Standing under the doorframe, Kalin looks at the hallway of his cheap apartment, stricken by an unexpected wave of nostalgia he starts to walk down the hallway, but suddenly the ground starts to shake violently, and Kalin barely manages to keep his balance.
Kalin falls onto a wall, leaning his body against it for balance until the whole building starts tilting... and Kalin is thrown from the wall violently back into his room. His door slamming shut from the force of gravity, he flies into his bedroom window forming a crack on it.
Kalin coughs up blood and saliva as his back makes contact with the window, if he were any heavier he would've just flown straight outside, wiping blood off of his lip Kalin grits his teeth struggling to fight against the pull of gravity, 'what is... happening' he turns his head to look through his window which is now facing the ground and he sees.
Goblins... but more goblins than he'd ever seen, and many other types of monsters. Ogres and orcs were all standing in the parking lot at the base of his apartment... they were all grouped together and they seemed to be hacking at the base taking turns swinging at it with axes and clubs.
The building shakes violently from their blows, and the crack on Kalin's window gets larger making several offshoots, Kalin panics and struggles to move away from the window to no success. This feeling of being powerless is reminiscent of the darkness when he was put into the trials.
Noticing that he can't move, he looks back down at the parking lot, luckily he isn't that high just the 5th floor of an average-sized apartment, since he'll soon be on the ground one way or another he decides to inspect what awaits him there, luckily it's just the goblins and the orcs he's relieved that it's just them... that is until a gigantic and hideous monster the size of a house and that resembled a goblin approached the building parting the sea of goblins and orc's with it's presence, the giant monster raises their huge axe, swiftly bringing it down at the base of the building as easy as a lumberjack chopping a tree.
Another tremor runs through the whole building this time though, gravity changes again, and Kalin Is slammed onto his front door, he grunts in pain from the impact, fighting against losing his consciousness he manages to open his eyes, but now the floor is rapidly approaching. Then it hits and his vision fades to black.
He opens his eyes which sting from the dust, the first sounds he hears is a firetruck's blaring horn in the distance, the sound of blood splattering and pained screams accompanied by high-pitched sinister chuckles, he holds his hands over his ears trying to block the annoying sounds, 'Shut up...' he manages to move his head, and all that he can see is remnants of where he once lived.
Where a wall used to be a large hole leading to the parking lot now replaces it, Kalin lays on the floor for a moment looking at what's left of his home, all of his years of life turned into rock and dust. He decides that he can't just lay on the floor and do nothing, he places his hands on the floor pushing himself up with all of his remaining strength, and with a limp he forces himself to walk through the hole.
As he leaves the confines of his destroyed abode, a few goblins that are standing on a red beaten-up car look at him, not expecting a human to survive the fall they have a rare confused expression, but it immediately gets replaced with their usual sinister expression that he was used to as soon as they looked at his state.
'How did they get here?' before he can find the answer to that question, thunderous stomping sounds are heard by the goblins which were looking at Kalin with evil expressions in an instant change to scared ones, they quiver and back up a few of them falling off of the car, Kalin turns to look at what they're looking at.
The huge unknown monster that chopped his apartment down stands in front of him now his axe hanging on a strap resting on his back, the huge monster looks down at Kalin his huge nostrils blowing hot repulsive air straight into his face.
Kalin barely has time to formulate a thought, 'Oh shi...' until he gets punched straight in the stomach, he tries to dodge but it is simply too fast, Kalin flies backward uncontrollably, his flight soon getting stopped when his back crashes into a light pole.
Kalin slides off the light pole, falling onto the floor, spitting blood out onto his uniform. He gets up from the floor staggered and disoriented he feels like he's fresh out of an hour-long rollercoaster.
He looks towards the towering goblin which is now quite far away, the huge monster looks back at him and their eyes meet, the huge monster is visibly shocked that Kalin survived but quickly goes back to normal.
The huge goblin reaches its hand over its shoulder gripping the handle of its huge war axe and rushes to Kalin with incredible speed, Kalin looks around himself for something to defend but all that he can see is a... stick, 'Why is it always a stick'
With no better options, Kalin grabs the stick but something is different than before, the stick feels better in his hands and he feels like he could use it better than in the forest, it almost feels like a sword.
Kalin looked back at the monster stick in hand ready to defend himself, the monster practically soared through the air the sheer wind pressure throwing cars all around like a tornado, this show of strength made Kalin gulp but he didn't have a choice but to defend himself.
The monster reaches him and when it's in range it swings its axe vertically trying to perfectly slice Kalin in half, even surprising himself Kalin remains calm and completely still, and the moment the edge of the axe is in front of his face he blocks it with his stick.
