At first, he couldn't hear anything but silence; a sepulchral silence that loomed around him, embracing him in a chilling way. The darkness surrounding him was absolute, as if he had gone blind, covered by a thick black mist that drifted like a ghost.
He floated in nothingness for a few seconds, until he managed to regain consciousness.
He opened his eyes, coughing out all the air in his lungs. In pain, he touched the side of his torso, where it hurt the most.
'It hurts… What… what happened to me?'
No one would answer his question, for the place he was in showed no signs of other rational lifeforms.
'The portal… I…'
He recalled what had happened moments ago. Something had appeared and kicked him into the portal. Everyone tried to help him, but in the end, no one could do anything.
Now he was here, in the darkness, floating in silence for eternity.
It would have been terrifying if that were true, but this place didn't feel real.
Nova sighed. He wasn't scared, nor worried, much less excited. Instead, he felt a deep, strange calm that dulled every kind of emotion rising in his heart.
It was as if he didn't truly exist alongside this strange plane.
He remained silent, waiting for anything. In the next few seconds, he understood something.
'Oh, man… I think I'm in trouble.'
Anyone who dared to enter a portal would be in trouble—it was supposed to be certain death. Besides, what the hell was this place? There was absolutely nothing.
The void gave him time to think, and that was exactly what he did for a few more seconds. He waited for something to tell him how to escape this thick black mist.
Fortunately, something suddenly happened.
A faint whisper echoed through the void; a whisper that crawled across every part of Nova's body. He felt chills, a tightness in his chest, and then he felt something staring at him.
Then, six different voices spoke at the same time, with a deep, melancholic, and lonely tone.
The voices—spectral, ethereal, and distant—whispered:
"Doomesp evret,
mepoosd etrachseu.
On sientu un menbroa,
rope sutorosn et meradso une.
Gusei ut manico,
jofra ut aporpi sirtohia,
y tehza ed ut una dayeeln.
Sornotos et remsepearo,
espu on somirea a quinngu torto raglu
Vanzáa
Tuncínoa
On et gasednt
Rebovise
On reamus
Evvi. Ho, johi ed este versuinu umonidorb."
'What?'
Nova frowned. He didn't understand anything at all. Was that some kind of ancient language? A riddle or something like that?
No—the most important thing right now was something else.
"Where am I? Who are you?" he said calmly. "How can I go back?"
The voices didn't say anything else. Silence once again spread through the place, covering the entirety of existence itself.
"Hello? Can you hear me?"
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make the voices speak again.
"Damn it…," he muttered, disappointed.
He stretched his legs and arms, looking upward. Although it didn't seem like this place had a concept of "up" or "down," much less "right" or "left."
'So what am I supposed to do now? Rot in this place?'
Die of hunger, thirst, and boredom. It wasn't a good way to die. Even when he thought about a possible death, nothing could disturb his mysterious Serenity.
So then—what could exist here that had the power to disrupt the calm of a man?
Nova was about to find out.
"Wha—?!"
He felt a sudden pain drilling into his skull. He grabbed his head with both hands, digging his fingers into his hair and pulling his knees to his chest. He tried to lessen the pain, failing in the process.
He groaned in agony, letting out a muffled scream.
The black mist swirled around him. A cold wind pushed everything toward some direction in the silent void, sending Nova flying through the mist.
Unable to do anything about it, he kept struggling against the pain. However, as if spending a long time in an unknown void wasn't enough, everything suddenly lit up with a blinding white light.
Nova shut his eyes, stunned by the light and the pain. In his agony, he couldn't hear the soft sound of sand being caressed by the wind, nor the fiery crackles of something burning.
At the end of the journey, the darkness dispersed all at once, vanishing over hot, yellow sand like dust.
Just like that, the headache faded away, allowing Nova to finally focus on what was happening around him. He opened his eyes wide—obviously—because he was flying over the sand at tremendous speed.
He wasn't really flying; he was falling toward the sand while moving forward, as if his body had been spat out of the mouth of a cannon.
'Ah! Damn it!'
Whump!
Without the ability to fly, he crashed violently into the sand, rolling and bouncing dozens of times until his face finally kissed the scorching ground, sliding to a complete stop.
'Ow…'
It hurt like hell.
He placed both hands on the sand and lifted his face. He stuck out his tongue and spat out the sand that had gotten into his mouth during the fall. His clothes were filled with sand—even his socks.
His vision was limited and blurry, so he stayed still for a few seconds, recovering. The bad news was that he couldn't rest for long, because his hands, which were pressed against the sand, were burning!
He jumped to his feet and looked at his hands. His skin was red and irritated.
'What the hell is going on?'
Nova would have many questions today.
He lifted his gaze and observed his surroundings. Sand—so much sand. On the horizon, sand was the only thing that could be seen.
He looked up at the sky, hoping to find something different, but his eyes widened in surprise when he saw two suns in the completely clear blue sky.
One sun was large and red, while the other was small and white.
'Two suns… Desert… Is this a desert?'
As if the sand around him weren't proof enough, he made sure that what his eyes were seeing wasn't fake. Sadly, all of it was real.
"Is this what lies beyond a portal?"
With his atypical calm, he sighed—but as he exhaled and inhaled again, he coughed violently. His lungs dried out the moment the air entered his body.
He almost fell again, but luckily managed to stay on his feet.
'The air… it burns!'
On Terra, Nova's world, there were deadly plants that expelled a gas which, if inhaled, would burn and melt your lungs instantly. This felt similar—just without the horrible, painful death.
Another thing to consider was that on Terra, there were no deserts. The asteroid's energy nourished and sustained the planet, so there were no deserts anywhere in the world. The entire planet was filled with vegetation and animals.
Because of that, having no deserts on his planet, Nova had never had the chance to learn how to survive in one—much less survival in a desert with two suns!
He took some time to calm down and adjust to the air. When he did, breathing slowly so his lungs wouldn't dry out, he looked around once more to make sure the portal was still open.
'The portal…'
There was no portal nearby.
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he stood upright and stared at the horizon.
'A desert… a damn desert… Is this what lies on the other side…?'
As if it weren't obvious, this was what stretched beyond the portals—the home of the Aberrations.