His words were suddenly cut off, as an immense pulling force, stronger than Earth's gravity, swept him off his feet into it, leaving him no chance to resist, until it swallowed him and sealed away any way back.
And in an instant, he found himself falling inside a wormlike vortex, glowing around him in violet and black, spinning him in endless loops as if he were a piece of clothing in a washing machine, spinning and falling at the same time, swallowed by a stream with no end…
Haruki screamed in terror and panic; nothing to hold onto, nothing holding him. The void beneath him only deepened the panic he was going through.
Then-BOOM!-his back crashed against a solid rocky ground, and he let out a sharp cry of pain, as though his inner organs had slammed into one another from the fall.
"Ugh… ouch!"
He slowly lifted his body from the sandy ground, groaning in pain, pressing his fingers against his back from the violent fall, before his consciousness began to take in what was around him.
He was no longer at the school, not even close to it. This place… it resembled nothing he had ever seen before, as if it were one of the parallel worlds.
"Where am I?"
Haruki looked around in confusion and curiosity. Towering trees touched the sky, with sunlight piercing through their leaves, casting a tangible warmth over the place. At first glance, it might look like an ordinary forest, until one looked closer…
"What is this…?"
A brightly colored butterfly, but ten times its natural size, stood sideways on the trunk of one of the trees.
A lump formed in his throat from the tension, and a cold sweat crept through his body. He rubbed his eyes with his fist, trying to convince himself that what he saw was just an illusion after the crash. He slowly turned his head to the other side, avoiding the butterfly, only to find on his left green cows with no hind limbs.
"Heh…"
His face turned pale until it was white, and he placed his hand over his mouth to stifle a gasp that almost escaped.
Suddenly, a slimy sensation crept along his right arm, slowly crawling upward.
His heart stopped beating as he slowly turned his head, terrified of what he might find crawling over his arm. And once he gathered what courage he had left, he looked at his arm to find a worm with a human head staring at him with black eyes.
He froze in place, feeling the last shred of his soul drain from his body. Not long after, Haruki screamed in terror, shaking his arm rapidly until the worm fell onto the green grass. He jumped to his feet, his body moving involuntarily from the sheer horror he was experiencing, then began to run in a state of overwhelming panic that nearly tore his soul from his body.
His body lunged forward, and his legs were racing against the wind. The adrenaline in his veins pushed him to keep running, while his mind processed no sense of exhaustion; it was entirely focused on the fear gripping him.
His legs stopped and stiffened the moment his path intersected with a massive spider the size of a full truck.
Those countless eyes poured all their focus onto the frozen boy before them.
Words got stuck in Haruki's throat as he stared upward, seized by a powerful sense of dread. His knees trembled beneath him, and his heart pounded against the wall of his chest so hard he could almost hear it in his ears.
"Great…"
Haruki muttered to himself, struck by a sense of numbness. What next? Could anything worse possibly happen?
The spider screeched at him, its cry echoing across the forest.
Haruki swallowed the lump in his throat and raised his hands toward the spider, speaking as though the creature might actually understand him.
"Look… I swear my flesh tastes bitter, you wouldn't like it."
Then he pointed his thumb backward, exactly to where he had been just moments earlier.
"There's something like a cow… beef is delicious, you should try it!"
His voice carried a diplomatic tone, as if he were advertising a product to a customer. The spider watched him for a few moments, before shrieking at him again, drenching him in thick, sticky saliva.
"I'll take that as a no."
Haruki muttered those words before turning his back and resuming his run-this time with the massive spider chasing him between the dense trees in a dangerous pursuit.
Haruki darted in a zigzag between the trees, trying to throw the spider off, but those red eyes clung to his back, following his every move.
He leapt over a tree trunk jutting out of the ground, then slipped inside the hollow of a small tree.
No sooner had he hidden than the creature shoved one of its eight legs inside, trying to reach him. Haruki pressed himself against the wooden wall behind him, holding his breath in his chest as drops of cold sweat trickled down his body.
At last, the spider gave up and left him alone. The boy let out the deep breath he had been holding, then slid down the wall to sit on the ground. His hair had turned into a messy tangle, falling across his sweaty forehead. His breaths were short, his chest rising and falling quickly.
"That was close…"
he muttered to himself, resting his head back, while his eyelids grew heavier and heavier until he finally shut them, wishing deep down that everything he had just gone through was nothing but a bad nightmare from which he would wake up in his own bed.
And yet, he drifted off to sleep inside that hollow, powerless to stop it.
The setting sun cast an orange glow across the place, filtering through the trees and branches, soon to be replaced by the moon on that strange day…
From the last day of school, to a hallway fight, to a mysterious transfer into this world, and finally, a whole day spent in nothing but running and fear.
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Thank you for reading! If this moment touched you even a little , please consider adding it to your library.💐