Of course, the stick didn't hold together, it instantly split apart the moment the monster's axe made contact with it, giving Kalin two sticks now rather than one both of them having a rather sharp edge where they were cut.
The monster doesn't let Kalin counterattack swiping its huge hand at him like he's swatting at a fly, its claws threatening to rip him to shreds.
Kalin stares at the hand as it approaches, for some reason, it feels like it is going extremely slow now. As its claw becomes dangerously close Kalin jumps up, maneuvering midair to turn sideways.
The monster looks at Kalin with an incredulous expression letting out a frustrated roar, Kalin doesn't pay it any attention instead he brandishes his sticks, slashing at its huge arm below him.
A rain of green blood sprays from the fresh wound on the monster's skin completely absorbing Kalin's sticks and slowly corroding them. Understanding that he can't keep attacking with them Kalin lands back on the ground sliding backward to give himself time to gather his thoughts.
The monster looked back at Kalin his mouth opened wide baring his terrifying fangs with a clear thirst for revenge, making Kalin shudder slightly.
But Kalin still a bit high and delusional from his successful attack, smiles after the initial shiver, confident that he can take it down.
This makes the monster even angrier, it grabs his axe with both of its hands and jumps up as high as it can, and without letting Kalin prepare or even move it slices down at him.
Kalin leaps backward dodging the blade of the axe, but gets flung backward by the wind pressure, He screams as he flies across the parking lot once more stopped this time when he lands on the roof of a red car denting it and then bouncing off of it faceplanting into the concrete.
Kalin slowly gets up, the blood from his nose and various wounds covering the rocks below, he peeks over the car trying to locate the monster. But it's nowhere to be seen.
'Where'd it go...?' Kalin thinks but then feels a breath behind him. Swiftly turning he sees the monster's ginormous fist approaching at inhuman speeds, 'Crap' he puts his sticks in front of himself trying to dull the impact even a little.
At the moment of impact, his sticks were utterly eviscerated as if they were made of dust. Even though he wasn't directly hit, the skin on his hands was melting from the pressure.
The sticks did nothing to block the blow either as he was hit in the stomach by the monster, crashing into the concrete, rocks and blood erupting from the ground.
Kalin groans on the ground struggling to keep his eyes open he stares at the monster a mixture of anger and fear in his eyes, the monster just stares at Kalin with a burning hatred.
After a few seconds of looking at Kalin the monster steps toward him, the rocks crunching under its feet.
Kalin tries to get up to run or defend himself but he can't move his body at all. The monster grabs Kalin's legs swinging him around in circles, Kalin's limp body ragdolling in the wind.
Once Kalin is at peak speed the monster launches him, sending him flying across the wall that separates his apartment's parking lot and a colorful playground.
Kalin's elevation suddenly drops as he's overhead to the playground, sending him plummeting down towards it, screaming as the floor gets closer and closer until...
His head collided with the metal bar that held the rusted swings, the impact caused him to flip over and then fall onto the mulch.
Even with pain resistance, the pain was torturous he lay on the mulch unmoving even though he didn't have a say in that. His eyes were becoming heavy and the adrenaline was leaving his body making the pain even worse.
And it only got worse as the monster was steadily approaching its thundering footsteps making him feel as if the earth was shaking, 'Am I... gonna die?'
Kalin had been rather unaffected by the sudden appearance of the trials, but now he was seeing how dangerous it truly was.
The monster came even closer, and Kalin's eyes became increasingly harder to keep open, he fought the temptation to give up his will to live and anger at dying like this kept him awake for a while but in the end, he was unable to.
His eyes finally closed, but in the last moments of being conscious, he heard the faint sound of metal hitting metal and flesh being sliced.
And then a comforting silence was all that remained.
The sound of distant panicked voices and robotic beeps and boops surrounded him, along with the smell of hand sanitizer, blood, and something antiseptic. After taking in the variety of scents his eyes open.
A hallway surrounded by white polished walls without a single blemish along with thin metal doors somehow Kalin felt a deep sense of grief just looking at them.
looking away from his surroundings he focused on himself, noticing that he wasn't wearing his uniform anymore instead he was wearing a hospital gown with blue polka dots all around it, also he wasn't covered in blood, he was still in immense pain though, but slightly less.
