Time departed.
[12:37AM.]
Time right now.
[6:59AM.]
"Mmnnn…" Ethan woke up, stretching his body to its absolute limit.
Just as he woke up, a sudden chill ran down his entire body only for him to find that the car window was open.
Looking at his side he asked the woman driving the car with a frown on his face. "Why is it open?"
"And why do you want to close it?" The woman asked in reply without even looking at his direction.
"Uh… cause it's kind of chilly outside." He replied after thinking for a while.
And just as he expected. He got the very answer to his question as he expected.
"You got rusty after just half a month of vacation. I guess the surname of winters truly is just a surname. Because you don't seem to be resistant to winter." She chuckled as she said that.
Ignoring her this time, Ethan looked outside far away from the highway. The obviously massive grassfield seemed to vanish because of all the fog.
Pressing his elbow against the open window and resting his chin on the palm. Looking at the foggy outside.
"What time is it right now?" He asked abruptly.
The woman passed him his phone without straying from her direction at all. It seemed like she was really focused because of the dense fog. The same reason why she won't look his way.
[7:08AM.]
Some time had already passed since he woke up, but he really didn't expect it to be only 7AM at that moment.
'Seven zero eight–... Oh. The eight turned nine just now.'
Staring at his phone, he felt stupid all of a sudden for no reason. But whatever, there was only about two to three hours at best till they arrived at their destination.
After skimming through his phone for a while, he started to feel bored as he passed it over to the woman again.
Resting his head on his arms and looking outside the window, all he could do was stare mindlessly in the entire journey.
As time passed, small rays of sun started coming by bit here and there and the fog kind of started to lift.
It might be because it is only this early in the morning, there weren't that many people. Sometimes a few cars or trucks would pass by. But that was mostly it.
Just as the fog started to lift more and more, the roadside places became more visible. Sometimes it was a giant grassfield or some suburban area with a few facilities and such.
Bored– he leaned back on his seat, staring through the front glass. "How much longer till we arrive?"
"About another half an hour at best if you are asking about the entrance to the city."
Hearing it, Ethan took his phone back again and started skimming through it. After a few minutes, he remembered something as he changed the app he was in.
He had forgotten about a webcomic he was reading and had put off for a while for the chapters to stack.
But again, it was a webcomic, meaning the usual one chapter a week rule. So, even after two months barely ten chapters should have stacked up.
'This… how come..' Unfortunately for him, there were only four chapters there because of the end of season one. Which did end pretty fast.
Now, bored just as before, he placed his arm on top of his as he leaned back further on the seat. Knowing that school is going to start from tomorrow on and that he will be in the dorms by today, nothing just sticks right now.
The end of season one just felt kind of abrupt, which only contributed to the increased boredom.
Just like that, they drove the car further for a longer time before finally arriving in the city. And just as he expected, in the urban areas, even the time that is normal wake up time for rural and suburban people, the same time is a busy time for them.
They were stuck in a traffic jam at that moment. "... How much longer?"
"I don't know. But all I can say is that the reason for us taking longer would be this traffic jam."
Waiting and waiting, Ethan became annoyed at the situation. He was pretty sure that the road was blocked by something or someone at that moment, or there was no way that cars wouldn't even move an inch after so much time.
Just as he tried to open the door of the car, it got blocked because the road was too squeezed by other cars at the same time.
Looking at the woman in her late twenties, all he got was a nonchalant face as a reply. Clearly telling him that he can't do anything about the situation right now.
Staring at her face, he signaled her to do something as he received a simple nod before he suddenly felt dizzy and a pressure on two sides of his body as he was getting squeezed between two cars.
Somehow getting out of the narrow place, he found their car as he started to shout at her for placing him between two cars only for her to send a reply on his watch saying that it's not her fault for the traffic being this bad.
Annoyed and muttering in anger, he moved through the narrow space as he headed towards the end of traffic where the cause of traffic also was in.
Just as he neared the end of the traffic, the intense sound of loudspeakers playing a song from a language he didn't understand.
Well, what could he expect more when he arrived. Some crazy people blocked the street and were having a party in broad daylight.
But surprisingly, no one was actually interrupting them considering the fact that they literally blocked the street and caused a massive traffic jam.
Approaching the guy who was singing and dancing in the middle while the other gathered around him, Ethan placed his hand on the person's shoulder.
