few seconds until he regained consciousness.
He opened his eyes, coughing up all the air in his lungs. Painfully, he touched the side of his torso, where the pain was greatest.
'It hurts... What—what happened to me?'
No one would answer his question, for the place where he was seemed to show no signs of other rational life forms.
'The portal... I…'
He recalled what had happened a few moments ago. Something appeared and kicked him into the portal. Everyone tried to help him, but in the end, no one could do anything.
Now he was here, in the darkness, floating in silence for eternity.
It would be terrifying if that were true, but this place didn't seem real.
Nova sighed. He wasn't scared, nor was he worried or excited. Instead, he felt a strange, deep calm that dampened all kinds of emotions that arose in his heart.
It was as if he didn't really exist alongside this strange plane.
He remained silent, waiting for anything. In the next few seconds, he understood something.
'Oh, man... I think I'm in trouble.'
Anyone who dared to enter a portal would be in trouble, as it meant certain death. Besides, what the hell was this place? There was absolutely nothing.
The emptiness gave him time to think, and that's what he did for a few more seconds. He waited for something to tell him how to get out of this thick black fog.
Fortunately, something suddenly happened.
A faint whisper echoed in the void, a whisper that ran through every part of Nova's body. He felt chills, he felt a tightness in his chest, and then he felt something watching him.
Then, six different voices spoke at the same time, with a deep, melancholic, and lonely tone.
The voices, spectral, ethereal, and distant, whispered:
"Doomesp evret,
mepoosd etrachseu.
On sientu un menbroa,
rope sutorosn et meradso une.
Gusei ut manico,
jofra ut aporpi sirtohia,
y tehza ed ut una dayeeln.
Sornotos et remsepearo,
espu on somirea a quinngu torto raglu
Vanzáa
Tuncínoa
On et gasednt
Rebovise
On reamus
Evvi. Ho, johi ed este versuinu umonidorb."
'What?'
Nova frowned. He didn't understand a thing. Was it some kind of ancient language? A riddle or something?
No, something else was more important right now.
"Where am I? Who are you?" he said calmly. "How can I get back?"
However, the voices said nothing more. Silence spread once again, covering the entirety of existence itself.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
Although he tried, he could no longer get those voices to say anything else.
"Oh, man…" he muttered, disappointed.
He stretched his legs and arms, looking up. Although it didn't seem like there was any concept of "up" or "down" in this place, let alone 'right' or "left."
'What am I supposed to do now? Rot away in this place?'
Die of hunger, thirst, and boredom. Not a good way to go. Even if he thought about a possible death, nothing could disturb his mysterious Serenity.
So what could be here that has the power to disturb a man's calm?
Nova is about to find out the answer right now.
"Ah—?!"
He felt a sudden pain piercing his skull. He grabbed his head with both hands, digging his fingers into his hair and pushing his knees against his chest. With this, he tried to ease the pain, failing in the process.
He groaned in pain, letting out a muffled cry.
The black mist swirled around him. A cold wind pushed everything in some direction into the silent void, causing Nova to fly through the mist.
Unable to do anything about it, he continued to fight the pain. However, as if spending a long time in an unknown void were not enough, suddenly everything was illuminated by a blinding white light.
Nova closed his eyes, stunned by the light and pain. In his pain, he could not hear the soft sounds of the sand being caressed by the wind, nor the incendiary crackling of something burning.
At the end of the journey, the darkness suddenly dispersed, fading over the hot yellow sand as if it were dust.
Thus, the headache disappeared, causing Nova to finally focus on what was happening around him. He opened his eyes wide, obviously, as he realized he was flying over the sand at great speed.
He wasn't flying, really, he was falling toward the sand as he traveled forward, as if his body had been spat out of the mouth of a cannon.
'Ah! Damn it!'
Without the ability to fly, he crashed spectacularly into the sand, rolling and bouncing forty times before his face finally kissed the hot sand, sliding to a complete stop.
"Ouch..."
It hurt so much.
He put both hands on the sand and lifted his face. He stuck out his tongue and spat out the sand that had gotten in during the fall. All his clothes were covered in sand, even his socks.
His vision was limited and blurry, so he stayed there for a few seconds recovering. The bad news was that he couldn't rest for long, because his hands, which were on the sand, were burning!
He jumped up from the ground and looked at his hands. His skin was red and irritated.
'What the hell is going on?'
Nova would have many questions today.
He looked up and surveyed his surroundings. There was sand, lots of sand. On the horizon, sand was all he could see.
He looked up at the sky, hoping to find something different, but he opened his eyes in surprise when he saw two suns in the completely clear blue sky.
One sun was large and red, while the other was small and white.
'Two suns... Desert... Is this a desert?'
As if he couldn't see the sand surrounding him, he made sure that what his eyes were seeing wasn't fake. Sadly, all of this was real.
"Is this what's behind a portal?"
With his atypical calm, he sighed, but as he did so, and as he breathed again, he coughed very hard. His lungs dried up the moment the air entered his body.
He almost fell again, but luckily he remained standing.
'The air... it burns!'
On Terra, in the world of Nova, there are deadly plants that expel a gas that, if breathed in, will burn and melt your lungs instantly. This is something similar, only without the horrible and painful death.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there are no deserts on Terra. The energy from the asteroid feeds and nourishes the planet, so there are no deserts anywhere in the world. The entire planet is full of vegetation and animals.
So, with no deserts on his planet, Nova never had the opportunity to learn how to survive in one, let alone survive in a desert with two suns!
He took a moment to calm down and get used to the air. When he did, breathing slowly so his lungs wouldn't dry out, he looked around again to make sure the portal was still open.
