Hello everyone, today is a new chapter of Another Day in Hell. Long chapter to write and correct, translated as fast as possible, although it's a day late due to a black laziness on my part to publish it.
The obvious reminders, I am not native Englishman and only write and speak to it as a second (or third) language.
All advice and comments are read and considered, try to remain respectful and kind in your writing, it is more pleasant to read.
I only write and publish for pleasure, from then on, I owe you nothing and therefore refuse to be insulted for free and to become an outlet.
Good reading to all, see you at the end for the chapter information.
Chapter 1 : Initiatory Journey.
It seemed that those who were hunting him were not there.
Slowly he took a few steps forward and looked around. He was in a forest, lost, God knows where, and unable to tell which way was the nearest civilization. His mind was telling him to go further north, while a more human part of him was telling him to stay and wait.
Adrian stifled the voice that begged him to stay, obeying his strict side, preferring to get as far away as possible from where the enemy might be hanging out. He looked up at the sky. He had come from the west, and his pursuers had gone north.
His priority before he even left and made his choice was to check his equipment. A glock-like pistol, six magazines and the clothes on his back. Clinging to the edge of his trousers was a small black device with a turned off screen.
He tried to turn it on, only to receive a useless crackle in response. Adrian could get rid of it, but honestly, not knowing what it was for, he preferred to keep it.
A weak piece of equipment, for an equally disastrous situation it seemed.
Now his body. Obviously, it seemed to be the same as when he was young. Average musculature, not overweight or underweight, the same blond hair, and he was almost convinced he had blue eyes if all went according to plan.
The two notable differences were the ears and the fox tail added to his body. Without it, he was a carbon copy of his former self.
"Small advantage," he thought.
At least he wouldn't have to get used to something totally new. In fact, he felt perfectly at home in this body.
A philosophical thesis could probably be done on his case. But did he have the time? No. The desire? Just as absent as before
So, it was better not to think about it too much.
Orienting himself correctly, he set off to the east. The more he could move in the opposite direction of the hunters, the better he would feel. As he walked through the woods, he felt his stomach growl. It seemed he hadn't eaten in a while.
Adrian surveyed the area and looked up into the trees and spotted some kind of fruit of a strange blue colour. He knew from his unknown memories that it was some sort of edible fruit.
After carefully exploring the area and finding nothing that wanted to kill him, he began to climb the trees to reach the delicious fruit.
Landing nimbly on the ground, careful not to make a sound, he pulled a fruit from his pocket, smiled and took a bite. The sweet taste reminded him that his taste buds were still working a little. Honestly, it tasted better than a lot of the things he'd already eaten.
The further down he went, the sparser the forest became, giving him less place to hide and intensifying his fear. It was then that he noticed how cold the place was. Shivers ran down his spine and he closed his jacket as best he could, hoping to find a place to take shelter.
Finally, he had spotted a river where he could cool off. He continued to descend following the current. There had to be a home somewhere.
As he walked along the bank, he heard a commotion inside the forest. His body went on alert, and he drew his pistol. He did not know what it was but if it was hostile, he would welcome it.
Calmly he backed away from the noise. His tail was in the way. Instinctively he managed to wrap it around his leg. Then, quickly, several birds flew out of the thicket.
"God!" he grunted as he relaxed.
They were just bloody birds! He had to calm down. If he stressed and took up position at the slightest noise, he would be out of this forest for years.
He closed his eyes and decided to keep moving.
Not being chased by things that wanted him dead was not a pleasant thing at all. Perhaps it was his nerves overloaded by recent events that made him think this way, but he would much rather have a visible and traceable threat.
The day had slowly fallen away, and dusk was approaching.
"Are the forests always this peaceful?" he thought, his eyes fixed on the treetops like fir and maple trees. Birds flew overhead, chirping and occasionally calling.
It was certainly an interesting place. He had never had the opportunity to visit such a beautiful forest. It would have been better if he hadn't been chased, but he could make do.
Always on the lookout for the slightest change in the environment, he began to trace his remaining knowledge of the world he had landed in.
His memories were quite fragmented. Common memories giving him names of places, cities, countries and above all a vague idea of where he was.
Obviously, he was in the Kingdom of Kazdel. A nation composed of... nomadic cities? Some sort of huge cities on rolling platforms came to mind. Certainly, interesting if it turned out to be true.
