North of Ether, in Massachusetts, but also the Northern dukedom of the Etherwind Empire, The Charles River was contained by a vast black mountain range, spilling between its valleys. A blanket of grey clouds shrouded the skies, plunging the region of Cambridge into darkness.
Drip. Drop.
Lena's eyes abruptly opened, meeting dripping stalactites. She felt a gust of cold wind pierce through her graduation gown, and shivered.
'What...' She attempted to shake off her stupor before attempting to figure out what had happened.
'Ah...'
She recalled taking a selfie with Ria before she noticed flashing lights around her, and then the world shook and trembled.
She only had enough presence of mind to grab her friend and find shelter amidst the ensuing earthquake, barely noticing the magnitude of what was going on. She ended up dashing in a desperate adrenalin-fueled charge, somehow making her way into this cave.
Now that she had the time to process the events, none of it made any sense. In the first place, how was there a cave in the middle of the city?
"Ria?" Lena looked around the cave, calling out. She couldn't see any signs of her friend anywhere. In the end, she could only attempt to find her way out of the cave that she had found herself in somehow.
The sound of her shoes meeting stone echoed rhythmically in the cave before those sounds were faintly accompanied by a more guttural rhythm.
Lena paused, and looked around her, faintly noticing something amiss.
Grrr....Phew....Grrr...Phew
Those sounds hinted at there being something else inside the cave. Lena took a deep breath.
'Yeah, nope. Nuh-uh. I'm out of here' She reluctantly took off her shoes to dampen the sounds of her footsteps and started to search for an exit with a lot more urgency.
Soon, she found trails of orange light seeping in from a certain direction, along with some warmth. She paused for a moment before allowing herself to be guided by them, making sure to remain as discreet and cautious as possible.
She had some ideas about where she was headed, however, none of them made any logical sense. If she were to discard logic entirely though...
She peered through a small opening from which the orange glow shone, and her breath hitched.
There, in a chamber of flowing molten...
There were two strange creatures.
One of them was a bipedal, with a large turtle-like carapace and a forked tongue. It was holding a large scale-like weapon, and its serpentine eyes seemed to absorb the orange glow about it.
Another was a large lizard, clinging to the wall at the other end of the chamber, eyeing the bipedal with caution and ferocity.
Low growls were emitting from the two, no doubt some form of communication being made between them.
Lena froze, her mind screaming at her to leave before they noticed her, but her body was unable yet to respond to her pleas.
The bipedal leaped, grasping its scale weapon with one arm, as it clung onto the rocky wall with the claws on its other arm.
The large salamander responded by digging its claws further into the chamber walls and skittering along them, aiming for the right moment to strike the bipedal, causing the chamber to tremble with each of its movements.
Upon feeling the tremors beneath her, Lena managed to overcome her fear and quickly retreat.
She ran as far away from that place as possible, opting instead to follow the direction of colder air flows.
'Was I Isekai'd?' Despite barely being able to form a coherent thought from the fear, she managed to grasp at something completely asinine.
Nonetheless, it had helped her to remain calm, despite half-believing she was inside some kind of twisted dream or elaborate hallucination.
Eventually, she escaped the dreaded confrontation.
Gasp. Gasp.
'Deep breaths Lena, come on. You've conquered all the Souls games. This much...' Lena further comforted herself until her breathing fell to a manageable rate.
A gust of wind blew past her and she turned in its direction.
Following it for a while, this time with even more caution and wariness, looking around herself every few moments, she arrived at the exit of the cave.
As she stood there at the cave's mouth, and before she could feel any sense of relief or accomplishment...
She became speechless once again.
'Isn't that the John Harvard statue?' Lena widened her eyes as she observed the familiar statue, now toppled over, and half-buried in the mud.
What was once University Hall was now nothing but a collapsed ruin, and from her vantage point, the greenery she was familiar with became much too foreign to her.
A forest stretched out onto the horizon, only intermittently broken by roots digging into the collapsed remnants of her alma mater.
Pitter. Patter.
A heavy rain began pouring, and faint streams began flowing down the slopes of unfamiliar mountains. The rain did little to conceal a faint red mist forming in the air.
Lena felt nauseous upon seeing that view and stumbled slightly on her knees.
'What...'
Before she could begin to compose herself from her harrowing experiences, the ground trembled once again. Instinctually, Lena retreated into the cave and crouched, hands blocking her ears.
Then, without warning, a sound greater and more imposing than the earthquake echoed from the depths of the cave, dwarfing the impression of the two creatures she had seen briefly in one of its chambers.
ROOAAAAAAR!
To Lena, it felt that the mountain itself would collapse, and even in her panic and fear, the remaining thread of rationality caused her body to run out of the cave, and down, past the collapsed statue, and past the once prestigious grounds of Harvard, sparing nothing else a second glance.
She weaved past the tall trees of the unfamiliar forest, and before she could stop herself, she tripped over a heavy object.
She quickly tried to get up, but in doing so, her vision met the sight of a graduation gown, much like hers.
And yet those eyes were lifeless and the body, or what was left of it, was cold, clearly half-eaten by some predator.
Lena stopped despite herself, looking at the student's body. She didn't know them, but she still couldn't help but shudder.
Another thought also came to her as she recalled what she had said earlier in the day, and then involuntarily let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
'Stay alive to enjoy your diploma... huh?'
She guessed that if she wanted to follow her own advice, it would be easier said than done, considering her situation.