The black walls, heavy with the faint smell of charcoal, echoed to the dragging of the serpent's massive body. The stone shudders with every movement, and dust falls softly in the darkness.
In recent days Nova had kept to a steady routine: hiding when the monster slithered nearby, falling silent when something seemed to listen in the distance. Even the smallest sound felt like psychological torture.
Every part of him was on high alert. Every nerve in his system tensed fearfully whenever something out of the ordinary arose in the depths of the tunnels.
His eyes continued to wander through the darkness, hoping for the impossible. His face was anything but calm—tense, tight with fear and anger. It was something he thought he would never feel. He believed himself to be unflappable, but when push came to shove, locked in a world of Aberrations, his Serenity betrayed him.
It wasn't that his Spectrum had betrayed him—only that it was weak compared to the monsters here. The serpent is living proof that there are even worse things out there that easily surpass humans.
In retrospect, humans were too fragile without their Emotional Spectrum. Now that Nova's Serenity had been partially rendered useless, he was defenseless in this world.
'It won't be long now. I just have to...'
Crawling low between the walls like the serpent, Nova fixed his gaze on the dark passage ahead where a faint breeze of Calem energy drifted out.
Every step was another second earned. Every inch forward became a fragile thread of hope. Each breath, each glance—everything he did was to survive.
Beyond fear, serenity, or anger, instinct told him to keep moving—stopping would mean certain death.
In most cases, emotions guide the heart, but when it comes to dying, instinct takes control. It has been that way since the beginning of humanity, and it is probably something that will never change.
The slowest hours of his life passed before his eyes in the darkness. The closer he got to his destination, the slower time seemed to pass.
He bit his lip impatiently. He couldn't wait any longer. There was no food left. Hunger began to growl in his stomach. His mind began to fray—an effect of the black gas clinging to the walls. The negative emotions generated by this continue to affect Nova more and more. His paranoia is making him see things where there are none and hear sounds where there is no one.
However, this time the distant hissing of the creature echoed. Still far from the monster, Nova frowned. With a dry mouth, he clenched his teeth.
"I have to ignore it. I have to keep walking."
He was no longer the same Nova who fell into the portal. The instinct for survival had completely taken over him and led him to keep walking like a robot with a single goal.
'Nothing is going to kill me. I'm not going to fall for your game.'
At this point, it seemed that the serpent was really playing with Nova. Perhaps it was watching from the darkness, enjoying itself as it watched the boy descend into madness. Perhaps that made its food taste better. Despair, anger, sadness, loneliness, fear. It could even be a sadistic serpent that only enjoyed watching its prey suffer.
How would the rest of the journey continue? More of the same, simply. Walk. Walk. Keep walking while listening to the serpent hissing and slithering along the walls. Hide. Rest. Repeat the cycle.
Another day has passed, the third day. Nova, resting on a rock, stared silently at the image on his communicator screen. The photo of his mother and Uncle Viktor was the only thing keeping him sane. In the dim glow of the screen his one dull eye flickered with exhaustion—but the battery warning at the top read: LOW BATTERY. DEVICE WILL SHUT DOWN SOON.
That was the last thing he wanted to see. His only source of inspiration will vanish like sand on the surface.
'Poki… I still remember when you were just a weird, heavy egg…'
The egg Nova is holding in that photo is actually Poki before he was born.
'Viktor... how much did it cost you to get it? I'm sure it was very expensive...'
A slight smile appeared on his face. The memory brought him some peace. With that, his Serenity was reactivated. His emotions were momentarily numbed, but the worry and paranoia of being locked up in this place with the snake have not disappeared.
Finally, the screen went blank. Darkness returned to Nova's expression.
'Oh... I see...'
He closed his eye.
'I don't think I'll ever get out of here.'
However, he took a step forward. When he opened his eye, the path lay before him with a faint light extending from the end of the tunnel.
'But I'm not giving up yet. I'll do that when I know I'm dead.'
He followed the light. His body was weak. His mind was tired. Everything about him is a mess, but his instincts keep pushing him to take one more step.
That small step turned into many. The path grew shorter. So, when he finally stopped, he found himself in a mysterious, large chamber inside the tunnels. It was a vast, empty area, like a dome hidden inside the black stone. Dozens of holes appeared in the walls, connecting to the other tunnels.
His eye glowed at the intense light coming from inside.
'Finally...'
Above, embedded in the black stone ceiling, lay a large, round, shiny white rock that emitted soft pulses of energy into the surrounding area. The chamber had a warm, almost homely glow that seemed to ease Nova's Spectrum.
His Serenity activated again, constantly resonating with the rock's energy. The golden light of his Spectrum enveloped his body and calmed his Fear, Anger, and paranoia.
Mesmerized by the pulsing light, he reached up, hand trembling, as if to touch it.
"You are smaller than the asteroid in my world."
So close; close to his hand. It even seemed like a dream.
"Now I just have to wait for a portal to open."
