Chapter Two

As the thought reeled through my head, I slumped down to the ground, just looking around as my mind carried on going past overdrive and into what only could be described as insanity. 

I didn’t say a thing for a few reasons: one, I was in shock. I mean, I'm meant to be at work, and magic, or whatever this is, should not be happening. This kind of stuff was reserved for web novels and films. The other reason is that I was the only person around. I couldn’t see another soul that was in this white space with me.

Finally raising up some courage, I yelled out hoping to prove myself wrong and that I would hear someone's voice breaking through this white world. “Hello!”....I felt like I could hear my voice echoing in the distance, but everything soon returned to the eerie silence that I had only just noticed. My mind went quiet, not a thought could be heard. 

“I wonder when I will be rescued from whatever this is, that if it is not just a dream.” 

Thinking of that, I pinched my wrist but nothing changed except for a sharp burst of pain.

“Definitely not doing that again.”

I carried on looking around as I ran my fingers through my hair.

Then I decided to try and find the end of this white space. Maybe there is another person in here with me somewhere. 

Springing back to my feet. I began to run at first. I could hear my footsteps pounded into the ground and the noise of it echoed around bouncing off of the unseen walls. After a while I slowly began to slow down to a slow jog. The echo slowed down with me. Finally I got to a slow walk, the echo at this point I could barely hear at all.

In the end I slumped to the ground again. My eyes only briefly looked around.

“Sigh…”

“I’m alone in thi….”

Then, it happened again. This time it was the brightest flash I had ever witnessed. 

This time, it took longer for my vision to return to normal, well at least normal in the sense that I wasn’t just seeing white.

As I waited for my sight to return, I could feel a gust of wind blow through my hair…..wait. Wind? I shouldn’t be able to feel that. It wasn’t just the wind though. It felt like I was sitting on lots of twigs and leaves. Like I was in the forest.

How is this possible? I thought to myself. If i'm not in the white space, I should be in a building with a concrete floor. Not some kind of woodland. 

My vision returned soon after. As I expected, I was in a woodland region. Looking around, the trees towered above me and stretched out for as far as I could see. The canopy couldn’t be thick though, as bits of light were breaking through and lighting the floor around me. Then, with small flashes, people began to appear around me. 

At first it was one. He looked at me in shock. Then someone appeared right in front of him, causing him to scream out, and making me chuckle quietly. Then more and more and more people began to appear around me, filling out the seemingly endless forest with all kinds of people. Some were small, some big. Not to mention there was every kind of hair color….I think I could even see a flash of pink in the distance. 

After the initial shock, all these people began to talk to each other and try to work out what was going on.

I heard some ridiculous comments such as, “The creators have sent us to the main world. We have to prepare for the void war.” That person was immediately shunned for his ridiculous comment and people began to gather around someone who said that they were in the army.

He was talking about how someone will find everyone soon and rescue everyone. I smiled at that. There must be at least a thousand people around us. If not more. How did he expect so many people to be rescued at once? The so-called soldier was a little suspicious to me though. He didn't look like one for starters and two everything he said had nothing to do with survival, just waiting to be rescued. I didn't think a soldier would say something like this.

Then as I was walking over to where this soldier who had all the answers was standing, I heard a blood curdling scream, which made me freeze in place. I looked over at the direction that it came from immediately. In the distance I could see, people sprinting towards us with terrified faces.

I watched them get closer and raised my hands trying to slow one of them down, to find out what was going on.

They, against my expectations, ran straight through us, not even bothering to stop and explain what was going on. Unlike the others around me who looked around in confusion, I joined the people running away. This is due to in my mind at least, if they are running from something I would guess, it's better to run now than wait to find out what is chasing them.

I kept up my pace with them easily and in fact began to overtake some of the slower people, as well as jump over people who had tripped on the various roots and twigs of the trees around us.

Then the person in front of me stopped. Unfortunately I was going too fast to stop, and barrelled straight into her back, sending us sprawling to the floor in a bundle of limbs. She quickly detached herself from me and ran off in another direction.

I did get a good look at her face though, even with the ugly expression of terror she definitely could be classed as beautiful especially when compared to the other people that I had seen so far. 

Slowly I stood up and looked forward trying to find what could cause such an expression in the woman. In front of me I could see some people like us, but they were wearing odd clothes. The clothes themselves reminded me of something that I had seen in a tv show once..if I remember correctly, they should be leather but why would they be wearing leather for? Then I noticed the whips in their hands, some of the whips even had some kind of liquid dripping off of them.

Further back I could see people being dragged away, kicking and screaming as what appeared to be metal collars were placed around their necks. Each of these collars had a chain attached connecting itself to another collar on another person.

Seeing this, I stood up and ran away, just like the women that I had run into. I did not want that to be me. Not at all.

I ran off quickly in a random direction avoiding the way I had come. Much to my surprise I ran into a similar scene. The people that I could see, had slightly different clothes on compared to the others that I had seen. 

I barely stopped before running away again, not knowing at all what was going on. Who were these people?

After going for what felt like another thirty minutes, I heard yelling and screaming in the distance. I stood for a second, before creeping off in a different direction, attempting to avoid being noticed.

As I creeped back, I tripped over a branch landing onto the floor. I quickly moved my hands over my body to make sure I was not hurt, which happily I found that I wasn’t. Using the tree behind, me as a support I got back up, before walking off in another direction. Trying to avoid all the screaming and yells that had suddenly filled the forest around me.

As I moved through the forest much more slowly compared to before, I could sometimes catch a glimpse of people hiding on the top of some trees. At one point I even saw someone who had buried themselves in leaves. If it wasn't for the situation. I would have been laughing to the point of crying by now.

There were only a few people left running at this point. Most seemed to have been caught already or were hiding away somewhere like the people I had seen, trying to avoid what seemed to be capture. I heard another scream nearby.

Letting out a sigh, I began to move in another direction. Hoping against all odds that this time I would be able to go without running into these groups.

I had been moving for about ten minutes again before stopping.

I gasped for my breath. “Have…..I finally….escaped?”

Deeming that I had, I carried on moving to what seemed like the edge of the forest. 

As I left the confines of the trees, I saw a sprawling grass plain. On it were a people similar to what I had seemed before but with one notable exception. They all had what appeared to be a kind of uniform on and were armed with spears and shields.

Thinking that I had finally been rescued from whatever this place was, I headed towards them. As I was about a few metres away, a couple of the soldiers ran out to me. 

Barely standing at this point, I smiled and waved at them. They however, grabbed my outstretched arm, and flung me to the floor. Then I felt the cold bite of metal around my neck and with a solid click, a collar was placed on me.