With food settled and not having any pressing issues he started to take account of what had happened , and what to do from here . The absurdity of the situation finally hit him and Zac spaced out with glazed eyes , unsure of how to proceed from here .
A distant roar brought him back to reality . This was no time to slack off , he was by no means safe at the moment . He was in the middle of the forest surrounded by crazy monsters , and that glowing pillar still shone in the distance , reminding him that more monsters might come .
Perhaps the pillar was a portal to hell or something similar , and demons could keep flooding through from their infernal plane . Or was this an alien invasion? The monsters could be something like Zergs in a popular computer game he played back in the day .
Then he finally remembered the weird robotic voice he heard earlier , and the confusing things it said before it started its crooked gambling scheme that almost cost him his life .
Welcome to the multi-verse . . . - he mumbled . If the TV-shows and comic books he had devoured throughout the years were any indicators , a Multi-verse was a connection between multiple planets , galaxies and even dimensions .
If the voice was to be believed , Earth had been introduced to some larger system , and due to this , there were suddenly demons roaming the forests . But that didn’t mean that only demons were around . What about other monsters or races? Would he suddenly meet elves jumping around in the trees , shooting arrows at him with pinpoint accuracy?
The voice also said it initiated incursions . It seemed reasonable that the huge pillar in the distance was the incursion , which would mean he probably wasn’t too far off with his demon portal theory . And when it spawned in the forest , the demons came with it .
But that meant that the monsters wouldn’t necessarily spawn next to it , as one was already in the camp when he came back . It was hard to tell the distance to the huge pillar , but it should take hours on foot to get there . And something called a herald spawned right on top of Zac , resulting in the largest emotional roller-coaster in his life .
Finally , he had gotten stronger for some reason with all these changes . Both his speed and power saw noticeable improvements from whatever the weird voice did . It almost felt like he had gotten a power-up like in some video game , which made sense after having seen the floating windows in the dark dimension . He still didn’t understand why the prompts were designed to look like some old-school RPG . Was it his mind desperately trying to make sense of an insane situation and adjusted reality for him?
Fantasy monsters , magical portals , and game-like elements . If some parts of the world were turned into an RPG , did other elements get introduced as well? At least there was no health bar , and the demon had no description or text above its head either . In fact , the only time he had seen any true game elements was when he was in the black space the voice brought him to .
He tried to notice anything in the periphery of his vision , but it was nothing there apart from the vision of the now somewhat bloody and grimy trailer . Tyler’s parents would probably be pretty pissed off when they saw the state of their camper he thought with a smirk .
If they’re even still alive , he then realized somberly . If the world was turned to shit at his location , what about the rest of the planet? Would it be safer , or even more messed up? What about his home town?
Thoughts of his father and younger sister surfaced , and a sense of urgency appeared . If this was a global problem , nowhere was safe . Zac had no idea what was going on , but he would have to figure that out on the way .
He needed to get back home .
Chapter 5 - Stranded
Driven by a newfound sense of purpose , Zac immediately started packing a backpack with food which wouldn’t spoil easily and some other necessities , and then immediately made a beeline for the SUV . If a slow shuffle where every step felt like walking on fire could be called a beeline .
He opened the door , relieved that no one had been paranoid enough to lock the car in the middle of nowhere . The electric keys were lying on the driver’s seat . With no time to spare , he placed the backpack on the front passenger seat and pressed the button to start the car . A spectacular absence of sound greeted him . The car had no reaction , even after pressing the key increasingly hard accompanied by angry swearing . The focused power of his will had no impact either , the dashboard unlit and the motor didn’t give as much as a whimper in response .
So the car was broken as well . Or not broken , rather out of batteries he surmised after noticing a black smartphone being plugged into the outlet in the car . The car had been on when the world turned to shit , and by now the batteries had died out . Freaking Tyler .