In any case, he had to move on.
Walking all night until sunrise was not something Adrian particularly liked. However, his mind was in a rather agitated state after all the mayhem he had experienced earlier. In less than twenty-four hours, he had seen more crazy things than he had in his entire life.
He had experienced death, reincarnation, running away from a group of strangers and finding himself walking in the unknown and cold with no idea where to go.
A good idea if he didn't feel his hands freezing and his flesh cracking with every movement. Adrian was now walking in a much weaker part of the forest. He assumed he was approaching a habitation area, or at least a place where he could find a road. He had for some time chosen to leave the river and had gone up another part of a nearby stream.
The sky was slowly returning to more everyday hues, and the only noise he could hear was his footsteps, the running water dripping from the trees and the whistling of the birds that were beginning to wake up. Surprisingly enough, Adrian didn't feel at all exhausted despite more than a dozen hours of staying awake and walking.
One of the advantages he could recognize in his new body was its exceptional physical capacity. Much better than before. Apart from the few cramps he felt in his joints, he did not feel bad.
The one thing he did have against fatigue was hunger.
"All right, I guess I can take a short break," he thought as he spotted one of the many rivers that ran through the area.
"Hm..." he murmured, examining the water. "These rivers are long and come from the mountains. We should find some fish there.
Calmly he sat down beside the water and drew his knife. His gaze fixed on a point in the still mass, ready to act. For several long half minutes he remained inert.
In a vertical gesture, he brought the blade down and stuck it in the water, hitting nothing.
"Tch! It looks so simple in the movies" he cursed. Then he scolded himself. "Think positive."
His tired and annoyed face was replaced by a calm and cheerful smile.
"That's better. I have to stay positive."
He got back into position. As he concentrated on the moving water, he felt a strange sensation cover his body. The half-empty magazine hanging from his belt lit up slightly as the world slowed. A fish passed. In a move far too quick to be his own, he swooped down and hit a fish in the head.
Adrian held up his hand, widening his eyes in surprise. Its skin was covered with a kind of glove formed by the air around it. As if nothing had happened, the protection disappeared, dissolved into the atmosphere.
"What? What's that?"
The wriggling beast at his side reminded him of the more urgent task at hand as he hurried to finish it off. He looked at his hand again, not understanding what had happened.
"How?"
He closed his eyes trying to replicate the effect. The same heat slid from the magazine of his pistol to his fingers, reforming the air into a slower, less flexible form.
"God!" the young man exclaimed, opening his eyes again.
It was... insane. For lack of a better word. How did this work?
The name Originium Arts came to mind, but he couldn't tell what it was. A common form of magic in this world? He didn't know.
He shook his hand, extinguishing the storm around his hand. Nothing could really surprise him now...
The taste of the cooked fish in his mouth felt good. It was as if he hadn't eaten in weeks.
Adrian could feel his eyelids getting heavier.
"I shouldn't fall asleep just yet," he said to himself, trying to stand up before yawning. "But... I suppose a little nap won't be so bad," he conceded as he felt the fatigue of the last day creep back in.
He closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the rivers running water. Everything had changed very quickly for him.
Forty-eight hours earlier he had been on a plane from Berlin to the United States for a technical conference. Now he was waking up alone, in an unfamiliar place.
"Why?"
Sadness came over him again, but he pushed it into a corner of his mind. He couldn't afford to feel sorry for himself. He strained his memory to recall happy things before putting a false smile on his lips.
His best memory was probably a sad one for many.
The moments spent over a bottle of wine with his friends outside of college. The happy smiles on everyone's faces as they drank.
The fatigue was getting to him. But not in the way he expected, his mind felt heavy. Places, general information, names were running through his head.
"What am I going to do now?"
The problems were piling up.
He had nowhere to go, no money and torn clothes. His knowledge of the world seemed to come from the remnants of the memories of the body he occupied and was full of holes in many of the most common things in this world.
If he were to describe his situation, his soul had taken the place of the one that had left this body when he died. He was the dominant one whose memories were the norm while the remaining strands of the previous soul, those deemed useless, remained in the system.
This was the best explanation for want of anything better. It would explain the knowledge he possessed without ever having lived in this world, this impression of knowing without really knowing.
