9 Days Before
Prologue

Deafening thunder bifurcated throughout the area, an anomalistic white lightning pans a large dune.

A figure stands at the pique of the tall dune, his black spiked hair reaching above his jaw line flows with a gentle haunting breeze along with the sand’s whisper, creating a finite solace in the everlasting realm before him.

The plain was vast, its golden sand dilated out further than the eye can see. Dunes reaching high, smaller dunes impersonate waves, and sands chant as it flows with an enigma zephyr.

He looks down with distant eyes, absorbing little ripples of reality’s projected frame onto the iris of his subvision.

His body hazes with a sense of numbing lugubrious; thinking of his lost origin in which he came from. Little figments of goose-flesh replaces the numbness, prickling within his dermis as he coasts his vision up; looking off in the quiet horizon.

Within the golden horizon of sand, a foreshadow of accumulating particles, accompanying lightning bolts stains the rich gold that the sand reflects within a manner of moments.

The figure strains his eyes, capturing the details of the now dense creeping black fog; its movements seem molecular, as opposed to the boundless distances of the realm.

Within captivating curiosity, his thoughts towards the unknown subdivides with another, creating an appealing pull against the figure’s spirit.

Before loosening his discipline, he gazes down the lengthy curvature of the dune; debating whether to slide down or to take another route. Amidst his decision, another peculiarity of the domain wins his attention.

Faint glowing hues of blues and whites curls upon itself, formulating a silhouette of a figure. Its body twists, turning itself towards their observer.

Its featureless stare absorbs him into a spiral while hearing the apparition’s distant voice.

“Save them.” it whispers while a wandering bolt of lightning crackles over head.

“Please… Save them.” The ghostly visitant pleads, continuing to bring a sense of vertigo as it repeats, he tears his gaze from the apparition, the swirling of the world comes to a calming halt, replenishing its normal projection.

“Before it’s too late..” the word prolongs itself after its vanishing departure; the Phantasm’s words still resonate within his mind as he regains his balance.

From unclenching his head; he takes another glimpse where the figure used to be, seeing a pile of the gold sand in its place.

In a response towards his observation, an empty gust adds the pile to the waving sands, guiding it gently to follow its golden relatives.

He watches the wave stop in the direction of the abyssal fog, having a spirit of deja-vu branching within the pathways of his mind while a ballet of lightning performs above it.

His debate before comes to an end as he slides down the dune with the side of his body; the sand singing beneath his frame.

A crashing wave replaces the sand’s quire as he reaches the bottom, the fog from before became a towering giant, making the horizon an abyss; realizing the dune he slid down on was a titan of its own.

The curiosity from before envelopes him like a whale to a shrimp, its sensation feels almost like a grappling possession; hypnotizing his frame to press forward.

Within the grasps of curiosity, his feet moves on their own, making the sand crunch beneath his black shoes; the sand orchestrated a crunching choir as he continues,

As his captivating interest guides him ever so closer to the towering wall of dark fog, an underlying numbing sensation grows within his chest, then expands out to transmute throughout his entire body; forming “ominous.”

Through his hypnotic walk towards the abyssal wall, reestablishing apparitions accumulated in his surroundings, promoting the same color as to the one he had seen before, others were darker blue with a gray outlining; accompanying their appearance came a faint flooding of cries and pleads.

Gradually, the ominous feeling increased, becoming a suffocating density, the apparitions changed into dark static figments the closer he got, their cries deafening amongst the torrential lightning overhead; making him feel like a spec in its riptiding malevolent gaze.

He stands before the abyss, the static figments roaring plead behind him, the skyquaking lightning above.

The figure’s adam’s apple drops as a forceful gulp passes down, feeling a freezing aura resonating off it, the wall fluctuates, growing impatient towards its observer.

With a sudden sheeting snap of a lightning bolt, a materialized tendril made from the fog latches onto him, yanking him into its depths.

Inside the flooding abyss, streams of dark particles pass over and around him, bringing him into an engulfing violet light.

He shields his eyes to escape the blinding light, the air around him changes to a cocooning numbingness, featuring a suffocating scent of ionization.

The figure’s hair swirls as lightning turmoils above, he brings his arm down from covering his eyes, witnessing a horrifying display above a metropolis, the terrifying phenomena branches outwards, stealing any spot light from the sky to his naked eye.

His breathing halts entirely, his body stiffening from the severe orchestra of relentless lightning, within a single relieving exhale, the sky falls, featuring the dark particles he saw in the realm.

The abyss swallows him whole once again, bringing him back into the realm of golden dunes.

A distant standalone voice breaking through the traumatic experiences.

“ Save them. ”