The Forgotten Land of Myria

ANGUS

“You could just park right here, thank you,” I told the cab driver as I tossed him some cash. I was thirty minutes late, which would probably get me around fourteen minutes of scolding from Schejner. I slammed the car door and started towards the bridge to Sandgate Beach where the research team was gathered.

“Where were you?” Dr. Schejner asked. “We were supposed to meet at the hotel lobby half an hour ago.”

I gave him my already planned excuse that I was caught up in some of the research in my room. Opening my leather bag, I took out my notebook and read the information I had gathered back at the hospital. Dr. Schejner nodded slowly and assembled the rest of the team to discuss it.

“With that said, I think it’s time we analyze the samples we’ve collected,” Dr. Schejner stated.

One guy went to the team’s van, which had some heavy equipment set up in its trunk, and came back with ziplock bags holding pieces and fragments of things the divers had found.

Wooden and metal parts of harbor ships that had sunk under the whirlwind, pieces of objects and belongings of some of the victims, and many other things.

“We also have here a liquid portion of the blood that soaked it. It’s human blood.”

One of the researchers handed me a 5-milliliter test tube with dark red warm blood.

“Is there any sign of the victim who shed this blood?” I asked. “No.”

I then spotted something else. Inside the same ziplock bag was a shiny gemstone. A ruby. A runty incandescent ruby.

“Dr. Schejner,” I asked, “what about this?”

“Oh that. We found it near the past samples but it’s not valuable. Nowadays, rubies that small won’t even buy you a loaf of bread.”

After about an hour or so, we called off the studies for the day and headed back to the hotel. I pleaded with Dr. Schejner to let me keep the ziplock bag for further studies that night, and he reluctantly allowed it, after twenty minutes of coaxing.

In my hotel room, after spending around two-and-a-half hours cleaning, scrubbing, and dusting, I set up a microscope on the bed and analyzed a drop of the blood. It was definitely human blood, though its cellular composition was divergent, beyond any regular pattern.

Then, opening up my leather bag, I took out the medallion--I chose to bring it on the trip, since it had been the deciding factor. This was the curious part. The ruby I had found was identical, in structure, to the gemstones in my medallion.

The next day, during lunch break, I, again, headed down to the hospital to present the samples I had gathered and the results of my thesis--though, other than the ruby and the human blood, our research had gone nowhere. I put on my authentic beard disguise and my beret and got in the cab. When I arrived, Roy was sitting up in a somewhat fetal position in his bed. He seemed disturbed by something so, even though it had no meaning whatsoever to me, I decided to ask him what was going on.

“I-I had a dream,” he said. Pathetic. This is an example of why I never try poking into such conversations.

“Listen,” I said skeptically, “I know Martin Luther King was acutely motivational in his speaking, but--”

“No, I mean like I had a dream,” he said, with some frustration, as if it was my fault he lacked specification.

“Another one. I had one the night before that, and it was sort of a warning, you know. That someone was coming for me. I’ve had that every night. Now last night, I had a dream that told me to be prepared because my life would completely change today. For good.”

“That’s oddly specific and predictable...but I’m not surprised,” I said, and I really wasn’t. “There’s no doubt that transcendental things have occurred lately.”

I took out my notebook and showed him the results of my research.

We sat there and discussed it for a while. I then took out the small ruby I had found. It had been disturbing me since I had found it, so I decided to ask him about it.

“By chance, do you know anything about this gemstone?” I asked.

He knit his eyebrows. “Where’d you find that?”

“Well, the scouters located it in a bed of rocks, surrounded by sanguine fluids. Although it was human, it elevates our vexations.”

“...Huh?

The discernment level of this guy was unbelievable.

“Blood,” I said. “We found human blood, but we don’t suspect it to be yours. Anyway, do you know anything about this ruby?”

Roy shook his head stupidly, staring at the with wide eyes, like it would enkindle at any moment.

We kept talking, and, after about five minutes, a lady walked in the room. A young woman, about thirty or so. She had short dense, wavy black hair that curled under her chin.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said looking towards Roy. “How’ve you been holding up?”

Roy shrugged as she leaned forward to examine his wounds. She then looked towards me and with a slight chuckle, read my name tag. “David Friedrich? Really?”

“Yes, that’s my name,” I lied, perplexed at the way she had looked at me. She scoffed and turned back towards Roy.

“Well, I just came here to check on you. One of the nurses is out today, so they asked me to fill that spot.”

She ran the regular nursing procedures, checking up on everything. I noticed she was eyeing my blood sample uncomfortably, as it sat on the counter by the window.

“Oh this,” I said trying to explain. “We’re running some research, you know. We still haven’t--”

Her expression began to change into a sickly look. No matter what, she wouldn’t take her eyes off it.

“Are…you okay?”

“Back away!” she ordered. I knit my eyebrows in confusion but instantly heard a crash behind me. The window shattered and I realized the nurse had been looking out the window the whole time. With good reason. I didn’t know whether she saw what I saw, but what I observed was a red-clouded sky--with the eye of the spiraling cloud, of course, headed in our direction.

You’ve got to be kidding, I thought. Harold’s words came into my mind.

“We have to get out of here,” the nurse said as she urgently began to tug Roy out of his bed.

“Wait--what?”

“NOW!” she snapped. I didn’t contest her, as I was just as eager to get away from those clouds as she was.

Furiously, the nurse ripped out the tubes attached to Roy making him scream in pain and that’s when I concluded that she wasn’t really sure she knew what she was doing anymore.

“Wh--wait--what the hell!” Roy stammered.

“I’ll explain soon!” she yelled, as the fire alarm began to ring. “Just follow my lead, or else I’ll never get around to explanations!”

She pulled Roy up, holding him by his good arm as I brushed my belongings into my leather bag with a shaky hand. The nurse kicked the door open and I followed her closely as she stormed out. We took the stairs to the fire escape--I could hear Roy panting heavily. Once we came to the first floor, chaos had already been installed. People were running in all different directions, too busy to notice that one of the nurses was running out of the hospital with a patient. Outside I felt a damp cold air run through me as my head began to spin.

Thunder roared in the sky and the blood red clouds seemed to stare at me with an evil grin. I followed the nurse across the street, and just as we stepped onto the sidewalk, the hospital building exploded. The sound deafened my ears. I looked up. The clouds seemed to be spiraling closer, and I felt my eyes roll back. The nurse’s hand rested on my shoulder and she called me by my real name.

“ANGUS!”

The next moment, I was surrounded in pitch blackness and it felt like I was being sucked through a straw.