In the end, the body he occupied was his own, which he had modified to fit in, he had taken the place of another and made the lifeless carcass his own envelope.
It was macabre and terribly philosophical...
He felt himself leaving. He could think about it later when he was rested.
"As they say, night is the best time. Or rather day in my case.
A strong breeze swept through the forest. The loud sound of the air caused the beginnings of frost to fall from the trees, revealing the dark leaves beneath. The whole forest was draped in a thin layer of freshly fallen snow that stretched as far as the eye could see. It covered the dirt and various grasses that lay beneath it.
Its white colour, barely treaded by the footsteps of any form of life, reflected the rays of the midday sun, making it glow with a thousand lights.
The forest was relatively quiet. The only small, regular sound that broke the peaceful calm of the place was the tireless walking of a young man. His face was hidden under a strip of cloth, while his right arm, exposed to the wind, had taken on a blue colour.
The bushy fox tail that ran down his back was wrapped around his legs providing some warmth. A lighted piece of wood was held in his left hand and brought as close to his face as possible to take advantage of the little warmth he could bring.
Six days since his arrival and still nothing on the horizon.
Then he heard a noise behind him. Quickly, the Vulpo did what he had learned to do best over the past few days: hide under cover in a hollow.
Slowly, cautiously, he looked over his hiding place, hoping it wasn't another bear. A bad experience to rest in a cave and wake up to a mountain of fur. He blinked, it wasn't a bear, but a boar.
He sighed with relief as he watched it search around the tree for something to eat. His stomach growled again, demanding food. Six days of feeding exclusively on acorns, plants and fruit was beginning to take its toll. Especially when the quantities were running low now that he was heading out into the cold.
He didn't know why, but he felt that the nearest town was in that direction. An instinct that now was costing him dearly.
"Okay... My luck, I guess?"
He had never hunted before. After all, a week before most of his cooking skills were limited to the microwave. But hunger was ultimately the best teacher he could have. Adrian didn't have the luxury of spending ammunition on it.
His knife slipped through his fingers. A long breath and he waited for the game to approach. Six metres, five metres, four metres. The fox tensed his muscles, preparing himself. Three metres, two metres, one metre.
He threw himself forward. The boar's surprised mooing broke the silence of the forest, and the birds flew away. The Vulpo did not have the strength for a fight and had to take it down in one go, his blade fell directly into the eye of the game. The huge lump of meat struggled, but he held on, forcing his blade down with an excruciating sucking sound.
"I have to get to the brain," he quickly realized.
Like all the times before, his Originium Arts would help him. The wind condensed on his hand, giving him enough support to thrust the knife further forward. His mind was heavy with the unintended use of his power as the Originium he had managed to wedge into a slot in the handle of his knife dispersed.
He hated it, the way he had to use a catalyst to make his powers work. Especially when he was still struggling to control them.
After a minute of interminable struggle, the last rush came from the beast. His fight became softer, less violent as each second his strength decreased. Then he collapsed to the ground. The fox's wheezing showed all the hellish exhaustion and willpower it had taken to get the job done. The fatigue of using the Originium burned his muscles.
His legs gave way right next to the corpse of the boar. Calmly, he looked down at his hands, which were covered with a crimson liquid. He was used to fishing now and seeing fish die. But in the case of such a massive mammal? That was new.
The crimson colour that covered his hands made him wonder if it was worth it. He shook his head, forcing himself not to think about it. The hunger in his stomach was strong and the cold was putting him on edge.
The skin would serve a purpose if he didn't destroy it. Pulling out his knife, he prioritized the heaviest parts of the fur removing several large pieces.
Slowly but surely, he figured out how to clean up his kill. The unbearable smell put him on the verge of unconsciousness. The butcher's trade took a big leap in his estimation of the most difficult jobs.
The sticky blood on his hands made him move away from the carcass to vomit behind a tree. The work was long and hard as he forced himself to remove everything. His gaze fell on the hollowed-out carcass of the mammal. It was dirty, crudely made and looked as if some mad predator had been preying on the poor boar.
Pulling the carcass out of his sight, he searched the forest for a few sticks and gathered them into a small pile before pulling out one of the pistol cases he had used before. It was a little trick he had discovered by chance. Contained in a relatively enclosed space, a spark would ignite the suspended Originium particles if he added the air his own powers produced.
