The Nextworld Invasion and the Death of Magic - 1. Chapter 1 - The Humans

It was a day like any other, except that it was the beginning of the end. The Humans were invading.

Two men were in the forest. Their names were Tigath and Othri, and they were in love. They were part of a green-skinned race of people called the Urcai whose hair and eyes came in every color of the rainbow. Othri’s were orange, and Tigath’s were purple. It was still early in the morning as they made their way up to a sunny rise in the land that overlooked their home city of Vuliburge.

“Othri, I’ve brought us a surprise,” Tigath cooed with his purple eyes sparkling. He opened his bag and removed a small parcel that Othri did not recognize.

“Oooh, what’s that?” he asked, scrutinizing the bundle.

Tigath grinned. “Breakfast!” he declared. “I’ll get a fire going, and will you please unpack our things?”

“You got it, sugar,” Othri replied.

“Thanks, babe.” Tigath then added in a fawning tone, “Do you have any idea how good you look in the sunrise?”

Tigath and Othri were both twenty-eight years old. Othri was muscular, and his arms and legs were tattooed with the traditional darker green patterns common to the Urcai people. Tigath was an inch taller than Othri, but he was slighter of frame and very effeminate. His hair was long, straight, and so deep purple as to be almost black. Tigath often wore it down, draped around his shoulders. He did not have a single tattoo, and he had no intention of getting any, but he liked the way they looked on Othri’s strong limbs. Tigath thought Othri was beautiful.

The men’s enjoyment however, was not to last, and they were interrupted by terrible flashes of black lightning that streaked across the cloudless sky. The eldritch bolts zigzagged but did not plummet down to strike the Earth, and instead, the light of the sun was dimmed as three hideous holes appeared above Vuliburge and blackened the sky. The openings seemed to have been punched right through reality.

“What on Earth are those things?” Tigath cried.

Othri scrunched up his face in confusion. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

He and Othri were staring at the gaping chasms of darkness, and to their horror, what looked like a swarm of mechanical insects came pouring out and rained fire upon the city. From the distance, these invaders looked minuscule, but the two green men realized what they were seeing.

Tigath gasped, and Othri whispered, “The Humans…”

“They’ve broken through from Nextworld!” Tigath yelled. “Othri, the city is under attack!”

Vuliburge was one of several specially designed cities, and it was home to over one-million inhabitants. It was a vibrant metropolis that had been constructed to enrich the natural world around it. The free peoples of Earth called their connection to the planet symbiosociety, and the buildings of Vuliburge were living structures that grew along with the trees of the forest.

Vuliburge now burned, but among the orange and yellow of the flames, Tigath and Othri saw something even worse. Blue flashes of light began to punctuate the devastation. Both men had heard tales about the Humans’ terrible weapons, but they could barely believe what they were seeing.

“They’re killing our people!” Othri shouted in disbelief. “They’re just slaughtering us outright!”

“We need to leave,” Tigath stated in a quavering voice. “Othri, we need to leave before they find us!”

Othri was staring at the destruction, but he turned and locked his orange eyes on Tigath. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

They quickly collected their things and fled deep into the wilderness. The rest of their day was calm but anxious. That night, an old chaos descended upon them. They bedded down and fell asleep, but twisted imaginings from Othri’s past flared in his dreams, and Tigath was awoken by his lover’s distress. Othri’s face was contorted in pain. He was lost in a nightmare.

“Othri,” Tigath whispered into the darkness, “you’re having a bad dream. Wake up.” He brought his hand to Othri’s chest. “Othri, wake up.”

Othri fell still. He groaned and opened his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Tigath asked.

“The dead,” Othri replied weakly, “they were in my dream.”

“It’s still the middle of the night,” Tigath said. “Let’s try and get some more sleep.”

Othri pulled Tigath close to him and whispered, “You don’t have to wake me up again, unless I’m disturbing you. It’s easier for me to forget what I dream if I don’t wake up from it.”

