CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD

CH.2 'INNOCENT BEAST'

Andrei had sat on the bloodstained street through the night, his face dark as his senses returned to him. He had fought his singular demon, the only one that he could remember, for as long as he had been in that empty headspace. The moment he had been tested... he had failed. His back had healed by the morning, though he was still impossibly hungry. Somehow, he still had the energy to move when the sun rose to burn his eyes, and he stirred from his daze in order to adjust to the light that came from the sun.

His hair was ragged, and he brushed it out of his vision, letting the blazing brightness in the sky grace his amber-golden eyes. Having survived the night, he felt a sense of bittersweet accomplishment. Wherever he was, whatever he had become, had lived through the chaotic blackness of the day prior. Shaking violently, he tried to get to his feet, and soon found his jacket, which Ra seemed to have discarded after taking control of him... not that he could remember much of the fight, for those memories were Ra's and Ra's alone. Picking up the burned uniform, he looked at the insignia on it once more, then put it on.

Feeling something in its pocket, he hesitantly pulled whatever it was out, raising his eyebrows as he uncovered a pair of now broken glasses. "Hm?" he pondered, donning the glasses and looking around.

This would be his life now. For a moment, his eyes lost focus of the world around him as the condensed air seemed to open up around him. If he was here, unable to die, Andrei would surely go mad... but that monster, it too lived in the bones of this city, in the ashes of a long-dead society. Blinking and refocusing, the boy shook his head. There wasn't much of a process to his thoughts, but what there was all led back to one thing. Live.

As his foot dragged across the bloody, sun-scorched, rain-weathered pavement, he gave his first ounce of effort at living his last life. To him in that moment, whatever he had gone through before would be nothing in comparison to what he would go through now, and that spurred something deep inside him, perhaps whatever defiant monster kept his heart pumping and his mind racing. All his nerves screamed against his first step, and as he planted his foot in the ground, he lifted his other foot into the air. Ruined dress shoes hit the ground, and wind blew through the torn pant legs at Andrei's ankles.

He began to walk, an agonized pain on his face as he pushed through whatever fires burned at his veins. His blood felt hot as he marched towards nowhere, but even at his crawling pace, Andrei slowly made it closer to his destination... wherever that was. The whispers eventually returned, and he could've sworn that he heard something racing behind him, but when he turned around, there were no monsters in the open sunlight. Even when he had control, Ra was able to taunt him.

Hours went by, and then days. He walked without end. A living corpse shambling through the streets of a dead man's society. It rained, and the sun beat down on him on different days. He got the feeling that the crater near his original place of awakening would've held nothing special, so he avoided it, instead heading the other way. He turned down empty streets, tripped over debris in the roads and on the sidewalk, and his eyes traced lines around the bones and trash in the alleyways he saw. Eventually, he came to a place that looked almost natural... The will to carry on grew stronger, and he found his new destination. Falling to his knees, he saw the most beautiful sight in his endless roaming that he could've possibly seen. Gasping, Andrei nearly fell flat on his face from sudden exhaustion, but he caught himself with his hands. A cafe... he didn't know how he knew it, but the smell of aromas long since gone graced his mind, even if they weren't there. "Please..."

The whispers came back again, louder now. He could shove them aside before, but they were greater than the deafening nothing of the city around him. Fearful, both of himself and the world that suddenly felt alien to him again, Andrei stumbled forward, crawling quite literally now towards the ruinous cafe. His hand beat against the door, clumsily swinging for the handle to open it, and he fell face-first against the glass, his head shattering the glass and catching stray shards. He pulled himself forwards and through the broken entryway, his ragged undershirt being torn even further as he fell onto the checkered tile ground.