Fractured World (working title) 001 (Patreon)

“So this is it,” Dal Park said, offering a clipboard to the woman before him.

The woman barely glanced at him, taking the clipboard and scanning it. Dal noted she gripped the clipboard tightly, her light eyes scanning the pages of the standard contract and then finishing it off with a harsh scribble of a name at the bottom of the last page.

“Payment is the first Wednesday of each month, after two months of continuous non-payment the items stored within will be considered abandoned and sold off,” Dal finished. “Since this is a larger exterior storage unit, it is not eligible for the twenty four hour access as the interior storage units are. This back area closes at seven PM and opens again at seven AM.”

“That’s fine,” the woman said, turning away from him.

Dal shrugged watching as she stalked toward the twenty-six foot long truck she had backed into the storage units. He looked about and noted that there was no one else helping her out. Such large trucks were popular with moving out of a decent size apartment or house. Normally they would be packed to the gills and that would be a lot of work for a solo person.

The company’s insurance didn’t cover him volunteering to help a customer unload their things. Not that he would have volunteered for such back breaking work. Also, someone had to manage the front desk as the general manager had been called away to a meeting and the Handyman, Luis, had called in sick.

Dal tucked the clipboard and paperwork away in a satchel and then began whistling as he made his way back toward the main office. The roar of the truck engine and the warning alarms of the truck backing up drowned out his whistles.

Store Ur Hoard was a standard storage unit rental business on a three acre lot at the edge of the city. It was divided into three areas, the first being the modern style glass enclosed three story front warehouse that held storage units in a ‘climate controlled’ setting, which just meant air conditioning. The largest of the sections were the outdoor self storage units, going from eight by eight units to larger sixteen footers, with the last being the big units that were like small barns.

Dal glanced at the larger units taking up the back end of the storage lot. They were five of them, nearly forty eight feet long and twenty deep. Enough to store vehicles, boats, and whatever the renters desired. Those massive units weren’t in high demand, as they were too big and the cost to rent one monthly was as much as renting an apartment. The only appeal was that it had water, electricity, and heat or AC on request.

Only two of those massive units were being rented at the moment. One by the owner of Store Ur Hoard and one of his friends who was keeping his ‘toys’ safe as he was going through a messy divorce. According to the paperwork, the owner John, was renting both units and his friend’s name was on none of the paperwork.

Dal didn’t work in divorce law, but hiding away possessions and the like was probably a tad on the illegal side. He was just a paper pusher and occasional manager, so he wasn’t being paid enough to involve himself in the monetary squabbles of the more wealthy.

He pushed open the heavy metal security door and passed through the employee section of the warehouse. There was a single bathroom, a fairly large lunch/meeting room with a vending machine and large refrigerator. At one time there had been at least a dozen employees in the building, maintenance staff, more paper pushers, and some drivers to move about the tiny fleet of three moving vans they had out in the parking lot.

Dal could see the writing on the wall, there had been a few hiccups in payroll and the free coffee and donuts and occasional pizza party were things of the past. The three moving vans hadn’t been rented out in months and maintenance on them had fallen to the wayside. Even the small shop that sold cardboxes, tape, and padlocks was on the chopping block in the next few weeks.

The dread of finding a new job weighted on Dal’s mind. A twenty two year old college dropout and with only two jobs on his resume; his prospects didn’t look all too good.

The front office of the warehouse was dead silent as he plopped down in front of a computer and began entering data into the system. He glanced up at the clock and saw that it was nine in the morning. He had six hours to go.

He busied himself; cleaning, doing inventory, and cleaning out the public restroom and making another pot of coffee. He checked the security cameras in the small security room and watched as the woman unloaded her belongings from the back of the truck. Her face was a grim line of determination, but occasionally he could see her kick at a box or throw something violently into the storage unit.

There were plenty of reasons a person would be unloading their belongings, but one that Dal had seen more often was divorce and separation. The woman was in her mid to late thirties, her dark curly hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail and the furniture were more high end than the Ikea junk Dal owned.

