The Genesis Game

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Apocalypse Hero

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The Genesis Game

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The Genesis Game: Volume II

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Essense Weaver

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Head over heels, Luca tumbled through the gateway of the World Dungeon, passing through the empty dark space between worlds and the infinity chasm that lay between them. Aimlessly, he fell and continued falling, a fall that knew neither sense of direction or the passage of time.

Eventually, after time incomprehensible, the sensation of falling lessened, replaced by the progressive feel of the world and gravity around him. Luca landed impossibly without harm on his back, striking the cold stone of a dark cave with a loud boom. In the process, he disturbed a thin layer of dirt on the ground of the dark cavern. The earth previously long-undisturbed deep within the caverns of the hole he had been cast into. As Luca lay lost in that deepest. He felt the strength gradually return to his body as the lingering sense of lethargy and malaise he had long felt since the accident that took the use of his legs fell away from him.

As Luca returned from the very edge of death, the sensations of bodily need began to return to him with a vengeance. Strangely absent was any feeling of pain. His stomach rumbled in unabated terrible hunger, even as his own trembling weakness from hunger seemed to have passed, no longer a concern. Unmoving, Luca remained in place, uncertain of where to go or what do if he ever found his way to whatever or the wherever he was heading towards.

Due to the limited illumination that was being cast by the lavender quartz embedded in the stone of the cavern, Luca's eyes were able to adjust to the dark of the cave, allowing him a bit of limited vision. From within the darkness, something stirred. Luca could see a pale gleam of stained white and yellow. "What big fangs you have," Luca said out loud, barely croaking out the words through his torn vocal cords, towards what he thought was an illusion, cackling with an edge of madness that surprised him.

The white gleam was replaced by a darker shimmer from a pair of hyper-dilated eyes blinking in gluttonous anticipation from deep within the dark. Luca heard the sound of feet slapping against the stone as whatever it was moved closer. I'm not dreaming. I need to defend myself. With his legs useless as they were, Luca had no option to run instead. Instead, Luca felt for something to use, his hands clasping around a fist-sized stone. Even as he grasped the stone in his hands, the heavy breathing drew closing.

Luca smelled it before he saw the thing's body. Vaguely human, though clearly not with loose, pale-green skin, full of blotches as if diseased with pointed ears and large hands with sharpened yellowed nails. The smell radiating off the thing was fetid, the breath it expelled smelling heavily of rot. I think this is what? A goblin? Have I gone mad?

Whether he had lost his mind or not, Luca knew the truth of the situation. The way the monster eagerly looked at him let Luca know without a doubt if he didn't do something, the goblin would eat him. Luca would only get one chance to survive this. Terrified as he was, Luca tried to calm himself, waiting for his one chance to live as the Goblin approached. Those dark eyes peered down at him as it bent over. Luca thought he heard the thing hiss as it spoke to itself, "Freshest meat."

Those two words galvanized Luca's fear into action, and as hard as he could, he swung the rock up, aiming for the Goblin's temple. The rock hit with a wet thud as dark liquid splattered against Luca's face. The monster fell backward into the dark and disappeared. What became of it, Luca could only guess as the very air around him seemed to change as subtle laughter could be heard from within the dark.

Luca was able to vaguely see amorphous shadows swirling around in circular patterns around him. Long tendrils and twisting shapes of smoke, reaching for him from further out in the dark. Helpless Luca tried to scream but found he had no voice with which to scream. The damage to his vocal cords had not healed. Unlike with the goblin, Luca felt pure fear as he recoiled in terror at the eldritch shadow. He wanted to scream and cry and found he could do neither. Not that it mattered. Neither would have saved him.

The shadows curled around him. His skin burned with cold at the touch. The tendrils grasped at his body, encircling around his c.h.e.s.t, beginning to pull him further into the dark. Though Luca tried to resist, it was futile. The nails of his fingers broke off as they left white scratches on the rock from trying to brace himself to avoid being taken. The force of whatever dark entity was behind those shadows hungered for him, and Luca knew fear as he involuntarily shivered but could not move otherwise, suspended as he was above the ground in the air.