He took two flints that had accompanied him from the river and struck them together, causing them to burn. Anyway, Adrian had time, the day had barely begun and would last for another ten hours before he had to hide for the night.
By the time the first piece of meat was ready, Adrian's stomach was roaring with hunger. How many days had it been since they had had a proper meal? The blood from the meat flowing into his mouth eased the fox's carnivorous and predatory instincts.
When he had finished his meal, he looked at the remaining scraps. What should he do with them? He couldn't take them with him, but the thought of abandoning them hurt. The solution came easily to him. He grabbed several of the strips of boar hide and tied them together into a bundle before gathering the remains.
His departure was planned once again in an unknown direction. When, surprisingly, the device he wore on his belt began to ring madly.
The sudden noise made Adrian fall backwards and he hurriedly grabbed it with concern, expecting an explosion.
On the black screen, several lines and codes were displayed. Adrian recognised them as coordinates.
"At the top, my position, at the bottom, a position where a signal is coming from!" he managed to deduce.
Was he... was he getting a signal? Was it the men chasing him, or was it something else? He hesitated for a moment, then decided to validate the coordinates he had obtained and to block them. In any case, he had to move forward.
"Good... Let's continue the road."
The forest was gradually coming to an end, bringing him even closer to the signal he was receiving. His legs were pulling him from his uninterrupted walk. The cold bit into his hands and he warmed himself as best he could, blowing into his hands. Finally, Adrian climbed a small hill and looked up. He was on the outskirts of some sort of small town.
"Town?" questioned the wandering Vulpo.
The town was of average size and looked like it could hold a couple of thousand people from the buildings. But the most amazing thing was that all the buildings, though in a bad state of repair, seemed to rest on a sort of rolling steel platform.
What was this place? One of the famous nomadic cities?
The fox walked through the abandoned streets, over the rubble and the landslides. He jumped over a gap in the road before landing on the ground with his feet clicking. He followed the signal again and again, expecting to find someone or something.
It was creepy. The huge stone buildings towered over him in all their height judging him. He meandered between the streets looking for something worthwhile.
"Is anyone there?" he asked, shouting down the street to get no answer.
Why had the place been abandoned? It was surprising. But not useless to the lost traveller.
The Vulpo turned a corner, approaching the signal. He stopped.
A grocery shop occupied the entire ground floor of a building. Nothing more, nothing less. The kind you find in every small town lacking a big store. Adrian could tell that the place was still inhabited a month and a half ago at most because of the deteriorating posters on the walls.
The windows at the front were blown out and the shelves inside looked like they had been knocked over.
"What happened?"
Perhaps it was better not to know and to get supplies while he could.
He moved cautiously, avoiding injury to himself on the bits of glass covering the floor, and did not try to check the food bags left on the floor. By the smell of it, he was probably doing the right thing.
One of the small advantages of being a Vulpo.
He stopped at the crate and looked around. A steady hissing sound echoed through the shop. Probably where the signal had come from.
Adrian withdrew his pistol for safety and approached the noise. Walking behind the counter, he saw a gruesome scene. A man was lying full length on the floor. His body looked as if it had been tossed around for hours in water and then spat out.
A slight gasp of disgust escaped from the young man as he stepped back and noticed the phone on his belt.
His own sensor had gone off meaning he had done his part. He bent down, grabbing the device and moving as far away as possible.
Running his fingers along the surface, he checked that it was still functional before throwing it.
"Beep... Beep... Martha! It's Andrei, a disaster is hitting the city! Mercenaries are approaching, I'm stuck at home! The Babel forces are close by! The evacuation team is supposed to arrive soon! I'm leaving this signal, so you know where I'm going!"
He let out a sad sigh.
"Sorry sir but I'm going to have to steal your house."
The place was already abandoned and the owner was dead. Now that he had nothing to find, he could search the building for resources useful to himself. True, it was looting. But his desperate situation pushed him to the same extremes.
The first interesting thing was a vending machine that was still half full. It didn't seem to have been too badly affected by the disaster that had struck the city. Once next to it, he noticed that the glass had held the shock and kept the last products inside in good condition.
The fox stepped back slightly and lifted his leg before thrusting his boot into the glass plate reinforcing the contents of the dispenser.