Just as the person tried looking back. Thud! With a punch, Ethan knocked him down. Without stopping, he kept on kicking the person until unconsciousness.
Looking around, he could see that the people were confused, angry and uneasy from everything that suddenly happened. A few people also started to quietly go away.
"Hey! Why are you doing this?! You do know that you can be charged for severe physical assault!" A man shouted as he walked in front of Ethan along with a few other people. Clearly angered and ready to stop him.
"And you also know what you guys were doing. Right? Blocking a main road and causing a massive traffic jam." He said, staring at the man nonchalantly.
"There are many things you can be charged with… among them are. Obstructing a public passage, disorderly conduct for partying, public nuisance for blocking, false imprisonment for blocking, assault for aggressive behaviour towards a person who tried to stop you, felony enhancements for blocking an ambulance pretty far away from here." He said in a row before stopping for a while, taking a deep breath.
"And last of all, maybe your visa can be revoked. You guys aren't from this country, are you? But instead it's that one bitchy country I don't know why the government supports it even though they haven't done anything other than create problems for us."
Finishing his rant, he tried to go back before suddenly remembering something as he came back. Walking past the people he said. "Oh, yeah. Also just please stop blocking the damn road."
Walking up to the speakers, he broke all of them by kicking them until they were broken to pieces before finally feeling content and walking away.
As one of the people picked up the guy Ethan beat up on his back and walked up to the guy who tried to confront Ethan.
[9:37 AM.]
"H-Hey… I think we should really just stop all this and go our way." The man said, somewhat really afraid.
"... Yes. We should." Turning back, just as the man started saying. "Hey! Everyone! You guys should go away if you don't want any trou–" Even before he could finish his words, a pain surged on his neck as if he was bitten by something as his vision started to blur.
———————————————————
As Ethan stood in front of the car, knocking on the front window, he suddenly felt dizzy before finding out that he was already seated on his seat.
"That… was kind of xenophobic from you." The woman said as she raised an eyebrow at him.
"That's not called being xenophobic, just hating the fact that when some people really take help from another person for granted." He scoffed.
"At the end of the day, it's the same whether you have a reason or not. Being xenophobic is still being xenophobic." She said nonchalantly.
After that, all that remained was silence as they waited for the traffic to clear. Even after the source of the jam was removed, it was still taking time.
"Oh, right. It will be kind of harsh for a month or two at the start of the year because of what you did." The woman started as she finally leaned back after a long while.
"Well, I know. They won't take any legal actions, but it will be rough in there. As you know, second year is also supposed to be way harsher." Ethan replied, leaning back as if he was going to lay down if he could.
"You just don't know how fucked up it is in the second year. Just be glad that you still have time to slack off for a few days." She said with a grin on her face.
"Oh, yeah? Just because of the department I'm in? I can just simply finish the tasks fast enough and–" Just before he could finish his sentence, they heard something from far away.
[9:43AM.]
Was it a scream just now? Both of them thought. Without giving them any more time to understand anything, the screams of a single person started to increase rapidly as many people were trying to escape from the front to the back.
Going as far to breaking the glass window of their cars to get out because of the heavy traffic. In no time, hundreds of squealing and grunting sounds started to come rushing towards them with loud thud and banging sounds backing them up.
Without waiting a moment, the woman suddenly disappeared before appearing on top of the truck in front of their car.
Seeing whatever that was in front of them, her face turned extremely pale as she shouted at him to no avail as he could clearly hear her words.
Just then she vanished before reappearing on her seat, pale complexion full of fear and a look like she is out of choice. Just as she tried to tell him something before. Bam!
Ethan's vision blurred as he felt an intense jolt of pain all over his body from the sudden shock. Blood flooded his vision as his breathing became heavy and disrupted.
Wiping off the blood with the cuff of his jacket. His head felt heavy and disoriented, also making him feel extremely dizzy.
Just as he opened his seatbelt, he fell and hit his head again, spraining his neck. Pushing through the pain, he looked at the direction of the driver's seat only to realize that the entire part of the car was gone as it was smashed along with her while he only hit his head really hard and had a few bruises.
Even as he was processing the events, multiple big rat-like creatures started to enter the car. They all had long dark fur around their body and multiple teeth sticking out of their mouth.
With their bloodshot red eyes, they stared at him for a while before lunging at him with full force.
