The room was cold, damp and dark. There were no windows to let in any light, the only illumination being from a single bulb that hung a few feet above Aarons' head, drifting side to side from a hidden draft emanating from one of the many cracks in the reinforced concrete walls. The rusty metal chair that Aaron sat in was bolted to the floor, his wrists and ankles tied with carbon fiber cable ties, the only movement he could manage was with his head but even that was restrictive as he couldn't see what was behind. He knew what he had said had rumbled his captors. Victon circled Aaron slowly and meticulously, observing him, judging him, thinking of his next words and how he would reply. The silence was tortuous, the sound of Victons footsteps as they scraped along the concrete floor full of dust, metal shavings, loose bolts, and screws, being the only relief. Aaron could barely make out the hooded overcoats of the other figures in the shadows that stood like watchful predators, guardians of death and destruction. Their lack of movement or sound made them all the more intimidating adding to the unpredictable tension that encapsulated the room. Finally, Victon stopped, he stood directly in front of Aaron and looked down at him.

'How do you know that name?' He asked calmly.

Aaron waited before he answered. 'I don't know...from stories, legends...What does it matter? you're just going to kill me anyway.' Aaron replied treading carefully so as not to anger them.

'Oh, it matters. It matters a lot. You see, not everybody knows of our name or that we even exist, those that do, well, let's just say they don't avoid our gaze for long. But you do, I'm curious as to how.' Victon lowered himself so that he was at eye level with Aaron. He stared deep into him, searching for answers, searching for anything that could give him some inclination as to who Aaron was.

'I don't know what you want from me but I doubt you'll find it. I'm nobody just like Phil and Willis who you murdered.' Aaron said, emphasizing the word murdered as though it was poison in his mouth. Aaron stared back at Victon refusing to look away with an eery and surprising calmness that he didn't know he had.

'If you know who we are then you must know what we're capable of? And who we are sent by.' Victon said. He leaned closer. His overcoat parted ever so slightly revealing an object attached to his hip. It caught the attention of Aaron who saw it just for a moment, Aaron didn't look at it for fear he might alert Victon to his discovery, instead, he pretended he saw nothing as the slim essence of hope emerged.

'I told you I know nothing. Tell me why I'm here, why haven't you killed me?' Aaron stalled. Fishing for answers and biding his time. The seed of a plan slowly taking shape.

Victon considered his question and finally indulged Aaron. 'We were sent to find someone. A person who poses a great danger and who is a threat to our world. You were right, we are GateKeepers, the keepers of the key, the guardians of power and we guard the gateway to the Void. A powerful world, the likes of which you'll never know.' He stood up and turned to the others. 'We serve Malum the Great One, the ruler of worlds and commander of Legions. We were born from his power, tasked with hunting down those who reject his dominion, for 200 years we have held the Gate and not once have we faltered.'

'And you think I'm the one you were sent to find?' Aaron asked. None of it made sense but he had to play their game.

'Like I said, we were ordered to find someone. Someone whose very existence is a mortal threat and there you were, staring at us through a window. So I asked myself, how is it that he can see us? I'm not talking about seeing us like you would another person, I'm talking about really seeing us? To know who we are.' Victon came in close to Aaron again, leaning in slower like an animal who had cornered his prey. 'So I ask for the final time. Who are you?'

Aaron had to act. He saw his opportunity, the object peering through the opening of Victons overcoat. He knew he probably wouldn't escape but it was the only chance he had to put up some sort of fight, to hurt them and show them that he wouldn't lay down and submit like the other defenseless people they had murdered.

'I'll tell you.' Aaron whispered as quietly as he could, hoping that Victon would lean all the more closer. The restraints on his wrist were digging deep into his skin as he stretched out his hand desperately trying to get nearer to the object. He thought any second now Victon would catch on to his attempt, or that one of the others standing further back would see. Seconds felt like years. Victon moved his ear close to the side of Aarons' head so as to hear what he had to say. The silence grew.

Finally, Aaron broke the tension. 'I told you, I'm nobody.' He pushed against the restraints with all he had, ignoring the pain and grasped the handle of the object. 'Time to send you back.' A huge sonic pulse rippled throughout the room as a beam of searing darkness tore through the underarm of Victon and out through the top of his skull. A giant wave of blinding energy crashed into Aaron, piercing his mind and attacking his senses. It felt as though his very soul had been ripped out and dipped into a frozen lake, like the feeling of biting into an ice cube with a sensitive tooth, it washed over every part of him as he writhed in agony.