Combined with her terse attitude and complete lack of questions; Dal guessed she was in the midst of some kind of breakup. At least she wasn’t trying to hide her stuff under a false name.

Dal leaned back in his chair, glancing at the clock once more. It was nearly noon and the general manager hadn’t return yet. He checked his phone and saw no missed calls. The office phone was functioning as well.

He sighed, it was like Marie for her ‘meetings’ to extend into working lunches and more meetings. What could a failing self storage business require so many meetings for anyway? The answer was obvious; no one was checking in on them. The entire business was on a slow slide to bankruptcy and no one cared.

Dal sighed again.

He really had to begin looking for a new job.

The front door of the office was flung open and the woman entered. She eyed him, her eyes narrowing as he pulled his feet off the desk.

“Can I help you?” Dal asked.

“Got anything to drink in this place?”

“There’s a soda vending machine in the supply shop. There is also bottled water sold there.”

The woman nodded and moved toward the small shop.

“Everything going okay?” Dal asked, just to be polite.

The woman gave him another look as she perused the selection of soda. She scowled as she didn’t have any cash and the old vending machine didn’t take cards or electronic payments.

“You take cards?” she asked, pulling out two bottles of water from a small refrigerator and heading to his desk.

‘Yes, ma’am,” Dal said.

The woman stopped, he could see her mouth move, but she didn’t speak. “Ma’am” was the word she mouthed. She shook her head and smacked the two bottles on the desktop.

Dal quickly tallied up the cost and pushed the card reader toward her. She scanned her card and grabbed the bottles.

“Uh… Have a nice day,” Dal said.

The woman stopped again, her dark eyes burrowing holes into Dal as he stood there paralyzed.

“Yeah,” was all she said before heading to the glass doors.

Dal tried to smile, but that died as he saw the world outside began to warp. He stared through the floor to ceiling tinted tempered glass windows as the businesses across the four lane highway seem to warp and shift. The woman also stopped, her hand on the door handle and the two bottles of water clattering to the floor.

“What the shit,” she whispered, her low tone seeming to echo across the dead silent room.

There was a rumble and before Dal could move; the world plunged into darkness.

Laughter woke Dal up. He lay on his back, in a dark void. The laughter continued, not one voice but many, maybe a dozen or so. He blinked his eyes as he could see and although he seemed to be in a void, he could feel the floor under his back.

The laughter continued, increasing as Dal slowly got to his feet. A moment later he staggered back and fell on his ass as he looked up to see twelve figures looking down at him.

They weren’t human, or were human, but their faces were all angles and stretched out. Their mouths wide and filled with sharp teeth, there eyes hollow pits, and their skin bone white. The only difference between them were the crowns they wore, some were gold, red, black, silver, and other colors.

They were all laughing.

“Why does it see us?” a rose crowned figure asked. They were still laughing, but Dal could hear their words boom through his mind.

“It matters not,” an ebony crowned figure announced. Massive hands appeared over Dal, but instead of grabbing for him, the hands morphed into a bone white set of scissors. Great massive cutting instruments that were three times his height.

He tried to scream, but he couldn’t say anything. The words just couldn’t form, no matter how hard he tried. Were they going to stab him with giant bone scissors?

Instead of impaling him, the scissors plunged into the floor and began slicing it up. Dal looked down to see that the floor he stood on had become a map, a monochrome view of coastlines, roads, mountains, and lakes spread underneath him.

The great scissors sliced away and Sal tried to dodge them, as the map beneath his were cut to smaller and smaller pieces.

A dozen great hands reached to the floor and Dal watched as the creatures stirred it up, all the while laughing. The small flecks of the maps were tossed around, floating into the air and raining back down into a chaotic mess.

A crimson crowned figure towered over Dal and grabbed him. Dal stared at the massive figure, with its laughing gaping face, and felt a terrible coldness infuse him.

“Enjoy,” the creature said and tossed Dal down.

Dal fell and fell, the floor didn’t seem to move further away, instead he felt as if he were falling into one of the tattered maps. He made out a mountain, what looked like a great river, and then there was darkness once more.

