(3) void

There was something in the sky.

Of enormous size, it somehow managed to blot out everything visible from his position by the bus stop. To his right, Artie gasped and gripped his hand suddenly.

Something felt very, very wrong.

Traffic had stopped. Everything was still. There was a very apparent lack of sound, like something had grabbed it all away.

Then it was back in a roar.

It’s alive?

“Will!!” Artie was screaming, tugging at his arm. Around him, people were scattering, reacting like this was the end of the world.

Was it?

Someone bumped into him suddenly, nearly knocking him down.

Run run run run run.

He took her hand, and the most grateful look Will had ever seen crossed over his friend’s face. They took off down a side street, full sprint.

He hadn’t run this fast since middle school health evaluations.

This time he had incentive.

Danger danger danger-- watch her!

There was a boom, and the ground shook. When the two made it to the next street over, all they saw was just more pandemonium. No one knew what to do. This was rush hour mixed with blind panic, like someone had just spontaneously decided to drop a nuke in the city center.

“We need to get underground, I think.” He was finally able to find words. Without acknowledging each other, the pair began to push among the panicking civilians, trying to make it to the bank across the street.

It was a hollow plan, but nothing seemed to be making sense at that moment. Somewhere along the way, both of them had ditched their backpacks.

The sky was still dark, and yet there was definitely something people were able to make out. An outline, of sorts. It moved, drifted whichever way it pleased. A massive, dark pool of a monster, and for some reason Will was more scared of it than he’d been of anything else in his entire life.

For some reason, this thing felt familiar.

GET AWAY!!!

There were people blindly running, but there were also those who couldn’t think clearly enough to do anything; those few instead choosing to mindlessly stand in the streets like they were already dead.

Another unprecedented thought: Whatever is in the sky will surely kill him.

Get where it can’t go.

Keep moving forward. Go go go.

More distant explosions. Everyone was screaming. Cars were already abandoned. The people were thinning out, and yet Will wasn’t sure where they were going.

Something dark thrust itself into the street before them. He jerked, suddenly grabbing Artie around the waist and pulling her back before either of them could crash into it.

….Was it a leg?

Leg. Monster? Go go go go go run.

But a shade had descended upon them.

Whatever was in the sky was coming down.

Where were all the people?

They were frozen, struck still.

Death!!!!

Unused eyes slid into tune. Features of the darkness came into place. A giant gaping maw was before them.

Artie whispered something in horror. Will didn’t hear her.

Something in him snapped, and he was gone.

Silence.

Everything was dark. Void. He must have been eaten, by whatever it was. Must’ve died. He was part of the missing now, wasn’t he?

At least… he thought so.

There’s a lack of terror. Everything is calm. He’s… OK?

He’s OK.

When he later came to (which could have been five minutes or five years, in his mind), drifting into a crack in the void and ending up on a beach on a planet he’d later call Jiruno, Will was eventually found by a few fishermen out working late.

He looked foreign to them, and they looked foreign to him, so in all due regards both should have been loudly panicking.

All Will could think about instead was a girl with auburn hair and a permanently determined face.

(The fishermen, on the other hand, were simply a little too tired to care whether or not some person on the beach had a weird facial bump).

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I reeeally hope there aren’t any typos in this one. I’m literally shaking from cold, lmao

also in regards to the "weird facial bump" -- the fishermen don't have solid noses like most humanoids. Instead it's kinda like Voldemort's nose from the HP movies???