John was sitting at the back of the truck for about two hours. In that time, they had driven out of the capital and onto the dirt roads of a forest. They drove from those dirt roads to the top of a mountain.
At the top of this mountain, there was a brick-and-mortar compound that was filled with mechanoid creatures. They patrolled outside the compound and would scan the area around them with red lasers periodically.
Mechs all turned to John and his dragons. Their guns started whirring.
The black man in a black suit held up a card. The lasers scanned the card for a few moments. And then the guns calmed.
The man calmly drove through the mechs.
Naos and Neptune flew towards the truck and squeezed themselves in with John to avoid getting shot, too.
The truck sank even further.
They were really quite intelligent creatures.
The man drove them towards a metal garage with brick walls surrounding it. The garage door opened as he drove.
The inside of the garage was polished and pure white.
TAK!
The garage door closed. The car stopped, and the man jumped out.
He turned to look at John.
"Okay. Follow me to the helipad. We'll get you lifted off." The man said
John nodded.
"Alright."
The truck rose by at least twenty million feet once John and his dragons were off it.
John swore that he saw the man's brows raise by at least forty inches when he watched the truck bed move.
John followed the man through the compound and up a stairway. And then they were at a helipad.
After waiting for two or three minutes, he saw a helicopter start to fly towards him. This was it. Everyone he had known. That group of people he had grown close with at Jean's house. All of it. ALL OF IT!
He would leave it behind. Be in a new land, a new place.
John took a deep breath as the metal ropes affixed to the bottom of the helicopter were tied around him.
This was it. For the sixth time this year…..
Everything was going to change.
.
…
...
...…
...
A man who held a shining gold trumpet in his hands sat in a deep redness. One between worlds. A redness whose breath could not be described or conceptualized by a mortal. It was both greater than and less than infinity.
The man had a small smile on his face as he tooted away notes at his trumpet.
As he played his little ditty voices echoed around him.
"SAVE ME!"
"GIVE ME MERCY!"
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO!?!?!?!?!"
"I'MASINNERI'MASINNERI'MASINNERI'MASINNERI'MASINNER"
"MONSTER! MURDERER! MONSTER MURDERER!"
The man paused his song.
"That voice."
"MONSTER! MURDERER! MONSTER! MURDERER!"
A giddy smile appeared on the man's blank canvas face. This was the voice he had loved. The one he had cherished with the very depths of his soul. It was speaking. It was practically singing.
"MONSTER! MURDERER! MONSTER! MURDERER!"
Chanting over and over. About a crime.
"Maybe that ∞ influence is a good thing." The man said to himself.
The man brought his trumpet to his lips and continued to play a ditty.
The redness around him danced with his song.
"To trump the tracks that are traced. To be trained by the tolling bells of hell and be torn by the demons of fell. It is infinity. It is agony. The triumph in the face of the pain that trumps all and takes everything. It did it through the trumpet. Tell me son? How will you triumph."
The voices in the red grew silent.
"Will you?"
.
…
...
...…
John looked up at the whirring blades of the helicopter as it descended towards him. His dragons were sitting right by him. They were ready to take off the moment their flight began. The metal ropes fell to be right next to John.
The black man in the black suit walked towards him. He wrapped the metal ropes around John's body until they were fastened tight.
And then they were off. The helicopter rose and pulled John into the air. As he rose, the dragons started to fly. They danced and darted circles around him.
John watched this with a numb face and open eyes. There was a certain feeling...…
It's like I can see everything. But I'm also blind.
There were ten steps between reality and him.
John waited.
Those voices would be coming next. They would speak. And then he would go insane.
That's what the sensation meant. It had to.
Because it was new.
.
…
...
...…
John floated there. He was waiting. Just waiting for the voices to come. For the screaming thoughts to come to his mind. But nothing came. There was just a silent tension. There was this feeling of being disconnected from reality. It was like John was a puzzle piece that just barely connected with the puzzle.
John looked down at the world moving below him.
Why was he even here? Why was he alive? When.....
How was it fair?
The dragons started to prance around John. They sent spurts of ice and fire at each other and sometimes landed on John to catch their breath.
They were good beings. Kind beings. Beings that loved a murderer. A monster.
For a moment, the world flickered to a different shade.
Monster
And then it flickered back.
WHIRRRRRR
John looked at the world below him. It was like something he had never seen before. There wasn't grass. There was glass.
The world below him didn't have trees. It had skyscrapers.
There weren't birds. There were drones.
There weren't seasons. There were zones. In some places, it would rain, and in others, there would be a shining light. It was almost like the sun. But John could tell it wasn't one.
John looked down at this new world.
The helicopter lowered. This was it. This was the moment. Everything was going to change. John would have more wealth than he had ever imagined possible.
He would be paid just to have his power grow.
John took a deep breath.
And he let his feet touch the ground.
He was here. And he was in a new world.