Dal gasped and slammed his head against the office chair. He let out a curse and scrabbled to his feet, hitting the chair again and ramming into the desk. He cursed once more, finally realizing he couldn’t see a damn thing.

Was he blind?

No. Dal noted soft moonlight entering the windows. He dug into his trousers and pulled out his cell phone. He activated the cellphone flashlight and moved it around.

There appeared to be no damage or strangeness, only that it was dark. He pointed the flashlight to the clock on the wall and frowned as he saw that it was only 1225 PM. Either he’d been out for an entire day or only twenty-five minutes had passed.

Dal heard a groan and startled as he jerked his flashlight toward the sound. The woman from before was sitting upon the tiled floor. She rubbed her head and cursed loudly.

“What the fuck happened?” she demanded and then cursed once more. “Shine that light elsewhere.”

Dal did so dutifully, turning the light back to himself and the desk. He got out from behind it and made his way to the floor to ceiling windows.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered as he looked out the windows.

It was a clear and brilliant night, the kinds of nights that were impossible this close to the city. Sharp bright stars filled the sky and Dal stared at them.

What caught his attention was the two moons that hung in the air, both full and bone white in the sky.

“Oh, shit,” the woman said.

“This is some isekai shit,” Dal said.

The woman frowned. “What?”

“Isekai, where you get tossed into another world,” Dal said, he peered up at the two moons. They seemed to be about the same size, a hand’s width apart in the sky.

The woman didn’t say anything, instead staring out the window. They had turned off their flashlights and stood in the darkness, coming to terms with their situation.

“This can’t happen,” the woman said. “It’s impossible.”

“I think I saw it happening,” Dal said. He cleared his throat and told her of the vision he had.

“That’s a hallucination,” the woman said. “I didn’t see anything. One moment the world went weird and I woke up on the floor. Was I drugged?” She looked down at a smart watch on her wrist and swiped through some icons. “BP is up, but that just means I’m stressed. We need to see a doctor.”

“Why? I feel fine.”

“People don’t just go unconscious,” the woman said. “If you pass out, there’s something seriously wrong.”

Dal chewed on that information and looked back at the two moons. “Yeah, I think I’ll go with some alien gods swirling around multiple worlds and tossing us here.”

The woman snorted. She put her hand on the door and Dal cried out.

“What?” she asked.

“Don’t go out there. We don’t know what’s out there. This is isekai, there might be monsters and the like.”

The woman rolled her eyes again and reached for the door handle. She paused and looked up toward the two moons.

“Shit,” she said. “You’re right. We don’t know what happened and where we are. This definitely isn’t Broadway Street.”

Dal nodded, looking out at what appeared to be a forest before them. In the bright moon light he could see the front area of the Store Ur Hoard, which was a parking lot. The three battered vans sat huddled together on one end of the lot, but the twenty odd spaces were empty. Beyond that would have been some drainage swales and a wide sidewalk, then the four lane Broadway Street.

The parking lot remained, but everything beyond that was gone. In the place of Broadway were massive trees that rose forty feet in the air, creating a pitch black wall that could hide trolls, ogres, or goblins.

“Is there a secure place here?” the woman asked.

“Huh?” Dal asked. “There’s a freight elevator that way,” Dal pointed to his right, ”also some stairs, there are security doors on each flight of stairs, so that might stop something. Back here is the employees area, all brick and secured with security doors. Water cooler, bathroom, vending machine and the general manager’s office.”

As Dal finished, there was a sudden beep and then the emergency lighting flickered on. He jerked in surprise as the bright LED lights filled the darkened room.

“That’s not good,” the woman said.

“What? Why?”

“We’re now lit up,” the woman said. “We can see out the glass and whatever’s out there can see in.”

“Oh.” Dal looked out and saw the high mounted LEDs flood the parking lot with light. He searched his memory and tried to figure out how long the power was supposed to last in those flood lights.

“Normally emergency lighting should last ninety minutes,” the woman said. She glanced around, “Looks like you all cheaped out on the lighting. So maybe an hour?”

“Are you an electrician?” Dal asked.

