Henry made his way to the opening in the wall, a cold breeze hitting his face. As he stepped out of the room, he felt the sharp pain of snow underneath his feet. The room seemed to have been a large box placed in the middle of a forest.
'Well, this was unexpected…'
Henry was shivering, whether he would make it out of this forest alive was a serious question. Ryan turned around to face Henry, noticing the shivering.
"Oh, we're not too deep in here by the way, just over there is the city."
Ryan pointed towards a patch of trees, Henry had originally thought the large silhouettes he saw were faraway forest, but upon closer inspection they seemed to be large buildings akin to a populated city in the real world.
'Aren't trials supposed to be… In like a magical world, with swords and wizards?'
Henry racked his brain, he may not have had the best cards to study trials, but he knew the basics. Trials are alternate realities Veiled get sent to, in which they are given a task to complete. If the Veiled fails their task, they are killed. However, Henry was given no task and hasn't been able to hear any instruction, alongside that most trials are reported to have taken place in mystical lands filled with monsters, villages, and kingdoms not cities.
Henry was so lost in thought with the anomaly's of his trial that he didn't even realize that he and Ryan had made it to the city. It was almost uncanny, a place in between time, the streetlamps burning filled with oil instead of electricity. The roads were paved with bricks, but the buildings were made of glass and detailed architecture years beyond the technology shown.
"Where are we?"
Henry stopped to ask the detective a simple yet important question.
"Jericho… You really don't remember anything, do you?"
The detective stopped, waiting for a response.
"I know my name."
A quick chuckle exited the detective's mouth.
"You're pretty funny."
The two resumed walking.
Not far from where they had entered the city Ryan stopped at the entrance to a building, a plaque rested on the left of the entrance something written in a language Henry couldn't understand. He focused on the plaque, trying to make sense of it.
"Don't tell me you forgot how to read."
Ryan chuckled to himself, pulling keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door.
"No, I can just was interested."
'Cant let him think anything suspicious of me.'
The door unlocked, opening to a dark lobby of sorts, four chairs sat in the front of the room covered in a layer of dust.
"Wait here, I'll grab you some spare clothes."
Ryan left the lobby. Henry sat down in a chair, wiping dust off the armrest's. Analyzing the room, he noticed that the office was small, just a makeshift lobby and a desk with a notebook on it. Driven by curiosity, Henry walked to the desk, opening the notebook to the first page. Several lines of writing were visible, however all were written in the same language found on the plaque earlier.
'Well that's helpful.'
Henry scoffed, sitting back in his chair. Ryan came down eventually with a large jacket, and a pair of shoes. Henry got dressed now struck with a question.
'Does this world have cars?'
"Hey Ryan?"
Ryan raised his eyebrows, shocked that the kid who had barely spoken to him was calling him by his name.
"Yeah?"
"How are we going to get to the crime scene?"
Silence seeped into the room, Ryan looked at Henry uncomfortably.
"Could you… close your eyes for a second?"
Henry cautiously closed his eyes, keeping tense in case he had to fight. A hand gripped his shoulder a dark feeling entered his stomach as he felt a pulling towards somewhere, he felt warm too warm like he was nearly burning until he felt the cold again.
"You're good now."
Henry opened his eyes to an unfamiliar place, the office was now replaced with the outside of a large building. They had somehow teleported in front of the building. Henry looked at the building dumbfounded.
"It's pretty embarrassing to do, so I rather you keep your eyes closed during it, but it's quick."
Henry's face stayed in shock from seeing something truly magical, he had only seen the abilities of an Awakened on TV, and most of the time it was just the famous ones showing off.
"You're Awakened?"
Henry mustered out the excited question to Ryan, who had kept a face of embarrassment.
"Yeah… lucky me, huh."
Ryan let out a fake laugh.
Henry wanted to ask why Ryan seemed so sad about being Awakened, but Ryan quickly entered the building. Henry ran after, catching up to Ryan, who was now standing in front of a pile of laying silhouettes covered by white blankets. The blankets were pristine, like the people under them were just sleeping peacefully. Henry's face scrunched, he had never seen so many dead people up close, hell he had barely seen a dead person. The closest to this situation he had ever been in was when his room neighbor died from measles, and he only saw him during the funeral.
"Hey, you alright?"
Ryan tapped Henry's shoulder, looking at the boy with a worried look.
"Yeah… so what do you think might jog my memories."
Henry played detective as a kid finding out who stole his blankets, and who had snitched to the administrators about his bad behavior, surely he could figure out something useful.
"Well lets see…"
Ryan pulled out his notepad.
"Seven victims four men, three women. All were killed by a perforating trauma on their head, each found lying on the ground with their hands like this."
Ryan walked to one of the peaceful bodies, grabbing the edge of the blanket and pulling it off. Henry's face dropped, the body was pristine like a porcelain statue. The right hand of the corpse was shaped like a gun, pointing to a small hole on the side of their head. Henry only had one question.
"Why's there no blood?"
Ryan made a grin.
"Well, that's quite the question here, give me your hand."
Ryan took Henry's hand, placing it on the arm of the corpse. It ran cold, freezing cold.
"Its cold."
Henry stated the obvious, hoping to get an idea of what Ryan was thinking.
"Not just cold, it's frozen. Each body is frozen down to every last drop of blood."
'How is that possible? Maybe it was an Awakened?'
Henry had a million thoughts going through his head. How did this happen, why am I the only survivor. Henry grabbed his head, thoughts still racing, before he felt a chill up his spine. His mind being filled with images he didn't recognize, Henry shook his body around. Unable to keep his footing, Henry fell to the ground barely noticing a faint silhouette watching from above.