Author's Note:
Just wanted to give you guys a little heads up that the rest of the story will be in First Person POV. The prologue was in third person solely for the purpose of starting the story. Anyways, enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own Kung Fu Panda, unfortunately, but I do own the OC and the plot.
Location: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Time: Unknown
"...okay...this feels weird." My eyes were still shut. I could definitely still speak. I can even think. I know that the wave hit me while I was standing, I remember feeling the heat of the explosion as the shockwave reached me. But this, right now, I don't feel anything.
I opened my eyes. I closed them. I opened them again. Nothing. There was absolutely nothing. All I could see was black. I looked down at my body to determine whether or not I was just blind. I saw my clothes; some dirty blue jeans with a brown leather belt and some worn out sneakers. I also seemed to be just floating in the middle of all the darkness. "Yup. Not blind. Just surrounded never-ending darkness. While still being able to see myself, somehow," I said, thinking out loud.
That wasn't much of a shock to me. I knew I was dead, that was the only explanation. But what was weird, was that I still had all my faculties. I could think, speak, I could feel my face scrunched up from having my eyes closed, I could breathe; basically, I felt alive. I wasn't expecting that when I died. I never believed in an afterlife; well, no, that's not true. My parents were Christian so they expected us to believe in God and Jesus and attend Church and all that crap. And my sister and I did. At least when we were young.
As I got older, however, I began question the whole concept of their being an almighty, infallible being that was responsible for everything in the universe and was always watching over us. I remember when I was 7, I asked my mom that if God created the Earth around 6,000 years ago, then how come dinosaur bones are millions of years old. Long story short, she didn't have an answer, and I began pondering about what I believed in.
I know it doesn't seem like something a 7 year old would be thinking about, but I was a very intelligent child. I wasn't a genius, but I can safely say I was smarter than average. So, I eventually came to the conclusion, for me, that there was no God, and that religion was just a by product of needing to make sense of the phenomenon of the world and bring together a sense of community.
And now, here I am, standing, seemingly alive and unharmed after being vaporized from a nuclear warhead. It was clear to me. There was only one way to appropriately react.
"Oh, fuck me."
"Sorry, but it seems a little too soon for something like that," a female voice replied.
I stiffened. The voice seemed to emanate from a few feet in front of me. Judging on the sound of it, and also in the way it replied, it appeared to be someone in at least their 30s. I already knew that I wasn't blind, but the fact that I couldn't see whoever had spoken terrified me, especially since I'm afraid of the dark.
Trying to mask my terror, I called back to the voice loudly, "Well, before we would get to that, I suppose a nice romantic dinner would be in order, followed by a lovely walk through the streets before we settled down for some stargazing. Provided that I could see who my potential lover looks like." I admit, it was pretty terrible attempt to get whoever, or whatever, it was to show itself, but when your faced with a situation that you dismissed as a logical impossibility, surrounded by one of your worst fears, and finding out that you are not alone, your brain doesn't work as it usually does.
The voice chuckled darkly, "Oh, but if you could, then there would be no mystery. And it's no fun if there's no mystery. Besides, I need to see if you were worth it."
My eyes widened. I gulped nervously and asked the dreaded question, "W-worth what?"
"Why, whether it was worth stealing you. It was certainly a lot of trouble for me given my current situation, and I need to see if you are able to give me what I need," it answered calmly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
'Stealing me?' I thought. My curiosity now outweighed my fear. "What do you mean you 'stole me?'"
If infinite darkness could grin, I swear it was right now. "I trust that you know that you are dead, correct?" I nodded, listening intently. "Well, before your soul moved on to the Spirit World, I managed to, let's say, steer you in my direction. I needed some help and from what I could sense from you, you seemed quite promising."
Questions raced through my mind, but there was only one that I had been wondering since I came here, one that I wanted the answer to at the moment. "So, if I'm not in the Spirit World, whatever the hell that is, then where exactly am I?"
"Oblivion," the voice whispered into my ear, sending chills down my spine.
I scrunched up my face and asked, "Was that really necessary? I mean, just whispering that right in my ear? I know you were trying to be creepy, but that was just annoying."
There was silence for a few moments. 'Way to go me, you just probably pissed off something that you no idea what it's capable of and that you can't see, besides being able to apparently steal your soul. Smart move,' I thought, scolding myself.
Suddenly, the voice roared laughter throughout the dark abyss. I raised my eyebrow. "Well, I'm glad to see someone here is amused," I grumbled lowly.
The laughter subsided into chuckles, "Well, well, well, someone's a bit cheeky, aren't they? I think I'm beginning to like you."
Without warning, I felt something small, but powerful, hit my chest and I went flying back. I hit the ground and slid, feeling the air leave my lungs. I'd never been in a fight before, so I didn't know that having such tremendous force hit you in the chest hurt that much. All I could do was lay there on my back. "But that doesn't mean that I tolerate any disrespect," the voice said darkly. I could hear small clicking sounds getting slowly closer from the direction I was thrown from. The voice then sneered, "So there has be some form of punishment to rectify your transgressions."
