EARTH 2.0: 375 years since the APOCALYPSE;
Among the surviving human species, scientists used the wastes left by the monsters to change the genes of humans. Surprisingly the wastes weren't filled with radiation and didn't effect humans much, but it certainly started changing human genes. The humans could regenerate their body organs even if they were tore apart their body parts will regenerate… but there was a downside too and a big one at that. Whenever the heart got torn out of the body… the humans would turn… No, not into brainless zombies or vampires or some thing like that which you see in movies or animes… something beyond them and something much worse, something much bigger…
The United States, India, China and Japan had made a cooperative team for the crisis. It was obvious that there would be racism, sexism, religion difference... even in such a dire situation, and there surely was but when fighting those monsters, they all united as the representatives of earth. Now with such immeasurable power and immortality they could take down those small other dimensional monsters but…
"Dear comrades, we are proud to announce that we have been able to take down 1000 monsters in the last six months… that's a great achievement but our independence won't transpire like that… I know we have just been able to move forward towards immortality and not towards invincibility… but we have to try… so whomever is with me come forward… We already have one hundred thousand of our soldiers waiting there so if some of you might dedicate yourself for the world peace…
The crowd started buzzing with whispers… which weren't whispers anymore in such a silent environment.
"This old man is bluffing again… he remembers right? What happened to those millions?" A guy spoke out.
"Yup their bodies attached to one another and formed three huge monsters…" Another one said.
"Yeah… does he wanna save us or increase the number of monsters?"
The crowd started roaring in anger. The general who requested them sighed and asked one more time;
"If anyone wants to join the army just come forward… "
No one moved back or forward, no one wanted to risk their lives nothing, but… in the midst of the silence, tapping sounds came… They all looked towards the source of the sound. There were people walking towards the group assembled here… they looked pretty serious…
They all stood in front of the line, and the general beamed a smile and said;
"Very well then… you ten there are coming with me"
For some reason all the ten looked confused but they agreed nevertheless. They all made their way towards a vented automobile. The inside of the automobile was adjustable according to the size of the people so it wasn't a problem. They all sat down and the automobile started flying…
5 DAYS AGO;
We are going in a decent speed we will reach there in about 10 days… that's what Ankur said… We were supposed to make a choice on where we wanted to land after making 5 groups with each having 10 individuals. The group members were decided with a written exam… which was pretty hard for a mere human but for us immortals, it was far from hard… so it's a way of making the team, huh? So I just wrote my paper casually so that I can just score the average marks and free myself from that bunch of five but that plan failed because my girlfriend… yeah I had to accept her in the end as my girlfriend…
"Kreya, focus on your own paper… "I said, as she was writing her exam sitting over my lap… well I didn't mind thought.
"Nope I wanna team up with you, so I am going to copy everything from you.. "She gave a grin shamelessly.
In these past few weeks, I came to know about her powers… she could find out the person even if she wasn't looking at them, and could just kill them with a flick of the fingers… beauty with power… I am not sure about brains though, but living with her for so many days… I could tell one thing.. She wasn't dumb…
We were done with our exams and they started to tell the scores, I scored 65 and Kreya scored 70…yeah she was smart to cheat so that we could be in the same team, but I was clever too, I changed my answer so that I got 5 less marks than her… she daggered me with cold eyes… Don't worry in the end I will be with you because not many will get such low scores, that's what I hoped but…
Lezan(Devil) :68
Shreya:75
Ankur:63
Kriti: 69
Wow… fuck you guys!
So, we were all teamed together and we were the last group to form because most of the others scored more than 85...
The other four members in our group who joined through this test were: Rema(water demon/god, I don't know) ; Raxania(Calamity monster, though we were all calamity monsters in a sense) ; Guts(nope not from berserk, but similar to him… God of hope) and Rogan(God of thunder… hmm, and here I thought his name was Thor..)
So after their introduction was completed we all went to my room… yeah their favourite spot…
"Hey how many years passed in earth when we were in this ship?" I asked the question which was bugging me from the start.
"I guess… almost 400 years, even if we are travelling almost at speed of light… this ship's timeline is different from that of earth" Kreya said, who was clinging on to my arm as always.
"Yup she's right... "Ankur said hastily. He was going through the maps for the nth time, I didn't know what he was getting seeing just lines drawn everywhere…
According to Ankur, only 35% of the population was remaining in earth… and they turned themselves into immortals… then why do we need to head there? I had to ask…
"Well why are we heading there? They have turned themselves into immortals right?"
Ankur gave me a long cold glance as if I had said something sinful. I looked at everyone around me, and they too didn't seem to have any idea.
"First of all its your fault that we had to gather gods, devils, monsters from different dimensions to close off the paths from where the monsters are coming and second… they may be immortals but they aren't invincible so yeah we have to go… "
But…
"But you said there were monsters from parallel divisions… and they could even kill us.. "Kreya said while grabbing my pillow, like it was her own. Well, she had a point.