His aim was not to break the glass but to detect it. This was done on the third blow and the plate fell to the ground with an audible blonk.
Four packets of crisps, fourteen energy bars, three chocolate bars and some soft drinks. Not enough to make a meal, but certainly enough to supplement and counterbalance the horrible taste of the RME he was storing in his titan.
He examined the bars. They didn't seem to have been corroded by time and were still edible. Problems, they weren't from any brand he knew, and everything was half faded.
''L..gmen E.e..y Ba..''
"Roughly translated it would read. Putting back that the last word is Bar. Lungmen Energy Bar. Lungmen... Isn't that a city or a race? I don't know..."
Adrian retrieved a piece of cloth from the floor and packed up his findings before moving on to the second thing that had caught his eye.
A cash box in the corner stood out from anything the pilot had ever seen. It was... clean. To say the least, not one of those cinder blocks controls that could be found anywhere and absolutely difficult to use without Pad.
"Interesting." hissed Adrian as he reached for the machine to turn on.
It was identical to some he had worked on before. He switched on the top of the machine but didn't see it start.
"No electricity..." he remarked.
He decided to do it the old fashioned way. He took out his knife from his trousers and began to work on the bottom of the machine.
The internal system was extremely similar to the one he knew. Considering the amount of times he'd had to work on similar maneuvers before arriving in this world, it would have been surprising if he'd had too much difficulty with a model like this.
"Life," Adrian muttered, recalling distant memories.
He popped the last lock protecting the silver storage and carefully removed it for fear that there might still be some protection.
"Nothing," he remarked as he opened the container.
The money inside was a currency he had never seen before. It wasn't credits, let alone any form of local currency he'd ever encountered. It was a blue note marked with some sort of stylised dragon's head.
"Lungmen Dollar," he translated on the terminal.
He knew he was in Kazdel and Lungmen seemed to be an extremely important city or country to be represented in such a way.
He stood up and took only part of the money. It would probably be suspicious to see a person with hundreds of thousands of local dollars. Especially if he was a lone wanderer. On a secondary note, he didn't have anything to carry his loot anyway.
He came out of the shop and looked around the grocery shop. Large buildings surrounded the one in which the shop was built. They were all produced in an identical pattern that vaguely reminded Adrian of certain commercial districts in Berlin. Large structures covered in concrete and glass stretched as far as the eye could see.
Several open shops gave him what he needed. The place was already abandoned anyway, so he'd better make the most of it.
He looked at his torn clothes.
"It can't hurt me anyway."
To him it was a surreal scene. A few days before, he had been a simple engineer, certainly competent, but far from the idea he had become.
In a way, it was nice to see how much he had come to terms with his situation. Before, he could barely light a fire. But after several days, it had become a habit. The idea of butchering a fish or a mammal would have seemed abhorrent and undignified, but he would do it without hesitation to eat.
In desperate situations, it is easy to put aside one's ideas for the greater good.
The city and his current actions were the culmination of this transformation, now he looked like a wild looter rummaging through shops and retrieving what he needed. Something that would have repulsed him, but in a week seemed the most natural thing in the world.
After finding better clothes than the old ones, getting a backpack from a sports shop and some kitchen knives from a supermarket, he was more like a traveller. And it suited him very well not to feel the cold against his skin with every step.
The long trench coat of pure grey he was wearing protected him perfectly from the wind.
He took a few steps down the street, looking right and left. Adrian still didn't understand what had caused the state of the city.
From the looks of it, the inhabitants had left the place in a hurry. According to the recording, a conflict with mercenaries and a 'catastrophe' had struck the city. Whatever that means, a war or at least raids had hit this land and destroyed the place.
Curiosity overcame caution and he walked towards the place where most of the damage seemed to have come from.
The streets became more crowded with each step they took towards the heart of the disaster. Adrian had even ended up having to pass through the openings of some of the collapsed buildings to get around the larger cracks that blocked the path.
Buildings that had been ripped open along their entire length were spewing out into the streets in a never-ending stream of rubbish of all kinds.
Then he finally arrived at the central point of the incident. There, in the middle of a huge open square, was a sort of huge hole like an explosion.
"What is it?" asked Adrian to no one in particular.