“Nurse,” the woman replied.

“Oh.”

“We need to turn the interior lights off,” she continued. “If there are creatures out there, then they should be a bit afraid of the lights. But if they can see us through the windows, then they might be a bit more inclined to see how we taste. If we are on another world.”

Dal nodded. “How do we turn off the lights. Aren’t they emergency lights, therefore can’t be shut off?”

“Find a ladder and I’ll show you,” the woman said.

Dal paused. “What’s your name again?” he asked.

The woman grimaced. “Sorry. I’m Samira Garnier.” She extended her hand and Dal shook it.

“Dal Park,” he said.

“Good to meet you,” Samira said.

Dal nodded and headed to the utility closet to find a small ladder. Samira quickly set it up and turned off the office emergency light. She didn’t say anything and quickly went about shutting off lights.

“Just a button behind them,” Samira said. “Easy peasy.”

Dal nodded. “Cool.”

Dal handed the nurse a headlamp he had found in the utility room. She gladly accepted it and moved about the first floor, then into the first floor warehouse, shutting off lights.

“You seem pretty chill,” Dal said.

“Chill? Me?” Samira paused for a moment. “Well, if this isekai theory of yours is right, everything we’ve known is gone. But right now we have to secure this place and see what daylight brings.”

Dal nodded as he set up the ladder.

“You seem pretty chill yourself,” Samira said.

Dal shrugged. “I like to procrastinate,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow or the next day I’ll have a freak out.”

Samira chuckled at that. “Same,” she said. “It’s natural to have a delayed response to traumatic events. Right now we don’t know what’s going on, so I guess we’re not rightly freaking out at an appropriate level.”

“I’ll endeavor to do more screaming,” Dal said, folding the ladder and following Samira.

There was a single battered sofa in the break room. Samira sat in it, yawning.

“Not much here,” Dal said.

“You have coffee though,” she replied.

“Luke warm, just like mom used to make it,” Dal joked.

“Climbing up ladders and trying to unload a truck has me wiped out,” Samira yawned. “It doesn’t look like dawn is anytime soon,” she added.

It had taken them an hour to turn off most of the emergency lights. As Samira had guessed, most lights lost power before an hour was over. That made their job easier. They had also taken the time to see if they could see anything on the third floor of the warehouse. It was too dark and the trees too thick.

“There are some packing blankets in storage around here. They were never much of a seller,” Dal said. He rose to his feet and rummaged in a storage room, bringing out a half dozen packing blankets.

“It is a bit chilly,” Samira said.

“Does that mean this world might be in early spring or heading to winter?” Dal asked.

“How should I know?” Samira responded.

In the dim light of a single candle that had been lit, Dal could see the hard expression she had in the morning was gone. Sometime in the last hour she had softened.

“How do these isekai stories go?” Samira asked.

“Guy get sucked into a game like world, gains powers, gets a harem, and becomes over powered.”

“So nerd power fantasies?”

“Basically.”

“Who knows, outside might be a futuristic world where no one wants for anything. A utopia.”

Dal shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, a little disappointed at that thought.

Samira settled down on the sofa, looking up at the ceiling. “I thought life sucked after finding my husband fucking my sister,” she said, “but it looks like God’s going all-in in making my life suck.”

Dal sat there, unable to say anything. “Well, at least you’re not alone,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” Samira responded.

Dawn arrived and Dal was both elated and terrified. They had found the roof access to the warehouse and stood in the chilly morning air. It seemed the front of the warehouse faced an easterly direction, as the sun rose up from behind pristine forests.

“Damn,” Samira whispered. “That’s beautiful. I didn’t expect that.”

Dal shivered at the sight. “Looks like a lot of woods,” he said.

“Not an outdoorsy type?” Samira asked, grinning at him.

“I have a computer if I want to play in the outdoors,” he responded.

Samira shook her head and laughed. “Although, I think we should be freaking pretty hard right now.”

Dal agreed. The storage warehouse faced east, toward a massive forest, but to the west were white capped mountains. They weren’t massive, but they appeared to be a solid row of black blue rocks stretching north to south for miles upon miles.

