The Wars of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (find a book to read .txt) 📕

- 'That's right, Paul. Now do you understand why only you went through the portal while the others couldn't and are now in a completely different place. And it's far from just because you're so perceptive, Paul. There's something special about you,' the Voice continued, the same one that had spoken to him while he was...Oh, damn, it was all so messed up...

No matter how much Paul looked around, his gaze couldn't penetrate the dense veil of light, but strangely enough, despite its brightness, it didn't irritate his eyes.

- 'This better not be the afterlife,' Paul barely muttered, aware that the line sounded somewhat comical.

- Paul, Paul...haven't you learned anything...What is the afterlife and what is reality, who can say?

- Paul started to retort, but thought better of it and asked:

- Why do you always have to talk in riddles? Tell me at least one thing straight to my face!

- 'I already told you this thing, Paul.,' The Voice answered somewhat indefinitely. 'What else do you want to know?,' he added, somewhat suddenly and more softly.

- Where exactly are we?

- 'Actually, we are both very near and very far from your friends at the same time,' the Voice added.

- 'I take it that means that it's up to me to go back to them?,' began Paul hesitantly.

- That's right. You know that nothing is lost in the universe. And in fact, as much as you don't want to believe it, you're half a meter away from Mark and the others right now, but you can't see them, hear them, or feel them...

- Although Paul was beginning to figure some things out, he still couldn't put the puzzle together in his head, but who could?

- 'So my vision led me here?,' the sniper tried to continue the interrupted conversation.

- 'Not exactly, but you could say that,' the Voice stated calmly.

- And I am asked to change something in the vision, or rather to find out what influence the events in it have had?

The Voice was silent, but Paul took that as a sign of agreement.

^^^

Suddenly Paul felt someone shaking him. It was Mark. And he was tense. Paul rubbed his eyes with his hand. The others were standing around, looking at him with some concern, and Rat was giving him a head compress. He could still see a little blurry, but his vision seemed to be coming into focus. When it was possible to see fairly clearly, he looked around. They were still in the dark cave, but a bright dot was visible in the distance.

- He'd been unconscious for almost a whole day, Mark added. We thought we'd lost you. And we couldn't go on without our sniper.

- 'That's right,' Father interjected.

Sam Wallace, Grandpa Jack, the Rat, Russell and the others patrolled around with assault rifles in their hands, for no one knew what might be raining down on their heads.

- 'What's the matter?,' said Paul, with anguish.

- 'The devil knows,' muttered the Father, who in the eyes of the group passed for a connoisseur of these things, or at least the impasse they were in made them think he was, 'but this place obeys no laws of physics, neither normal nor special physics.'

Suddenly we were all just as frozen, as if we were helpless playthings in the hands of some higher being.

There was a moment's silence. Paul was trying to gather his thoughts in his brain, foggy from this overexertion.

And suddenly he uttered:

- I saw it.

- 'What?,' roared Grandpa Jack in a tone that made the utterly innocuous word sound almost like a curse.

- Actually, I didn't see it...I don't know what happened either, but while I was unconscious I had a vision, I was enveloped by a white light, like a curtain, and a voice spoke to me, claiming that I had a bigger part to play in this whole thing.

In fact, Paul had decided not to mention to them the strange scene he had witnessed while he had fallen into...God knows what.

- 'Wonderful business,' Sam Wallace murmured. 'My father mentioned that the military had once developed a secret military experiment in mind control. It took place in the mythical Area Nine.'

- 'You mean,' Mark began tentatively, 'that we might have ended up somewhere else entirely, right?'

- 'That's right,' the Father interjected again, 'Friends, I don't want to put you off, but if my assumptions are correct, the game could get rough.'

Father had not even finished his remark when a strange noise reached the group. It was something akin to a devilish crunch or crackle. Only it sounded somewhat muffled, almost gentle even. Everyone took up their fighting positions as efficiently as possible, each leaning back against that of their comrade. Expecting the worst. The unknown. A whole moment of absolute silence passed, during which absolutely nothing happened. But that moment, shorter than a second, seemed almost like an eternity, so tired and nervous were they all. Suddenly the noise repeated itself, only this time a little more clearly.

People's thumbs were now strained to the limit on the plasma automatons' sensor triggers.

Suddenly, a most ordinary mouse ran in front of the spotlight. It paused, stared in amazement, then darted into a nearby crevice in the rock.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Paul even chuckled.

Suddenly, a most ordinary mouse ran in front of the spotlight. It paused, stared in amazement, then darted into a nearby crevice in the rock.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Paul even chuckled.

