Awaken

Sic opened his eyes after his sleep.

His sleep recently had been quite strange and his dreams had become more terrifying. It was already weird for him to dream, as he couldn't remember the last time he slept and actually had dreams. Until this past week.

He would see rivers of blood and clouds of darkness, a forest that looks like it's made of human flesh and ash, rivers of blood flowing for as long as the eye can see, bones coming from the ground and a low, beastial growl can be felt through the floor.

He's been having these dreams every night.

And honestly, he was sick of it. His mental and physical were suffering because of it.

Sic stood up and stretched, put his pants and his work shirt on and headed out.

Sic didn't own many clothes, and the ones he did own were of very bad quality. However, if it got him through the day, it was good enough for him.

Sic walked through the early morning towards his job. It was a simple job, only requiring him to make sure the tunnels wouldn't collapse, and to report any possible problem points to make sure no one was injured in case of a cave-in.

He made sure to avoid any places where Victor and his gang were known to hang out. He didn't feel like getting pestered before work.

Walking through alleyways and avoiding as many people as possible, he finally made it to his worksite.

It was a large cave entrance inside a large hill near the dumps. It was also by the wall that surrounded the entire dumps. It was to protect the people from the things outside... and to protect the higher citizens from the people in the dumps.

It was one of the only reasons the dumps were even still around anymore. Both for work and the wall, incase of a break in, the dumps would be the first to go out.

'Those damn bastards'

His thoughts aside, he made his way through the tunnels to meet his boss, Keith.

Keith was a weird guy, at least, that's what Sic's opinion of him was.

He would constantly go on and on about these blessings that the higher citizens had access to.

He was the only reason Sic has any idea they even existed.

As cool as it sounded to have superhuman abilities and powers, it wasn't available to people in the dumps, that was just the facts.

He felt bad for Keith, more than anything. Poor man must really want out of here if he's going so far to hope for a blessing.

From what Sic knows, Keith doesn't even know how one gets a blessing.

Sic continues walking through the tunnels until he reached his bosses room.

He opened the door and walkts in.

He immediately noticed Keith. He's a tall, blond haired guy with deep blue eyes. He was currently wearing his work uniform, which was nothing more then a sack to prevent debris from ruining his actual clothes.

"Heya Sic! How've you been holding up recently?"

When Sic had first met Keith, he thought his nice attitude was simply a facade. After all, spending his entire life in the dumps showed him that the most vile people can seem the nicest at first glance.

Fortunately, Keith was not one of these people. Instead, he was probably the only genuine person around here. It made him feel even worse about the fact he was stuck here and not somewhere more pristine.

"Hey boss. Where's my station today?"

Keith picked up a piece of paper

"Hmm... Well, I would love to tell you, but you never answered my question"

Sic was confused for a second

'did he asked me a question?'

Keith, noticing his confused face, laughed and asked again

"How have you been, Sic?"

Sic coughed nervously

"Oh... yeah.. I've been okay"

Keith raised an eyebrow

"That's it?"

Sic was already tired of talking, after the dreams he had been having, his sleep was definitely not invigorating.

"Yeah boss... Now, can you tell me where I'll be stationed today?"

Keith sighed

"Fine, fine. You're on Station 12"

Sic frowned

"We have a Station 12?"

Keith checked his paper again

"Yep. It was just finished yesterday. You're my best man for checking if the tunnel will hold or not, so make sure you check it out and report back to me asap".

Sic nodded and turned around to leave, however Keith cleared his throat and said

"And one more thing, people have been uh... Hearing 'whispers' while they're down there so.. make sure you don't stay down there for very long, alright?"

Sic took a second to think about what he heard

'whispers? What do they mean whispers?'

He wanted to ask Keith, but after his conversation Sic wanted nothing more than to be alone for a bit

"Alright boss, I'll be careful"

And with that, Sic headed towards Station 12.

He picked up his lantern and slowly headed down. There were multiple different paths going towards different stations. Sic walked past all of them and simply headed deeper.

The deeper he got, the more intense the feeling of being deep underground felt

One of Sic's biggest fears was being buried alive.

Which made it even more of a mystery as to why he would choose a job like this, but money was always short, and this job payed well enough to feed him in a somewhat timely manner.

He continued walking for what felt like hours. The tunnels never seemed to stop, and his feet were getting tired.

As he passed Station 11, he finally saw the entrance towards Station 12. His brain started to wander

'we didnt have a Station 12 yesterday, so how was one made so quickly?'

His coworkers were fast, sure, but they weren't fast enough to create another station within a single day. He was questioning it until he was at the entrance of the station.

As he stepped into the Station, he immediately understood what those 'whispers' were

They felt both close and far. They were illegible, yet it felt like if Sic simply focused on the whispers, he'd be able to understand what these whispers meant.

He tried to shake off his feeling and do his job, but the whispers were getting louder

And louder,

And louder.

It had quickly gone from a whisper to a scream. His head felt like it was going to explode. He dropped to his knees and held his head

'Whispers my ass!'

Sic felt like he was going to pass out, his head was beating. It felt like someone was hitting drums directly inside his brain. He was on the verge of blacking out, but all of a sudden...

The screaming stopped.

He slowly look around and noticed that he had no idea where he was.

'Where.. am I?'

He tried to look around, but the only thing he could focus on was the glowing red crystal in the center of the room. He tried to look away, but he couldn't. The crystal had too much of an effect on him.

He slowly stood up and walked towards the crystal

The crystal was red with black cracks going through it, seemingly leaking with...

'is it blue?'

It looked like blue blood was dripping out of the crystal

He took a couple steps forward, until he was in arms reach of the shining object

He reached out his hand, and within seconds, felt fear like he had never felt before.