From the north, Dal could see a wide river cutting through the woods. Samira said it was probably five or seven miles from them and possibly a half mile wide.

“We’re trapped between mountains and a river,” Samira said. “I don’t see any signs of civilization,” she added.

“What would that be?” Dal asked.

“Smoke, mostly,” she replied. “Campfires, cooking fires, just a normal house burning down would be noticed from here.”

Dal agreed once more. They were on a sort of plateau that Samira said extended a mile around them. The trees might be thick, but a mile out they dropped to half their height and spread out toward the river. She also spotted a wide creek north of the storage units.

“At least we’ll have water,” Samira said. “We’ll have to begin cracking open these units to see if we can find anything of use. Food, weapons, and gear.”

Dal nodded, still stunned by the view before him. “There are snacks in the vending machine, but that’s all the food we might have.”

“Although my ex-husband is a cheating piece of shit; we both loved the outdoors. I can hunt, fish, and track, if need be.”

“Uh…” Dal thought for a moment. “I can cook up a mean package of ramen,” he finally said.

“At your age, I don’t think I even knew how to do that,” Samira said. “In time, we all learn and we all grow our skills.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Eighteen?”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“Oh.”

Dal grimaced. “Okay. There are some bolt cutters in the storage room. We’ll need to cut all the locks to see what’s in them. Truthfully, business has not been all that good, only half of the total units were being rented out.”

“We have shelter, some food, and plenty of water. We’ll be okay for a week or two,” Samira said. There was a glint in her eye as she looked out across the vast untouched forest. A look of eagerness and challenge. Dal glanced at the endless trees and sighed.

They began with the indoor units. The first floor was given over to large twelve by sixteen foot units. There was a large rolling garage door that allowed access to the units. On the first floor there were twenty units, with only two thirds being currently rented out.

Dal had a list of which units were currently being rented and brought out a pair of bolt cutters. Samira took the honors of snapping the first lock as Dal tried and failed at it.

“All in the grip,” Samira said, showing Dal. He nodded, his face still a dull red from his first few attempts.

They rolled up the garage style doors.

“Does it tell you what these people store here?’ Samira asked.

“No, just who they were. Although a former co-worker kept a list of what people stored, but that was just so he could steal them.” Dal laughed and shook his head. Rupert was a real asshole and he was now serving three years for armed robbery.

“Got anyone living in these places?” Samira asked. “I hear storage units are a great place for cheapskates to rent out an live out of.”

Dal frowned. “We had a few, but they’ve all been chased out long ago.”

Samira nodded. “Well, this is a bust in the food and weapons department.”

The storage unit was filled with a scattered remains of torn cardboard boxes and trash. It seemed like whomever had rented the place wasn’t keeping much in it.

“Next,” Samira grinned.

They moved through the first floor. There were twenty units but only twelve were being rented out. Of the twelve, three held nothing but trash, four held furniture and clothing, three held building supplies, lumber and some tools, one held car parts and tools, but the last one was the real winner.

“A prepper!” Samira cried out in joy. She moved forward and pulled the lid off a five gallon bucket. Inside were the white pellets of rice.

Dal scanned the room, on metal shelves there were scores of buckets filled with grains, rice, beans, and boxes of MREs and other non perishable foods.

“Just food though,” Samira said after a few minutes of searching the place. “A real prepper would have weapons, tools, and gear in with the food. Although this was an environmentally stable place, I guess it makes some sense to just keep food in here.”

Dal checked the list.

“This is Grady Garrow’s,” Dal said. “He’s got another unit under his name outside.”

“Wanna bet it’s filled with more stuff?” Samira grinned.

Dal frowned. “We’ll have to go outside for that,” he said.

Samira’s grin fade as she looked at the large red rolling garage doors. Besides going to the roof of the warehouse, they hadn’t been outside since. In fact, Samira’s moving truck was still parked outside, it’s rear doors opened and the unit she had been loading was still ajar.

