The first thing Ulrich noticed was the sky above him. It was the pleasant shade of orange that always came with sunset. Looking around, he saw that for some reason he was lying in the middle of a road. Thankfully, there were no cars around. Then again, there were no people around either, or any sign of life at all.
Ulrich got up and looked around. He shivered a little, feeling a little cold, which was understandable for that part of the year. It looked like he was on Park boulevard, one of the main thoroughfares of the city. He had been there many times with his friends on weekends, just to hang out or get some ice cream. What was unusual was the total emptiness.
"Hello?", Ulrich shouted out. "Is anyone here?"
Silence.
Then, some nearby, familiar laughter. Ulrich spun around to see Odd and Yumi, walking along together a short distance off.
"Hey! Guys!", Ulrich shouted out, running over to them. "Boy, am I ever glad to see you. Where is- hey! What are you doing?"
Yumi and Odd were standing in front of him, arm in arm, smiling as if they couldn't been happier with each other's company. Odd leaned over and gave Yumi a peck on the cheek.Ulrich just stared at them. He had felt strange before. What had he been doing just lying there in the middle of the street? Now, seeing Odd and Yumi's obvious feelings for each other, he felt even stranger. He should have felt jealous, enraged, even. But he felt detached from any emotion at all.
In any case, Odd and Yumi were obviously happy to see him. They didn't seem to think Ulrich had any reason for being jealous either.
"Hi, Ulrich!", said Yumi, pleasantly. "Do you want to come with us? We're going over to meet Jeremie and Aelita by the ice cream shop"
Ulrich heard himself say "Sure, why not? Lets go!". The thing was, he never made himself say it. The words just came out of his mouth as if they had been put there previously.
The three of them began walking down the road.
"Hey, by the way," said Ulrich, "Where are all the other people?"
"What other people?", Odd asked.
"Just everybody... all the... people...", Ulrich struggled to say. For some reason, any memories he had of this ever being a busy street were fading away. It was as if the street had always been this deserted.
Odd shrugged. "I have no idea what you're talking about, buddy.", he said.
They were nearing the familiar ice cream shop, and Ulrich could see Jeremie and Aelita standing there, each with an ice cream cone in hand. They were talking and laughing together, between licks. Why were they eating ice cream in the middle of January?
Aelita spotted them first. "Hey!", she shouted out, waving. "William, Sissi, over here!"
"Wait." Ulrich thought. "William? Sissi?"
He whirled around to look at the two people that had been following him. They were Sissi and William, alright. Odd and Yumi were nowhere in sight.
Feeling numb, Ulrich went over with them to Jeremie and Aelita.
"Hi guys.", said Sissi, in Odd's voice. "How's it going?"
"Sorry we're late.", said William, in Yumi's voice.
"Not a problem.", said Jeremie. He produced two more ice cream cones out of thin air and gave them to William and Sissi.
Ulrich walked over to Jeremie. "Jeremie, what's going on? Where is everybody? What happened to Odd and Yumi, and why are William and Sissi here?"
Jeremie looked up, surprised. He looked at Ulrich with no hint of recognition. "Who are you?", he asked.
"He's just some crazy stranger that followed us here.", said William, still in Yumi's voice. "Don't pay any attention to him."
"What!", exclaimed Ulrich.
Ulrich watched them eat their ice cream, in total disregard to the increasing cold that came with nightfall. Suddenly, all four of them were distracted by a beeping from Jeremie's laptop. Ulrich couldn't recall seeing Jeremie with is laptop before, but it was there now, right beside where Jeremie was sitting on the ice cream shop's steps. Jeremie opened it and frowned.
"Activated tower.", Jeremie said with certainty. "Xana is at it again."
"Then let's go!", said Sissi, jumping up, this time in Mrs. Hertz's voice.
So Sissi and William were part of the group now? Go figure. It made about as much sense as everything else that had happened, which was absolutely nil.
The four of them took off down the road running, while Ulrich watched them go.
"Hey! Ulrich! Are you coming or what?", shouted Jeremie. He didn't seem to realize that he had seen Ulrich as a stranger just minutes ago.
"Guess I'm back in the group." Thought Ulrich, as he ran after them.
He began to notice, as he ran with what were supposedly his friends, that they weren't exactly on Park boulevard anymore. The familiar buildings were fading out, being replaced with geometric, colored shapes, some of which were on the ground and some of which were floating in midair. It was at this point that Ulrich began to notice a vaguely familiar clanking sound. He also noticed that the other four had slowed to a walk. Despite the fact that he was still running, he couldn't move fast enough to pass them.
"Why are we slowing down?", Ulrich asked. "What about the Xana attack?"
"What's a Xana?" Aelita asked, speaking up for the first time.
Ulrich looked at her, dumbfounded. He had seen some crazy things so far, but this was the worst.