A hesitation appeared on the Vulpo. Did he really want to go down to the most dangerous point of a disaster just out of curiosity?
No.
Was he going to do it anyway to understand what had happened?
Yes...
Adrian slid down the soft wall, cursing himself for his foolishness in moving. The epicentre had taken the brunt of the shifting terrain. Chunks of road had slipped underground with their surrounding dwellings. An old commercial sign with the smiling face of an Ursus woman protruded vaguely from the earth. It was an apocalyptic scene that reminded Adrian of images from the Second World War.
A fault line separated the ground at the exact epicentre of the earthquake. Cautiously, he approached, keeping his hand close to his knife. At the bottom and on the walls of one of the many crevices were several crystals of a transparent grey colour. It was a kind of slightly opaque glass that made it impossible to see through.
Adrian was about to grab some when he realised the stupidity of such an action and stopped, bringing his hand towards him.
Was he going to touch something that looked like a form of Uranium?
Good God! No!
Quickly he stepped back, away from the strange crystal.
"I think I know what this is..." he muttered.
The memories of his new body were not helping. Even if it gave him clear clues or information about races, city names and in rare cases, images of places, here it felt fuzzy.
Slight remnants of information given by an unknown old man came back to him.
"Isn't that... Originium?!"
The revelation had come quickly. He was in the middle of a concentration of the dangerous mineral!
This place was getting stranger and stranger. Everything about this place was screaming at him to leave and he was beginning to listen to it, an abandoned ruined city, a crevice full of Originium.
Adrian didn't know why, but he'd had a bad feeling ever since he'd arrived at that hole. His whole body felt the irresistible urge to leave as soon as possible. And he had every intention of following him.
Over the years, his caution had never deceived him, and that would not change today. Although this caution had been applied to less vital cases, he had total confidence in his survival instinct.
He walked up the street. The air was becoming heavy and dense, something was approaching. The Vulpo looked for a high point.
A strong gust of wind came in rapid bursts, hitting his face and rushing down the street.
"There's clearly something wrong," he thought as he climbed over some rubble leading to the third floor of a building.
Adrian paused in his ascent and looked up at the now visible horizon. Looking up at the sky, he saw black and grey clouds swirling in a madness that was unnatural. It was as if the world itself was angry. Lightning fell in unstable arcs followed by torrential rain.
An infernal maelstrom. A hole in the clouds like the eye of Hell.
The wind hit harder every second and one of the billboards hanging on the wall of a building broke off and spiralled into the concrete floor below.
"We need to find shelter as soon as possible," Adrian said in a voice that he wanted to be cheerful and far too calm for his situation.
He knew that if he started to panic, he would not stop.
The Vulpo jumped off the ground and closed his cloak to protect himself from the pounding wind. It had all begun and death was striking all around. Now he was running through the streets examining every street for a hiding place from the rain.
The shops in the commercial district would certainly not do because of the glass and their basements were in danger of collapsing if the moisture got into the foundations. The buildings were far too exposed and so far he hadn't seen an underground line.
The sewers would probably be flooded which gave little chance in the underground.
The fox slid along the floor of a street and turned onto a main thoroughfare giving a view of a large blue building marked with a handcuff symbol.
A police station, and by its appearance and size, it almost certainly had a secure room or at least a basement to hold prisoners and incriminating evidence.
Adrian rushed forward, narrowly dodging a falling lamppost that went flying into a facade further on.
"Seriously?" he growled angrily.
The door was blocked by a huge steel beam. The storm was hitting faster than expected.
"No time!" he spat.
He grabbed his pistol and circulated the energy before pulling the trigger. The nearest window exploded into a multitude of fragments as he stepped inside.
The wind was increasing in intensity. A minute or two more outside would certainly have been fatal.
Adrian ran towards the back of the building past the empty waiting areas.
"Stairs to the left," he informed himself aloud.
He approached the door and saw it locked. He didn't have time for this. He pulled out his pistol and fired three times into the lock, blowing the bolt, and went downstairs to enter what seemed to him to be an interrogation room.
The infernal sound of rain was audible even several metres below ground, which easily gave an idea of the violence above.
There were several holding and interrogation rooms, but also a few cells to house the pulled out one of the steel chairs that had been abandoned from a guard post before it collapsed heavily.
