William found himself in a black land of humid soil and fractured bones, where a white sky and a dense fog covered every horizon he could observe. He clumsily got up, unable of remembering when or how he ended up in that place.
It was as if his mind was erased, and all he remembered was his name and basic senses. What happened? What was that strange place?
There was a 30 meters tall black hill ahead —the only part of the terrain that wasn't flat. He walked towards it, trying to sort out anything, and chirring squeaks whistled before he could wonder. A pair of winged animals came from the hill, rose to the skies, and then directed their glide towards him.
Their jet-black bodies contrasted with the whiteness in the background. What was that about? Standing still, he noticed they were a pair of bats, their little red eyes staring like bloody rubies. The way they winged and squeaked made him feel nervous. They were like a pair of flying cockroaches.
Were they going towards him? They got closer, and the answer was yes. William picked up a heavy femur from the ground that looked like it belonged to a cow and held it tightly like a mace. He took a step back and waited for them to get closer.
Bam. The first one tried to get on him but was received by a smack from the thick bone that sent it dead to the soil.
"Agh…!" the second one was faster and nailed itself to William's arm. Its sharp claws and fangs penetrated his skin, and a missing heartbeat made him drop the femur.
He grabbed the flying rat by its furry back and plucked it apart before smacking it against the ground and stepping on it with his naked feet. The beast stopped squeaking. He checked his arm: his skin had four bleeding holes from its fangs, accompanied by swollen scratches. What the hell was that?
"Aaaaagh!" he flinched, getting caught by surprise by something sharp nailing itself on his back.
He struggled to put his hands on his back and felt another one of the flying little beasts trying to eat his skin and blood. He squeezed it tight until he managed to pull it off, but it escaped from his hands and flew away before he could do anything.
Goddamnit. The pulsing pain on his back was intenser than the one in his arm. Stretching his hand and touching his new wounds, it burnt as he touched it, and his fingers got covered by his own blood and something sticky.
He looked around and picked up the cow femur once again, but no more of those cat-sized bats were to be seen. What was that strange place and why was he there to begin with? He tried to remember, but all he got was a headache and a ghost feeling on his stomach. It was as if he had been stabbed.
He fell on his knees, looking hopelessly at the desolate place. But something rumbling so hard that made the ground vibrate dragged his attention. It came from the other side of the hill. The rumbling transformed into a high-pitched chirring, and then screeching screams; thousands of them combined into a distorted call.
Uncountable black figures emerged from the hill and rose to the contrasting sky. More bats. But this time their numbers were not few. First 5, then 10, then 20, then 50, then 100…
"Holy f…" William could not finish his curse. Unstopping numbers of the flying beasts kept flying to the sky in a swirl that formed an irregular circle above.
And more and more emanated from the other side of the hill in cramped lines, as if various geysers of them were located there. Their numbers kept skyrocketing, and their combined, yelling squeaking was stronger than any human ovation or combined warcry that made William swear his ears were about to explode.
"Agh…" he tried to cover them, looking around and then at the massive bat swirl above.
The soil rumbled, muddy rocks and broken bones bouncing. The geometrically increasing bats became so many they began to block the white of the sky, just like the biggest arrow rain ever fired.
He tried to step back, feeling powerlessly diminutive compared to the chiropteran ocean of bloodhungry creatures above. More and more cramped numbers kept coming, swirling and reaching the engulfing whirlpool on the sky like tornadoes joining a hurricane.
His skin suddenly hopped: a bat reached his shoulders and tried to dig on his skin with its sawed fangs. He violently plunged it out and tossed it away, but another two arrived and clawed themselves to his exposed chest and legs.
William growled and breathed quickly, trying to put them apart before another pair arrived to maul his face, forcing him to use his left arm as a shield. He tried to fight the rest with his right arm before it became a bleeding carnage, but another two descended and clawed themselves on his back, ripping and tearing his cold skin.
"You… you goddamn monsters!" he got angry as adrenaline suppressed the pain, feeling the ganging little beasts like a bunch of little stabbers on his body.
But he managed to notice something while he struggled on the ground as if a swarm of killer bees attacked him: the supermassive bat cluster above quickly descended towards him. Nothing would remain, and more than than 99% of those massive numbers wouldn't even touch him.
"Aaaaaaah!" more bats struck him, adhering themselves and forcing him to fight harder on the ground. His heartbeat was a race, and the continuous blood loss and shock made him feel both weak and angrier.
An ear-piercing thunder then screamed. The bats on William flew away in fear, his body full of open wounds and bathed in blood like a leper. The massive bat cauldron on the sky chirred harder with panic, and a green flash devouring everything blinded his eyes for a second.
But he regained his vision almost immediately: the million bats obstructing the sky screamed in pain, and thousands of them began to plummet like burnt chickens.
A fluorescent green light then dazzled at the top of the hill and overcharged lightning in the same vivid color, striking the titanic whirlpool above, calcinating thousands of them and filling the air with the smell of charred hair and meat. It spread in dozens of smaller bolts sparking green like the biggest firework festival.
Hundreds of roasted bats plummeted from the sky; William covered his head to avoid getting hit, but most of them were reduced to ashes before they even landed. He swept the blood on his face away and tried to discern the source of that green energy annihilating the unstoppable little beasts.
A second lightning super bolt spread next to the first, and their combined charring energy filled with flashes and sparks the whole sky, the whirlpool quickly dying off as ionized energy overthrew it.
It hailed black ashes. Both of the main lightning combined at the top into a single, electrified sphere that violently collapsed into an expanding wave, erasing from existence any bat that could have remained.
The sky turned white again, and no more squeaks were to be heard. William coughed from the burning ashes, which had mixed with his bloody skin into a muddy pulp.
Looking at the top of the hill, there was a humanoid figure with a black tunic covering its identity. Both of its hands were raised, but they were no hands of any human or living being.
They were ivory white, being made totally of bones like a skeleton. The shawled figure slowly lowered them, and they got covered by its saggy sleeves.
What the hell was it? It just exterminated the uncountable number of flying numbers in mere seconds, where William had struggled with a bare few numbers!
And that lightning! That was no natural thing. It had to be magic.
The creature turned around and sauntered away, but before William could get up and do anything, his mind spun like a sawmill blade, and insufferable nausea made him fall to the bed of ashes surrounding everywhere.
Everything went black again. But this time, he heard voices. And one of them was rather familiar...