Nowhere - Chapter 1-3

A Story by CrimsonHints

A man wakes up in the middle of Nowhere. He encounters many trials in his fight for survival in a cold and harsh enviroment.

Chapter One

'Jack'

Cold…so cold. That was the first thing he noticed. He lay there, feeling almost unable to move. His body ached, throbbed. He couldn’t ignore the cold. It made itself aware with every breath he took. Sharp, painful, cold gasps for air. It filled his lungs and made him shiver violently. What happened? How did he get here? Why is it so god damn cold? His head was tilted to the side as he was laying stomach down on the concrete-like ground. He dared to open his eyes. White. So much white. Where was he?

Slowly collecting his thoughts, he slowly rose. He stood up with unease and clumsiness. His body felt frozen and broken. He looked around quickly in a form of sudden panic as things sunk in, revealing the pains, once again, in his body. He grabbed at the tendons in his neck as he yelled out. It burned and ached. Bringing both of his hands up to massage his neck, he tilted his head down and noticed the ground was black. He stopped and looked around again; this time with more caution to his injured frame.

The landscape around him was rigid and hard. It didn’t seem possible for anything to survive here. From what he could tell, the entirety of the ground was black but, mostly covered in snow. It looked like coal, or something spawned from the result of volcanic activity. The light was quite bright, so it wasn’t too hard to see. But, it was still a dull white light so it made it more difficult. Wrapping his arms around his torso, he looked up to search for the stars, hoping, in some way, they might help him. But, all he saw was one very large moon. He stepped back in shock.

The moon covered two-fourths of the viewable sky. It illuminated the world around him to the extant you could have thought it was in the day. The only thing different was that the light wasn’t that of a sun. A moon’s light tends to be more dull and gloomy. This all felt so wrong. He looked away. There must be an explanation for the things he was seeing. There had to be an explanation for where he was. There had to be. He paced back and forth, trying to warm himself and stop his body from stiffening. The wind tugged at his clothes and stung his face. He felt so alone and he felt so cold. What was he to do? What could he do?

“Alright, Jack. You’re going to be just fine. All you have to do is just stop and think. Don’t panic.”

Talking to himself out loud calmed him down. The sound of his voice assured him that he hadn’t lost his mind. He pulled his windbreaker closer to his body and zipped it up from the bottom. He laughed.

“At least 20 below and you just have a god damn windbreaker.”

He looked around again. He had to find shelter. The wind was picking up and it was starting to snow. He had to start moving. So, Jack started walking in the direction of the ridges in hope of finding some kind of roof over his head. He walked with his head down and tucked into his jacket with his arms inside his windbreaker wrapped around his chest. His jeans felt frozen stiff and he was sure he couldn’t feel his toes anymore. He felt so very heavy.

Continuing to assure himself out loud, Jack said, “I must have gotten a concussion somehow. My body feels like a ton of bricks.”

He walked maybe 10 minutes before he noticed something else that seemed off. Jack stared at the snow, and noticed that no matter how the wind blew, it always came down in spirals. Not your average snow spiraling from the heavens either. The snow fell in harmony. One by one, they’d trail down in little lines forming cylindrical shapes in the air. Jack reached out to break one of the shapes, waving his hand back and forth. He also noticed that the harder the wind blew, the faster the snow fell. In the moment, this fascinated him but he knew he had to find shelter quickly so he put his curiosities out of his mind and worked on keeping himself warm.

Jack walked for what seemed like miles before he heard the distant cries of a woman. He couldn’t believe his ears. Cupping his hands together, he cried out as loud as he could.

“Hello?! Is anybody out there?!”

Jack’s heart raced in morbid anticipation. His eyes grew wide and it seemed like the next three seconds were his last years in prison, awaiting freedom. A voice in the distance called back and his heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t alone. Dear God, he wasn’t alone.

He couldn’t understand what she had said but it didn’t matter to him. He ran as fast as he could in the direction of her voice. The snow made it difficult to see more than 10 feet in front of him. Jack called out again, hoping to hear her. Hoping to reassure himself that everything was going to be okay. He wasn’t alone.

Chapter Two

'Dana'

She was sitting on the ground with her feet pulled under her. She looked battered and tired. Jack ran over to her, throwing caution to the wind. She looked up at him with lips quivering and said,

  “Thank God, I thought I was alone.”

Her voice was shaky but her eyes were determined. They stared through him and did nothing for the cold biting at his skin. Jack shook this feeling off and extended a hand to help her up. He wanted to embrace her. He wanted to feel her skin against his, to assure himself that she was real. She took his hand and struggled to her feet.

   “I know it might not be too important right now but, my name’s Dana.”

If this were any other situation, this would have made Jack smile but, his face remained unmoving.

    “It does matter. If we’re going to survive-“

He stopped and gestured to the wasteland around them.

“-then we need to know each other and trust each other. My name’s Jack.”

Dana half-heartedly smiled and gestured toward him with her arms open.

“We need to stay warm.”

Jack agreed and let her wrap her arms around his waist. She was short so he could easily wrap his arms around her shoulders. They were both shaking horribly and knew they weren’t going to last the night if they didn’t find shelter soon. They agreed to set off where Jack was originally headed.

