"What happened? And where the hell are we?"
This question seems to wake me up from my shock. I try to keep my breath steady and calm. When I am looking around, I got confused because instead of the orphanage, I am now in the middle of a forest. But after thinking about what happened before, I start to curse around.
"DAMN! Did we just get absorbed by a bloody book?! How the hell is that possible?!"
"It seems so." Andra just shrugged at my rant.
Suddenly, I feel a sudden urge to smack his head. For someone who is the main reason for what happened to us, he is way too calm right now. Either he is still in shock, afraid of what will happen, or he has already calmed himself. I hope it is the latter.
"So, what do you think right now?" I ask, trying to keep as calm as possible. As a soldier, I am trained to always calm down when I have to face an unexpected event, and while this is definitely at the top-notch of my unexpected event list, I have to keep forcing myself to calm down, at least for my sanity.
"What do I think right now?" I hear Andra muttering beside me, and when I look at his eyes, I can see a sparkle in his eyes,
"I think it is BLOODY BRILLIANT!" He shouts at me excitedly.
Ok. He is excited. I forgot that he always gets excited over a dangerous situation like this. Damn. I need to smack his head now.
"Do you see what it means, Vin? The portal is true! What is the possibility of the other content in the book being true? It is so big! Don't tell me you are not excited about this! Come on! We can-–"
*SMACK!* I smacked the back of his head before he continues his nonsense rambling.
"OUCH! What the hell, Vin! Why did you smack my head!" He glares at me while rubbing his head.
"Okay, I don't know if this youth and adventure thought clouding your brain or the book itself has an effect to make you stupider than usual. But if you didn't realize it before, I will gladly point out our problem to you.
First, we are in the middle of nowhere in a place where your stupid book called Pangea, and we don't know where it is in the world. Second, we kind of got absorbed or teleported as you said from the middle of the cold night in Khimki, so nobody knows what happened to us, including Mama, Cosma, and Nina. Third, we didn't bring anything with us except your laptop and maybe our handgun for an emergency situation. So, with this kind of problem, the only thing you thought of is that stupid book of yours? ARE YOU CRAZY?!"
I think I forget about something very important in my rant, but I will let it slide for now.
"So, can you think rationally now or do I need to smack your head once again?"
However, He just looks at me like I am an idiot.
"Okay, I think you are overreacting here. The problems that you pointed out before are easy to confirm. We can do it in only two steps.
First, to do the same thing to open the portal and see if it can bring us back or not, and the second, is to check if there is any signal or not here for our phone. If there is, even if it is just a small signal, I can hack the government's server to know our location. If not, then there are two probabilities. It is either we are in a no-tech area, or we are really in a different world just like what the book said. So, simple right?"
My mouth gaped widely as I hear his explanation.
"Wait, don't tell me you have already thought about that solution since the beginning?" I asked with a ridiculous face, just to get a confused gaze from Andra.
"Of course I have. Is that what we are supposed to do in an unexpected event like this? Assess your situation and think of a solution quickly. I thought the military taught about it?"
Hearing what he said really make me want to beat him to death. Here I am panicking over our situation and he has already thought about it all. In the end, I just sigh and ask,
"So, what do you think we are going to do now?" Andra didn't answer my question. He just took out his phone, and after checking for a while, he clicked his tongue,
"Well, the phone is definitely out now. So, the best possibility for us is we are in a no-tech area." Hearing that, I cannot help but be curious.
"You have mentioned the no-tech area twice with that. What is that?"
"I am not surprised that you have never heard about it. Usually, you need to be a lieutenant general to know what a no-tech area is. It is basically a place where an old warrior tribe gets isolated by the government.
If you remember, when the war erupted for the first time, a lot of soldiers died, and after that, the military started to recruit children from orphanages. What the military and government didn't publish is, that they tried to recruit the old warrior tribes all around the country, but the recruitment itself ended up badly for the military. More soldiers died during that recruitment, and animosity grew between both military and the tribes.
Seeing that the tribes didn't want to join the military, the higher-ups decided to suppress the tribes by isolating their location from any form of technology, while in front of the media, they will say that the tribes didn't want to participate in the war. Well, that is basically the birth of the no-tech Area." He finished his explanation.
"How do you know all of this stuff?"
"Let's just say that I have accidentally met the tribes in the past, and it is surprisingly a pleasant meeting." He smiles fondly.
While I am still curious, I decide to leave the no-tech area topic and back to our main discussion.