Suddenly a deceptive calm came over them, a strange euphoria. In short, the feeling could be described as absolute unpluckiness about the whole thing. Mark was greatly surprised, and so were the others.

- 'Put on your helmets, this is an intoxicating gas zembran. It's too risky to inhale for long,' Father shouted.

The others, though lost in reverie, struggled to carry out his instruction, feeling subconsciously that he was right. Once they had their helmets on their heads and the aspirator filters had showered them with compressed air, their hazy consciousness seemed to have begun to clear.

- 'But aren't all these visions caused by him?,' chimed in Grandpa Jack in turn.

The other fighters looked at each other quizzically. They had already wasted a lot of time wandering around these caves, but the white dot in the distance remained glowing, and it seemed that no matter how far they walked, they were getting no closer to it.

- 'We can't stay here,' Rat added. 'We definitely don't know where we are. We can only follow this bright spot.'

Mark helped Paul to his feet and the group moved off.

- 'What a damn place, I feel like primal chaos has been spawned here,' Russell muttered.

- 'What's a rookie like you got in his head?,' the Father uttered in a slightly strained tone, but it was clear he was joking.

- 'Guys, what if we just move in circles,' Paul cut in suddenly. 'Maybe that voice or whatever it was wanted us to figure something out.'

- 'It's worth thinking about,' Rat added with a little irony, seeming to have slightly regained his spirits.

^^^

More than two days passed, during which the group wandered around these dungeons located in the Nothingness. Strange as it was, the group went through the same route of approximately two hundred meters and then took it again.

- 'Guys,' Paul muttered, 'I didn't tell you the whole truth.'

- 'What else is there to learn?,' the Father inquired.

- Apart from the voice I mentioned to you, I had a vision of a woman going into what looked like a hospital and then coming out.

- 'Well?,' called the Rat with evident annoyance.

- Well, the whole setting was like something from hundreds of years ago, maybe even much more.

At these words of Paul the whole group consisting of about twenty people stopped as if on command.

- 'Why didn't you tell us earlier?,' Mark turned to him, irritation evident in his voice.

- Well, to be honest, it's the first time I've seen anything like it, but I seemed to have the vague feeling that I'd seen it before.

- 'You know what,' Mark started, 'what if we assume, from what Paul told us, that his visions are somehow connected to our mission.'

- 'But that's crazy,' Rat muttered.

The rest of the group looked at him a little quizzically and he fell silent.

- 'It's worth a try,' Mark continued. 'Obviously things aren't normal here. I think the laws of this dimension are more peculiar. 'The Dream Gate is nothing but a trial for the most pure-hearted. And now we're being given a chance to get out. What happens if we just start moving backwards?'

- 'We don't quite understand you,' the troop muttered almost in unison, except for Father, who smiled slightly and said:

- It's clear as day, under normal circumstances if a body moves at less than the speed of light, time passes normally, but if it starts moving at a speed that exceeds it, then time starts flowing backwards. The point is that this is not at all true for black holes, and also for wormholes.

- 'Exactly!,' retorted Mark, beaming that they had understood him.

The group began to move along the same route, only in the opposite direction, and the hitherto unreachable white dot, which appeared to be the exit from all this Nothingness, began to approach. Suddenly, however, when they had almost reached it, a strong wind blew up, which seemed unwilling to let them pass through the pass. It forced them to walk aligned forward towards their goal.

- 'Boys, have faith, it's all in your imagination,' shouted Mark.

Silence.

Complete silence.

Then everything sank into darkness again.

CHAPTER THREE: THE GENERAL

Isongdar was dressed in his black robe that formed a cloche at his feet. The garment in question was made of a strange mixture of Kevlar, Kyson, and a fabric that didn't even have a name yet, as it was still under development. It had to be said though, that despite a certain amount of vanity, something quite normal for a man of his rank, Isongdar was not at all a womanizer, but on the contrary very skilled in military combat and diplomacy.

Isondar was just past forty-five, while General Paley was over fifty-five, and this difference in age was apparent in the stark contrast between the general's silver hair and the adjutant's still completely black hair.

- 'Adjutant, do you have any idea where the hell Mark Lenner is?,' asked General Gene Paley, commander-in-chief of the Elohian forces.

- 'They've managed to sneak through one of our border posts in the Synthros area, and quite brazenly at that,' Isongdar, the Adjutant General of the Western Forces, said with obvious anger.

- 'It is a shame and disgrace for our soldiers to let them