[Jackie]

       I woke up to Akira screaming in pain and the truck swerving on the road. I helped Akira push the zombie out of the truck, took the steering wheel and pressed the brake to stop the truck. Then I put the truck into park, got out of the passenger’s side closing the passenger side door behind me and around to the driver’s side. I grabbed the first aid kit form the back seat and bandaged Akira’s shoulder up to stop the bleeding. I then moved Akira to the passenger seat and got into the driver’s seat, closing the driver’s side door. I took the truck out of park, and drove as fast as I could drive to the nearest hospital hoping they had the anti-virus there. I had to hurry to get the anti-virus and administer it to Akira before he became a zombie.
       “Hang in there, Akira,” I said, as he blacked out.
       I continued driving until I found a hospital. I pulled into the hospital and parked the truck. Then as I started to pull Akira out of the truck, I thought I heard a few cars pull up, park nearby, and a few car doors open and close.
       “Need some help, Jackie?” a familiar coming from behind me said.
       I left Akira lying across the front seat, and checked behind me. Standing their where ten people of which I only recognized three of the people. One was Scott which was the one who asked me if I needed some help, another was Euan, and the last person I recognized was Alan, Akira’s little brother.
       “Hey Scott, Euan, and Alan. I and Akira thought we were the only survivors,” I said to the three.
       Scott and Euan I had only met a couple times before though Akira, so I didn’t know much about them. Scott was a year older than I and Akira, that much I knew.
       “Well nice to see you again,” Scott said.
       “I can’t believe Akira, creator and leader of the Monster Hunters that we have heard so much about, actually let himself get bitten by a zombie,” Euan said.
       “Yeah, if you don’t mind I have to get Akira into that hospital,” I said, remembering now that I had little time before he became a zombie.
       “What happened? I see he has a bandage wrapped around his right shoulder,” Euan said.
       “He was bitten by a zombie, he doesn’t have much time left before he becomes one himself,” I said.
       “Okay, let me carry him,” Scott said, then picked Akira up with one arm and held him over his left shoulder.
       I had almost forgot that Scott worked out a lot and was much stronger than I was. I also remembered that Akira said that he wasn’t friends with Euan anymore because of some reason or another, he never actually gave me the details. I lead the way into the hospital while Scott followed closely behind me and the others followed him. I walked to the emergency room seeing blood on the walls and on some of the medical beds as we walked. Oddly enough I didn’t see a single body, which was starting to worry me a little bit. I found a medical bed that was nice and clean, which came as a surprise, and Scott placed Akira gently on the bed. While Scott took off Akira’s jacket and hung it on a nearby coat rack, I looked in the medical cabinets looking for the vaccine and a medical syringe. I looked into each one that I could find and when I came to the last one I could find I found just a handful of bottles containing the vaccine conveniently with a medical syringe sealed in one of those little packets to keep the syringe clean. I sighed in relief for finding them and quickly hurried to where Akira was placed down. I opened the packet with the syringe in it and the inserted the syringe into one of the vaccine bottles. I pulled the plunger to pull some of the vaccine into the syringe. Then I carefully inserted the syringe into Akira’s arm and pushed the plunger to have the vaccine go into Akira. After all of the vaccine was out of the syringe and into Akira’s blood system I pulled the syringe out carefully and put a bandage onto where I had inserted the syringe. Then we stood around hoping the vaccine would get through his system in time. While we waited I thought I saw one of the people look at the syringe in disgust, I didn’t think much of it and figured he was just phobic about needles. I tossed the syringe into the box marked hazardous waste. Then I changed the bandage around Akira’s right shoulder with a new bandage. I decided to start some conversation while we waited to see if the vaccine worked.
       “So, I see there are seven people with you that I don’t recognize. Care to introduce us?” I asked Scott, snapping him out of his daze as he looked at Akira with slight worry.
       “Oh, yeah, sorry about that. This is Sam, Aaron, Doug, Roy, Thomas, Albert, and Michael. Guys, this is a friend of Akira’s, named Jackie,” Scott said.
       “Hi, nice to meet you,” Sam said, and shook hands with me.
       I decided to ask the one who looked at the syringe in disgust, who was named Roy, if he was in fact phobic about needles.
       “Um, Roy, I hope you don’t mind me asking. I noticed you look at the syringe in disgust, are you phobic about needles?” I asked.
       “Yeah, just a little, I didn’t know you could tell,” Roy said.
       “Well, I don’t want to interrupt this awkward conversation as I seem to find it a little entertaining but, I believe Akira is starting to come to,” Euan said.
       We all looked toward Akira as Alan stood behind us. I guess he was afraid to see if Akira was becoming a zombie or if he was cured.

[Akira]

A few moments earlier . . .

