Chapter 9: Side Story – Futures past (Pt. 1)

(A/N : This side story is put here to set up and foreshadow some future events. But it is by no means a necessary reading to enjoy the story. If a sudden time travel element is not to your taste please skip the side story and continue with the rest of the story. I don't want you to feel as if the side story reflects the quality of the rest of the fanfic. Thank you for reading friend. I hope you will like the rest of the story!)

When I first came to my senses, I found myself disoriented, standing in a puddle of blood and guts, the stench of the rotting bodies nauseating me.

"Bleurgh!" I hurled, falling to the floor, landing in more blood, shit amd grime staining my knees.

Seeing that, I hurled once more, getting it out of my system, till I could hurl no more. The acidic vomit burned on my palms, turning them red and swollen.

"Tsah!" I cried, dropping it onto the floor as I got away, frantically crawling in the blood till I got to a cleaner spot by the wall.

That's when I noticed.

There was a wall. And a ceiling. Both seemingly edgeless and pure white.

This was a room. I was in a room.

Where? Came the obvious question.

I looked around, hoping to find a door, but I had no such luck.

Though there was something else I found.

A giant. Two actually. A man and a woman, lying dead at the center of the room, bleeding from there eyes and nose.

They felt familiar. Not as in I knew them, but more like I knew of them. Like tales of gods and monsters, and not your neighbour Jasmeet's wedding feast.

Memories came flooding to me, and I finally recognized them.

They were the God Aliens. From Gantz. The manga, Gantz.

"N-no, that can't be. I was ..I was just.... where was I before this? Why don't I remember? Why? What happened to me? Who am I?!"

I began to panic, hyperventilating, as I felt a deep and terrifying existential dread, my heart pounding in my chest threatening to burst.

My ears started to ring as my fear spiked, reaching a peak, when suddenly a migraine hit me, blindsiding my senses, nearly debilitating me, as I spasmed on the floor, and another set of memories were unveiled onto me. This time with a set of instructions and an identity.

To make a long story short, I was a clone, created by the God Aliens to replicate the technology of my real counterpart, a multiverse traveler with a portal gun, and if possible, kill him.

Yeah, fat chance of that happening.

Fighting a multiversal monster, even if that monster was me, was no bueno. That shit never ends well. They should know, given that they were lying dead on the floor.

If it were me, I would have wiped out their civilization as a side too, just in case they got any untoward ideas. It's a miracle I was still alive.

But now, I was truly lost. No way in. No way out. Without the teleportation capabilities of the God Aliens and their Gantz tech, the room was a death trap.

And that's when I realised why I was alive. Why I was left alive.

And it was no miracle.

The other me, the real me knew this. He knew there was no escape. That's why he left me here, to slowly rot and die, in some sick demonstration of the futility of the God Aliens' resistance, turning me into a fucking avant garde piece of art.

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Poetic bastard.

Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair.

Nothing beside remains, round the decay.

Indeed.

A mad cackle burst involuntarily from my mouth, as the realisation set it, and my tears flew free.

I am going to die here. There is no escape.

I sat there crying, laughing, beating my head against the smooth polished walls, till it rung like a bell, and I collapsed. Those following days, sleep was my only respite from the madness, and from the dread.

Thirst came first, and even in my madness, my desire remained.

I want to live.

And so I drank it. I drank the blood. First from the rancid remains of my fellow kin, not withstanding the sickness that came with it.

Then when that blood was dried, and gone, vapor and mist, stinking the air in iron, I resorted to the God Aliens blood.

Hunger came too, and as quickly went, ignored at first, until it could be no more.

Fortunately, there were no maggots in this place, given that it was a closed environment. But still, the meat was no delicacy. By the time I gave in to my worst impulses, more beast than man, it was already halfway rotting, all of it. Except for the God Aliens. And so I ate them, lean and thin as they were.

Then it all went away, as even the God Aliens blood was now dried.

Even my own piss...the less said of it, the better.

On the thirty eighth day of my conscious, finally, the water ran out ran out, in all forms, the rotten meat leaving me sick and dehydrated as I clung to the last slivers of my life, even as despair caved in to my very soul. There was no hope. There was no escape.

The message was clear. And yet somewhere deep within a voice cried.

I want to live.

That was when I felt it.

I felt a power within me, bubble to the surface, and as I focused on it, a beeping rang in my head. Instantly, I felt a connection to something, something not far from me, just a little ways away, at the center of the room.

Instinctively, I knew there was something there, something important. Perhaps....even something that can save me?

Mustering up the last bits of energy from within me, I ignored my pain, and dizziness, as I crawled, slowly but surely, dragging myself to the center of the room. As I got closer, I felt it even more now, somewhere beneath the bodies of the aliens. I dig my hand into their midst, reaching within, my thin, bony hand straining to catch what existed there, when I felt it, ever more sttonger now. The connection.

I felt it thrum to life at my touch, and my desires spilled out from my mouth.

"Save Me!" I cried, "Please, someone, anyone. Save me. Teleport me away. Somewhere safe. Please. Plehease!"

The connection swirled, whirring with power, as a beam appeared, splicing through me, as the last of my consciousness failed, and a wave of relief washed over me, like a deep comfortable sleep, warm in the heart of winter.

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