"So, back to the topic, where is the book now?" Andra takes out the book from his jacket as the answer.
"Well, let's try to open the portal again. Brace yourself." He warns me. I nodded and hide behind the nearest tree, bracing myself for the gravitational pull like the last time. After we are ready,
"Open portal."
Surprisingly, this time, there is no gravitational force that pulled us to the book. Instead, a normal door appears in front of us. Out of curiosity, I open the door, and a pleasant smile grows as I look inside the door. The door itself connected to our room in the orphanage.
"Well, at least one of our problems is solved right now. We have a way to go back if things went too dangerous. Although I am curious why it didn't create a gravitational force like the first time." I muttered.
"So, does that mean we can explore this area for a while?" Andra asks excitedly, ignoring what I said. After thinking for a second,
"Let's wait until tomorrow. In case you forgot, it is already night in our home, and we need our rest and better preparation for whatever waiting for us in this area."
"Fine with me, let's do it tomorrow." He shrugged.
However, in a sudden moment, we can hear a scream,
"AAAARRRGHHHH!!!"
We just looked at each other for a while before Andra asks the question,
"Want to take a look?" He seems unsure about the idea. Not that I blame him of course. Sticking into other's business without knowing the problem is just looking for an enemy, and we didn't want to do that when we didn't even know where we are right now.
"Okay, but we will observe first before taking action. I don't want to start our exploration by creating an enemy."
"Sure. Be prepared for your handgun though. We don't know what kind of problem we will have to face."
"What about the door itself?"
"Well, it's easy. Just look at me here." He answers while placing a hand on the back of the book.
"Close portal." And suddenly, the door disappears like it was never there before.
"Of course, to close the portal you need to say the opposite. What a great logic we have here." I muttered sarcastically. Andra just chuckled at my sour face.
"Forget about that. Let's see what is the source of that scream before."
After exploring for a while, I pick up a noise coming from a cave. I give a quick signal for Andra to come with me and prepare my handgun. We walked slowly to the mouth of the cave, afraid of making a noise that will give us our position. After entering the cave, we could hear a lot of screams coming. We hide quickly and try to find out what is exactly happening in this cave. Suddenly, we can hear a voice coming
"So, are you ready to talk now, princess?"
Out of curiosity, we decide to take a peek at the voice's source. However, we didn't expect to see what is really happening. A man in a black robe can be seen interrogating a young woman, probably two or three years older than me, and by the look of her nail-less hand of the woman, it's clear that the man is torturing the woman to find the information that he wants.
The woman itself was just silent while glaring at the man hatefully.
'Devin, what are we going to do now?' Andra whispered lowly, unsure what we should do right now. After quick thinking, I give him a clear instruction
'We will wait and see. We don't know what is really happening here. However, be prepared to interfere if the torture is getting worse.' Andra just nods and prepares his handgun.
"So, you still don't want to say anything huh? I wonder what will happen to your little sister. I guess after a 'delicate touch' to her fragile body, you will think twice to open your mouth." The man says with a mocking tone. Suddenly, the air around us is turning cold.
'Can we just take his head now?' I can see Andra glaring at the man hatefully. I don't blame him, because we both hate a rapist, and by hearing what the man said we both know what the poor girl's fate will be.
'No. Although tempting, we still don't know what is happening here. Just knock him out so we could have both as our informants now.'
While he looks disappointed, Andra knows what I said is true, so he just nods and says,
'Okay, he is right-handed, so shoot his right leg to throw him out off guard. Let me do the rest, and we will have him unconscious for at least a night.' I nodded and aim my handgun at the man's right leg. At Andra's signal,
*BANG!*
"AAAARRGGHH!!" He screams out of my shoot. Before he could react and realized what happened, Andra already moves with a speed that surprise me and gives the man a straight uppercut to his abdomen. Before the man can scream for the second time, Andra grabs the man's head and hit the man's jaw with his knee. The battle itself happened in under twenty seconds, making my jaw drop for a moment.
"What the hell? Since when could you move with that speed and agility? It is inhuman, Bro!" I asked with a shocked face. Andra just looks at me with the same shocked face, clearly didn't expect his movement before.
"I also don't know what happened. I suddenly move with a speed that I myself know I could not handle."
However, before we can figure out what is clearly happening with Andra's sudden movement, we can hear a disbelieving tone from behind us.
"A-a m-m-mage.." We turn our heads and see the shocked face of the woman who gets tortured before. And as she finished speaking, she fell unconscious, leaving us with a lot of questions here.