Feeling uneasy in his sleep, Nathan tried to roll over to make himself more comfortable. But the moment he opened his eyes slightly, all the memories flooded back into his mind.
Frantic, Nathan sat up and looked around as he wiped the dust from his face.
'Where am I?'
Somehow the rift seemed to have sent him into what appeared to be an abandoned house. The furniture was old and dusty, the wooden floor was rotten in places, and several sections of the ceiling had collapsed, revealing the blue sky, and allowing soft but cold gusts of air to seep into the room.
Leaning on his leg, Nathan stood up and looked around cautiously. He was in an unfamiliar and, as far as he knew, dangerous place.
'Tch, damn old man'
All the respect and fear he had for the old man vanished as he remembered how the old man had pushed him into the rift between the realms. He didn't know what his intentions were, but now he doubted if he really wanted to help him or kill him.
Then, knowing he had to search and gather information, Nathan remembered everything he knew about the realms
Years ago, his parents had taught him and his brother Noah one of the characteristics of their world. Seventy years ago, strange rifts opened up in different parts of the world.
Governments studied them for a long time with no results. It was beyond the reach of modern science.
There were many theories that tried to explain the strange cracks, but none could come to a conclusion. It was not until one day when a scientist accidentally fell into the crack that progress was made in the study of the cracks.
A few days after the scientist fell into the rift, he emerged and told a fantastic story.
It was then that they realized that these strange rift were dimensional doorways to other worlds... or parts of them.
The rifts were divided into 4 categories, lower, intermediate, upper, and special. The lower rifts led to a place where there was no human life... but where there were fantasy creatures that may or may not be hostile.
These lower rifts were usually harmless, although the unknown was still dangerous, and yet the death toll of people who entered these gates was not zero.
The intermediate rifts, on the other hand, were more dangerous, and the creatures that inhabited them were known to be extremely dangerous and aggressive.
The Upper rifts were problematic, as they were particularly difficult to survive within without adequate preparation or strength.
Only the heroes Nathan had heard of in stories had entered the Upper Gates and come out alive to tell the tale.
As for the special rifts... they were just rumors, urban myths.
But all the rifts had one thing in common, and that was that they all led to a place that years later was called the realms.
Nathan was confused as he looked around.
As far as he knew, the rifts were all registered and guarded by the government. Only a few remained hidden and unknown to the whole world, but for some reason the old man had been able to open one right in front of him.
Not only that, he had pushed him into one!
Nathan had no idea what to do, it was the first time he had ever been faced with such a situation. He had never seen a rift before, let alone entered one.
But now he was alone, in an unknown realm, in a possibly hostile and again... unknown environment.
However, it was not the first time that Nathan had had to do everything on his own. It had been half a year since he had started being homeless. How hard could it be to survive in a realm?
If anything, the only thing that bothered Nathan was what kind of rift the old man had thrown him into.
Nathan began to examine the room he was in. It seemed that the place had been abandoned long ago, but it was strange that no one had tried to ransack it over the years. All the furniture and decorations were in place.
Walking over to a table, Nathan picked up a vase of dead flowers and emptied it before dusting it off with his hand.
The vase was ceramic but had shiny gold parts.
'Gold?'
Nathan didn't know if the vase in his hands had gold parts, but if it did, then the owner of this place must have been someone with a lot of money.
But from the type of furniture, the structure of the house and the condition it was in, Nathan guessed it was quite old.
Putting the vase back on the table, he began to walk through the first floor of the house, ignoring the stairs leading up to the first floor for the time being.
Nearly 20 minutes later, he was making a mental map of the entire first floor, there was the living room where he had appeared, a kitchen, a room with a large table for eight, a small bedroom and a bathroom.
It was no different from any other house, there was nothing strange about it, only the age of the house made him wonder. But Nathan knew that he was in a realm, so he could not trust it.
Now Nathan stood in front of the stairs and began to climb them with a sigh.
The stairs were large and when he reached a certain point, they split on either side and continued up to the first floor.
Once on the first floor, Nathan looked down the corridor that ran all the way to the bottom. There were several rooms, which he began to examine one by one. They were all normal rooms, with a bed and a bathroom.
'At least I have a place to sleep...' Nathan sighed, knowing that he would finally be able to rest in a proper bed... even if the mattress was probably rotten.
Once out of the room and back in the corridor, Nathan stood in front of the last door and the one furthest from the stairs.
The surface of the door was scratched, as if someone had tried to break in repeatedly. Not only that, but the scratches had traces of dried blood and were covered with dust from time.
The sight of the dried blood made Nathan shudder and he forced himself to calm down before swallowing saliva and grabbing the doorknob.
"Right..."
Turning it as slowly as possible, Nathan pushed the door all the way open and froze.
A boy sat in the middle of the room, drawing with crayons.
'There shouldn't be humans in a realm!' Nathan groaned inwardly as he watched the boy continue to draw.
Seconds later, the boy stopped and slowly turned his head to stare at him. Nathan's eyes met the completely black eyes of the boy who was looking at him with a tender smile.
His heart began to beat wildly, not knowing what or who the boy in front of him was.
The boy dropped his crayons and stood up, taking a few steps towards Nathan.
"Are you here to play?"
Nathan didn't answer, he was barely ten years old himself, but the boy in front of him was younger, maybe six or seven. But it wasn't that that worried him, it was that the boy had blood on his hands.
When he saw that Nathan was not responding, the boy grimaced sadly.
"Or are you going to leave me alone too?"
Suddenly, the boy turned his head and looked out the window where the sun was beginning to set over the mountains and the moon was beginning to rise.
Seeing the sunset, the boy ran to the open window and looked at Nathan.
"I'll come back to play tomorrow!"
The boy jumped out of the window and disappeared from Nathan's sight, who quickly went to the window and looked out.
It was a first floor from which the boy had just jumped, but contrary to Nathan's expectations, not only was the boy not hurt, he wasn't even anywhere.
He was completely gone.
Nathan closed the window to keep the cold air out, then turned his back on the boy and dropped to the floor, dragging his back against the wall.
'What was that…?'