He looked down—and froze. At the pit of the dome lay a pit of bones.
"Oh, man..."
A pit full of bones, that's what he found at the pit. There were hundreds of elongated skulls with deep circular eyes and jagged jaws. In appearance, they resembled the skull of a snake with humanoid features.
He took a step back. He stood silently staring into the void.
Then he sighed wearily.
'So, is this where the beings that once lived in that city ended up?'
Judging by the number of bones, and the shapes of their bodies resembling reptilian beings more than humans, it was impossible not to imagine the possibility.
'So, if I stay here, does that mean that snake will appear soon?'
He bit his lip, drawing a drop of blood that slid gently down his skin until it touched the ground.
'But I have no other choice. It's now or never. If a portal opens, I'll go in without hesitation. No matter how much that monster scares me!'
He clenched his fist tightly. With one leap, he slid down the steep slope. When he reached the pit and stepped on the bones, he grabbed the hilt of his sword and waited.
'There's nowhere to hide here. There's no way to escape either. If I stay in this maze of tunnels, sooner or later, I'll get lost and the Aberration will attack me. This is all I can do, and this is what I'm going to do!'
He gathered enough courage to calm his fear, caused by the gas that painted the walls, and turn it into bravery.
'For the first time in my life, I feel cornered. I've lost my eye and been on the brink of death since I arrived in this place. If not now, then I'll never be able to return.'
In a somewhat awkward and clumsy fighting stance, Nova waited, staring at the holes in the wall. His eye wandered around, expectant and patient. As the minutes passed, he realized that his enemy was not going to appear.
He waited for about an hour, but there was no sign of the beast.
He looked at the ground in exasperation. He frowned and grimaced.
'I decide to be brave, and you don't show up... Stupid Aberration.'
He crouched down and looked at one of the skulls.
"I'm sure you waited a long time too, didn't you?"
The skull did not answer him. Nova sighed, looking at the ground. He remained in that position for a few minutes until he felt a deep pulsation of energy coming from the rock on the ceiling.
He looked up at the ceiling with hope in his eyes, recognizing this feeling wherever he was. If Dimensional Portals open all the time on Terra, then it must be the same here.
'Finally. I'm getting out of here!' he thought, with a slight hopeful smile.
That's the luck of someone who already knows how portals work. But considering the bones on the floor, the fact that portals possibly open constantly in this place, and that Nova appeared near this rock on the ceiling. That means...
'Wait. Hold on. There doesn't seem to be anything to eat down here. So, the Aberration, all this time...'
Staring at the piles of bones, he noticed that they weren't just bones from beings of this world. Buried with the other bones, barely recognizable, skeletons of other mysterious races lay silently.
"Damn... So that's why it's always on the move."
The snake, which had possibly dug the tunnels, seemed to take advantage of the portals to eat whatever came out of them. Nova had been fortunate enough to appear above ground, but now he was down here, where a portal was about to open.
He frowned. His eye showed concern.
'If I can sense when a portal is about to open near me, that means the Aberration probably can too.'
In any case, the snake will appear here shortly to eat whatever comes out of the portal, or possibly enter the portal to invade another world. The possibilities are few, and there aren't many options to consider.
Suddenly, as if Nova had summoned the bad omen with his thoughts, the hissing echoed in the distance. The ground shook. Rocks and dust fell from the ceiling.
'Crap. It's coming.'
He found out too late about the Aberration's modus operandi. Who can blame him? He is completely oblivious to what is going on in this world. With luck, he was able to find traces of what once lived in the city, scattered in the form of bones in the pit.
'Come on, fucking portal. Open up already! I have to go!'
However, as the energy source is very small, the pulses are weaker.
Sparks began to explode above Nova's head. Spectral whispers echoed. An ethereal light suddenly turned on. Opening like the mouth of a monster, the Dimensional Portal was ready to be used.
'Great!'
Immediately after the portal opened, Nova jumped with all his might to get through it. Hope filled his heart, but reality would hit him hard the moment the serpent emerged from one of the tunnels.
Being rammed by the beast's gigantic head, before he could reach the portal, Nova was thrown against the sharp rocks.
The roar that followed echoed with power. The rocks shattered and Nova was stamped against the wall. He opened his eye wide, gasping for air. He spat blood from the blow and was stunned for a few moments.
"What the hell...? How—?"
With his field of vision distorted, he saw the beast coil its enormous elongated body over the pile of bones.
It was gigantic, with a long, thick body about twenty meters long. Its scales were yellow like sand, jagged like irregular, protruding rocks, shaped like four-pointed cones resembling the peak of a mountain. Its reptilian head was slightly smaller in comparison to its body, but from the looks of it, its jaw could swallow anything.
Its yellow eyes fixed on Nova with a calculating hiss. Then it lunged, mouth opening to reveal a single, curved fang—long and blade-like.
'Damn. I was so close.'
Despair washed over him—but beneath it, something else flared. Nova's remaining eye glowed a faint orange.