As he's rolled to the end of the hallway in a stretcher he abruptly stops in front of a wooden door, the woman pushing him walks to the front of him letting Kalin finally get a look at her, she was of average height most likely not much taller than Kalin with shoulder-length hair cut into a bob, her expression was a little distant but it wasn't sad or anything... more nonchalant
Kalin stared at the woman for a moment before he was stopped by the woman herself, "Excuse me, is there something wrong?" Kalin snaps out of his daze quickly responding, "No ma'am I was just thinking about how... pretty you are"
The woman stares at him for a bit as if he's crazy for saying that in his state but decides not to respond instead she shifts the topic, "This is your room, the TV remote is on the table by the bed and the bathroom is down the hallway to your right, a doctor will be with you shortly"
The woman whom Kalin had identified as "Carra" turned around walking out of his room leaving him alone with the TV, which was blaring the sound of the news which Kalin promptly turned off.
Kalin sat on his chair which was situated at the corner of the room for a while watching cartoons and gameshow that he hadn't been able to watch because of not having the money to afford proper cable, he particularly enjoyed "Jeopardy" it was fun to imagine himself as a contestant he was sure that he would win if he was.
He was completely focused on the TV the contestant he was rooting for Mark's turn was up, "I'd like to do historical events for 500!" and just as the question was about to be revealed the channel suddenly switched.
'What the...?' The man on the TV was a middle-aged man he was wearing a suit and had two thin strips of hair on both sides of his head as well as a little spout of hair in the middle which was desperately hanging on, his voice was grave and serious.
"Aurora Estates an apartment complex famous for its cheap apartments was attacked by unknown beings. The government has gone on record saying they are doing their best to deal with these unexplainable events and urges people to stay calm, however, happenings just like this have randomly sprung up all throughout the world, one of the deadliest was the invasion on France by what's been described as a Yeti" the man is given a cup of coffee by someone offscreen which he gratefully sips and continues talking.
"There were many more attacks but all of them had one thing in common, they were stopped by mysterious humans who eyewitnesses claim to have been seen using superpowers, we will be going down to our man on the scene Andrew who is currently in the middle of Times Square where monsters had invaded"
The camera rests on the old man for a couple of seconds before shifting to Andrew who is right in front of the Red Steps after staring into the camera for a moment he begins talking, "Thank you, Adam, yes indeed this spot was where the monster invasion took place" the camera pans over to the surroundings buildings had whole chunks taken out of them and then down to the rubble on the floor which was seemingly endless
Andrew starts to talk again, "Also behind me there was allegedly a small gateway where mons-" Cutting him off, the rubble starts to move and a small green hand peeks out from under it grasping at the floor and struggling to get out, the cameraman and Andrew go completely silent, slowly backing up.
The monster struggles to get up, but it eventually does, pushing itself up and letting the rock that was on his back slide off hitting other debris that was lying nearby.
The cameraman records it with shaky hands, the monster wasn't anything Kalin had ever seen although it seemed like a type of goblin variant due to its low stature, that was about the only similarity...
This monster was icy blue with a wide open mouth completed by four rows of razor-sharp teeth, its claws were much longer than a goblin's, and they had a much sharper edge. if a goblin was playfully evil these things were... just evil.
The blue goblin pounced toward the cameraman his maw opened wide to engulf the man but before it could even get close it was cut in half, the multiple pieces of it falling onto the floor.
The average person wouldn't have been able to register that it had been sliced by a sword but Kalin saw it... he saw the glimmer of a blade easily slice through the goblin like it was butter.
The cameraman pans the camera to the side, where a woman stands, she has long golden hair that escapes through the back of her helmet, and she's wearing glamorous shiny armor which makes one's gaze instantly gravitate towards it, the only blemishes are on her breastplate which was painted by the blue blood of the goblin variant she had just killed.
She wiped the blood off her longsword, turning to face the camera, she started walking toward Andrew the camera following her like it'd been entranced to do so.
She kneels over beside Andrew reaching her hand out to receive something, Andrew without the need for words hands her the microphone, Kalin is at the edge of his hospital bed... what could this woman have to say?
The armored woman cleared her throat making everyone who was watching do the same, but what nobody could imitate was her voice, it was as if you were being gently touched by sunlight, "I will handle this..." she uttered these four simple words and slowly handed the mic back to Andrew.
Such simple words left a deep impression on everyone who was watching, and as the camera pans over to look at the armored woman's walk, she disappears with a torrent of golden feathers which slowly fall onto the ground where she once stood. The woman's actions made her reputation skyrocket, Kalin however thought the woman was shady.
Kalin turns off the TV for the day, grabbing the armrests and hoisting himself up shakily, his cracked ribs make this action much harder and he winces as he stands, he walks over to his bed after turning off the light, the now quiet hospital room leaving him alone with his thoughts, 'I mean I didn't get cool armor like that...' with a sense of bitterness he turns off the light and goes to sleep.