I'm a Walking Disaster With My Unwanted Virginity

"Isn\'t there anything, we can do at all?" I murmured. 

"Nothing I know off. Been stuck here for ages and she\'s the first person I came across. Until you showed up."

I looked at my Holo and it\'s been almost eleven hours. Meaning, Lt. Demeris was probably going to come in a short amount of time.

"Would getting out of this place do?"

If this condition was the result of her coming into this dimension, then it was possible the reverse was also feasible. 

"You really think you can?"

This place wasn\'t exactly covered, so I kept my eyes and senses on high alert but- ever since I came underground, I never saw any life forms in here.

"I have someone who can and he\'ll be here any moment." I didn\'t see any reason to hide things anymore. 

We just didn\'t have enough time. 

He smiled. "That\'s what I thought too but- no one came for me." He sighed. "No one could. Even if someone do come, it won\'t be that easy. The more Blanches are flying about, the harder is for teleporters to come here."

"Blanches?"

"Those black things. Those are the souls of the dead. In this world- this destroyed world- the dead have no place to go. Hench, they float around. And they\'re constantly trying to get out of this world- and so teleporters are the prime target. You see where I\'m going with this kid?" He looked over at Marg. "They drained every essence of her energy in the hope of regaining some energy of their own to be able to cross into our world. And some even succeeded: the energy of the teleporters are different, see. We call the ones that escape, ghosts, I guess?"

"How\'d you end up here?"

"A bit of betrayal." He showed his teeth.

I had a feeling that ran a lot deeper than he made it out to be. 

"You\'re from earth?"

"Neil."

"I see."

The old man thought for a second and then smiled. "Then that means the world has proceeded to such a state that they already know about Neil?" He looked a bit relieved. "I guess then all that shit was worth it. How far are we into the future anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"Nevemind," He sighed. "Nothing kid. What do you say we go out and kill the boss of the souls and open a path for your teleporter friend?"

"How do you kill something that\'s already dead?"

If the flying things were souls of the dead, then weren\'t they already dead?

He grinned, showing his teeth. "We\'ll just have to find out, don\'t we?"

***

The guy knew a shortcut and we were back on top.

According to him, I\'d actually gotten terribly lucky when I\'d first fallen through the small hole. The hole actually led to a very scary maze that often changed its positions, and last time it took him six months to actually come out of there. Sounded like a maze out of someone\'s nightmare, but then again, this world was weird anyway.

And most of the paths led to odd places that weren\'t blocked. Meaning, I\'d gotten terribly lucky.

As for the little open space where I met him, one path led to that space, one led to Marg and the other path led outside and it was that simple.

Oh well.

"Would Marg be safe there? How\'d you even find her?"

The man grinned. "Those things don\'t go underground. I found her floating above this place, attracted them, and with a bit of trial and error, saved her." He was awfully proud of it. Wait, wouldn\'t that mean, he could potentially fly and also have some sort of-"If we can get rid of all the shadows, then we can make sure whoever is coming for you would be able to come here safely. Those things really love light and lucky for you I can create light." He grinned. "All you\'ll have to do is kill them."

"How?"

And even I could create light but I also created heat as a byproduct and those things didn\'t really like heat, that was clear. 

"Dunno."

We stared at each other for a second. 

"What?"

"What?"

Awkward silence. 

"Then what the hell did you bring me out here for!?"

Damn geezer!

He chuckled out loud. "You remind me of someone kid. Anyway, you didn\'t come all this way and with no harm, without anything special, did ya? And no, I won\'t take \'I can fly\' as an answer."

He had brains, at least. "I can create radiation."

"Perfect!" 

"And?"

"Just kill em with radiation!"

"They\'re already dead, you idiot!"

He laughed again. But controlled himself as he stood still. "But this world is different. If you can use radiation, I\'d assume you can make a sun too. Why don\'t we make a decent-sized one and let those critters have at it? They\'d come like flies and die like flies." He burst out laughing. "Or least stay busy till we make a run for."

Why would he assume just cause I could use radiation, I could also make plasma and in turn, a sun?

I mean, I could, but how\'d he know that?

This geezer was mysterious and even now, I was wary of him. I didn\'t trust him, but he did seem reasonable enough.

But I did not like that plan, no. "I don\'t think I have enough juice to make it happen. And don\'t we have any other plan?"

"We could just make a spaceship and get out of this place but that won\'t solve the problem as those things will come after teleporters even when they\'re dry as your lover."

"My lover ain\'t dry and shut up!" Even I started talking like the geezer.

Sigh.

And he was just trolling. I could use my barriers as makeshift transporter, but with three people- it wouldn\'t be fast enough to escape this planet while also escaping the black thingies- or rather the Blanches. 

He grinned. "Your choice kid."

"Fine." It wasn\'t like I had any choice. 

It was either leave this geezer, take Marg and run or- do as he said. 

I didn\'t like either plan. Besides, I didn\'t know if we could actually get out of this place when those things just crawled everywhere. 

Coming here alone was one thing, but leaving- yeah, didn\'t seem that nice. 

\'Why don\'t we just combine both then?\'

That didn\'t seem like a bad plan. We\'d attract those things, throw the plasma ball in the distance and use that opportunity to run. 

Perfect!

"Hot and cold? You sure are something kid."

"Yeah, I don\'t want to hear that from you, geezer." I controlled myself. "How big does it have to be?"

My limit without harming others was a football-sized one. But so far there were only three of us on this rock. And I could have just fired it towards the sky and it\'d keep going. So, in theory, I could make something bigger without any complications: maybe the size of a truck? But there was a catch, my powers weren\'t infinite. 

And then there was the thing about me sustaining burns from being too close to the plasma and also there was the thing about actually controlling it. 

"Dunno, maybe half the size of this planet?"

"That\'s massive!" And by the time I\'d even get near that level, I\'d have died ten times over. And the chunk of cobalt in my wallet wasn\'t going to remotely cover it.

I brought out my wallet- or rather the air. 

I remembered. 

"Fuck, I didn\'t bring my wallet."

The old man chuckled so much that he fell on the floor, still chuckling. "We\'re gonna stay stranded here and you\'re worrying about money kid?" He was literally crying from the amount of laughter.

"No, I had a cobalt stone in my wallet." I didn\'t want to explain but I didn\'t know what to do anymore. I felt so stupid. "I thought that\'d at least aid in me regaining a bit of energy."

\'Is it even possible to regain energy in this world?\'

"Anything radioactive, would do?"

"Uh-huh." I mean, I could always just try and find out.

He threw me a rock. Caught it. 

Pure uranium.

"The hell were you carrying this for? You wanna die?"

"Its radiation is zero as you can see. Eat it and tell me if that\'s enough, \'cause I got more." He grinned.

Wait, so that\'s why there were no emissions in this world… after all, there wasn\'t much energy here in the first place. I still didn\'t understand it but I had a feeling this thing ran pretty deep.

And wait, could a neutered chunk of uranium actually be enough to even supply me enough energy?

Besides, even now I didn\'t quite know much about me eating those stuff. Cause, frankly I never needed to. I only had leftovers memories about gramps eating stuff like that when he ran low.

I had a bad feeling about that.

But I put the rock in my mouth, started chewing.

Terrible.

Absolutely, terrible.