It should've been a normal day for Ray.
That was what he expected when he woke up and prepared himself for work.
A quick shower, a meager breakfast, a quick drip check-out, and out he was, rushing towards the next bus stop. That was until he stopped right after passing his front door.
„Man...it has to be in this shite weather...of all times!"
said Ray, as he looked at his surroundings.
It was raining strongly and unceasingly at that. The world was blanketed in a rippling film of water. The sky took on a grey hue, as if mocking his daily rhythm with a bad surprise. But before his thought could wander any longer, he noticed the time on his watch and continued running.
Yes, without an umbrella to cover himself.
Why? Obviously, he had no time left; he was late, like always. Nothing particularly new to him. Late to work, late to opportunities, late to life.
As he ran through the rain while protecting his head with his bag, he observed as students, elderly people, and parents with their kids, as if in groups, passed by, happily talking about their newest gossip or proudly proclaiming something to the person next to them.
A common sight, normalcy without counterargument, but today especially disheartening for Ray. He shifted his hands a bit and ruffled his now slightly drenched hair with his left hand.
As he looked at the sky, his mind couldn't help it, and a bit of his gloomier thoughts showed their ugly heads.
Ray considered himself a total outcast. He never seemed to really fit in with everything.
As if he just couldn't get the right formula running, always ending with awkward moments that make his toes curl to this day. Seeing others happy just made him wonder where his flaw truly lay.
*Splash, splash, splash...*
„...truly shitty fucking weather..."
„Mommy! He said a curse word!"
„Dear, don't shout at strangers. You probably misheard"
„but-"
While that situation happened behind him, Ray saw the bus stop and quickly reached the benches getting himself a seat.
Taking a look at the display next to the bus stop, he noticed that his bus got into a traffic jam and will be 5 minutes late, much to Ray's delight. While sitting there, Ray kept looking at the lights reflected in the water. Not many thoughts at all in this moment; he seemed to enter a dazed state.
The rain kept on going, and the air filled with the smell of gasoline and wet pavement managed to somehow lift his mood with nostalgia. Clearly an ironic male meme moment of the highest caliber, however something that could really happen to anyone nonetheless. His mind looked back at memories of old, a happier time. Simpler times, where the difficulties of relationships were as complex as hitting someone with a stick and having a make-up hug afterward.
He would always try to sneak his consoles away and play at a friends home or try to exchange cheat codes with other kids at the playground. Once handheld consoles hit the market, things actually got even more exciting for him and his friends.
Multiplayer, who has the strongest characters or monsters and what secret sorcery the clearly cheating neighbor „whose father was Bill Gates" was up to.
Truly...wonderful times. So where did it all go wrong? Once everyone finished school? When we found jobs? When taking care of yourself took presidence?
But before Ray could wallow in his own self-loathing and doubt, he noticed someone sit beside him.
The person wore round glasses, blue baggy jeans, a black beret and a red shirt that had the words „Are you a dog?" written in big letters on the front. Their black hair was tied up in a bun, while a few strands of hair dangled in front of that person's face.
He couldn't get a good look at the face of that person, since that would honestly feel too awkward to do, but he felt that this must be what they would call „a comrade". Well...not really on the fashion front, however, from the way people looked at him, in the way people perceived them.
Ray wasn't really one you could call ugly, nor did he think so of the person sitting beside him, but he always had a bit of a gloomy presence about him.
His hair was black, his eyes were grey in color, and he usually wore dark-colored clothing. Call him goth as fuck, but he just didn't want to bother with separating laundry, and since he really didn't have anyone to impress, he lived rather minimalistic in his color ranges.
Why would he? It's much easier that way.
As he thought so to himself, he watched the mother from before arguing with their child and started pondering.
Usually parents would try to broaden certain horizons for their children, be it on things they could do or how to react to scenarios, slowly acclimating them for the future and the approaches that their children would have to take someday. That was something that Ray never had.
Before his actual parents died because of a car accident when he was 10 years old, everything was just alright, but who knew that after that one night everything would change beyond the expected? He became an orphan who got shuttled from family to family after they noticed that it might be too much effort to raise a foreign child in their family, or even worse, someone who had trauma and clear abandonment issues. Long therapy sessions were too expensive for his short-term families and the state, who might just come back with a warm smile and a military application once everything had already been „water under the bridge".
(Well...sike!) I became goddamn Eeyore in this bitch. Pay me for my mental stick house!!! GOD DANG IT!!!)
summarized Ray in his thoughts. That was it. Maybe the cause of it all.
Yes, also his color minimalism, but Ray also thought that might just be him.
But before he could continue his mental rant session, he noticed the person to his left shift slightly.
He watched as the person took out an old Nintendo DS and started playing some game on it.
