"Let the first Trance begin."
The Nullspawn let an ear-wrenching screech from the bottom of its chasm. A proclamation of its birth. A profanity to the Trance.
It sent chills down the spine of every human in the room. A rush of something cold and hot splashed against their skins while their hair stood on end.
One moment, a nurse stood. The next… a death creature screamed.
If this weren't a trial contorted from his memories and consciousness, Luca would have been genuinely concerned.
Though it was not that he wasn't at the moment.
With a rush of adrenaline, the young boy lunged forward as the Spawn struck forward for an attack.
'What am I thinking? I can't match a Spawn.' The thought had just left him when the creature's attack met his flesh.
In a heartbeat, he felt everything swirl in a blur.
'Huh?'
His mind spun.
A moment ago, he stood behind his parents and in the next, he was now confronting the creature.
Standing between the incoming attack and his parents behind him.
'What… what was that?'
Something had taken over. A strange sensation that seemed so transient, he couldn't even comprehend it.
And the young boy tried… but sadly, time was not on his side.
In that instance, pain flooded his body and snapped him from his thoughts.
The creature's elongated limbs and sharp claws came in contact with his skin and tore through it.
Luca folded like a piece of paper, and what came next was simply loud and chilling.
He was sent flying into the wall, slamming against it like a rag doll before falling to the ground limply.
Everything registered all at once, and what followed was natural.
"aaaAAAAHHHHH!"
Luca screamed his lungs out.
He rolled on the floor while he clenched his abdomen.
Blood ran down in waves. Forming a pool that clung to his body.
'It hurts!' His head screamed. 'It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!'
Trances were indeed in the mind, but nothing about them was fake. Not the pain, not the blood and definitely not the horrors.
Sadly, Luca had come to learn that through experience.
"AHHHH! Stay away from my child!"
"GET AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!"
The familiar voices of his parents rang in his ears. Their voices, stricken with fear, bounced against the humid walls.
He looked up. Watching his father stand in front of his mother while they backed away.
Something surged in him. A strength… foreign. Unseen and unexplained, sprang Luca into action.
He bit his lips as tears ran down his face.
"Mother! Father!"
The Nullspawn, which had been focused on the parents, now found its focus split.
The boy coughed up blood as he staggered to his feet. Thick threads of crimson hang loosely from the corner of his lips.
The world seemed to be in circles. A strain from the hit on the wall.
Yet, Luca was restless.
He rushed forward in a heartbeat.
Stomping his feet on the ground, a path was paved for him.
The Spawn turned slowly.
Its sunken eyes lazily stared at the boy.
A wet coo sound reverberated from its throat.
Then in a flash, it lunged forward.
Covering the distance between them before slamming against the boy with crushing force.
Luca felt the air jump out of his mouth as he was pushed back. An eruption of sound and air spread from the collision.
He was slammed against the cemented wall with a force that caused cracks to spiderweb across its surface.
His life flashed before his eyes. And it should have ended with it, but he collapsed. Eyes widened from pain. The pain was fuel. Fuel that awakened him from the forever slumber that threatened to swallow him.
The creature's snarls rattled in his ears as the screams of his parents came next.
He snapped his head forward. Arcs of red from veins pulsed within his eyes.
The Spawn turned to him as it held his mother with one hand and his father with the other.
Cackling slightly while the newborn began to cry. Held firmly by the Mother.
Its chainsaw teeth widened into a grin before it took off into the hallway, smashing against the wall before rushing forward.
Luca nearly went pale from shock.
'Did it just smile at me?!'
He staggered to his feet, pain boiling like hot lava from his abdomen as he slipped and fell with a thud.
Looking down in confusion, his eyes widened ever so slightly.
Blood oozed out from the wound, forming a puddle he had slipped on.
'No…' his body trembled as he attempted to stand once more.
Something throbbed in his body as if he had been set on fire with a surge of adrenaline.
His face twisted in agony as tears fell.
"I won't let you go, you goddamn spawn!"
He spat as he bolted to the door. Crawling with all his might before limping into a sprint.
He crashed against the hallway wall before rushing after the Spawn.
Following the loud thud from its heavy footprints.
Luca bit hard as he endured. His gaze caught sight of the creature that played coy with his family.
"COME BACK HERE, YOU FILTH!" He screamed.
Afar, the creature reached a stairway.
Suddenly slamming its foot against the ground and rotating a perfect 180 to face the boy.
He dropped the Mother, slashed her arms and grabbed the baby, causing another high-pitched scream.
"LIORA?!" Mavrik screamed as he fought against the creature's grip, but clearly, it was a wasted effort.
The Spawn sneered like the devil. Kicking Liora straight at the speeding boy before darting down the stairs.
Luca widened his eyes in shock as he attempted to slow down, only to fail miserably.
His mother crashed into him before he could blink, sending them across the hall to the other end.
Back to the start.
They struck a door behind them with a loud bang.
Luca was taking the brunt of it as his eyes spun in disorientation.
"No! My baby, my baby, my baby…"
Liora trembled uncontrollably in the boy's arms as she wept.
Looking up at the boy's face before striking it with her arms. Pushing herself away from Luca.
"It was you, wasn't it! You summoned that thing! You…. You brought that creature to take my child from me!"
Luca stared at her, dumbfounded.
"Mo–" he froze at the statement.
Anger growing uncontrollably from within.
"Madam, I did no such thing!"
Liora jumped on him with a firm grip on his collar.
"My child! Give me my child! MY CHILD! GIVE IT BACK"
She slammed him against the door, causing a small tremble and crack sound to reach the boy's ears.
Luca stared at his mother with heavy-lidded eyes. His arms clenched hers when he noticed the door giving in to their weight.
He looked up for a second, and his eyes snapped in recognition.
Above the door was a signpost. Showcasing letters in the shape of a person.
It read Panic Room.
'A panic room?'
The Trance replicated the laws of the real world in order to produce a trial that fitted the Trancer.
In his case, the rules of the hospital should have been copied. Every bit of it.
Including the Panic room, which was found in all public enterprises. Used as a storehouse to keep state-of-the-art explosives and arms.
Weapons, barely good enough to be used against the Null Spawns.
'Does that mean…'
He wondered when the door gave in to their weight. Breaking into the room as Mother and son fell through.
Liora continued in her tantrum as they fell, but Luca had turned his attention to something else as he caught a view of the interior of the room.
Excitement surged at that moment as a smirk formed on his face.
Without hesitation, he pushed his mother aside and stood to his feet. Rushing to different parts of the room to pick up the arms, he recognised.
Blazer guns, Firecracker bombs, Landmines, Stabbombs, Thickened vests and the like.
There were many things Luca was aware of, though few he knew how to use.
In a minute, the boy was done.
He turned to Liora, who had been watching him and slowly handed her a pistol-like gun.
Liora stared at it and then at the boy.
Trembling ever so slightly in confusion.
'... She wishes to save that child by all means.'
He pondered. 'Yet, I am not that child.'
What was he meant to do, leave the child to die? Whether it was here to take its place or not, Luca would prefer to be the judge of that.
"I won't let your child die."
He said to Liora before walking out of the room. He used the hole created by their crash.
With hastening steps, he hurried towards the stairway. On reaching it, he glanced down, scanning the floors when he spotted a blur running down.
'This Hospital is over 10 stories.'
He held onto the rail and lifted himself over it.
'And we just happened to be on the highest floor.'
Gravity claimed him. The world became a blur of rushing wind and concrete.
Luca held his breath, eyes locked on the floors screaming past him in a ten-story building.
He wasn't just falling— he was hunting.