“Oh, okay, sorry, I’ll let you sleep next time.” Tigath kissed Othri, and they drifted back into unconsciousness.

As a youth, Othri had suffered from horrible night terrors that plagued his sleeping mind, but it had been years since they last tormented him, not since Tigath came into his life. The green men’s love had transcended whatever used to cause Othri’s sleep to be so disrupted, and the pair cultivated a relationship that had been celebrated by their friends and those close to them.

They knew that everyone they had once known was now either dead or taken prisoner.

For four days, the two men were alone. They came across no other survivors in the wilderness. The days had dragged, and each night was restless and filled with Othri’s anguish.

It was almost morning on the fifth day, and the two men were asleep.

The forest was quiet.

Tigath was the first to wake. He opened his eyes, saw Othri in the darkness, and was glad that his beloved was sleeping peacefully. Tigath gently kissed his forehead. He sat upright and used his green fingers to brush back his long purple hair. In his mind, he could picture Vuliburge in flames as clearly as if the city still burned before him. Othri let out a painful moan in his sleep, and Tigath focused on him. He was wrong; Othri was not sleeping peacefully. He was trapped in another horrible dream.

Over their years together, Tigath had experienced very few of Othri’s restless nights, and prior to the Humans’ attack, Othri himself would have had difficulty remembering the last time his night terrors plagued him, but after witnessing the destruction to their city, his dreams again spun with unnamable horrors.

Tigath rose silently from the forest floor and looked at Othri once more. His muscular arms were twitching, and his face was twisted up in fear, but Tigath left him asleep and stepped away from their makeshift campsite. He began to head through the trees. The sun would soon rise, and Tigath looked forward to its glow. When he was a little way off, he knelt down and pressed one palm against the soft forest floor. He brought his other hand to the trunk of an old tree, and he felt refreshed.

Over the squeaky calls of treefrogs and the chirping of the birds that were awake before dawn, Othri’s voice came ringing through the forest. “Tigath!”

“I’m here!” Tigath replied, tossing his head to move his long purple hair away from his face, and he looked through the darkness. He rose and made his way back to their encampment again.

Othri was sitting upright. “I was dreaming about the dead.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” Tigath reached out, took Othri’s hand, and kissed it. “Are you okay?”

Othri ignored the rhetorical question. “The sun’s coming up.” Othri then focused on Tigath with his orange eyes. “What are we…” He hesitated. “Tigath, what are we going to do? What are we supposed to do?”

Each of the previous mornings in the wilderness, Othri had asked something similar, and each time, Tigath gave him the same reply.

“I don’t know,” he said yet again.

On the other mornings, Tigath’s response had been enough, and neither of them had brought up the devastation again during those lonely days, but this time, Othri did not let it go. He reached out and took his lover’s other hand.

“Tigath, we can’t just stay out here forever. What are we going to do?” He paused and added in a voice of disbelief, “Everyone in Vuliburge…” The green-skinned men looked off through the trees in the direction of the destroyed city. “We need to go back. Tigath, we need to go back to Vuliburge.”

Tigath turned to him. “We can’t. What are we supposed to do against those monsters?”

“The Humans destroyed our city,” Othri stated, staring into Tigath’s purple eyes. “They killed our people. We can’t just stay here and do nothing!”

Tigath frowned. “What do you think we can do against them?”

“Maybe the Humans are gone. Maybe the city isn’t in as bad shape as we thought. Maybe our people have survived and started to rebuild, and if they have, we should be there with them. I want to see if there’s anyone who we can help,” Othri implored. “Tigath, let’s go back, please.”

“But what if the Humans are still there?” Tigath countered. “What if we’re spotted? What if we’re captured or something worse?” Tigath knew Othri was right about returning to see if they could help, but Tigath was full of dread that he was trying to keep hidden. “What about…” he paused and suggested, “what about going farther? We could go on to the Yellow City or Delkland.”

