A long Road

  I stared at the ceiling, bored out of my mind, my link was confiscated for some weird reason, something about going out to relate with family, not my problem really

  I tossed and turned on my bed my boredom growing by the second, at some point I just lay there, my mind blank the ceiling twisted and turned and seemingly stretched to consume me

  all of a sudden I heard a light knock on the door, I turned to the door a scowl already forming on my face, I was already envisioning my mum entering the room to lecture me

  With a slight huff I mentally unlocked the door, it creaked open slowly to reveal my little sister standing there her face alight, she pointed at me and shouted “GREMLINNNN!!” while running at me, dashing to my bedside, and promptly jumped onto my chest forcing all of the air out of my lungs

  I gasped as she made herself comfortable on my chest, she had grown so much heavier Since she left , not voicing out my complaints I let out a crooked smile and said to her “ clementine! You’ve grown!”

  She huffed and crossed her arms and puffed her chest and shouted “of course! After all I am going to take over the World! And you!” she paused for a second and shouted again “ARE GOING TO BE MY LOYAL STEED!”

  I winced a little, not used to this amount of noise just after the deliberating silence I sighed a little before asking her “why are you not with grandpa and grandma?, or Jenna?” she sagged a little and said in a low voice “ they’re talking about serious stuffs…and school” her tone getting lower towards the end I nodded empathetically, clementine was something like me , and didn’t want anything to do with the stupid politics of this house, although she acted stupid and oblivious she was wayyy ahead of her age, maybe that was her way of enduring this situation

  I sat up straight my bones protesting as clementine slid off my and tumbled onto the floor, I let out a little laugh as clementine glared at me , stretching my hand towards her I suddenly said to her “fine let’s go play” she squinted her eyes at me probably not believing me, she suddenly held my outstretched hand and shouted “I book you till evening!” I laughed again, hoisted her up to my shoulders and stormed down the stairs with her giggling all the way down

  Upon reaching the end of the stairs, I set her down and held her hand leading her into the dining room, her laughing immediately stopped and her face morphed into one of serenity and her stride shortened, all this just to appear in front of those who claimed to be her guardians

  I gritted my teeth and ignored her change in demeanor, walking into the dining hall, immediately upon entering I was greeted with a long and extremely luxurious table, apparently the wood used to make it was almost as old as all sentient life, “what a waste” I whispered under my breath

  Sitting on the table was my family, if I could call them that, cousins, nieces, uncles. They all sat there although no children were to be seen around the table, eating in perfect silence, I ignored them all together and walked straight towards the door leading outside, all of a sudden a voice from the left side at the head of the table suddenly said “son why don’t you come eat with us?” I turned towards the voice, my smile brittle “I am quite full father, no need, thank you” I answered, turning back towards my destination “hmph leave him son, a failure like him does not deserve to dine here” a voice from the head of the table said

  I once again ignored them, heading towards the door “a pity he dragged my dear granddaughter with him, I guess birds of a feather really do flock together” the voice added

  Something in my head flipped, I knew he was provoking me, I knew I was playing into his hands, but I did not care, my rationality did not win this time

  I turned towards the voice, it was that of an old man with angular jaws and a scarred face, his gray hair like crown on his head and his unnaturally yellow eyes stared calmly at mine a lazy smirk playing on his lips, the clanking of plates stopped as an unnatural pressure descended on the area forcing everyone on the table to fell like they were slowly suffocating, a low growl split the silence, coming from my mouth “what. Did. You. Call. My. Sister?” I asked slowly

  The old man, my grandfather turned to me, showing no discomfort and was about to open his mouth to answer, when a tiny hand pulled at my sleeve, I turned towards my sister as she shook her head

  I took a deep breath and the pressure disappeared as quickly as it came, I tore my gaze from that of my grandfather to that of the one who called himself my father, he held his gaze for a second or two before ultimately turning his head away, I sneered at him and muttered under my breath “ yeah fucking coward, run away like you did when Mom died” and stormed out

  I sat at the backyard anger still simmering at the back of my mind, my sister sat with me a sullen and downcast on her face we both sat in silence for a while “sorry” she said all of a sudden

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I placed my hand on her head “its not your fault” I said while smiling and reached out to wipe the tears budding in her eyes “ let’s go play drone wars” I said to her

  Soon enough sounds of laughter spread from the backyard, two drones flew around the backyard, armed with their array of weaponry, my drone suddenly bent at a corner forcing Constantine to swerve into a trap I had placed before, right before it entered the trap, the drone swerved sharply letting only one of the wings get caught in the trap, although her efforts were valiant, her drone sputtered and jerked flying out of the yard and onto the streets

  I sent a gloating smile at her as she bashed her controller onto the floor repeatedly “you’re cheating!!” she shouted at me

  I let out a uproars laugh and was interrupted by a flying controller, I deftly dodged it and headed towards the street to retrieve the lost controller laughing all the way there

  Spotting the drone on the street I jogged towards it and bent down to pick it up suddenly I felt an intense sense of vertigo my head was spinning and so was the world around me after what felt like decades I managed to get my bearings

  I picked myself off the ground, only to realize that I was not anywhere near home, I lay on a tarred road that seemingly led into the horizon itself and around me was a barren wasteland with no structures in sight “wait tarred road?”