"That is the reason the maps are marked according to the location where we shouldn't go… "
"Don't worry guys, I will cover you up if anything goes wrong… my calamity strona will protect you… "Raxania said with a confident smirk.
Strona is what humans call 'magic' but is lot more powerful than that… We immortals don't need magical wands or anything to show off our magic… we just absorb the energy around us and release it… Well it doesn't mean anything to me because I have only 0.000005% of my powers left…
You don't even know how to use your powers accurately… My eyes opened after I heard those words. Apparently, I was dreaming… Why are you coming in my dream old man? I looked beside me and expected to see Kreya but she wasn't there… Strange… she's always there… maybe she has gone to the washroom or something…
"Well now that I think… I have to go to the washroom as well… Hmmm?" For some reason I couldn't move from my bed. Sleep paralysis? Immortals too? Then I saw something…. A black substance fell from the ceiling of the room… it fell straight on my face… nothing happened at first but the substance suddenly started to cover my face… I couldn't breathe anymore… I felt extreme pain inside my head… Am I gonna die?
When I regained my senses, I found myself in a dark place… there was no light… there was nothing but darkness… what's this feeling? What's this nostalgic feeling… Don't tell me… It's that black matter? I moved my hands but couldn't feel my hands moving… My whole body became numb… I could just feel the blood rushing through my head… It was painful.. I was powerless… I felt a hundred thousand eyes watching from the darkness, those weren't eyes didn't seem that of mere monster by any means, I could feel it… there was only one… one with so many eyes? Then I heard a screech, it sounded like a billion souls crying at the same time….it sounded like they were trying to say something… telling me to run away?
The screaming stopped… it was unusually calm again… and then I saw it… the humongous creature….I couldn't identify it's body features because it was dark and it hid himself pretty well inside the darkness… the feature which highlighted it's figure though was it's eyes… you simply couldn't count, how many eyes we're there… it looked straight towards… those massive eyes, looking straight through me felt like my soul was being torned to pieces.. like it was eating away on my regrets from past, the mistakes I will do in the future… like it was sucking my emotion… my body started feeling blank… those eyes vanished, or it closed them, then I saw something no one should ever see in their worst nightmare, first it seemed like a huge cave which lured me come inside it…. I could see huge rocks inside it and then something glowed… a ring?
When I moved forward unconsciously I finally realised it wasn't a cave, and those weren't rocks laying there…. And there was more than one ring inside it….
Even though I knew it wasn't a cave but the huge mouth of the monster, even though I knew those weren't rocks but massive teeths of that monster, even though I knew those rings weren't just rings but all the beings he tethered with its teeth. There was nothing beyond its mouth… it seemed like an unending ride of hell, pain and suffering… I couldn't stop myself, I was walking into hell….but when I was close enough to touch the opened mouth, the thing disappeared…
"Why are you looking so dead? Disgrace for immortals… " I heard a familiar sound say that. It was dad.
"Ahh.. Uhhh" I am not able to talk? Why?
"Don't try to say anything or your lungs might burst out, that black thing has entered your mouth and brain so your consciousness is here but your body isn't… don't worry I will send you back… but before that... "
I had so many questions like Why are you here old man? What the hell happened here? What was this monster? Why did I feel so downcast when I saw those rings? And so many more questions knocked in my head but all I could say was…
"Ohhh… uhhhh.. Soohhh.. "What's up with this babyish sound? Add another question there.
Dad was silent for a long time and then he said something peculiar…
"Look son, I know this is sudden and I don't have time to explain anything but I want you to something when you go back to your ship… "
"Uhhh… ahhh.. Uhhh.. "
"Whatever you do… you have to reach the planet within the next few minutes… because there are consequences if you go in the same pace as you are now… "
"Uhhh… ahhh… uhhhh.. "
The last thing he said made me uncomfortable… If you don't wanna loose your close ones that is…
AKASHHHH… GET UPP… AKUUU… YOU OKAY?? UHH... UHH...
STOP CRYING KREYAAA… HE WILL BE ALRIGHT… I HAVE USED THE CALAMITY STRONA… YOU IDOT IT WILL CAUSE HIM TROUBLE NOT TREAT HIM… WAIT LET ME USE WATER STRONA… STOP THE OVERFLOW YOU WILL FLOOD THE SHIPPPP! DON'T WORRY MY HOPE STRONAA WILL… SHUT UP YOU GUYS… JUST SAY HOW BAD HIS NOVELS ARE HE WILL WAKE UP IN NO TIMMEEE… NO AKU'S BOOKSS ARE GREAT… SHUT UPPPPP!
