A new view. Foreign architecture. People wearing clothes that I've never seen. Glances of shops that seemed so different from the wooden ones that I was used to seeing.

A fresh and new scenery greeted me everywhere I turn my head around.

My excited eyes, happily drinking all these spectacles after 19 years of seeing the same old boring town. Well, saying it was boring might be demeaning it a bit.

My town, although a rural one, was an attraction spot for its hot springs and mountains, so I wasn’t really bored in the 19 years I lived there. But after being in the same place all my life, one can’t blame me if I call it was a boring old town when comparing to this novel cityscape.

And to think this is one of the smaller ones.

The bus I was traveling to was going through the heart of the city to reach my destination, my new college, or more specifically the dorm that was situated behind it. I was holding onto the college pamphlet excitedly, alternating between the scenery I enjoyed through the wide window of the bus and ogling all the modern facilities my new college had, as shown in the pamphlet.

It took a lot of effort from my side to convince my parents to send me abroad, not to mention the hours of study and the part-time jobs between them for saving up money.

It was not an exaggeration to say that I had basically no free time for the past 2 years but I knew it was going to be worth it and that feeling only solidified after 30 minutes of my arrival.

At this point.

There was no doubt in my mind that my life was going to get a lot better.

At least it should have been.

huh?

THRESHOLD FOR PLANET "EARTH" REACHED

LEVEL Ω -> LEVEL 1

CATALYST REINTRODUCTION IN:

4:57

I turned my pamphlet in my hands, my confused brain rationalizing the words in front of me as something that came from the papers in my hands. The words did not move.

Huhh?

I turned my head towards the other passengers with a finger pointing at it, as if saying ‘hey, you seeing this too?’, only for the whole words to move along with my head, staying right in front of my vision no matter how I moved.

And strangely, even though the words were right in from of my vision, which should have blocked me from seeing anything, I could still see what’s in front of me just like normal, as if my brain were processing 2 different images; one with the words in front of them and one without. And in the one without, people were panicking.

My fellow passengers who were on the bus were pointing or shouting at something right in front of them as if some magical words were hovering in front of them, but before my brain could process all of this, my face crashed into the back of the seat in front of me, thanks to the bus abruptly stopping. which was followed instantly by another impact, a car crashing behind us.

Although the driver looked visibly pale and shocked and staring at something in front of him. His hands moved independently and pressed the button for the hydraulic doors, opening the bus door.

Some panicking passengers, left the shaking bus hurriedly, while some were still shockingly staring in front of them regardless of all the panic around them. I quickly got up and followed them towards the outside. I noticed that walking was not even moderately more difficult, even with the words stubbornly staring into my eyes.

What greeted me as soon as I left the bus was a street filled with noise and confusion.

The street was filled with a cacophony of cries and confusion. Children crying, people screaming, the cars which were crashed behind each other beeping with different tones.

Surrounded by all this panic and commotion, I felt a splitting migraine quickly creeping in, my mind not being able to process the current situation.

I walked unsteadily towards a fire hydrant and sat near it. Head in my hands. I began taking a few deep breaths, completely ignoring the surrounding chaos, and focused only on my breathing, which calmed me down after a minute.

I opened my eyes back to see the words still lingering in my vision, but this time I was calm enough to actually read it.

THRESHOLD FOR PLANET "EARTH" REACHED

LEVEL Ω -> LEVEL 1

CATALYST REINTRODUCTION IN:

4:57

“Threshold reached? level 1?"

What the heck is happening?

And even more unusually, Just as I read the words, they disappeared sideways into my vision, with only the countdown ominously remaining.

0:35

Oh boy, that can’t be any good.

I don’t know what this countdown is leading to, but it was in human nature to start panicking when seeing a countdown, whether from a microwave or a bomb from movies. And the absurdity of the countdown being magically shoved into my face wasn't helping with that either.

The commotion all around started dying down slowly, as the countdown ominously ticked closer to 0.

Are they be seeing this as well? I thought as I summated from everyone's reaction.