Othri shook his head. “Our people in Vuliburge need us. I have wanted to go back, but I’ve been too afraid.”

Tears welled in Tigath’s purple eyes, and he whispered, “I don’t want to see what’s happened… what’s back there.”

Othri gave him a small smile. “We can face it together.” Othri wrapped his arms around Tigath, who took a shuddering breath to calm himself, and he mumbled, “It’s a whole day’s journey to Vuliburge from where we are.”

“Then we better get a move on!”

Othri was trying to be enthusiastic, but his voice sounded small and weak to Tigath, which was exactly how Tigath was feeling.

Othri was a man of action, and he did not mind confrontation. He was not quick to anger, but when it flared up, he could be like a tornado. He had recognized his tendencies during his teenage years, how intense he could be, but it was not until he and Tigath came together that he managed to gain control. Othri knew Tigath had brought out the absolute best in him.

Tigath was contemplative and even-keeled, and he did not like to raise his voice. He enjoyed deep conversations about serious topics, and he could talk to anyone. He avoided arguments whenever possible, and he had a parental streak, though neither of the men wanted children of their own.

Both of the green men were passionate and emotional. Both were quick to make new friends. Both loved cooking, reading, exercise, and spending time in the forest. They did not however like the circumstances that had forced them on this unscheduled camping trip deep into the wilderness.

There was a mild chill in the air, but the sun was starting to rise as the men began their trek. Over the several hours of pathless hiking that brought the pair back toward the city of Vuliburge, Tigath and Othri barely spoke. Their minds each swirled with fears about what they would encounter that evening. The sun climbed above them, and it slowly made its way through the western sky. Sunset was almost upon the men when they arrived again at the rise in the land above their home. They looked out over the devastation.

The fires no longer burned, but Vuliburge did not look like itself. Many of its buildings had been destroyed. Ancient and beloved trees that once towered over the city were gone, razed from the face of the Earth, and the city was now a dark smear on the forested landscape. Vuliburge had always been green.

“That looks really bad,” Tigath breathed.

“It’s so… quiet,” Othri added.

Tigath and Othri turned to each other and locked their purple and orange eyes.

“We’re almost there,” Othri encouraged.

Tigath brought a hand to the back of his neck in an anxious way, and he began twisting his long purple hair around his fingers, but he nodded. “Let’s go.”

The land fell steeply, and the men knew the forest around Vuliburge very well, but they were not expecting what they found as they dropped down from a boulder into a little level clearing in the woods that they had hiked through countless times before.

A trio of Human soldiers were preparing their supper, and at the sudden appearance of the two green-skinned Urcai men, the Humans attacked. Two of them turned to reach for their terrible weapons, but the third simply snatched a dagger and stabbed the green man who was closest to him.

It was Othri. He tried to dodge the weapon, but the blade sank into his side, and he crumpled to the forest floor.

Tigath cried out in fury as the two other Humans aimed their weapons at him, but everything went black.

There was nothing.

The forest was gone. The soldiers were gone.

Othri, and even Tigath himself, no longer existed.

There was only the crushing oblivion of the empty void…

…and then there was silence.

Silence was something more than nothing.

Tigath could hear Othri’s voice. It sounded like he was calling out from far away. His words came slow and garbled at first, muffled and distorted, and then they began to make sense. He was speaking to Tigath.

“The trees…” Othri said, his voice getting clearer.

Tigath opened his purple eyes. Othri was by his side. The knife was still in Othri’s guts. Tigath pushed himself up and grabbed Othri’s hand, causing Othri to wince and clench his jaw. Tigath’s head was spinning, but he managed to say, “You’re hurt!”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks,” Othri replied sarcastically through his teeth. “And I’m barely bleeding,” He quickly continued. “The Humans are dead. I don’t know how, but they are.”

Tigath was confused. “All of them?”

Othri shook his head. “No, just those three soldiers. The trees attacked them.”

