The Beginning

Did you hear them? The rumblings of Dark Celestials returning to Earth? Did you hear them? The rumors of the humans with strange abilities disappearing one by one in the night? Well, they were all true. It all happened. And I ended up right at the center of it. Caught in a battle between two very different enemies on two different fronts. This isn't your typical superhero story. This is my story. This is the story of how we saved the multiverse.

Let's start at the beginning…

Cold. That was the first sensation I had when my consciousness was returning. It was so very cold and it was so very dark and I had no idea where I was. My lungs burned with the effort it took to gasp in each shaking breath. Every part of my body ached. Muscles in my arms and legs twitched as I lay shivering on the cold ground, and I grimaced as each convulsion sent sparks of pain running through my body. My vision was still blurry when I opened my eyes; I could see next to nothing of my surroundings except for the wisps of steam from my breath puffing into the air above my face and the faint light of the twinkling stars shining through the canopy of leaves far above me. I tried to push myself up with my arm, but it shook so badly that I just fell right back down into the dirt with a thud.

A searing pain that felt like a dozen knives being thrust into my ribs flared up in my side as I hit the ground. Instinctively, my hand flew to the source of the pain. My shirt was warm and wet, soaked with some kind of thick liquid. Blood? I traced my hand across my side until I touched something cold and metallic. I thought it felt like a knife, but I was so cold I could barely feel anything other than the pain. Whatever it was, it was buried deep into my side.

The same thick liquid that saturated my shirt trickled down the side of my face. Scrapes, cuts, and bruises seemed to cover every inch of me. Judging by the amount of pain, I figured I'd broken several bones. But it was hard to tell when everything hurt just as much as everything else. I racked my brain, trying to remember what had happened, but my mind seemed to be an empty void. I couldn't even remember my own name or what I looked like. As this thought set in, fear overtook me.

My bottom lip quivered and my eyes rolled around in my head, straining to see through the darkness. I tried to call out, but my voice failed me. All I managed to breathe out was a whisper. "Help." The sound seemed to barely pass my lips before it dissipated in the air. I tried frantically, again and again, to call for help, but was met with the same result every time. My dry throat burned with the effort and my chapped lips cracked and split, leaving the horrid tang of blood on my tongue. A pain in my chest sent my body into convulsions of ragged coughing, my mouth filling with even more of the disgusting, metallic taste of my own blood. I felt the warm liquid trickling out of the corner of my mouth.

Am I going to die out here? I hated the thought as soon as it entered my mind. I tried to shake it away, but after a few minutes of repressing it and suffering in silence, a new thought occurred to me. If I died, the pain would end. An end to the pain seemed ideal at that moment. It was becoming unbearable as the minutes agonizingly passed by.

What am I thinking? I can't just give up. I have to try.

I tried to move, my muscles stiff from the cold. I managed to roll myself onto the side that didn't have a sharp object sticking out of it and slowly started to push myself up into a sitting position. My lips parted as a weak cry of pain escaped, drawn out as searing pain flooded over my entire body. But I made myself sit up. There was obviously no one around. I hadn't seen a car pass by or heard any sign of other humans near enough to find me. Dying wasn't on my agenda at that moment. At least, it was on the very bottom of my list. So I had to get out of there and find someone who could help me.

As the pain subsided slightly, my vision began to clear enough that I could take in my surroundings. I was in a ditch beside a dark road surrounded by trees on one side and a jagged cliff on the other. My best guess was that I'd probably fallen down the cliff. But how that resulted in a knife in my side, I wasn't sure.

Using a nearby tree for support, I began dragging myself to my feet. My legs felt like jelly. They wobbled so violently that I nearly fell back down again, barely catching myself on a tree branch. My breath came in short gasps as I waited for the agony to subside again. I tried to take deep breaths to calm myself, but it hurt to breathe. Like something was stabbing into my lungs every time they inflated.

I took as deep a breath as I could and took one step forward. Stabbing pain shot up my leg as soon as I put weight on it and I quickly threw my other leg forward in another step to take the weight. I continued like this for some time, limping along down the dark road using trees for support, not sure where I was going, only knowing that I was never going to find help by laying in a ditch.

My mind was cloudy and my head swam, my whole body threatening to collapse at any second. I wasn't sure how long it was before I caught a glimpse of light ahead of me. I squinted as I tried to focus my vision. It was blurry, but I could tell that the light was coming closer. I quickly realized that it was the headlights of a car.

A small sigh of relief escaped my lips, quickly followed by an intense coughing fit that sent me crumpling to my knees. In between shaking coughs, I managed to wave my arm to flag down the car. As soon as the driver spotted me, the car screeched to a stop beside me and a woman practically threw herself out of the car.

"Oh my goodness, w-what happened!? Sir, are you okay!?" she cried as she ran up beside me. Her voice sounded distant and watery in my ears. I tried to speak, but my lungs still burned and my mouth was full of blood from coughing. So to my dismay, all I managed in response was a quiet gurgle and a shake of my head. Her gaze landed on the knife in my side and her eyes widened. "Oh my-- is that a-- I'm calling 9-1-1!"