"Hmmpphhh…. I am impressed, you have made such great friends? I can rest in peace now that they are with you… Uhhmmm… Uhmmm.. before sending your consciousness back, one thing… times are going to be hard, so gear up!" with those words from dad I lost my consciousness and when I regained my consciousness… when I tried to get up, I saw Kreya was hugging me tightly like a baby… I couldn't help but smile… I still couldn't figure out why she loved me so much, but it didn't matter anymore because that childish girl became important to me too. Who would have known, I will get a girlfriend in a spaceship? Burn you single morons! Then I saw around me and figured that everyone was there sleeping… They looked exhausted trying to get me up from deep sleep…
"Hmmm? Aku? AKUUUU??? UHHH... UHHH… You are, okay?" She was crying like a child, everyone got up from the sounds of her sobbing. She hugged me like I would run away somewhere if she didn't hold me. I put a hand on her head and gave her a smile.
"I am sorry I worried you" I said.
"Uhhh.. Uhhhh.. "
"Hey we were worried too you know?" Shreya grunted.
"Yeah…Yeahhh sorry " I said with a grin.
You have to reach the planet within a few minutes; those words flashed inside my head again. What did that old man mean? Well, if he says so...
"So why did you want to come to the control room?" Ankur asked with a dubious look.
"Let's see…. What will happen if we go twice the speed of light?" I asked. Ankur's eyes opened wide with amusement.
"What the hell are you even thinking dude? Travelling more than the speed of light will take us to the past and that's not a problem but we don't know what other consequences we have to suffer if we do it?"
"If we can travel to the past, it will be better, right? We can save more people!"
"But this ship works with different laws of nature so I can't say for sure… " Ankur looked troubled.
I put a hand on his right shoulder and made a gesture that it will be alright. Well, that's what I thought!
But as soon as I increased the speed twice that of speed of light. The ship came to a stop. What? Fuel is unlimited! So, what's the problem? Maybe a motor stopped working? Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to do this… I turned towards Ankur with regret. But I saw surprise in his face instead of anger. Then I noticed the my surrounding and saw that there was no sign of ship and we were sitting over a lawn. What?
"Where are we Aku?" Kreya asked me standing up.
"Trying to figure out" I replied.
"Wait let me use my strona to find out…" Devil said.
"It's not working?! It's not possible my strona is never limited to any place… how dare this place defy devil…" he punched one of the big rocks placed there, and screamed in pain. He really is an idiot.
"He's right for some reason I can't feel the energy inside me too… " Kriti said.
Well, me and Ankur couldn't use our powers anyway so we figured something was wrong. Maybe the beasts from parallel divisions had something to do with this? But I was wrong…
"It's because the speed was so high… all our powers were used up to save our fleshy body… "Shreya said. Used up? How's that even possible? Weren't we supposed to be immortals having unlimited powers?.... Wait that old man knew everything? And yet he did so? That evil… Owww.. I felt a throbbing pain on both of my cheeks… Okay okay… God works in mysterious ways, right? Just don't kill us, will you?
Everyone looked at me with an intent to kill me… of course with the exception of Kreya… she was like an angel sent from… Waitttt… why are climbing on my back? She attached herself to me like a monkey balancing itself on a tree and I had to heft her on my back.
"Since, Aku did such a stupid thing… he will be our leader from now on… right everyone "She stared at me with a gentle evil smile. I was wrong to call you an angel…
"So here we are, there's an open field there… I am pretty sure… we will find a small group of soldiers and stay the night… and plan on our next move… " I said with heavy breaths. Kreya was really heavy and for some reason my energy seemed to be quite low... So, this is what they meant when they complained about the strona huh? It would have been an easy walk if Kreya remained still, but she went on hugging me, tickling me and even bit me… See.. I am not trying to make anyone jealous; I am just sharing my pain…
Since the decision of leadership was shifted towards me so I had to do something. Such a pain… I asked them to look out for any empty field like region… because by looking around I could tell we were near a military base, but which city or country.. I had no idea about that…
Eventually we found an open field and saw some military groups standing there… it seemed like there was a speech of some kind going on over there… I asked them to follow me towards the military base…
"Are you sure we will get a breather for the night if we go there?" Ankur asked hesitantly.
Well, I am not sure too but what else do we have in hand?
We decided to stand in front row to show that we were here with them. For some reason though every soldier there looked towards us and had satisfying smirks on their faces.. Are we that cool? I got goosebumps by that thought… But Ankur was still looking dubious… Well whatever…
"Very well than… you guys are coming with us... "The general there said that line looking towards us. Are we getting such special attention for real? But my team members weren't so hyped… they all looked dubious, even Kreya.. Am I the only smart one? Or the only fool? Well, whatever…
I started following the general and my teammates had no other choice but follow too. We came to a stop in front of an automobile… which changed its size when we got inside it… Now that I was inside it I must be happy right? But I got nervous instead, Did I really make the right choice there? Well, whatever... We will know sooner than later...