Chương 2: Magical Thinking

June had always felt that saying something out loud or even just thinking it could manifest it. Some might even call it magical thinking. June had lived a life of misfortune; at least that's what people who know him tend to say. He had a weird sense of intuition; he was typically able to see and predict outcomes better than most, especially when said outcome tended to bite him. This case, though, was something that, no matter how much June thought, could not have predicted.

The ground shook, and several blasts echoed in the distance, each giving birth to a shockwave that twisted the surroundings. By the time June flopped out of his bed and opened his eyes, the room he was in was different. It was still a bedroom, but way more different from his; the room was grey and lacked colour, the walls seemed to be made of an alloy, and the building seemed to be collapsing with June in the middle of it. The room had no windows to see outside, and it had a dim light around the rim of the ceiling.

June had enough light to see around him, but making out details of his surroundings was hard. The room was small and incredibly sterile; there seemed to be an odd-looking computer in the corner. It resembled an old-looking terminal. June would have loved to inspect it, but to his regret and surprise, the tossing and turning building knocked the terminal toward him as it flew past his face and hit the wall with a resounding clang.

The room kept twisting; the bed, oddly enough, stayed in place as June was subjected to the immense force of the falling building. Metal groaned and screamed as he was tossed around the room like a ragdoll. The terminal, on the other hand, seemed to have a similar amount of interest in June as he did in it, since the terminal was tossed towards him as the room twisted. More blasts resounded in the distance; each shockwave was felt even in his metal coffin.

On the next tumble the terminal collided with him, sending him towards the alloy door to the bedroom he was in. The door automatically opened, but not fast enough, since he had collided first with a resounding crack. The next quake tossed June further down the hall, separating him from the heavy terminal device. June lay on the ground for a minute; the shockwaves, the quakes, the world itself seemed to have calmed down, let alone the building he was in.

Blood dripped from his nose and over his mouth; it dripped from his head and over his eye. His hand was throbbing, and it burned like a horde of ants wanted to leave his skin. He was splayed on the ground with his arm under him; the pain was underwhelming; the shock overpowered it. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

June leaned a bit more to his side, unable to stand yet but wanting to release his arm from under him, and he felt his stomach churn and felt fluid build in his mouth as he lazily opened it, and blood drooled out in cupfuls. He was dazed and in pain; the world itself scared him; it was suddenly different. He considered if he was dreaming, but the feeling of shattered bone in his wrist felt too real. He did not know whether to whimper or cry; it all felt like too much.

The fear in his eyes dimmed; they became hazy and unfocused. He slowly rolled onto his less injured hand and pushed himself up, and he looked around, trying to grasp his situation. The building he was in seemed abandoned, recently as well; he considered the elevator since the stairs may be too intensive for his state, but his judgment decided that a little more pain would be safer than a potential instant death. June staggered down the stairwell, leaning on the walls; the lights were all dim and flickering.

He was scared. He had a hard time telling if his eyes were watering from fear or if that was just blood. He briefly looked behind him to see a trail of blood on the wall, and he traced it with his eyes to see that the heavy terminal left him a gift before their parting: a shard of glasslike plastic was stuck in his side. The amount of blood he was losing made his legs feel weak, but he continued down the stairs at a leisurely pace.

Along the stairs there was the occasional bag; he had a feeling that the place was evacuated recently, but the traces of humans made the place feel more eerie and forgotten than it should have felt.

After what felt like an eternity, he made it to the lobby of the megabuilding he was in; luckily he was on the lower floors, but still he had never seen such a large map for an apartment before, or at least that is what he assumed this building was. He staggered over to the front desk past some metal detectors and caught a glimpse of the front doors. A harsh breeze was thrusting into a gaping wound of the building; the front doors were seemingly torn with claws. a big knife?

Nothing came to June's mind; the damage the building sustained didn't look like anything he had seen online before. Another thing June realized after a moment made him shudder: there was a blizzard outside the doors. He couldn't see much of the outside world from within the building, but just the falling snow and the pileup made him feel like something was wrong. June was born and raised in Canada; he wasn't a stranger to snow, but never in his life had he felt threatened by falling snow to this extent.

His dulled senses screamed at him to stay away from the snow, but even without said senses, the snow was falling like bullets. Each drop fell into the pile without much noise, but some of the falling snow would fall with enough violence to blast the piles into the air. The snow was a death trap; he would one hundred percent die if he left this building, but at the same time the screaming building didn't give him much hope. He would need to figure something out quickly, or he would die from blood loss.