Not being able to hide his curiosity, he leaned to the side and managed to catch a glimpse of the game they were playing, and to his surprise, he knew the game.
An old classic.
Atleast to him...
(„Spectrobes" !!!!)
(Boi got that good shit right there!)
Thought Ray as he watched them play the game. He couldn't help but smile a bit as he kept on giving the side-eye.
Spectrobes is an old game on the NDS he used to play when he was younger. Call it heresy, but to him it was better than Pokemon. It combined many things he loved, such as science fiction, monster raising, archeology, and a bit of eldritch horror (though not as present in the actual lore). As he leaned closer and saw more of the display, his mind began to go on another trip down memory lane.
He didn't have much on him when he went from family to family; however, that old NDS kept him company on many lonely nights. He would give his spectrobes funny names and scream like a banshee to awaken them, much to the dismay of his foster parents, etc.. The story might have been filled with plot holes and weird incongruencies; however, that feeling of being that interstellar patrol officer, digging up and awakening those beings was second to none. Most of all because the world just felt truly alive. Not like some Warhammer 40k world where something alive might just be a short „Did you pray today?" away from your death, but the kind of alive where you will not feel alone in that game world.
(Ah,yes...thats truly nostalgic)
Ray thought while silently fanboying by himself.
However before Ray could enjoy the returning tranquility, aka. his dopamine rush, he noticed the bus arriving.
Since he couldn't really miss the bus, he quickly took his bag and entered the back of the bus, taking a window seat. As his gaze started to wander, he noticed how, unfortunately, the person who was next to him hadn't moved from their place. A fleeting sadness seemed to cross his mind, before he shook his head and continued looking forward.
(I would've loved to continue watching them play. Well, whatever...)
The bus ride was, as usual, very silent. The bus, like always, was eerily empty. Paradise for Ray. On its way to the outskirts of the city.
His workplace wasn't really anywhere near the city. Honestly, you could call it dubiously hidden away. There were even times when Ray thought that he worked for some huge money laundering organization, but no, having worked there for 2 years, he could assuredly say that it seemed legit. It's not like he had much of a choice in that matter. He was nearly homeless once he turned 18 years old and his family back then threatened him with the streets, and Ray clearly wasn't built for the streets. So in his desperate attempt to find a job with his just so-so qualifications, he found his „dreamjob" at a weather observation facility. Not as a scientist, but as an underpaid office worker. His job was just him taking the data and classifying it before sending it to the scientists abroad. There are literally only the guards, and one or two other workers like him and, apparently, the new Twotter AI girlfriend in that building. But that would be a story for another time, thought Ray while thinking to himself, as if he was the main character of a story.
In thought, Ray shifted to the side and continued staring at the trees passing by. The darkness of that forest seemed especially all-consuming today, as if it was moving forward, but Ray paid it no attention. The forest was dense, and like he said, his job wasn't near anything, honestly.
(No military for me, papa state. My Robinson Crusoe-looking ah got himself a „fine" job. Don't worry, i pay taxes...I think...)
As he started questioning his life choices again, Ray noticed that they had arrived at his destination. He took his bag and shifted to the side to leave the bus.
He checked himself to see if he forgot anything, and as he was about to leave, he didn't forget to bid farewell to the bus driver.
„See ya tomorrow, Jarred."
Jarred was the old man who frequently drove this bus to the outskirts of the town and pretty much the only person Jarred would talk to every day. That is if you could consider maybe saying hello and goodbye, or just „weather shitty, ay?" a conversation. However, Jarred always seemed to smile upon him with warmth, no matter the awkwardness of the situation, and offer answers.
Truly the best bus driver in history.
„......O-"
„???????"
As Ray was about to press the button to open the doors at the next stop, he heard a weird response coming from the driver cabin at the front.
„Jarred?"
Ray forced himself to call out, feeling a weird sense of abnormality in that moment. The inside remained silent, eerily so. He felt slightly concerned for the old bus driver so he turned around and started approaching the driver's cabin . As he started to get closer to the old man, he started hearing the rustling of clothing and slight gasps of pain, forcing him to dash forward to check on old Jarred.
(This is straight up some kind of creepypasta scenario….WTF)
However, what greeted him was something beyond his very lively imagination.
Tendrils, gathering tendrils.
The mere sight seemed to evoke some kind of psychological gag reflex, making him almost fall over in disgust. The man who should've been Jarred was an abomination of constantly warping sludge that threatened to spill over the bus driver's uniform. It kept sloshing around inside the cabin and making imitating sounds, close to human gasps, as Ray stared in horror.
„JESUS F@CKING CHRIST"
Screamed Ray as he ran towards the doors at the back. There was no way in hell that he would try opening the doors next to the driver's cabin. Instinctively, he felt that that would be a bad idea since that abomination would have his back towards it. He was near the door; however, before he could reach the button or break the glass, he was forcibly pushed to the back of the bus as it started rapidly speeding up.