Was this occurring to everyone here? or everyone in the city?

or.. every human?

I shuddered at the thought and quickly took my phone and dialed my parents’ number. My urgency increasing as if expecting the world to explode as it hit 0.

“Godammit, it’s not connecting,” I yelled in frustration

The numbers kept on ticking, irrelevant to my frustrations.

04

03

The surrounding people became even quieter, with only the noise of car alarms and occasional panicked shouting remaining, all collectively looking at the number nearing Zero in front of them.

02

01

00. There was silence for a moment.

A few seconds passed with nothing happening, after a long silence of nothing, people started looking around them confused.

Was something supposed to happen?

I looked at the 0 which disappeared after a moment, leaving my vision clean as it should be, I looked around me, at the confused mass. Did nothing happen?

I left a breath I didn’t know I held. Whatever happened, at least it wasn’t a world-ending event like a meteor crashing or the earth exploding or some other thing my mind was conjuring up.

I flinched suddenly, my relief cut shot by all the audible gasps around me. I followed their pointed arms and gaze towards the sky and looked up - and froze looking at it.

it was simply beautiful. No other words could describe it better.

The sky was covered in a mix of green and blue mists. The vibrant mist shifting gently as it spread itself like a drop of color falling in a liquid, filling the sky like softly blowing curtains.

An aurora? it looked even more beautiful than I had seen in any videos or photos. Far more beautiful, but... wasn’t this supposed to be a phenomenon that only occurs in the colder regions?

The amazing sight which captured all the onlookers was brought to a sudden halt by the most painful screeching sound ever. I closed my ears with my hands in response, but the sound kept increasing several octaves higher, my palm doing nothing to dampen it.

As if the sound reverberated directly in my soul.

The sound got so incredibly painful that it felt like something physical was actually drilling into my ears. I fell to my knees with my head on the floor. Screaming for it to stop. Any semblance of composure lost as I wiggled in the floor with my hand in my ear. My head felt like it was splitting apart and being drilled into from different spots.

Finally, after a few seconds which felt far too long, the godforsaken sound disappeared along with the pain, dissapearing as if it never happened. I loosened my grip on my head and got up shakingly.

My body still felt like it was vibrating. And my mind, completely overloaded with everything that just happened in just 5 minutes. As if the universe was trying to one-up itself, another set of words popped up in my vision.

PLANET LEVEL INTEGRATION IS PARTIALLY COMPLETE

CATALYST INTRODUCED - 13%

EGO - CONNECTED TO PLANETS CATALYST

Which only added to the list of unexplainable things, but this time I composed myself quicker and tried making sense of them. The countdown. It did something. It introduced the catalyst?

What does that mean?

It says it's at 13%? what does THAT mean?

Ghhh, yeah still can’t make heads of it.

Giving up on understanding the words. I took a proper look around me. The people like I was a second ago, were staring in Infront of them or outright panicking or ignoring everything and looking at the beautifully woven sky.

Yeah, that confirms my hypothesis that I wasn't the only one seeing these words.

Again I took my phone and dialed my parent's number and to my joy, this time the call went through. My eyes widened as I quickly brought the phone to my ears. Expectation rose as it started ringing, playing my mother’s familiar old ringtone.

While my senses were focused on the ringing, a completely unexpected sight took my attention. In the middle of the road, between all these people, was a deer. No, not a regular deer. A deer with 3 massive horns on each side and it was looking straight at me.

"What the heck" I spoke out loud in shock.

With a shriek like the devil that hurt my already sensitive ears, it raised its front legs and charged directly at me, ignoring all the hundreds of other people surrounding it.

What! why me?

It shortened the distance instantly with its charge and was about to ram me with its 6 abnormally large horns. And like a petrified animal, I simply stared at the charging deer that was about to kill me.

I wanted to move, but I couldn’t.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.

Fear had completely frozen my body.