After a few moments, I heard her curse under her breath. "No signal." I felt her hand on my shoulder. "Come on, I'm taking you to the hospital." She looped one of my arms over her shoulders and helped me get to my feet. She struggled under my weight. I could feel her muscles straining to keep me up. But having lost far too much blood, I wasn't much help as she practically dragged me over to her car and sat me in the passenger seat. I felt her press something into my hand as she buckled herself in and started the car. "Here, drink. You've lost a lot of blood, you need fluids."

My hand shook as I raised the bottle to my lips. I took a sip and cold, refreshing water rushed across my tongue and down my throat. It cleansed my mouth of the metallic taste of blood. I felt it soothe my throat, which was sore from coughing. I couldn't stop drinking. I didn't want to. I felt like I hadn't tasted water in years. When the bottle was empty, I set it down beside me and leaned my head back against the seat. The vibration of the car as it rumbled down the dark road and the breathing of the woman beside me was oddly relaxing.

I glanced over at the woman. My vision was still slightly blurry, but I could see she was tense. Her hands clenched the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. Her wide eyes were fixed on the road ahead of her.

"Thank you," I mumbled in a feeble attempt to cheer her up, instead making her jump. Her head swiveled to look at me and she smiled kindly, her shoulders relaxing slightly.

"Of course. I see that water helped you some. My name is June. Can you tell me what your name is?" she asked, turning back to the road.

I shrugged, suddenly tensing up at the thought. I had been so focused on not dying that I hadn't thought of that since the first time it had occurred to me that I couldn't remember anything. "I… I don't know."

She frowned. "Hmm. You must have hit your head or something. I assume that you don't know what happened, then."

I shook my head. "No. I have no idea." A bump in the road made the car jerk, eliciting a small cry from me as pain spread outward from the wound in my side.

"Don't worry, we're almost there," June said. She said it like she was trying to reassure me, but her tone indicated that she was more trying to reassure herself. "I'm going to try 9-1-1 again," she decided, quickly dialing the numbers on her phone.

As she spoke to the operator, letting them know that she was bringing me to the hospital so they could be ready, I leaned back again and started to close my eyes. I just wanted to rest for a moment. Just sleep for a little bit. It had been a rough night, to say the least. And besides that, the darkness of sleep seemed to call to me. I wanted it to overtake me. To whisk me away to a world of dreams where I wouldn't feel the pain anymore. To envelop me in its cold embrace. My eyes closed… My senses began to fade…

"No no no!" cried the woman, gently shaking my shoulder and snapping me back to reality. "You have to stay awake, kid, okay? Stay awake for me! I'm going to get you there. Don't you dare die on me, you hear?"

The rest of the drive was filled only with June's tense conversations on the phone with the 9-1-1 operator and silence from me, apart from my breathing which was becoming more labored and ragged by the second. My mouth had filled with blood again and it would occasionally drip down the back of my throat, making me gag. June would shoot me a concerned glance from time to time, but there was nothing either of us could do at that moment to stop me from slowly dying. She tried to keep her eyes on the road, going as fast as she could without running off the road.

After what felt like forever, we exited the dark canopy of trees and entered the outskirts of a large town. The bright street lamps stung my eyes, but at least the road was smooth. Not as many turns or bumps as the forest road. A few more minutes and I was able to spot a tall building with rows and rows of large windows and a large, glowing red cross sign hanging on the side. I figured it was the hospital, and a small smile of relief tugged at the corners of my mouth. I might just survive after all. Another plus was that there wasn't much traffic, so we were able to get through the town quickly, drawing nearer and nearer to the towering hospital building.

June seemed just as relieved as I was. Her grip on the steering wheel lessened some and her panicked breathing slowed slightly. "I don't want to jinx it now, but I really thought I would have lost you along the way," she admitted. "I don't know how in the world you were still alive in the first place."

I just shrugged in response, too tired to form any words. After that comment from her, I really wanted to survive just to prove her wrong. At least until I got to the hospital. I also didn't want her to blame herself if I did die. I didn't remember much, but I did remember enough to know that people would blame themselves even if it wasn't their fault when bad things happen. Had I done that before? I couldn't be sure, but I had a feeling that I had.

The car pulled up outside the doors of the emergency room where nurses and doctors were already waiting for me with a stretcher. They ran forward as soon as they saw us and June hopped out of the car. She helped them as they carefully lifted me out of the car and onto the stretcher. An oxygen mask was placed over my mouth and nose and I was wheeled inside. June told them everything she knew, which wasn't much, as she followed along beside me. Out of the corners of my side, I saw waiting patients and families peer over and gasp in horror as I was pushed through the entry room straight to an operating room, leaving June behind. My consciousness was already fading at that point, so I didn't see much of that room other than there were men and women in blue masks, hats, and scrubs standing around with lots of big equipment.

"Alright, kid," one woman said, replacing my mask with another one. Her voice was gentle and kind. "We're going to put you under, okay? Just take nice deep breaths for me. And if you can, count down from ten."

I mustered a small nod as the gas started to be pumped in. "10…" My eyelids drooped. "9…" My senses began to fade. "8…" The face of the nurses standing over me blurred into blobs of color. "7…" Darkness began to overtake me.

"6…"

"5…"