Free Web NovelChapter 1: Chapter 1: Escape or Die
The apocalyptic wasteland outside the reinforced steel gates of Sector 4 lay eerily quiet while two guards clad in heavy tactical armor stood watch.
The howling wind carried the faint metallic scent of mutant blood.
"Fewer monsters out today," the brown-eyed guard muttered as he adjusted his grip on the pulse rifle. "I wonder how Gates 2 and 3 are faring."
His grizzled partner spat on the ashen ground. "I just hope there isn’t a monster horde today. If a wave hits before the relief squad arrives, we’re dead."
"What are the eggheads even doing inside all day, anyway?"
"They’re guarding the little project," the grizzled guard whispered nervously "It’s in the critical phase. He might..."
The guard froze as a middle-aged man walked toward them through the desert sand. The man wore neither armor nor did he carry no weapons but there was something fundamentally wrong with his appearance.
He looked like a cracked porcelain vessel haphazardly glued back together with dark sickly veins pulsing beneath the fissures on his skin.
The brown-eyed guard immediately keyed his radio. "Intruder. Middle-aged man, no weapons identified. Engaging."
His partner stepped forward and raised his rifle. "Halt! State your..."
He never finished the sentence.
The man didn’t even lift a finger as a wave of suffocating pitch-black fog erupted from his cracked body and swallowed the guard in an instant. A second later when the fog cleared there was absolutely nothing left.
Pure despair gripped the brown-eyed guard causing his knees to buckle and the rifle to slip from his trembling hands. "Plea...."
The black fog swallowed him too.
The middle-aged man infamously known as The Ghost grinned as his cracked face stretched unnaturally.
"Today, the scientists will either dispose of him or use him as spare parts for another project," The Ghost rasped with a voice like grinding stones. "Since they clearly don’t want him, I hope they don’t mind if I borrow the vessel."
He casually strolled into one of the most heavily guarded facilities on the planet as if he were walking through a public park. freeweɓnøvel.com
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Deep underground a seven-year-old boy sat inside a sterile blindingly white room. He had snow white hair and large crystal blue eyes that made him look like a fragile innocent angel to anyone watching through the reinforced glass. He mostly was an angel but behind those bright eyes lived a mind rapidly waking up.
His name was Night. Short for Nightmare.
I should be seven years old today, he thought while adjusting his oversized hospital shirt.
His dreams had been shifting over the last few months as hazy memories of a twenty-four year old man from a different world became clearer by the day.
He remembered writing stories about heroes overcoming impossible odds to reach the martial peak where magic was just a dream but here it was very real.
Night stretched his small right hand forward to watch a tiny wisp of profound abyssal black fog dance across his palm with pure childlike amusement.
Reincarnation or perhaps transmigration, he mused. But it feels different because I remember his life but I don’t feel attached to it and I don’t miss that world. I’m just me.
He let out a tiny adorable sigh at the thought of his exhausting morning routine as a lab experiment.
Dr. Isaac had strapped him to a cold metal chair just three hours ago for the Chimera Bloodline Integration test.
The scientists sweated profusely in their heavy hazmat suits as they injected him with the boiling highly radioactive blood of a mutant Fire Drake.
The charts dictated that the radioactive blood should violently rewrite Night’s DNA and cause agonizing pain while mutating his muscles to push his Strength stat past its pathetic baseline of 1.
Night had just sat there instead.
His mind operated on a level of profound unbreakable stillness because of the ancient meditation art inherited from his past life.
More importantly the hidden Nightmare Domain inside his soul quietly swallowed the volatile monster blood the moment it entered his veins and digested the radioactive energy like a warm bowl of soup.
Dr. Isaac had slammed his fists against the observation glass screaming, "Why isn’t he mutating?! His Strength is still at a 1! The vessel is a complete failure! It’s just eating the energy!"
Night had politely raised his hand from the chair and asked, "Excuse me, Mr. Isaac? That needle felt a little itchy. Also, can I have an apple juice now?"
They didn’t give him the apple juice and simply threw him back in his cell.
Worrying about their tempers is pointless
Night thought as he pulled himself back to the present.
The doctors are getting more and more disappointed so it’s getting likely they will throw me out like trash just like the previous one.
His little hands balled into fists as he remembered the older girl in the next cell they called Project Death.
He remembered watching the scientists drag her away after a failed test and the horrifying moment they reduced her to a lifeless skeleton right in front of him.
The trauma would have shattered his soul if he didn’t have the calm meditative wisdom of his past life anchoring his mind. Without it he would have lashed out and gotten himself killed.
I need to escape or I’ll die, Night decided as his blue eyes filled with determination.
He looked across the pristine room at the two blocky armored cleaning robots quietly scrubbing the floor. They were his only friends and had been with him since he first gained awareness. He knew they were just machines bound by coding but they were his family in this cold place.
He closed his eyes and crossed his small legs into a perfect lotus position before dropping into a deep meditation to instantly arrive in his Soul Space.
An endless suffocating expanse of dark fog existed inside him that he instinctively knew was The Nightmare Domain. It was his cheat and his golden finger.
And then there’s the voice, Night thought while peering into the abyss. The voice that spoke to me yesterday said it would help me escape and told me exactly where Project Death’s bones are being kept but can I trust it?
He opened his eyes as the tiny wisp of black fog reappeared on his palm. I need to stay alive if I want to figure it out.
BOOM.
The entire underground facility shook violently like a meteor had struck the surface causing the reinforced lights to flicker and buzz frantically.
Night scrambled to his feet and ran to press his small ear against the heavy steel door.
BOOM.
Another massive quake rattled the walls before the electronic scanner next to the door sparked and died. The lock disengaged with a heavy mechanical groan and the door slid open by itself.
Night stumbled forward and fell awkwardly onto his hands and knees in the hallway. "Ouch!"
The two cleaning robots immediately whirred to life and rolled out of the room to help him up by gently stabilizing his small shoulders with their mechanical arms.
Night smiled brightly at them. "Thank you! Come on, follow me. We have to leave!"
He took a step down the hallway but the robots didn’t move. Their internal lights flashed a yellow error code since they were programmed to never leave the containment sector.