This journey became more difficult when it started to snow heavier and heavier. With some concentration, they could see at most 5 feet in front of them. Knowing they couldn’t stop, Jack wanted to keep pressing onward to where he thought the ridges would be. Dana didn’t like the idea that they could end up going in circles or not making it there at all but, she knew they didn’t really have a choice. So she decided talking was the best way to ignore the growing pain in their bodies from the cold and exertion.

   “I don’t remember how I got here.” said Dana with her arms tucked under Jack’s windbreaker.

He stared straight ahead as if in some trance and just nodded in acknowledgment. Dana tugged the windbreaker and looked at him again. She was worried that something was wrong.

   “Jack?”

He looked at her.

   “Please don’t pass out on me or anything. I can’t make it alone. We need to stick together…please.”

Jack thought how he’d never heard her voice without the quiver it has now. He never felt her body without her trembling. He didn’t know why he was thinking of these things now but, it seemed it was all he could think about. Jack wanted to feel her safe and warm. He knew if she was, then he’d be too. It wasn’t any sort of silly romantic thought. It was just a comforting thought that kept him of thinking of the one thing he didn’t want to even acknowledge as a possibility.

   “I’m fine. Just concentrating, that’s all.”

She made that same half-hearted smile again, hugged him tighter and said, “Just concentrate a little louder.”

He smiled for the first time since he woke up a couple hours ago. Dana stopped him with a hand against his chest.

   “Jack…the snow stopped.”

Jack looked around and noticed it had indeed, stopped. But only around the area they were standing in. There was no snow falling in a circular area which was approximately 40 feet in diameter. This led to about 120 feet in circumference. They were in the exact middle of the circle. Jack noticed this also was cylindrical shaped, just a whole bigger.

Dana stood there with wide eyes trying to understand how snow could fall around such a perfect circle. Jack didn’t care and it showed on his worn face. He was tired; too tired for games. And this is exactly what that felt like; a game.

Chapter Three

'Hey There Little Guy'

Jack was irritated at the circle. No, he hated it. He hated all of this. He couldn’t explain it. He couldn’t wrap his head around anything. He felt like he could just fall to his knees and let himself go. This was too hard. He clenched his fists.

   “Let’s keep moving. We have to reach th-“

The ground rumbled and shook. Jack held onto Dana for support but lost his balance anyway and dragged them both to the ground. He fell hard with the back of his head slamming the ground and Dana landing on top of him, elbowing him in the ribs. The wind was knocked out of him and he felt the world spin for a few seconds. Dana tried to clamber to her feet but lost her balance once the second wave of rumblings hit. She hit the ground again, this time running her elbow into the concrete surface. She yelled out in pain and grabbed her arm. An immediate bruising occurred and it started to swell.

Jack sat up slowly, still feeling dizzy. He scooted over to Dana and held onto her. Everything shook, seemingly just inside the circle. He peered around and looked at the edge of the area where the snow stopped. A grey gas-like substance moved through the white snow and created something that looked like a wall around them. It stopped at the edge of the circle just like the snow had, but now you couldn’t see any white anymore.

   “We need to get out of here!” yelled Jack.

He had to raise his voice over the shaking because it was very loud. Dana was attempting to cover her ears. Just as they were both attempting to crawl the 20 feet to the edge of the circle, a piece of the ground broke off in front of Dana. She was in front of Jack and could see straight down into the cavern below them.

“Oh my God, oh my God. We’re going to die.”

Jack crawled forward and peered down and saw the area below. Dana grabbed his arm roughly and yelled,

“Be careful! You’ll fall in!”

The entire area below was a match for the area above. It was hollowed out in the same cylindrical shape and had the exact same dimensions. It didn’t take long for him to guess that they’d fall into that hollow grave any minute if they didn’t get moving. But then, he noticed something horrible.

As he was staring into the darkness below, he noticed whitish spikes lining the cavern about 20 feet below. These spikes continued into the middle of the cavern in perfect circles until there was just an empty circle about 10 feet in diameter in the middle. These spikes were about 3 feet long at the outer edge and got gradually smaller until you reached the middle. But jack realized they weren’t spikes. They wereteeth.

Jack’s eyes widened in terror. He froze. He felt every muscle in his body tighten. He knew he needed to run. He knew he needed to get out of here. Every instinct he had, told him to hightail it into the grey area surrounding them. Dana must have realized what was below them too because she gripped the edge of the ground until her knuckles turned white. Her face was paler than before and her eyes were held open in fear.

“…Jack…”

Dana reached over and tapped him quietly.

“I think we need to run.”

Jack snapped out of it. He grabbed Dana by her shoulder harshly and dragged her to her feet. He couldn’t remember the next few seconds after that but Dana could tell you everything. The ground seemed to give way all at once, even though it fell quickly from the other end. And if there was ever a sound to describe exactly what death sounds like, then the sound that came from that cavern in those moments, would be all too perfect. They both hit the ground hard again but go up, and started running as fast as their legs could carry them.

They ran until their hearts felt like they might burst. They ran until their lungs felt like they were on fire. They ran until they fell to the ground in a heap of sobs and gasps. Dana struggled through her tears as she fought to find the air for her lungs. Jack did the same and lay on his back breathing heavily, feeling the tears stream. His body was shaking again but, differently now. His legs and hands moved involuntarily as his body tried to calm down. Dana curled into a ball and held her knees to her chest. She hiccupped and spoke through her tears.

“Where the hell are we, Jack? Where the hell are we?”

Jack lay there while looking at the moon.

  “We’re sure as hell not home.”

(To be continued in the next chapters)