With a surge of unexpected force, Luca was pulled forward by the shadows and tossed upwards before beginning to fall again. This time, the fall did not last an eternity. Luca felt the force of gravity re-exert itself on him as he was met with the feeling of air rushing through his hair. It lasted only a few seconds before he landed. A searing pain spread throughout his body as Luca felt his back smash into a small boulder with blunted noise. The sounds of his bones breaking echoed throughout the cavern he was trapped in. The pain was immense. Whatever magic had dulled his sense of pain before was no longer in effect.

The sounds of screaming filled the cave, and Luca looked around frantically scanning the dark for its source, disorientated from the fall, and only seeing retreating shadows. Panicking, his breathing quickened as he started to hyperventilate. It would be some time before Luca was able to recognize that the screaming voice he feverishly searched for was his own.

Eventually, the pain faded to a dull roar, and though Luca wasn't sure what had happened, he had the distinct feeling that whatever had been broken in his back had already begun to mend back together. The thoughts of the creeping shadow banished momentarily as his mind cleared, and he began to notice a stabbing, searing sensation radiate up from his legs.

My legs? thought Luca, the residual pain and fear temporarily banished by the thought that he could feel something from his legs. He couldn't see anything below his waist, but he could feel, and as he trailed his hands down his body, Luca realized he could feel the sensation of the pressure exerted by his fingers on his legs.

Alone in the dark, Luca smiled at himself at the thought and its implications. But the celebration was short-lived as he felt warm, sticky liquid on his fingertips. For a moment, Luca believed he had managed to urinate on himself. Perhaps an accident caused by the fall, but he dismissed it once he recognized the smell of iron. His pants were warm with blood, not piss. He was bleeding.

The burning sensation Luca had felt had originated from a jagged rock that had punctured his leg and was protruding out the other side like a rock spike. The magic that was working to restore feeling to his legs had become a curse as the nerves awoke. As the intensity of the pain progressively increased, he felt all of it.

Impaled upon the rock, Luca screamed and cried in pain, alternating between screaming for help and sobbing in self-pity. Hours passed, maybe days, the d.e.s.i.r.e for food and water he had felt before was all but replaced only by the constant pain he was in. Even as the consistent fear of the shadows that haunted the dark of the cave surrounding him lingered.

In all of his suffering, Luca begged for death, asking for a release from the pain he was in and the suffering that his life had become. This was a reminder of his worst nightmare, the worst day of his life. Just like with the car, Luca was once again found himself trapped. Trapped, unable to remove himself from the rock his leg was impaled on.

Physically Luca was too weak to pull his body from it, and mentally he could not bring himself to try and force it. "Why me?" he cried to the dark, but nothing answered as the dark shadows from before started to form around him, their presence disturbing the air and filling it with the pulse of malice.

Ultimately Luca stopped begging for someone to help him and started to vow revenge. Revenge against the men who had taken him from the car and thrown him down into this hole. Revenge against the strange man, the elf known as Master Oeviss, who had condemned him to this Hell. Revenge against everyone who looked the other way instead of helping him. Luca vowed that if he should ever leave this place, he would never again be so weak. Never again would he be a victim.

Luca's thoughts filled with madness. An inner darkness had awoken within him that dulled the pain. His hate fed on his suffering, numbing him to everything in a way that no anesthetic ever could. Eventually, he passed out in exhaustion. His cheeks were caked with dust mixed with the tears he had shed. As he lay sleeping, the swirling shadows emerged again, collapsing on Luca's sleeping form, whispering into his ear as he slept, feeding his mind thoughts of dark ambition and darker futures.

The dark entity in its hunger whispered, hunched over Luca's unconscious body as it spoke to him. "If you seek this power, and should you find it? What will you do with it?"

From deep within his sleep, Luca responded, looking out into the void past the darkness into the future. His expression hardened into something sinister as he gazed upon that elsewhere, reflective of the dream that had been whispered to him. A vision of the flock of crows he had seen on the road. His eyes slowly opened in a trance, showing only furrows of crimson red and he responded in a voice deeper than the boy should have been capable of producing. "Power."

The shadows laughed in contentment. A shadowy arm reached out to the boy and stroked his face. "Well, then little one. I, Amarath, the Immortal accept you. You have passed my trial. On my behalf, you will bring calamity upon the race of men and be the iron upon which they sharpen themselves. Then and only then may they come to escape Aeon's Blight."