A deafening explosion echoed in the area behind the gas station.
For a fleeting moment, I worried that the blast might shatter the establishment's windows. I wouldn't have known how to act if that had happened.
Then I thought about the ridiculous priorities I'd been having lately.
And despite the magnitude of the impact, silence settled back into the air.
"I should be on my way home; I have to go back to school tomorrow. Yeah, that's what I'll do—I'll go home to make sure Crystal is okay. She's probably waiting for me right now, staying up late, using the excuse of waiting for me to come back while hiding her handheld console."
But my body and mind were disconnected. I walked while scolding myself for the stupid decision I was making. It was absurd—multiple disappearances in the Raccoon forests, and here I was, walking straight into the wolf's den. The dense foliage of the trees stretched in every direction, like a labyrinth the size of a city with no clear entrance, as the leaves and branches extended almost to the ground.
"And here I am. Moving toward danger without thinking. Branches scratch my arms and face; my shirt is probably torn by now. Yet I still can't stop. Because I need something different in my life—I need to feel special, and maybe stumbling upon this fortunate event might be it. I'm scared; and I keep moving forward."
Several minutes passed, and exhaustion was beginning to reach its limit. On any other day, I'd already be a few blocks away from reaching my rundown apartment in the lower districts. Poor but cozy—everyone there was a good person.
—And it seems I'm getting close now…— I commented absentmindedly.
At this point the clearing had begun to split apart; branches appeared along the path as if they had been torn away by the impact of something approaching the ground. A deep trench was beginning to stretch several meters ahead.
"I hope nothing catches fire."
I looked up at the starry sky. It was a beautiful sight, one that couldn't be appreciated in large cities. An immense painting of complex black, bathed in hundreds of white points that pulsed in their places millions of light-years away. The moon stood at its highest point, round and full, with silver touches that shone and illuminated the night.
"This is what I appreciate most about working so late."
The closer I got to the impact zone, the more visible the damage left behind by the object became. Entire trees uprooted and flung in every direction, rocks shattered, and deeper and deeper scars carved into the ground.
And then I reached the impact site.
An immense crater stood before me, and inside it a smoking sphere with gray pigmentation waited in place, with green veins glowing incandescently.
"That's what caused the light while it was traveling."
But it wasn't in perfect condition. Plates were beginning to peel away from the heat, and the green veins showed leaks—the liquid dripping down to the ground.
I climbed down carefully, ignoring the obvious danger of the thing sitting in the middle.
"Yes, when I get home—if I get home—I should seriously rethink what's going on with my survival instincts."
I was already standing in front of the sphere, examining it closely. From afar it looked perfect, but up close I noticed flaws in the object's engineering.
"It looks rushed. The structure isn't completely spherical or circular. And the materials used to form it vary—you can tell mostly by the color. I'm not touching that liquid for anything in the world. I don't know if it was made on purpose; if it was, I wouldn't understand why. The military usually uses sterilized designs with dark or gray colors."
I looked around for a stick, but I couldn't find one on the ground.
So I slowly moved my hand closer, avoiding the green veins and the liquid.
The object opened forcibly, metal clashing with a harsh screech accompanied by sparks. Inside was a sea of that same liquid, but it seemed alive—almost like gelatin. And floating inside was a black circle.
When the capsule opened, the green liquid began to be absorbed by the black circle. It was when the capsule had been emptied that the black mass launched itself at my face.
I raised my hand to shield myself, my palm facing the liquid. An instinctive movement to keep it from reaching my mouth or nose.
Hot.
That was the first thought I registered before I felt the skin on my hand melting and falling to the ground. My skin bristled as I watched, unaware of the searing pain I would feel afterward.
I screamed in pain—loud, so loud that not even my own ears could capture the sound. Now everything was ringing.
The mass replaced the melted skin—it looked like a hamburger overloaded with boiling cheese—and spread across my left hand. Black strands wrapped and advanced toward my wrist, coiling around my fingers and embedding themselves into my arm. It stopped at the wrist.
—What the hell!?— I exclaimed as I felt a deep pain in my wrist. —What the hell is this, damn it!?— Tears spilled uncontrollably. It was like thousands of needles stabbing deeply into the span of my wrist. —Get off!—
The burning sensation had disappeared, but I felt a sharp and constant pain in my wrist—as if millions of mosquitoes were sucking my blood at once—to the point that I began to feel weak. It was a different kind of pain than before; this one was draining me rapidly.
I watched as the material of the sphere that had fallen from the sky began to consume itself. Its size shrank until it became a metallic sphere with green veins. Then it launched itself onto my forearm—but this time I felt no pain; the metal had settled over the black liquid.
Then I fainted.
"I should have gone home."
I scolded myself once more.