I coughed, trying to get air back in my lungs as a sat up. I looked down and I could see my chest was bleeding slightly from what appeared to be eight small holes. There seemed to be a pattern to the holes, with six holes near the top of my chest and two holes near the bottom. The six holes seemed to be separated into two groups of three, with one of the lower holes directly under the middle hole in each of the groups of three.
The clicking stopped right in front of me. "So, anything to say before we get on with your punishment?" the voice asked.
I slowly got up. I really hate my curiosity right now, because there was only one thing I could think of. "...There's a ground in this place?"
"..."
"...Excuse me?"
"Well, when I got here, I noticed that I seemed to have been just floating in the middle of all this darkness, but then you threw me pretty far, at least I think you did, and I felt myself hit the ground. So, I was wondering if there was actually a ground or this place just can just make it feel like there's a ground anywhere, or something like that."
"...You're completely serious, aren't you?" the voice asked, incredulously, "Of all the things you could say, and you choose that?" The voice chuckled, "I must say, your blatant disregard for the danger you're in is impressive. Well, I suppose you deserve a reward for giving me such amusement."
The darkness in front of me started to swirl, forming a sort of black spinning sphere that seemed to give off some kind of dark aura. Cracks of light started to appear on the surface of the sphere before it started to slow down. I watched with wide eyes, mesmerized as the sphere finally stopped and the sphere slowly unfolded, revealing itself as two large dark wings that were hiding some sort of creature.
The creature was facing me with its wings spread as the dark aura surrounding it slowly dissipated. I looked at the wings as color started seep through. The tips of the wings appeared to be almost metal like, and looked as sharp as razors. The rest of the feathers on the wings looked to be a sort of bluish-gray at the top and bottom, while the middle seemed to be a snow white. The wingspan on the creature looked to be an impressive 7 feet, while the creature seemed to stand at around 5 feet tall.
I looked at the creatures face. It looked to be some sort of owl. It had a circular, white face with large purple eyes. It was smirking at me, and I noticed that the tip of its beak seemed to have lipstick on it. 'Well, it could just be colored that way, plenty of birds have multicolored beaks.' I looked at the owl's body. It was wearing a sort of purple vest with a gold trim, and a large black belt around it waist. The owl's chest was also quite larger then the rest of its body. 'Nevermind, definitely a woman.'
"Well now, whatever could you be looking at?" the owl asked, chuckling.
My face lit up, "I-I, *ahem*, I was just observing your peculiar clothing." 'Oh yeah, great cover idiot. Wait, how is an owl talking? In English no less? Whatever, I'm just gonna chalk that up to the "Things Are Weird Here" board.'
The owl rolled her eyes, "Of course you were. Well, anything else you want to say before we get on with your punishment?"
"What's your name?" I asked. I mean seriously, she's kicked my ass already and all I know about her is that she brought me here and is some sort of magical talking owl. I at least want to know the name of the person, or thing, that's gonna beat me.
The owl smirked, "We'll get to that later. Right now, it's time for the fun."
I raised my eyebrow. "What fu-AAAAH!" Before I even got the rest of my question out, the owl had raised her wing and slashed me across the chest with her feathers. The pain was so intense that fell to my knees. I looked at my chest and saw I had three diagonal slashes from my left collarbone to my right hip. They weren't too deep, but they were bleeding a lot and stung like hell.
The owl was laughing at this point but I barely registered it. I was too focused on the blood coming out of my body. I'd never had such a serious injury in my life, and the fact that this owl had just attacked me with no remorse terrified me. My body started to shake as I started to hyperventilate.
"Aww, is the poor baby scared? We'll have to work on that if I'm going to use you."
I shakily raised my head and looked at the owl with fear-filled eyes. "W-w-what do y-you mean, 'u-use m-me?'"
The owl grabbed my left arm with her talons and twisted it behind my back with a sickening crack. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. My throat closed up and I could feel my head heat up and feel dizzy. I barely recognized that I was experiencing shock as I fell on my right side and tears started to well up in my eyes.
The owl loomed over me and looked down with sadistic eyes. She had a twisted smile on her face as she raised her foot over my head. "Why, you're going to become my little assassin." She brought her foot down and the little sense I had left was snuffed as everything went black.
Author's Note:
Alright people, that was the first chapter of my story, and I really enjoyed writing it. I just wanted to say that I'm not just writing this story for me, I'm writing it for you guys too. Therefore whatever input you have would be greatly appreciated. I'm always open to criticism, as long as it's constructive, because all it does is help me improve the story. And if any of you have any suggestions as to where this story goes, I'll gladly listen to what you have to say. Just leave me a review to read. Anyway, this is CrimsonReaper1996 saying have a fantastic day.