Just when I thought I was done for, it charged into a poor soul right beside me. The horns completely penetrating him, blood flowing freely through its horns onto its face, which made it seem even more like the devil in goat’s form.

I was still completely paralyzed, staring at the gurgling sound a human makes when their chests get punctured. The person in question and the one being raised few feet above the ground let out a gut-wrenching scream with their last vestige of life, something which snapped me out of my paralysis.

I turned back and ran without another thought. My frozen heart coming back to life, hammering in my chest as I run breathlessly away from that devil. My body pushed to its limits as it ran as fast as it could.

I would never stop, was never going to stop, not until my body crumbled from exhaustion and I was half a city away from whatever that was, but I stopped regardless.

In front of me, seemingly out of nowhere, a giant hoof came out, like coming out of a crack from reality, a tear in space, and after a second, the body attached to the hoofs came out of the crack as well.

It was over three Storey tall; it sported thick red muscle that bulged out of its frame, with hoofs for its legs and a bull for its head. Its red eyes filled with rage were watching over the creatures under it with such hate as if we were the cause of all its suffering.

“A minotaur!?” I screamed in disbelief. At seeing a being found in stories and legends right in front of me.

It let out a rumbling roar. One that rattled the windows of the building along with my chest. While everyone, including myself, was overwhelmed by the absurdity of what we were seeing. It was one of those moments where the chances of what you were seeing, were actually occurring were less likely than the chances you are hallucinating, schizophrenic, or bat-shit crazy.

And it heedlessly of the stunned mass, raised its giant hoofs and crushed the nearest person like a paste. The sight of the red glob that was once human while it raised its hoof was all the impetus needed as everyone ran away in complete disorder.

The minotaur reached out and grabbed an unfortunate person who started running a bit too late and brought him to its mouth, taking a big bite out of his chest. The body squirting blood like a fountain in its large hands. It discarded the body after the person stopped squirming as if losing interest and took a giant step forward, reaching out for another screaming soul.

Seeing people mercilessly being crushed and killed in front of me, I made a surprising choice of action and ran back to where I just came from. Surprising, in that, I could make a rational decision in this sort of situation, not surprising that I chose to run towards the demon goat that I just ran away from.

The goat blocking my way was leagues better than the hulking monstrosity behind me. And luckily for me, the goat was still preoccupied with trying to remove the 2 humans stuck in its horns after ramming them.

I capitalized on that and ran past it, but as soon as I ran past the goat, it ignored the still stuck corpses in its horns and made that soul-shaking sound again and charged after me.

Ignoring the other people near it and the others who ran this way as well.

"Whyy" I screamed as I run in fear and frustration as I ran away from it.

Even though I had a good head start and it still had 2 adult humans stuck in its head, it was still gaining on me, and fast. Seeing the horns coming closer and closer, I made the most pathetic scream I’ve ever made and ran with all I could, forcing my body to over-drive.

Humans fail to do the most simplest of things that they normally could under stress and panic. Even though I've only been running for a few hundred meters my lungs and heart threatened to beat out of my chest which was too small for them, my arms flailing around while I ran with disorganized breath.

But a look behind me was all that it took, seeing the charging goat with blood and literal human bodies stuck to its head, was all the motivation I need as I doubled down and ran even harder but either due to the fear or the exertion or both, my gait was suddenly interrupted by an intense urge to vomit, one which I bit down immediately.

But one which also made me slow down just for a moment, and the goat, sensing my stumble, charged with a sudden burst of speed and rammed at my back.

The bodies stuck in its horns, as if helping another unfortunate soul from its same fate, prevented the horns from skewering me, but it still pierced me a good inch or two and with the force like getting hit by a car, I was sent flying.

The impact sent me into the air, a few meters across the road and onto the hard asphalt road.

.............................................................

....................

........

I was barely conscious

I felt warm fluid flowing from my head to my face

In the corner of my vision, I saw the demon goat coming closer to me

my consciousness felt slipping away as I slowly close my eyes

Am I going to die like this?.............

.................................

My consciousness faded...