“We’ll have to do it eventually,” Samira said. There was a tinge of fear in her voice, but she picked up a crowbar they had taken from a unit and looked at the door. “We’ll need to figure out where we are and if there’s anyone else out there. We can’t be the only ones in this place, or this world.”

“We’re like Adam and Eve,” Dal muttered.

Samira flinched and looked at him. Dal stepped back at the expression on her face, it spanned both sorrow and rage.

“I’m sorry,” Dal said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Samira clenched her eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. “No. I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to…” she shook her head. “I’m sorry. Let’s just go outside and see what it’s like.”

Dal nodded and they headed to the personelle door to the side of the garage doors. It couldn’t be opened from the outside and would automatically lock once it closed. Dal had the keys with him, so they’d be able to get back in.

The air was slightly chilly, but in an early morning sort of way.

“Damn,” Samira said, taking a long deep breath. “Have you never smelled such sweet air?”

Dal shrugged. “Smells normal.”

“No exhaust, no cooking smells, no dogshit, and no wonky sewers releasing gas.” Samira took another long breath. “Well, I think I need a shower soon.”

Dal sniffed his white button up shirt. Cleanliness was one thing his mother had always hammered into him. That brought up another thought. “We need to build an outhouse or something.”

Samira let out a grunt of laughter. “What?”

“There’s no water or plumbing. Everything outside of the storage is gone, therefore no sewage or water.”

Samira sighed. “Ugh, do you know how filthy those things are?”

Dal shrugged. “You’re the camper lady.”

“Am I?” Samira chuckled. “But you’re right, we need a spot to poop and pee. If there are wild animals out there, spreading out the love is only going to piss them off.”

“How? Won’t we be marking ‘our territory’?”

“No one gives up things without a fight,” Samira said. “If this is some animals territory, now we’re the squatters trying to take over.”

Dal found logic in that statement.

They passed Samira’s truck and she sighed. Dal saw what she was looking at. The driver’s door was open and the key was still in the ignition. There was no chiming indicating the door was ajar and that meant only one thing.

“Battery’s dead,” Samira said. “Those three vans outside work?”

Dal shrugged. “I mean, they did three months ago. I don’t know now. Luis was supposed to be doing maintenance on them until the owner sold them off. No one’s been really doing their jobs lately,” Dal said.

“A big place for only one person to run,” Samira said.

“Preach it,” Dal said as they passed her unit.

There were furniture scattered about and a lot of trash, along with a few broken items.

Samira gave a grimace. “I was blowing off a little steam,” she said.

Dal nodded, having seen her throw things about on the cameras. It was her stuff to break and it wasn’t as if the owner of the units was going to come and demand that she pay for any damages. For all Dal knew, the owner was in a different world.

“Yeah,” he said.

They continued onward. Grady’s storage unit was toward the back, on the last row next to the big units. Dal found it and brought out the bolt cutters. Samira raised an eyebrow.

“All in the grip,” Dal said, adjusting the tool upon the lock.

“What’s that?” Samira asked.

Dal looked up. The back end of the self storage only held the five big units, but there was a lot of space for vehicles to turn around in or be parked. There was a two vehicle road that lead from the back to the front gates designed for large loads, so it took a moment for Dal to see what Samira was gesturing at.

A creature staggered from one of the units, the steel door had been peeled back to allow it access into the unit. Dal immediately recognized it as the Store Ur Hoard owner’s storage unit. The creature was pale blue and sickly looking, its head too big and its body too small, yet it carried a crooked spear and limped toward them, its small black eyes full of menace.

“I think it’s a goblin,” Dal said.

“A what? How can such a creature even survive. It looks like it’s having a hard time even walking. Aren’t goblins also supposed to be green?”

“Where there’s one, there’s usually more,” Dal said. “Usually in games they’re like pack animals, safety and dangerous in numbers.”

Samira backed up, putting her back against the storage units and peering down the alleyway and toward her truck.

“You’re right,” Dal said. He watched as two more of the sickly looking goblins pulled themselves out from the hole in the storage unit door.

Their beady black eyes latched on them and they surged forward, claws and spears raised.