And just as they attacked him, a large cold explosion happened as the remains of the car tore apart and the creatures froze under ice.
Ethan slowly stood up. His entire body's temperature was dropping rapidly from the sudden outburst of winter. But in his opinion, it was necessary to stop, or at least slow down the blood flow at that moment.
It has been a bit over half a month since he's had the end of the year vacation, and during that time, all he did for fitness was the most basic training such as a few push ups, sit ups, pull ups or a light jog. That's it. Contrary to the fact that he hadn't regulated his energy at all. Which was also the reason he is having a harder time using winter at that moment.
As he slowly slouched across all the rubbles around there while trying to soothe the sprain on his neck, he heard the same loud thuds and banging noises as cars and other stuff were getting thrown around.
Approaching the source of the sound while killing the small rats that came on his way, he could feel the effects of dropping temperature. Stiff muscles and joints, shivering body, cold breaths, cold nose, light headedness and more as he finally reached the source.
Peeking from behind another run down broken truck, he saw a monster. Towering over at least seven meters, walking on its giant clawed feet. Dark gray skin with hints of blue hue in it. Skin that was obviously made out of a tough hide. A long tail with multiple spikes on it. Thorn-like fur covering from its head to the back and to the tail. Two big eyes, completely back, almost lifeless. And a mouth that split into four with spiky teeth inside as it swallowed an entire person.
The entire atmosphere around was eerie. But not only eerie, but something else emanating that he could clearly tell. Fear. It also emanates fear to those around it.
Suddenly it looked behind, making Ethan quickly hide behind the truck. As he was desperately calling for someone on his cracked watch for a while, the call was finally answered.
[Hello. How may I–]
"Hello! It's Ethan winters. Second year number two entrance trainee! Twenty fifty three batch, from the special ability department. A cryptid of at least level four to five has been sighted on the new side street of city four of the state of Lugiana. It has already caused many casualties and–" Suddenly the truck he was hiding behind was smacked, throwing it far away.
As Ethan quickly got up from the shock, he saw the very thing he didn't want to see. The monster was looking at him with its almost lifeless eyes.
Not wasting a single moment, Ethan used winter and formed hundreds of ice shards in the air before making lunge directly at the monster to no avail. As the sharp shards of ice simply broke the moment they collided with its skin.
Even as Ethan attacked it, it remained still and motionless. Taking that into consideration, he quickly made bigger and sturdier balls of ice before shaping them to be pointy and sharp as he did the same. To no avail. As even all that did was slightly cut the skin of the monster, which also healed almost instantly.
Even through all that, the monster was motionless only for it to move as it saw all of Ethan's attacks fail on it. Just as it opened its mouth, with a sudden outburst of winter, everything froze, including the entirety of the monster.
Ethan barely got away with his own attack. He was trying to run away, but he was having a hard time because of his injuries from before and the stiff body.
Just then he heard some cracking noises as his entire body stiffened even more and his complexion became pale. Without looking back, he quickly hurried his steps as loud thuds were slowly coming his way.
Even if he had indeed become extremely slow because of all the things that happened in a while, he was still way faster and way stronger than any normal human. Which is why he was still faster than a normal person even at that moment.
But the thudding sound just kept on coming closer and closer. It might have been due to the fact the monster was really big, but even as it was walking slowly, it was still fast.
As Ethan slowly reached a dead end blocked by a whole lot of cars, he realized he could do nothing as he turned back and faced the almost lifeless eyes of the monster. It was still looking at him as if waiting for something it was expecting from him.
But Ethan really didn't know what it was waiting for, nor he wanted to know about it. As he accepted his fate and sat down leaning his back on the rubbles of a car, the monster slowly opened its mouth that split into four.
Ethan looked to his side just to ignore that horrifying scene as he suddenly noticed something. Two kids, maybe less than ten, were hiding at the same place by his side in another car. Older one grabbing the mouth another just so that the younger one doesn't scream up.
Seeing his center of attention shifting to his side, the monster also looked in that direction. Moving its face in front him slowly, it quickly changed to his side.
Realizing what could be happening, Ethan quickly lunges in that direction as he freezes the monster again only for it to break his ice instantly.
And just as he moved in front of the kids, an intense jolt of pain moved through his entire body, specifically the middle part. As he fell and his vision blurred, he couldn't feel his lower body at all. Almost like it was gone.
[10:07AM.]
— Wake up!