CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD

CH.1 'WORLD OF DUST'

Debris crushed Andrei's arm as he shot to life. Though it looked quite sizeable, he managed to shrug it off with little effort. Where was he now? What was... rain? He heard the sounds of rain outside... rain which battered the shattered windows and wall of the building he found himself in. He only saw the sky. Was he high up?

Rising to his feet, Andrei stumbled, falling forwards to his knees, throwing out his cut-up hands to stop his complete fall. He only now got a good look at where he was. His head turned to the left... debris, and dust-covered desks, broken chairs... and that strange flaming crimson-black that had come from his dream. He shivered at the memory, the choking darkness, the complete deprivation of his every sense. He turned his head right, more of the same. Though not a single soul in sight. "Huh...?"

He heard a terrible creaking sound, and remembered what he had risen to do. As the blood rushed from his head to the rest of his body, he found it in himself to stand up. The sky was a light grey, bleak and ruinous in its monotony. Now that he was on his feet, he could see more of the world. Looking down, he saw just how high up he was... it had to be at least 20 stories up where he was. Turning his head upwards, to hold it straight, he saw a mirroring skyscraper, smoldering and seemingly cleaved in half. More crimson flames coated what remained of the mirror building, and returning his gaze back down, he saw the rubble that was what remained of the other half of the building. He looked left, nothing. Then right.

A crater. At first, Andrei couldn't quite see how large it was... it spanned beyond the width of the skyscraper he had found himself in. Gasping at the sight of it, he turned to approach the dirty, partially broken window of the wall which faced the gaping hole in the ground, and he could finally see it in all of its morbid glory. Something fell behind him, rubble shifting most likely, and he jumped, swiveling around on his toes to defend himself. Nothing came, and he returned to his awestruck observations. The crater sustained no life. No buildings dotted it. It seemed not too far away from so high up, only a few buildings away really.

Andrei felt some deep down pang of loss, as though something he couldn't even remember had been torn away from him, and the feeling stuck with him for a moment. Where was he again? He still couldn't remember, even though he had to ask himself the question again. This place didn't feel real, even though he couldn't even tell what 'real' could've been in this situation. He shook his head, then began to look around as his stomach growled. "I-..."

As a pang of hunger struck him, his hands began to shake, and he leaned up against the glass. Pain shot through his body now, and he could feel whispering thoughts begin to nag at the back of his head. That name, the only other thing he could remember, shot through his mind again. Ra. Shedding the thought with a shake and a pair of smacks on his cheeks, Andrei ran a hand through his medium-length brownish-black hair, clearing out his vision and hearing a peculiar noise as he shifted once more. Now that reality had finally set in, he began to hear the little things, and as he held back his hair, the wind seemed to whistle through the hole in the wall. He'd have to find a way down before anything else.

Stepping back, he hoped to hear the noise again. He stepped over debris, then felt as his ankle twisted at an odd angle he had landed on. Falling over, he heard it again, and he looked down at himself as he hit the ground. His clothes reminded him of something. It was a dark blue uniform that he wore... a patch on it read '... Academy.' An academy uniform, that's what he wore. The sound was a jingle, and it sounded like it came from below him as he stepped. Grabbing at the tie of his uniform, he began to feel some sort of horrific discomfort setting in, and something began to feel wrong. He pulled once, ripping the tie clean off before he clawed at the remains wrapped around his neck, binding his shirt shut. "What the... What the hell?! I'm-...!"

He began to pant and gasp, shocked as he tore at the flesh of his neck. Scratching himself to tear the tie off, he threw the remnants away, next to the inconspicuous piece of fabric. His eyes bulged in his head as he undid the buttons to his uniform jacket. Then they glanced over his undershirt. It was a dirty white, messed up from the apparent debris around him. He felt something rippling beneath his shirt, growing heavy even though it seemed to have been there since his very awakening.