It lasted for only a second, after which he opened his eyes. Victon collapsed onto Aarons lap and slid off onto the floor, the others made no move to attack Aaron. Instead, they made a motion with their hands and tiny cracks appeared in the air around them, shards of black and purple light shone through as they disappeared into an unseen abyss the dust kicking up around where they had been. They were gone. The room was empty and Aaron was alone.

'What the hell just happened?' Aaron asked himself, he could feel his heart rate thumping as if it were trying to escape his chest. Shock began to manifest as he stared down at the weapon he was holding. It looked like a shortened rail gun that was no bigger than a pistol. The metal was exotic, rare and something that Aaron hadn't seen before. Grey in color almost like gun metal but deeper. White bluish veins ran through the weapon, glowing and pulsating ever so subtly interwoven with the metal, like ores through a rock. He didn't know how he had managed to use the weapon as it had not trigger and no other notable way of firing it.

He took aim at the wall opposite. Pushing and prodding various parts of the weapon, shaking it and squeezing it, nothing happened. Aaron looked down at the lifeless body of Victon, a pool of blood had collected around him. 'How do you work this thing?' Scrunching his face and eyes in frustration and then sinking back into the chair.

He thought back to the nights' events, all that had happened. He thought about the GateKeepers and what they had told him, he remembered the Sunburst cafe, watching the rain, the red booth, the cup of hot Smogolate, Big Phil and...Willis. A painful flashback of her disappearing under the Hydro-Bus suddenly hit him along with the banging noise of Phil being murdered. The memory shot through his body like a bolt of lightning. He tried to think about something else but couldn't. With everything that had happened tonight, he hadn't had time to stop and realize the true extent of what he had witnessed. An anger rose within him.

Out of nowhere, the vents on the gun started to glow. Aaron looked down. Tiny waves of heat radiated from within the barrel. A low sound started coming from the weapon as though it was charging, a sound like jet engines starting up. 'What the...' he began to speak but as soon as he did the light from the vents dimmed, the sound quietened and the heat faded.

He continued staring at the gun, confused, as he wondered what he had done to make it do that. It seemed to be reacting to Aaron himself, as though it drew its energy off of him. Aaron concentrated, the light grew once more, harder he tried, he shut his eyes and heard the sounds and could feel the heat as he focused as hard as he could. He found his anger, his frustration and ignited it. He poured all that he had on to it, dousing the flames of fury with everything he could chuck at it. The unjustness of tonight, the loneliness he felt, the isolation, the regrets, his failures, all of it went on. It built up until he could hold it no more.

He channeled it all and released it, opening the floodgates, the anger gushing out of him as a tremendous roar bellowed out sending a terrific shockwave rippling up his arm. His very bones shuddered, the recoil snapping the restraint on his wrist, as the gun discharged. The wall opposite had a giant circular hole gouged out of it. Black and purple cracks and smoking tendrils spread out from its center. Aaron didn't even see the projectile, or if there ever was one, as the speed of it was so intense. A faint vapor trail hung in the air. Tiny specks of light floating within. 'Oh, my' Aaron sat there wide-eyed, his ears ringing.

Daylight poured in, illuminating him like a spotlight. He didn't have any idea where he was. What was more concerning was the fact that he could see no sign of any buildings, just a huge expanse of flat empty land. Using his freed hand he untied himself from the chair and tried to stand. Blood rushed away from his head causing him to stumble, tripping over the body of Victon as he fought to keep his balance. Not once did he avert his gaze from what was outside, from the emptiness, the mass of green and open skies. 'Where am I?' Aaron slowly and timidly approached the blasted opening in the wall, almost too scared to find out what was beyond. With an outstretched arm he reached through, expecting for his hand to be met with resistance to confirm that what he was indeed seeing wasn't real. Instead, a cool wind met his embrace. He climbed through, still slightly dizzy and disoriented, the light hurting his eyes that still hadn't quite adjusted yet. 'Wild grass? This cant be real. It cant be...' Aaron stood in the huge open expanse of the field. The seductive wild beauty completely enchanting him, something that he and the rest of the world hadn't seen in over 150 years. Cool refreshing, unpolluted air filled his lungs. He took a knee and brushed his hand through the blades, pressing into the soil and rubbing it between his fingers.

