Life on the Inside

Chapter 7

After we got back, I packed up some supplies, such as weapons and extra food, to take as we trekked across the Inside. It would take at least the entire day to get there, and we would have to hurry back in the night.

"So how far is this place again?" Lena asked as I closed the door of the hut.
"On the other side of the Inside, so you better hope you're right about this."
"Ughhh," she groaned aloud, "Why'd you have to make your hut so far away?"
"With the hell this place has brought me, do you think I would wanna stick around where I first got here?" I said, angry she would ask something like that.
She remained silent and didn't say anything else as we walked through the rainforest. We walked silently for a long time, and i took in the sounds of the jungle around me to calm myself. I knew every single chirp, croak, and sound that rang throughout the area. I knew what creatures made what sound, and knew what nearly every living thing on the Inside looked like. Knowing that nature had remained the same since all that had happened recently, I knew I could relax a little, aware that not everything was changing.
However, the more I focused on myself, the more pain I felt in my arm. I peeked at it, wrapped up in one of my shirts, and it seemed to be doing pretty good. There were no signs of infection, and it looked to be healing okay. The only thing was that it constantly ached, and waves of pain from it rushed through me from time to time.

- -

As the sun started to set, we finally approached the area where I first awoke on the Inside. The area looked much different from when I had been there last. What had been small shrubs, and young trees, now were much larger shrubs and even taller trees, with lush green leaves hanging down on low-set branches that we had to duck under. The shrubs had gotten so thick, it was difficult trying to get through them, and they had grown sharp thorns.
"Ouch!" Lena shouted as we walked through the shrubs, "Stupid thorns! Is there another way to get through here? Like not through the death trap?"
I looked around, trying to see above everything, "Nope, it looks like this is the only way through." After a few minutes of struggling to get through the shrubs, we finally made it through with only a few bleeding cuts.
The view once we got through shocked me a little, and was quite unusual. The place where I woke up was still clear, no shrubs, trees or anything. Just dirt. It looked just as it did five years ago.
"Something up?" Lena asked, apparently aware of my slight shock.
"No, its fine..Perfect, actually."
"Well alright then. Now do exactly what I did this morning. We don't have much time till it's night."
"Alright, I'll do it." I said reluctantly, knowing there was no turning back now. I walked slowly towards the spot. I got down on one knee, and put my hand on the warm dirt, waiting for something, anything.
Lena must have been right all along. I felt as if some force was rushing throughout my body and veins. It felt so strange and like it wanted to break out from the confinement of my body. I closed my eyes, seeing what would happen.

- -

Everything went black. I opened my eyes, looked around, and there was absolutely nothing. It was if I had went blind. Panic stricken, I reached for my axe in my bag on my back, but it wasn't there! Then I realized that I wasn't even there! I couldn't see or feel my hands, feet or anything of my body. Did the strange, powerful energy kill me?
I had no idea what to think, but as soon as I thought that, the scene changed in front of my eyes with lightning speed. I looked down and saw that I had a body again, but I wasn't in my own. It looked as if my spirit somehow went into another person's body.
It looked like I was standing in a small, windowless house, made of old wood that was starting to rot. But my attention quickly turned to something else. The sounds of screams and panic came from outside the house.
I walked to the door, closed my eyes, and pulled it open slowly, afraid of what I was going to see. The sensation of panic in the air rose dramatically, and I opened my eyes by instinct.
There were people everywhere, running around with expressions of fear struck across their faces. It looked as if I was in some rural village in Asia somewhere.
People fled their homes, and were screaming out for help. Some were even carrying possessions of theirs as they ran, but what the heck were these people freaking out over? Then suddenly, a light shone bright in the sky, and there was no way I could miss it.
In the sky were three bright lights, falling from the dark, cloudy sky right down towards the village. I panicked too.
I ran in the direction others were going, trying to stop someone to find out what was going on. There was a man a few yards ahead of me in raggedy clothing, carrying a chicken, who definitely didn't want to be in it's owner's hands.
"Hey!" I yelled to him.
"Shénme?" The guy yelled back in another language. There would be no way I could get anything out of him, so I just kept running through the village, as far away from whatever was falling from the sky as possible.
The lights in the sky were so much brighter now as the night sky now seemed like daylight without the sun. I looked back and the things were falling at insane speeds. I could only look for a seconds before the light burned my eyes. I had to get out of there, and fast.
I ran as fast as I could in the direction away from the lights, and where the village people were going. I could now hear the sound of the lights, now roaring louder than any thunderstorm I had ever heard on the Inside, to the point where I thought my eardrums would burst at any second. I looked back at them again, and now they were only seconds from hitting the ground. With no other options, I jumped into a small ditch and hoped for the best.
A huge explosion echoed through the plains, and the damage soon followed. A hut near me was blown to bits, and disintegrated before my eyes. Blue flames swooped through, scorching all the grass and it went right through me. I gritted my teeth, expecting to feel excruciating pain, but felt nothing. I looked down at myself, and saw I was a spirit again, I think. And a body directly under me, the body I was in, entirely scorched, with only bones and a small bit of flesh remaining. I looked out behind me and saw an even more horrific sight. Hundreds of innocent villagers, laying dead in the field, burnt up. The sky now had an eerie blueish gas hanging in the air, and it smelled of ammonia, and fire. Huts were burned, dead bodies of humans and animals littered the ground, and I was in the middle of it. I couldn't bear to see it any longer, and it made me sick to my stomach.