The fox let out a long, relieved sigh. Of all the storms he had experienced, this was probably the worst he had ever encountered.
The storm finally hit the city fully. He could hear buildings collapsing and occasional explosions of lightning striking the ground. Fortunately for him, it didn't sound like the storm was hitting the police station too hard. Or if it did, not hard enough to bother him.
Outside the building, the apocalypse was playing out. It was certainly not a natural change. Everything was too violent, sudden and above all unstable for it to be a simple storm.
The only information he had was the word "catastrophe" which sounded strangely familiar. So, to be honest, not much of any real interest...
Adrian stood up, taking advantage of the time he had gained from the storm to look for something useful. If he was in a police station, there must be somewhere they kept the weapons. The chances of them being in the underground section were high.
A cursory search of the basement gave him the answer. An armoured door stood at the other end of a corridor, not far from the staircase he had used to get here. A model reinforced by some kind of unknown steel.
This kind of situation reminded him that his studies in mechanical and electronic engineering sometimes served a purpose. The fasteners of the security system in the corridor caused a slight electric arc.
Fortunately, his experience allowed him to spot the most dangerous points of the circuit and not touch them, or at least to deactivate them before his work. The circuit was fairly basic and with a little time, he wouldn't have much trouble deactivating it and opening the room.
Either the people who'd put it there were so sure of their security higher up that they didn't think it was necessary to secure it lower down, or the security in this building was equally useless, which in either case suited Adrian perfectly.
"If I blow that part of the circuit, I'll disconnect the magnetic latch. Then, by rerouting the electricity right here, the manual latch should engage."
His finger tapped the pad, which beeped for several long seconds before the metallic hiss of the door was heard followed by a small cloud of smoke around the doorway.
The Vulpo smiled.
"Another job well done," he rejoiced.
The smile on his face was in no way genuine, but it gave him the impression that he had done a really good job.
Slowly, checking the security, he looked around the room in front of him. There were dozens and dozens of weapons of all kinds, swords, maces, war hammers, spears, halberds.
"Wo!" Adrian instinctively blurted out.
Most of them were set along racks leaning against the walls. He passed between the rows, looking at the weapons for something useful.
As a traveller, he could not carry heavy weapons. In that sense his pistol was fine. A sword would be cumbersome, and he didn't know how to use it. The same goes for the vast majority of weapons.
Finally, he found his happiness. Between two racks of swords and shields, he found a rack of rifles. Of the nine that it could hold, only two remained.
Adrian grabbed one, checking its condition meticulously before choosing the other, whose barrel seemed less damaged. A clean search later, Adrian had gathered everything he needed.
A rifle strongly resembling an M4-A4 though slightly shorter and in a semi-automatic model. On closer inspection, there was even a certain familiarity with a Kar98. Several parts for his pistol and about ten magazines of each of the two weapons, a book talking about firearms and how to maintain them and finally a maintenance kit.
The last two items were the most useful for Adrian. Although he knew how to use a weapon to a decent level, he was far from knowing how to maintain them perfectly. Especially when they were new and different to him. The Originium was still a big unknown as to how it worked. It would be better not to lose a finger or two on a wrong manipulation.
What's more, knowing that the powder in question did not work on its own and seemed to draw on its own energy to activate.
He sighed, lying back in the chair and reaching into his bag for a piece of boar meat.
"At least my clothes aren't wet," he grumbled as he nibbled on his meat.
Perhaps he still had no information on where to go, but at least he no longer had to fear immediate death and had obtained what he most sorely needed.
"Food... Equipment... Clothing... Lighter... Weapons..." he recited as he opened his pack. He had everything to resume his lonely journey. "At least if this damn storm ever ends," he grunted as he heard the rapid pounding of rain on steel.
Fortunately, he was sheltered from the rain. It was a godsend to have found the cellar. Weapons and a roof. He stood back looking up at the grey ceiling. The Vulpo thought for a moment of starting to read the book introducing his new weapon but decided not to. He was thinking of other things.
The smile he had worn on his face since he had arrived in this world broke. The laughter and false smiles he had used to give himself in order not to give in to the sudden changes in his life were unable to fill the void deep inside him.
The only place where he could break the mask and let the real Adrian out.
He had gone from a dull, empty life to one where he understood almost nothing.