“The trees?” Tigath did not comprehend what Othri was talking about, and he focused on the immediate situation. “You’re hurt; we need to get you out of here. Where can we…”

Othri interrupted him. “The Humans have taken up residence in Vuliburge. The violence is over, but they’ve killed so many, and they’ve quarantined the remnant of the free peoples. There’s no one we could go to in Vuliburge who could treat me.”

“What do you mean?” Tigath asked. “How did you figure all this out?”

“After the trees slaughtered those three soldiers, which I can’t explain, I realized you were unconscious. You wouldn’t respond to anything I did, and I couldn’t wake you up, so I dragged you into the trees away from the soldiers’ corpses in case any other Humans came that way, and I left you asleep, sorry.” Othri looked back through the trees in the direction of the clearing where the dead bodies lay. “I went down to the Polgville neighborhood on the edge of the forest. There were… so many of our people. They were dead. The bodies were piled in the streets. Also, there were pamphlets nailed up about a restricted region where Vuliburgians are being kept, and by kept I think they mean prisoner.”

Tigath was beginning to feel more clearheaded. “At least some of our people survived. But what are we going to do about that knife?” he added, pointing at Othri’s side.

Othri turned away from the three dead Humans in the clearing. “At some point, other soldiers are going to find those men and come looking for their killers.”

“But we didn’t kill them!” Tigath retorted.

“That won’t matter to the Humans. I think you were right in suggesting that we head to Delkland, or maybe to the Yellow City. We need to find others if we want to help the people who’ve been captured.”

“We need to get you some help!” Tigath insisted. Despite how tough Othri was acting, he looked like he was getting weaker by the minute. “How are we supposed to deal with that thing?” Tigath asked, and he gave the dagger another look. “How long was I unconscious? How long has that knife been in you?”

“A while, but I can walk, so let’s just go. Delkland is an eight-day trek, which might take longer if this knife slows me down.”

Tigath knew Othri’s proposed journey was impossible. “You won’t make it eight days!”

Othri screwed up his green face in pain and conceded. “You’re probably right, but I don’t know where else we could go, and the two of us can’t deal with this injury.”

“But it’s just going to get worse. Othri, you won’t make it to Delkland.”

“Alright, but let’s get farther away from the corpses, and we can reassess our situation.”

A mere ten minutes later, Othri needed a break from the hiking.

“Are you okay?” Tigath asked.

“I’m just swell,” Othri replied through his gritted teeth.

Tigath furrowed his brow and ran his fingers through his long purple hair to move it back from his forehead, but he decided he ought to pull it back into a bun. “Alright, let’s take a closer look.”

Othri groaned in pain as he raised his shirt away from the knife’s handle, and Tigath assisted him in removing the garment. The blade was in Othri up to its hilt just below his bottom rib. It seemed not to have pierced anything vital. Othri was very muscular, but that did nothing to diminish the severity of the wound.

“We need to take the knife out of you,” Tigath declared.

Othri took a ragged breath. “It’s going to be much worse if we take it out.”

Tigath was beside himself. “But we can’t just leave it in you!”

Othri did not like the prospect of how much his pain would increase when the blade was gone and there was just an empty hole in his side. “How are we supposed to deal with it? How are we supposed to stop it from bleeding? We need bandages and maybe something to pack the wound with, which we don’t have.”

“Our shirts?” Tigath offered. “Maybe we can tear them into strips to wrap around you. Maybe we can also use the fabric like gauze in the wound.”

Othri was not thrilled with the idea, but Tigath pulled off his shirt and began ripping it into usable pieces. He laid them out and prepared to pull the knife from Othri’s side.

“This is going to be horrible,” Othri murmured.

He squeezed his orange eyes shut as Tigath’s fingers gingerly wrapped around the dagger’s handle, and Othri sucked air through his teeth at the fresh wave of pain, but then a squeaky voice cried out to them through the trees.

“No, lads, don’t do that!”