*screeeeech*
As Ray saw the tendrils slowly slither from the cabin on the ground and the windows, he felt as if he was close to a mental breakdown. What should he do? The bus might've already reached its top speed, and the doors have already been automatically closed. The tendrils, or whatever that stuff is, kept approaching and filled Ray's head with dread. As he looked around in panic, he noticed something that truly made him stand like a deer in front of headlights.
„WHAT??!??!?!?"
The outside.
The outside was not the forest anymore; more precisely, it was-
„!"
Space.
Unending space. The moment Ray had looked outside, he had seen, in that millisecond, how the world twisted in a giant vortex and the bus starting to fall into a gigantic eye of the storm. Fear. It was as if every cell in his body had activated some inborn sense of megalophobia. Ray couldn't handle it anymore; he puked what remained inside his stomach, and his dread seemed to have reached the threshold, giving him a numbing sense of tranquility. It was like he had accepted death, or whatever farce this was. The tendrils were now just a few meters away from him, and he couldn't care anymore. Too much happened in a matter of 5 minutes for him to react; he wasn't able to form a stringent thought anymore, evading to just saying nonesense.
„...please...let there be an Asian dude who throws nickels at my balls..."
As he said that, he saw how the penny machine in the front got blasted out of its cabin, making coins roll everywhere.
„You know what...scratch that"
Said Ray as he firmly grabbed one of the bars to his side.
„I HOPE YOU HAVE GODDAMN SAUL GOODMAN ON YOUR SIDE! IMMA SUE YOUR ASSEEEEEEEEEEEE-"
The bus fell,
spinning on its axes, as if trying to turn whatever was inside it into mush. In that moment, Ray was fortunate enough to have somehow positioned himself in a way that minimized the chance of his body being roughed up by his surroundings. He held on for dear life as the bus was doing its vertical dive into the abyss; however, that fleeting sense of manageability was quickly broken by what seemed to be a light in the distance.
*Zischhhhhhhh*
Ray, in his absolutely disoriented mind, could only hear the sound of something burning. The sound akin to jet engines burning approached, and whatever concept of up and down he had upon reaching this situation was quickly broken by an ungodly explosion.
The bus got ripped in two. Not in a slicing motion—this isn't Zoro having lost his way again but obliterated by a kind of shining meteor.
„AAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
Ray got flung out of the bus, and as he saw the bits and pieces of that damn bus disappear further and further away, he closed his eyes. There was no thought to be had in his mind. The overwhelming amount of things that happened had truly messed up his mind.
It was truly a miracle that he hadn't fainted by now.
In what seemed to be the last short moments in his life, or however long this dive to hell was going to last, Ray had only one thought.
(is this really it?)
He remembered his life until now. The good and the bad.
What came to be apparent was that he truly didn't really live out his life.
He should've tried harder.
The mere spots of good moments in his life were just dust on his track record. It might seem stupid to say that, but it took facing death to see the obvious now. As Ray thought about such things, he could feel something slowly rising up in his chest.
Not his food, though; that had been flushed clean by the greatest rollercoaster ride of his life.
Unwillingness.
Absolute unwillingness.
„FUCKING SHIT, I WANNA LIVE"
„That's a good start. Don't you think so, too?"
„HUH?!"
As he rapidly opened his eyes, he could see black hair. A beret. Baggy Jeans. An insulting shirt. And a burning light from whatever was behind them. The light was actually so bright that he couldn't see the face of that person.
„You-"
But before he could perceive more, he was kicked into a small black vortex that suddenly appeared behind him, instantly fainting.
Different pov:
The wind roared as the figure looked at the dark vortex with a slight feeling of melancholy and turned around.
„Might just jumpstart this shit, ay?"
Said the person looking towards the blinding light behind them.
[LAAAAAAA]
„lets leave"
MC POV:
„Ugh"
Ray felt a stinging heat on his back as he slowly tried to lift himself up. He noticed that his fingers had touched something weird, like a very dry dirt.
As he opened his eyes, he noticed…yellow.
Unending yellow.
He stood up slowly and noticed that he was standing atop a dune, in a desert, his fucking nightmare.
„Okay…..let's forget Saul Goodman, Santa Claus, or even Jesus Christ himself…"
„YOUR ASS IS GRASS. THE SECOND I GET MYSELF A GOOD LAWYER!!!!"
Screamed Ray as he looked into the endless sandy horizons.
End of prologue.
Fuck my life, this chapter took a bit. Hope yall liked this little prologue. Hope you managed to read the beginning. Guy wasn't really the most „handsome" mc. Very negative, not much charisma, a crying bitch. But hey thats character progression. And i will try to make him a man (not physically with him, u know what i mean).
Anyway. ta-ta~