"Why?" he asked himself, as he had every night since his arrival.
The only thing that had changed from his previous life was the false smiles he gave and the impression that he always had to see things in a positive light in order not to sink. It was... heavy. Yes... Heavy to have to wear the mask of joy when he was still in distress.
It wasn't as if anyone could see his smile. He was travelling alone, no one was following him. Still, he forced himself to wear it to convince himself that all was well.
No lights, hopes or happiness... For the moment, only the shadows and the madness of wanting to escape his condition.
For a week now he had been keeping himself upright, refusing to let go and let himself go into the shadows. If he had just put a bullet in himself, everything would have been easier. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. So... he moved on. Endlessly searching for something he didn't know.
A goal.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
He regretted his cowardice, a simple press of a firing pin had separated him from a rest. His calm state now forbade him the easy way out, leaving him only the difficult road.
"Smile and don't think too much about it," he scolded himself.
But this time it wasn't working. Alone, in a lost clerk's office, he couldn't convince himself.
"Damn tears," he hissed as he felt himself letting go.
It was becoming redundant... Abandoned in a forest chased by strangers, an ice walk and cold that put his body on the brink, hunger and now a supernatural storm. A sort of sick game of fate to put him in the most unlikely and dangerous situations forcing him to adapt to survive.
"A new stone to add to my achievements in this world..." he thought with false amusement.
A non-existent building of honour, but that was enough for him.
The only advantage was his skills from his previous life which had helped him slightly. For all the good it did him... What's the point of being an engineer when there are only a few electronics? Apart from his gun, the distributor, and the armoured door, he had found no use for it.
Maybe it was a test. Or just bad luck. He didn't know and didn't care now.
"Better rest while I have the chance."
He had to be ready for his journey. Perhaps he wouldn't have a chance to sleep for a long time.
Tomorrow would be a better day... Or so he madly hoped.
Adrian opened the heavy door that blocked the entrance to the underground and was assaulted by a steady stream of water that knocked him slightly off balance.
"Mein Gott..." he blurted out in his native tongue as he landed on a railing of the wall.
He passed through the main door of the building, which had been blown open, leaving a gaping hole like a wound. The metal beam that once blocked it had been blown away several metres away and lay balanced on several pieces of rubble.
The city was in chaos. The storm had been even more brutal than he had originally thought. The streets were even more congested than they had been, a smell of molten steel came from the capacitors and streetlights that had been ripped out of the street, but most of all... He was convinced that the building opposite the police station had an extra floor!
"Quite a storm..." smiled the fox as he walked out.
He now had the reason for the evacuation. If the first storm to hit this city had been this bad, it was easy to understand.
"I have to get out of this hellhole as soon as possible," he thought.
The cold gusts were still hitting the walls, indicating that the storm could come back at any time. Although he didn't really care about any of that anymore.
Running through the streets was safe and smooth. He passed the grocery shop again, which was now just a gaping hole in the ground floor of a building. A huge beam protruded from the front of the destroyed shop. The machine that Adrian had looted a few hours earlier was lying in several pieces in the street.
Further proof of the need to escape.
Seriously... Where had he landed? On what lost world had he had the misfortune to crash?
Terra... For the moment, this world was only a waking nightmare for him. Things had improved in the past few days... Little by little, the bird is making its nest.
But in the meantime, it was necessary to continue what had been started.
Still following the same road, the same path forward into the unknown. At least, he was no longer cold or hungry and the pain could be treated... A small advantage considering his condition.
A relatively difficult chapter to write, presenting the mind of a character sent to another world and his attitude proved to be an interesting challenge. As you have read, Adrian will not adapt easily to Earth and will have to wear a face to keep from giving in.
Interesting to try to write a character wearing a mask of emotion and forcing himself to act in a certain way.
In the meantime, I'd like to point out that this is not a Self Insert, Adrian is a character who will live his own adventure and influence the world and the people he meets.
I remind you that the ''first'' encounters with Arknights characters will only take place much later.
This story "arc" is an introduction that will last between 60 and 80k words depending on what I have already planned before getting into the heart of the matter and the influences.
In the meantime, sorry for the long text, the next chapter will be out in a month or so (no date) and I hope it will be longer.
In the meantime, take care of yourself and your family and stay healthy.