  The fog clouding my head receded as I swerved my head around me to take in the sight and as I did so I only confirmed how much deep shit I was in “tarred roads are only used in planets at the edge of the empire and even at that they are in the extreme minority, one could even call them trash planets” I thought to myself “how do I move from the heart of the empire, to the edge in a few seconds, that doesn’t make any sense”

  I sighed, abandoning that train of thought and propped myself up “what I should be doing is trying to find a way to get out of here” I thought to myself calmly trying to activate my link and a flickering holographic interface lit up at my front “hey! Finally! Some good news!” I exclaimed and started examining my interface , there was obviously no connection to any empire towers

  But that wasn’t what I needed at the moment as I mentally tapped a blue icon with the outline of an eye and immediately I did that the interface flickered and went off, rebooting itself after a few seconds , this time an image of an eye hovered above my head and started scanning the environment around me

  I sat back down, calmly awaiting the results of the scan, information was a powerful tool and going blindly into the unknown without it could potentially be dangerous

  A chime sounded in my head to mark the end of the scan, the results arranging myself around me, my eyes narrowed as I scanned the information at my front “that’s not good” I whispered to myself

  It wasn’t bad it was horrible

  Apparently the curvature of this planet or whatever on God’s black universe this thing is was infinite, yes

  Infinite

  The thought that my link had malfunctioned crossed my mind, but it was the best tech the empire had to offer

  My eyes moved over to the other values, apparently the aetheric values around here was higher than Normal and the spatial coordinates were…..off, I never knew coordinates could be in imaginary numbers

  There was only one sane explanation for this” an aetheric anomaly?” I thought to myself “that would check out” I said while nodding my head

  If it truly was an Aetheric anomaly, there was only one way out and that was for me to solve it, my eyes panned my surroundings trying to find any clues as to how I could get out of here

  I sent another mental pulse to my link, hoping to get a clue out of it, but it seemed the wilderness had no secrets to hide “ then there’s only one way out” I murmured as I started walking down the road into the horizon

  Clementine pov :

  I sat on the grass, grumbling “how did he do that!, it’s no fair! I had already mastered all his reoccurring moves and mapped the whole yard AND I have been training for the last SIX MONTHS!” I shouted throwing myself on the grass, I did this for the next few minutes, until I noticed that Othello hadn’t come back

  “GREMLIN!!” I shouted, after a few seconds and with no response in sight I got up, annoyance clearly showing on my face “I swear if you are playing a prank on me I will haunt you till your deathbed!” I shouted into the air while walking towards where Othello has last been too

  He wasn’t there…. Obviously, “okay you can stop now” I shouted once again, and once again I was answered with silence, “hmph you still want to do this?” I thought In my head right before I burst into tears and started shouting “ gremlin! Gremlin!” after a few seconds of doing so, I was still met with silence and at that moment, I knew Othello would never do something like this

  Not in a million years

  just as I was about to call dad through my link, a man stopped at my front bending down to my eye level, he had a hood on which cast a shadow on his face, shadows that I couldn’t seem to pierce through I knew for a fact that no one was supposed to be anywhere near here, it was private property of our family “oh stop crying dear” he said stretching his hand towards me

  I flinched back a little, while also maintaining my crying face and innocently asked him “do you know where my brother is?” meanwhile I was ready to bolt and sound the alarm at any point

  The man stopped for a second, seemed to think about it and eventually answered “to be honest?, I don’t know” he said while chuckling, he then got up all of a sudden and said “oh yeah! And remember this, s:10:6:8p”

  My eyes narrowed as I immediately flipped a switch mentally, immediately loud sirens started blaring and the walls of the compound immediately projected a force field, covering the entire compound

  The man glanced around, chuckling “you’re a sharp one eh?” He said he then looked at me, a wide grin on his face, “oh well my time is up!” he said abruptly, “time to go!” he smiled as he turned away from me and casually walked away, disappearing bit by bit

  almost like an illusion, almost like….he wasn’t ever here, I turned my gaze towards the Laser cannons positioned all around the house, none of them had reacted to him, even with full security mode on

  It was..a little terrifying , but there was something way worse, my brother………….had disappeared