Sector 18

WAKING UP SOMEWHERE

Silence envelopes my ears, I feel like my body is pounded by a giant hammer... and I felt the cold and murky ground.

I slowly opened my eyes and catched a glimpse of the dim rays of the sun. I tiredly rise from the ground while my eyes are stiĺl exhausted, a bit blurred.. and can't be fully open. I sat on this unknown ground and turn my head around trying to figure out where I was, but I can't clearly see the environment because there's something wrong with my eyes.

After minutes of sitting on an unknown ground, I finally recovered from exhaustion and all my senses are coming back.

The awful smell hanging on the air caught my attention, it smells like a putrid rotten cake. So my eyes widely opened and can finally see the sorroundings. The brown soil, greenish stones, white sand dunes, and the dark blue skies, surprise my eyes...

"What the hell's going on... where on earth am I??"
I said on myself while slowly standing up from the ground with a goosebumps sensation on my body.

I looked at my left arm to check the time on my wristwatch.. but it's gone, so I put my right hand inside my right pocket trying to get my android phone.. but my right pocket is empty, it's not even on my left pocket. I turn my head left and right on a slow manner, and noticed a two yellow green rock formations soaring high to the sky on the north east area. I fixed my eyes on the tall rock formations and my eyes caught something on top of it..

A sparking symbolic figure is at the top on it, I'm curious of the sparking figure.. and attracted at the same time.

I was about to walk towards the two tall rock formations, when I stepped unto something.. I looked down to see what it is, and I saw a circle black shiny gadget, I crouched down and grabbed the gadget to examine it.

It has a rough grey strap and a red button is placed on the lower left part of the gadget, and a hexagon shaped silver LCD is on the other side. I pressed the red button, and the LCD starts lighting up.

It emmited a triangle shaped blue color hologram that looks like a map, the map symbolizes a violet dot, four arrows, and numbers arranged in horizontal columns... the numbers are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17, and 18. Each numbers has a square drawing on it, and the numbers are displayed on top of the square drawings. But there's one different number.. and that's number 18, it is glowing bright with four arrows pointing on it. I also noticed the number 10 square has a violet dot inside it, I keep on wondering what that means.

I have no idea what the hologram means... until I figured that the violet dot blipping on the hologram, is my location.. and I know it's some sort of a map. The only thing that confuses me is the numbers, and the four arrows pointing on number 18.

I thought that this gadget might come in handy, so I turned it off by pressing the red button again and strapped it on my right arm, then I started walking towards the two rock formations.

As I walk to the rock formations, I saw a light blue bush with Indigo colored fruits hanging on it. The fruits looks luscious, so my stomach began to grumble and I feel hungry. I approached it and picked one of the fruits hanging on the bush, the figure of the fruit is elongated vertically, and the structure is smooth and soft.. like it can be open easily with your bare hands.

So I pierced my two thumbs in the middle part of the strange fruit, and a sticky pinkish juice oozed from the fruit. I ripped it open and a refreshing fragrance envelopes my nose, so I got tempted and took a bite on it.

The taste was sweet and minty and the white seed inside it is edible, the seed tasted like straw berry.. it was sweet and sour. I feel refreshed after eating the strange fruit, and I'm no longer hungry.. nor thirsty. After I had my fill, I walked again towards the two rock formations.

I passed by the white sand dunes and felt a vibration underneath it, so I stopped and slowly backing off away from the sand dunes because I feel like something bad might happen..
The vibration stopped, so I started walking again through the sand dunes.

Then moments later I heared a screeching sound coming from below the sands, then the vibrations is intensely increasing, almost the same like an earthquake. I stumbled to the ground because I lost my balance.. An enormous ant-like creature emerged from the sands 41 meters from where I stumbled. It has a bad odor, the odor reminds me of the putrid rotten cake that I smelled earlier when I woke up on this weird place.

The ant-like creature's eye is black and the head is pear shape, it's body is covered in bulky silver shells.. except the antenna and legs. The antenna of it is colored white, and the legs are brownish grey. It's mouth is cut in half with sharp lob on both sides. It faced me and made a shrieking sound, then it started moving towards me. I was terrified.. so I hurriedly stand up from the white sands and run as fast as I could.

"Crap-crap-crap-crap-CRAP!!!" I said while running away from the enormous ant-like creature.

It makes me even more terrified everytime I heared it's shrieking voice and loud thumping legs behind me, so I looked back while running to check how far the creature from me. It's getting closer, my heart is beating fast... I felt my heartbeat, beating like a drumroll on a cinematic intro. I doubled my running speed to get away as far as I could from the ant-like creature.

Until I heared an echoing voice of a female person coming from the west cave, close to the light blue colored bush where I took some fruit.

"Heeey!!! over here!!!!." The female stranger called out as she wave her hand back and forth, gesturing me to hurry up.

I saw the female stranger and I put some more effort to my legs to boost my speed just to get to the west cave. Then moments later I found myself near the west cave's entrance and the female stranger is handing over her hands to me. I grabbed her hands then we both hurriedly entered deeper to the cave. It's not a normal cave because there's a small yellow glowing stones inside it, making the deep part of the cave light up.

"Move it! hurry up!!" The female stranger said while grabbing my right hand firmly and entered a tight opening inside the cave. 

The ant-like creature followed us inside the cave and it saw us entering the tight opening, so it barged his head on the opening trying to get inside the tight space, but it can't because of it's large head and enormous body. No matter how hard it barges the tight opening, it just won't collapse because the caves structure is somehow tough. I count everytime the creature barge it's head to the opening.. It took 14 barges before the creature give up and stopped forcing itself from entering the tight opening.

The creature made a sharp angry shrieking sound, like my eardrums is about to blow up. Then it turns around and walked away from us. The stranger approached the tight opening and peeked outside it, checking for the creatures whereabouts, Then she saw the creature exiting the cave.