Chereads / Blank zero / Chapter 2 - Beginning

Chapter 2 - Beginning

*drip**drip**drip*

The sound of a dark red liquid dripping onto the floor resounded through dark gloomy halls. The halls are occupied only by the remains of those who held him captive...

.....

Lets rewind a bit shall we?

Shinko's POV

I slowly woke up, my vision is blurry but not so blurry that I couldn't tell I was in a forest for some reason. What in the world happened? I looked at my surroundings before trying to remember how I got here but ultimately came up with nothing.

The atmosphere feels kinda weird here, heavy I guess is the best way to put it? Anyway I tried getting my phone to call someone only to realize that, lo and behold, I don't have it, for some reason...

"Well I'm screwed." I sigh in defeat and get up to try and find a creek or something and yet somehow end up out of the forest and in a field where I actually see some people.

"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, yep I'm not risking it, stranger danger." And so I hid, like a coward would.

I observed the people who, oddly enough, were using a carriage to haul... whatever it is they were hauling. But that wasn't all that was strange, no, in fact I would say that the giant lizard horse creature pulling the carriage was probably a bit weirder than the carriage itself.

"Well that's not normal..." I whispered to myself. At this point its long since crossed my mind that I'm probably dreaming, after all the things I'm seeing aren't that different than what you would see in fantasy novels or manga... which I'm definitely not a total nerd about... Anyway point is all I have to do is sit around until I wake up and I should be fine-

"How long are you gonna stalk us kid?" One of the men standing by the carriage asked me. Since this is obviously a dream I decided to get up and respond.

"I'm actually almost 18, just so you know dream person."

"Dream person? Sorry KID, but I don't swing that way." Upon closer inspection, and by that I mean just looking at him I can tell he's definitely stronger than me. This guy is shredded and he's at least 6'2".

"That is 100 percent not what I meant but ok... guess my brains feeling fruity tonight cause I have no idea what's up with this dream..." I muttered the last part to myself as I was confused as to why my own brain created someone that would talk back to me like this.

"Yeah well whatever, you saw us, so now..." I saw him stretching and warming up for something.

"...You die." Just then he disappeared before my eyes and I blacked out.

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Third person pov

Shinko slowly woke up in a dark room, there wasn't a single light in that room and it was cold. He was hanging his head as he was slumped against the wall from exhaustion. "Why am I so tired..." Just then he felt a trickle run down his face and on to his nose before falling to the ground. "What the..." He felt around the back of his head and felt that it was wet from something. As he brought his hand back in front of his face and smelled the iron he could tell what it was.

"Blood..."

"Why am I bleeding? This is a dream..." After contemplating everything that was happening he began to wonder. "This is a dream... right?" Just then the man that knocked Shinko out and brought him here, opened and walked through the door into the musty stone room and lit a few candles.

"What the hell are you mumbling about down there?" The man asked Shinko. "Where... Where am I?"

At that exact moment another man came through the door seemingly ready to explain. "You my friend are in my laboratory. I'm Noin and the muscle head is Kichy, you better remember our names because one! I'm never gonna say them again, and two! Ah, what was two again... OH yeah, your gonna be here for the rest of your life anyway, so may as well get comfortable with everyone right!?"

"But... But...but...but..." Shinko was fading in and out of consciousness due to blood loss as he was trying to ask a question.

"Hmmmm... not sure why you hit this one so hard big man but your gonna have to bandage him up now. You know what the boss lady will do to us if we kill a specimen before experimentation starts!" Noin said in slight panic.

"Relax, I didn't even hit him that hard he's just weak. And anyway I'll bandage him up and it'll be fine." Kichy responded to Noin's worries. And then, Shinko faded out of consciousness.

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The first day Shinko regained consciousness:

The experimentations started, experimentations that Shinko still didn't know the goal of. They started cutting him open and dissecting him in sections, starting with his arms, and then his legs and so on. Removing nerves, muscles, veins, taking out everything they could and then putting it back but different.

At the end of the first day Shinko had almost completely had his arms removed and then put back on.

The second day was a repeat but with his legs.

The third day they got around to his stomach and torso, opening it up and repeating the process of removing and replacing things. Whatever drug they were pumping in his veins made him 10x more sensitive to the pain but made it impossible to go unconscious.

The fourth day came around but Shinko wouldn't have memory of this day, because today they started tinkering with his head.

The end of the fourth day was the same at first, Shinko slumped against the wall, basically asleep. But there was something different this time, he could feel something inside himself... Or more like he could feel something creating a small void inside of him.

"...do you want to leave..." A small, almost too quite voice asked Shinko.

"...do you want to live..." It asked something else.

"Yes." At that one simple word Shinko felt an abundance of power that, strangely, felt empty flow through him. He became surrounded by black lightning and then-

He was in front of a door way, a sword in his right hand that was, like him, stained with blood that for once wasn't his own. He didn't remember how he got here but he had a guess and decided that turning around was pointless, so he walked out into the light.

==========

Meanwhile, inside the blood stained laboratory. A girl with pure white hair and mangled clothes was curled up in a corner with a large, sheet-like cloth wrapped around her as she stared somewhat lifelessly at the decimated remains of the people that held her captive there, but, somewhat unsurprisingly, she wasn't overly concerned about that at the moment. One thought that was running through her head was...

