3022

Chapter 3: A New Face

When the sound grew as loud as what I thought a tornado siren was, we looked out and saw a large, almost fully outstretched semi with a giant, peaked rat-rod engine strutting from the front. It was rusted to oblivion, and had been placed on four, 66 inch wheels I thought I would only see in movies. As the sound died down, what looked to be the largest, most armored man I had ever seen jumped out of the top of the truck, and ran towards us, with a giant spear in his hands. We were afraid of him, choosing to get back a bit before he yelled, "DON'T LOOK UP!", in which he threw the spear above our head, followed by a scream, and a devilish being falling down into the sand. I was a bit disheveled, but ran towards the edge to see whatever it was that fell to the ground. My mind was racing, was it another person? Did that man kill another person? What if he shoots us next? But no, it wasn't a person. It was a wolfbat, grown to what looks to be the size of a car. It had a giant blood splatter where it's heart should have been, and there was a spear with the said heart stuck on the outside. I looked back at the man, and he was now walking towards the dead beast, mumbling about how the pests were moving further north. I grew as much courage as I could and asked about what exactly was happening, "Where- Who- What's happening? I- How has... huh?" he looked up at me, then asked, "What year is it?" to which I replied that it's 2022, "Nope. guess again." "What do you mean? It is 2022." "no, it's not. You went through a shift storm. Very dangerous one, too. The one you went through brought you forwards exactly one thousand years, it seems, so be ready for lots of changes. My name is Grrga, like the.. Uh, bear? Yeah, like the bear from your era would make, followed by.. Well nevermind. My name is Grrga, the year is 3022, and now you're here. So either, 'deal with it,' or go crazy. Though I wouldn't recommend going crazy today.'' There was so much I needed to take in at once, and through it all, I noticed that Peter was nowhere to be seen. I went further into the plane, where I found him scavenging through all the backpacks, and making himself makeshift weapons from anything there was. He had a metal axe head made from bent sheets of the plane's metal hull, and had a cane as the handle, wrapping the blades onto the cane with what looked like a mix between a mountain hiker's rope, and some duct tape. He also had two backpacks, emptied and was filling them. He grabbed as many bottles he could find, filled them with water, and started to place them in either pocket of the backpack. "We need to be ready to move." "I think Grrga can help us with that." "Gurga-what?" he said, looking back at me with what looked to be a shovel in his hand. I told him what I learned from Grrga, and he sat down. He started messing with a nearby shirt, buttoning, and unbuttoning it, before getting back up and placing it in the green backpack. He threw it to me and said that there was enough food to last me a couple days, "I checked the medical box in the back, and we have enough medical equipment to bring a man back to life, so whether or not Grrga, or whatever his name is, really helps, we need to be moving. As he said that, a scruffy, deep voice came from behind me, "I agree with you on that. The fact that you guys survived the first night baffles me." I jumped a bit, and turned around as quickly as I could, followed by tripping and landing on my back. I was very anxious then, and quickly got back up. Grrga was big. He was bent over, with his back barely scraping against the roof of the plane. He had rusty metal platings going from his stomach up to his shoulders, with a more bulky pair of legs covered in what I could only describe as what looked to be Tiger  and bear skin, with the tiger skin on top of the bear skin to keep himself more protected, I guessed.

It took me and Peter a while before we could get in the semi with Grrga. He got his backpack, and set off in front of me, before thinking and asking Grrga for a bit of help. "You mind ripping a piece of the plane off?" Of course, Grrga was a bit confused at first, but chose to help out, ripping off the piece with the American flag on it. "It may not seem that useful yet, but when i get my hands on a hammer, and something to weld with, this thing will turn from a sheet of metal into a medal of honor, and yes, that was a play on words, hehe." I laughed a bit too, before getting down and climbing on one of the giant wheels to get in the semi truck. "Man, I don't see why you had to make it so big, but i guess the wheels do help with the sand." "Yep, having Krgrak here is real nice, and with the new nitrous booster on her, i can get anywhere before the Scattlers." I was a bit confused on what he meant by scattlers, and asked him who they were, to which he responded talking about how they were the ones who would always get to fallen debris from Shift Storms first, and would always destroy everything from them. "They don't like the new stuff that falls, and every time they find a random survivor from the falls, they always kill them, or torment them into suicide." "now that's just wrong... no man should be forced into captivity like that" said Peter, drawing lines into the plane's sides to be bent with. My first thought on what he was doing was that he was using it to plan something, but when he mentioned something about hammers or mallets a couple minutes later, I saw that each piece that had been carved out formed into a giant shield, like one from a riot controlling police officer. I was impressed with his design, and found myself wondering whether or not the man had been planning for something like this his entire life. After a bit of questioning, a large gray smoke cloud formed on the horizon, and we saw our new home, a place known as Kirgan House.