'The portal...'
There was no portal nearby.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stood up straight and looked toward the horizon.
'A desert... a damn desert... Is this what's on the other side?'
In case it wasn't obvious, this is what lies beyond the portals; the home of the Aberrations.
Not knowing what to do or where to go, he began walking toward the horizon.
'There's nothing here. I don't see anything but sand. If I stay here, I—'
As the leader of a team, Nova thought rationally. If he stays here, where the portal is no longer, he will die sooner or later. Finding a way not to die like a stick of jerky is the best decision he could make.
'I didn't train for this…'
As he walked, he thought about everything he learned in elementary and middle school.
The classes were mostly theoretical when it came to Aberrations.
Aberrations are always random; that's a truth everyone knows. It's unlikely that an Aberration of the same race will come out of another portal, which is what makes them so dangerous. Each Aberration is always different from the last, but they are classified in the same way as Empaths.
There are Aberrations that use a lot of stealth, considered the assassin type. There are others that fight from a distance, considered the thrower type.
That way, it's easier to know how to deal with Aberrations.
What does that have to do with what's happening now? This place is surely infested with Aberrations! And it's more than likely that there isn't just one type of Aberration.
'If an Aberration appears, maybe I can defend myself, but—'
Although he also learned various survival methods for places such as the Dark Islands or the great forests that cover the planet, he does not know much about deserts and how to fight an Aberration in this type of terrain.
In the end, it was just bad luck. Having a living, nourished planet is great, but that's what doomed Nova to not knowing how the hell to survive in a desert area.
Of course, Nova, despite being the weakest member of his team, knows how to fight and defend himself well. In high school, there is a self-defense class where young people learn basic martial arts to defend themselves against Aberrations in case they cannot escape.
It is a mandatory class that the government imposed decades ago.
'I also have to find some things... Water. Food. Shelter. How do I get all that in this place?'
Survival requires many things, especially the most obvious and essential ones. Water in a desert must be impossible to find. In middle school history classes, they taught about the ancient Earth. Nova learned that, before the impact, the planet was dying. Extinct races, deserts that were once beautiful green spots on the planet, and all kinds of arid areas.
That part in particular was not very important at the time, but now, that little bit of information is too important.
On the other hand, food. Is there anything edible in this world? That is one of the biggest questions. Furthermore, shelter, in an open, flat place like this desert, seems impossible.
With nothing else to do or think about, he searched his pockets, hoping to find something useful.
"Ten seeds. My communicator. A couple of coins..."
That was all...
With all the pockets a trench coat has, on this particular day, it didn't occur to Nova to fill them with useful things.
'Man... I'm going to die...'
He stopped, staring at the ground. His calm was fading, his heart was troubled.
Although dying was something he had considered before, being an Empath, he never thought it would be like this.
Sweat ran down his forehead and fell onto the sand, evaporating completely. It made a sizzling sound, already hinting at what this desert would do to Nova's body if he didn't find a place with water quickly.
For the next few hours, he walked without finding anything special. It also seemed like the day would never end. The smaller sun had moved from its place, but the larger one had only shifted a few centimeters when measured with his finger and the shadow on the ground.
'I can't take it anymore.'
Not even a long fight against an Aberration would have been as tiring as walking through this desert. A city boy doesn't have the skills to survive adversity.
'I'm hungry... I'm thirsty…'
He's tired, and everything just keeps getting worse.
All it would take is for an Aberration to appear to make his life miserable, and that would definitely make this the worst day of Nova's life since childhood.
'What do I do?'
He took the seeds out of his pocket again. He considered eating them to get a little more energy, but he could also do other things.
'There's no moisture in this desert. I can't make these seeds germinate.'
That's the big problem. On Terra, there's moisture everywhere and Nova's plants could grow easily, but in a dry and deadly desert, that's impossible.
'I don't have anything that will help me.'
He knelt down on the sand, but immediately regretted it. His leather boots smelled like burnt rubber. His feet inside the boots were cooking, hurting, and he couldn't go on.
'So fast. So pathetic...'
He wasn't sad, much less scared. He just hoped his death would be more honorable. I don't know. Someday, fighting a Category 0, dying standing up like a hero. That would be great, but what he got was something completely different.
'How weak I am...' he thought, with a calm, sweaty expression that made the moment even more depressing. 'I guess it's over.'
He was sure that even his uncle Viktor would be able to survive this.
Again, he is not disappointed, much less ashamed. His heart is simply in a deep state of calm that prevents him from suffering in his death.
Perhaps, today, this ability to dampen his emotions would serve him well.
'Should I throw myself on the ground and just die?'
Considering that he had already done everything possible to survive, walking for hours without seeing nightfall, and with dehydration that had dried out his organs, he gave up.
He could no longer fight.
He is tired, hungry, and thirsty in just a few hours. If he cannot survive this, how can the Aberrations of this world do so?
Unfortunately for him, that question was also about to be answered.
As he was about to throw himself face down on the ground to be cooked like an egg for breakfast, he sensed a faint presence moving near him. He looked all around him, turning on his own axis, but saw nothing interesting.
However, that presence was still there.
"If you're an Aberration, come out already and stop wasting my time."
The ground shook. Nova frowned, wondering why he asked that question. That kind of thing is a sure bad omen.
The sand moved, first forming a small hole where the sand fell like an hourglass, and then a faint, wet, hungry moan echoed in the emptiness of the desert.
'Crap!'
Feeling the faint energy signature grow larger with the sound, Nova started running regardless of how tired he was. Just as he got about ten steps away from the area, an Aberration he had never seen before emerged from the sand.
'What is that thing?!'
Nova is facing a Category 6.