'Amazing isn't it?' A voice from behind said.

Aaron spun around bringing his gun to bear on the source of the sound. To Aarons surprise, he was a aiming at a small girl that was sat on the electric generator that powered the room Aaron had came from. 'Who...'

'The grass, the fields, the nature. It's amazing, isn't it? Pictures don't do it justice. You don't realize how much our age misses out on until you see it.' The small girl was wearing a blue and white dress with butterflies on. She jumped down and approached Aaron. 'I'm Jennifer. Nice to meet you.'

Aaron still had his arm held out, aiming at where she had been sitting as she walked past. His head followed her as he stood, mouth open and bewildered. 'What...'

'Follow me.' She walked off, picking at a few random wildflowers as she went. Aaron lowered his weapon slowly and absentmindedly followed, more confused than he had ever been. 'Bet you haven't seen this amount of open space before have ya? Its no wonder with the population the way it is. Everything is about cramming as much as possible into as little as possible. Nothing is real, not even the food. Not even the food of the food. If it can be synthetically made, then whats the need for the real thing?' Jennifer said.

'Is this real?' Aaron said. No longer worried about his safety or potential threats.

'This is the Void silly.' Jennifer said as if Aaron should already know.

'The Void? So the GateKeepers...? Wait...what is the void?'

'Its a place that exists between worlds, it was formed after they created the A.C.R.E programme.' Jennifer said.

'They. Who? What is ACRE?' Aaron asked.

'look there's not much time, he'll explain later, just keep up.' Jennifer said as she began humming a song to herself.

'Who will explain later? This isn't making much sense okay, I'm going to need someone to tell me what the hell is going on. First I witness a murder, then I'm taken captive by people I thought only existed in stories and now I'm talking to a girl in a different world. Either I hit my head too hard when they pulled me off that fence, or...well I don't know what the or is. This is all crazy.' Aaron said as he walked behind Jennifer trudging through a stream.

'This isn't a different world, you weren't listening. You killed a GateKeeper. You broke free. They'll be coming for you when you return, but now you see, what was forgotten must be remembered.' Jennifer said.

'Right, none of that made any sense. Oh, and if you knew, how come you just sat out here while I was in a room full of GateKeepers who wanted to kill me?' Aaron asked.

'I'm a twelve-year-old girl what am I supposed to do.' They crested a small hill and Jennifer stopped. 'Ok, we're here.'

'Wheres here?' Aaron asked as he looked around.

'Here is where you go back.' Just as she finished speaking ten figures burst through the air, encircling the mound. There they stood, faces entombed in the shadow of their hoods.

'Gatekeepers?'

'Of course, what did you expect. You have fallen, awoken and now they must secure their Gate.' Jennifer raised her tiny arms. To anyone watching, she just looked like a child, but what came was anything but childish. 'Don't worry, he'll find you.' She said as she brought her arms down in a waving motion. The GateKeepers began running, a darkness trailing behind them. Out of nowhere, a meteor shaped flaming ball crashed into the earth in front of one of the attackers, spewing up a mass of dirt and smoke. Jennifer spun slowly with her arms still out in a sweeping motion. A wall of purple flame, that emanated from the impact zone, mirrored her movement creating a circular barrier that stopped the GateKeepers in their tracks.

Up until then, Aaron had thought he had seen it all. He wondered how stupid he looked with his mouth constantly agape in sheer amazement at all that been revealed to him. 'How in the world are you doing that?' He asked. Jennifer didn't reply, instead, she turned to face Aaron and went to push him but stopped just short of touching him. A force of what felt like a sledgehammer smashing into his chest hit him. The sky span, light blinded his eyes, his ears popped and in the blink of an eye, a cold hard pavement was beneath his feet. Disorientated and dazed, Aaron's shoulder clipped a nearby lamppost sending him spinning as he bounced off of a line of recycling bins and landed on a pile of trash bags.

_________________________________________

Thanks for reading. I'm thinking of making this my beginning chapter instead, let me know what you think, all feedback is welcome.