"Who was that boy?"

And so she got up and went to see if she could find him.

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"Well, this could take awhile." Shinko thought too himself as he looked out over the vast valley before him. He had already been walking for awhile, the lab he escaped from was originally located in a forest but now he's once again accidentally found his way into a field that went as far as his eyes could see. "I definitely don't remember anywhere on Earth like this... maybe I just don't know my geography though."

"Speaking of I need to lay out everything I know so far... which isn't much... First is that this definitely isn't a dream, supposedly its insanely rare to feel pain in a dream and when you do you're supposed to wake up. Since I have a bandage around my head and was tortured for the last week or so, I think its safe to assume I'm not in a dream... Come to think of it I probably shouldn't be acting so casual about the torture thing... Well whatever, it sucked but its over now, I don't feel particularly bothered by it for some reason. Its in the past anyway, so I'll just leave it there, cause that's definitely healthy... Anyway I've now deduced that I have been transported to another world somehow. Since they're at least advanced enough to have labs of some kind then it stands to reason that they have cities somewhere."

"*sigh* Guess I should get started." And with that Shinko started walking across the incredibly vast valley in hopes of finding a city or at least some kind of traveler to direct him.

Meanwhile the girl that went to find him finally got out of the lab and stood in the middle of the forest. "Where did he go?" The girl questioned and started searching the ground for footprints or other tracks to follow.

She ended up finding some blood on some leaves and a few footprints and started following them.

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Three Days Later

"Food... Water... Some goddamn shade... Please...!" Shinko had been wandering around this impossibly massive valley for three days and he hasn't seen a single new thing pop up. Normally his spacial awareness would be better but he was too exhausted to realize he was being watched by the girl that started following him a few days ago. It, didn't take her very long to catch up to him you see, because he was uhhhhh.

"He's been going in circles for days..." The young girl thought to herself, and indeed he has been. Big circles, but circles none the less. The only reason she hasn't intervened and stopped him is because, well you know, stranger danger, especially when that stranger is capable of mass murder, quite literally, in his sleep.

Although she was starting to feel bad for him, even someone that strong would be in bad condition after all this time without food or water. Despite the pity she felt, she also found something pretty amusing about him running around like a fool and panting from exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and literally everything that was tormenting him right now. She found it funny, cute even.

But then he just fell over.

She went over to him slowly and carefully in case it was a trick. However upon reaching him she realized he was in fact unconscious, just to make sure however she decided to poke his face carefully with her foot, when that didn't wake him she decided to just kick him in the face but that didn't do anything either. "Oh, whoopsie." She tried picking him up but he's significantly bigger than her, and with her being kinda small anyway, there was no way she was moving him like this.

"Stay here." She ran off until she came to a creek in the valley but then she realized that she didn't have a container of any kind. So she tried catching it with the large cloth that was covering her, and while it seemed to work at first, by the time she got back to him the water drained out. Although she did manage to squeeze some of the water that the cloth held onto into his mouth. "How many of these trips am I gonna have to make...*sigh*" And so she started going back and forth for more water this way, Although the drops were something she decided it wasn't enough and came up with a better idea. She found some sticks and leaves from a few nearby trees and wove them into a basket of then put the cloth inside of it to hold the water better.

Nighttime came around and she decided to sleep until morning to see if he's awake by then.

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Shinko's POV

I feel myself slowly waking up, I can feel the sunshine on my face... As well as a bunch of water... why did I sweat so much? Was I drooling or something?

I opened my eyes and looked to my right to see a girl sleeping just a little ways away from me. I must be dreaming... although the last time I thought that I ended up getting kidnapped and tortured so better safe than sorry I guess...

I get up and look down at her peaceful face. Who in their right mind sleeps this close to a stranger? I should just leave... then again I can't really just leave her out here. I try tapping her to wake her up, even shaking her some to see if she'd wake up from that but nothing worked.

I look around and notice a sort of makeshift basket that has some water left in it. So of course I do the sensible thing and pick the basket up and throw the water on her to wake her up.

Needless to say it worked, she woke up, but now she's pissed. She sat there in shock at first from the sudden cold but then she looked up at me and, without saying anything, kicked me in the family jewels.

Naturally I fell to my knees from this but her assault didn't end there as she then kneed me in the face, knocking me back.

"Who the hell wakes a person up like that?!" She understandably yelled at me although to be honest I was more focused on the pain right now.

"Sorry..." I groaned from the ground. Slowly recovering I got up.

"So did you give me water last night?" I asked the extremely violent young lady. To which she said...

"Yeah, you looked really pathetic and helpless so I felt like I had too." Ouch but I guess that makes enough sense.

"Ahhh, thank goodness there's normal people in this world and not just psychopathic maniacs that want to torture me...." I said with comical tears rolling down my face.

She gave me a weird look and said "Your a weirdo."

I get up and brush the dust off my pants and simply ask what I really need to know right now. "You wouldn't happen to know where the nearest city is would you?"

"No, I actually don't. I was trapped in that place too so I don't know where we are either heheheh..... although you might have actually gotten somewhere if you had done anything besides go in circles for three days....."

Pffff, there's no way I was walking in circles the WHOLE time surely.... "Surely it wasn't circles the whole time right?"

......

"Gotcha...."

"Let's just try to find a city shall we?"

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