The clanking sound was getting louder. "The darkness approaches.", Aelita said. There was no fear, no anticipation in her voice, and no explanation. Just the simple statement of fact.
"It's time we left.", William said solemnly, this time in his own voice. "Goodbye, Ulrich."
Jeremie, Aelita, Sissi and William split up, all turning their backs on Ulrich. They walked away, then shimmered and disappeared as if they had never existed. It was night now, and the streetlamps were on. He was alone again. Just him... and the clanking sound, increasing in volume. He realized that this was because the source of the noise was getting closer. His situation had just passed from bizarre to creepy.
Ulrich backed up, into the light of one of the lamps. Suddenly, a large dark shape emerged from an alleyway between two large blue cubes. Ulrich recognized it immediately. The Krabe took several steps forward, into the light of one of the lamps. It was unlike any other Krabe he had ever seen. It was jet black from head to toe, its eyes a gleaming purple. There was no Xana symbol on its shell. Ulrich drew his katana from its sheath, sparing no thought to the fact that he had most certainly not had it before.
The Krabe stepped forward from its own circle of light to Ulrich's. Then, incredibly, it spoke.
"Welcome, Ulrich.", it said, in a dark voice. "I am glad you could make it."
"Who... what are you?", Ulrich asked, nervously. "Well, if you're so eager to find out, why don't you fight me?" Ulrich narrowed his eyes. "Gladly."
He leaped up twenty feet into the air easily, then landed on the Dark Krabe's back. He plunged his sword into the place where the mark of Xana should have been. But nothing happened. The Krabe didn't seem fazed in the least bit. Ulrich drew his sword out of the monster's shell, only to see the wound he had made seal up and disappear.
"A valiant effort, but useless.", said the Dark Krabe. Without warning, it bucked like a wild bull, throwing Ulrich off. It caught him in one of its claws and then threw him at a nearby red pyramid. Ulrich hit the pyramid and bounced off, rolling back in front of the Krabe.
It placed one of its forelegs firmly on Ulrich's chest, not hurting him, but still pinning him to the ground.
"You're not really a Krabe, are you.", Ulrich said accusingly.
It shook its massive head.
"So this is Xana's attack.", Ulrich muttered.
The creature just laughed. "Xana is so far beneath me his name is worthless to me."
"Then what are you?"
It was silent.
"Answer me!"
"I am everything from the D you got on your last math test to total nuclear war. I am starvation, sickness, pain, and death. I am the fire, the earthquake, the tornado and the tsunami rolled into one. I am all people's evil intentions and actions. I am everything that keeps the Earth from Utopia. I am everything that is wrong with the world."
"That's quite a boast."
"Do I fail to impress you? Then let me shed this form I have taken on, the one that I took so that I would not alarm you."
Slowly, horribly, the Dark Krabe began to morph. It stood on its hind legs, which grew feet to support the rapidly changing shape of the body. Twenty arms grew out of each side of the torso, and the glass covers of the eyes burst, letting a milky white fluid flow upward into a lumpy ball. Flaps started opening on the ball, and suddenly dozens of eyes were staring down at Ulrich from the repulsive head. The hatch on the Krabe's underside became a gaping, foaming mouth, dripping with poison. The end result was something straight out of hell, the sort of creature dreamed up by movie producers to star in their horror films, but a thousand times worse. Ulrich crawled backwards, staring up in horror at the creature before him.
"It is time to die, Ulrich." The creature raised its twenty arms, and both the moon and the sun rose at once, from opposite ends of the sky. They met in the middle of the sky, forming a solar eclipse, that quickly was a black hole instead. The streetlamps, the weird block buildings, even the road itself started breaking up and flying up into the sky, disappearing into the hole. Ulrich's situation had just passed from creepy to terrifying.
One of the creature's arms reached out and grabbed Ulrich. It raised him up to its many-eyed head, and every pupil focused on him. His legs were dangling in front of the foaming mouth on its torso. Ulrich was in mortal panic, unable to move a muscle in his terror.
"Before you die, I have one thing to say to you. Ulrich... IT'S TIME TO GET UP!"
The monstrous head had suddenly replaced with Odd's. The flying debris froze in their tracks. Ulrich lost it.
He screamed as loud as he could, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, he was sitting bolt upright in his dormitory bed, sweating. Odd was standing a few feet away, his arms raised in front of his head in a self-protective posture, a look of terror on his face. Seeing Ulrich calm down, he relaxed.
"Ulrich! The next time you're going to scream like that when I wake you up, warn me! C'mon, sleepyhead, we're late for breakfast!"
Odd dashed out the door without another word. Ulrich looked around carefully. The dorm room was exactly as it had been last night. Ulrich realized with a nervous chuckle what had happened to him, then lay back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling for a minute, a look of sadness on his face. He followed Odd out the door without another word.