       “Akira, you are the ‘Chosen One’,” The voices coming from the shadows said. “You must go to the next dimension, now wake up.”
       I slowly opened my eyes to find Jackie hovering over me, smiling as he noticed I was awake.
       “I’m glad you’re okay, I made it to the hospital in this town and some friends helped me bring you here. I injected the vaccine into you and re-bandaged your shoulder,” Jackie said.
       “Friends?” I asked slowly sitting up.
       I looked around and found some of my male friends from middle and high school. I was surprised to see Scott, Sam, Aaron, Doug, Roy, Thomas, Albert, and Michael alive. Just so you know Scott is Asian American, Thomas is African American, Sam, Aaron, Doug, Roy, Albert, and Michael are all Caucasian. They hadn’t changed much since the last time I saw them.
       “You’re all alive, I thought me and Jackie were the only survivors,” I said.
       “Yeah, Jackie said the same thing, your brother is here as well,” Scott said, moving to reveal Alan standing there.
       “But how?” I asked, then noticing Euan, who was one of my Caucasian friends before we disagreed on something. “What is he doing here?”
       “He was with them,” Jackie told me, stating the obvious.
       “Did we miss something?” Aaron, Roy, Michael, and Albert asked.
       I figured they wouldn’t know what was going on since the last time I saw them was in middle school, and stopped being friends with Euan in high school. They knew Euan in middle school, which is where I met most of them. The only people here that I didn’t meet in middle school were Scott, Thomas, and Doug. The others knew each other because back in middle school we were a group of friends that sat together at lunch. I stopped being friends with Euan because he accused me of breaking something of his and demanded I pay it, I ended buying him a new one, and stopped being friends with him afterwards since he no longer trusted me. In actuality it was broken because of his own carelessness and just because I had borrowed it he accused me of breaking it.
       “Long story, he accused me of breaking something of his and demanded that I pay for it. He didn’t trust me so I ended our friendship,” I told them.
       “What did he accuse you of breaking?” Michael asked.
       “A video game that I borrowed, as I tried to play it I noticed it wasn’t working, and he accused me of breaking it,” I said.
       “So that’s what happened, you never told me the details,” Jackie said.
       “Oh, I understand,” Aaron said, then looked disgusted at Euan for not having trusted me about that.
       “Sorry, okay,” Euan said as everyone else except Alan started looking disgusted at him. “I’ve changed now.”
       “He has,” Alan said, defending Euan. “He lost his little brother, Mick, who was the one who had Euan distrust you in the first place.”
       “Mick was the one that caused you to distrust me?” I asked Euan.
       “Yeah, he said that you broke the game,” Euan said.
       “How did he die?” I asked.
       “Some zombies attacked us by surprise,” Euan said. “He didn’t make it,”
       “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. How did you guys get here anyway?” I asked.
       “We have some vehicles of our own,” Thomas said.
       “Okay, let’s get going then,” I said.
       I got up off the medical bed and grabbed my jacket off the coat rack nearby as I walked by it. I figured one of my friends took off my coat when they were treating me, so I didn’t mind it at all. I put my jacket back on and then I walked out of the hospital with the others following and got into the passenger’s side of my truck. Jackie got into the driver’s side of the truck, while the others got into their vehicles. Scott, Aaron, and Roy got into one car; Thomas, Euan, Albert, and Michael got into another car; and Doug, Sam, and Alan got into the third and final car. Then Jackie drove away from the hospital while the others followed closely behind in their vehicles.
       A half an hour passed before I had Jackie stop and park beside a fancy restaurant, while the others stopped and parked their vehicles nearby. Then we all got out of our vehicles and made sure to close the doors, and then I entered the fancy restaurant as the others followed a few steps behind. I kept a personal note that we now had a total of twelve people, including me, and four vehicles.
       “Okay four vehicles and twelve people,” I said out loud only afterwards knowing that I had said it aloud.
       “Why are you now counting how many vehicles and people there are?” Jackie asked.
       “Just keeping track,” I said, making sure not to sound crazy.
       “Why are you acting so weird all of a sudden?” Jackie asked.
       “I’ve been having some weird dreams for a while. In one of them I saw a flash of this very restaurant,” I said, walking toward the back of the restaurant.
       Then I noticed a pack a zombie dogs tearing away at another zombie dog.
       “They eat their own kind,” Jackie said disgusted.
       “Have you named these kind of monsters yet?” Michael asked.
       “Nope,” I answered. “Do you have an idea?”
       “How about just ‘Zombie Canines’?” Roy asked.
       “Okay,” I said, grabbing my pistol from it’s holster when one of them noticed us standing there.
       I shot the one the noticed us, killing it instantly, as it jumped forward toward me, causing it to fly in the direction that I shot. Then the rest of the “Zombie Canines” noticed us or their dead friend on the ground, and Jackie shot and killed them before they could do anything else.
       “So are we looking for something here?” Aaron asked.
       “It looks like a handgun of some sort,” I answered.
       Then we spread out and searched the restaurant for this device that I saw in my dreams.
       “Hey, Akira, is this it?” Albert asked.
       We all went to the booth table where Albert was standing. I noticed on the table a small handgun shaped device, that was silver in color and had the infinity symbol on the side of it. This was the very same device that I saw in one of my dreams.
       “Yes, exactly,” I said, picking the device up and examining it.
       “What does it do?” Thomas asked.
       “Let’s find out,” I said, holding the device in my right hand,
       I pointed the device away from everyone and pulled the trigger. Suddenly a light blue beam of light shot out of the barrel of the device and spread out forming a flat, circular portal in hovering two inches off the floor. I walked up to the portal and noticed that was something on the other side as if it were a window to another world. I broke of a chair leg a stuck half of it into the portal to test if it was safe. Then I pulled the broken chair leg out and found that it was still all together as I had broken it.
       “Seems safe enough,” I said.
       “Let’s go in,” Sam said.
       “Yeah,” everyone agreed, showing their adventurous side.
       “Okay, let’s go,” I said.
       Then we all stepped into the large portal at once. Right after we stepped into the portal it felt like we were going down some weird water slide. When we emerged from the portal to the other side the portal closed preventing anyway of going back the way we came. We stood there starring at the place the portal had been just moments earlier.
       “Great, now we can’t go back,” Roy said, stating something I already knew.
       “You have the ‘Dimensional-Rift Gun’ or ‘D.R.G.’ for short,” a surprised sounding female voice, coming from behind us, said.
       We all turned around to face the direction the voice had come from, to find a human sized ant standing on its four back legs an using its two front legs like arms. The very room we were in had dirt walls and tunnels branching off in many different directions. The rest of the creature that was now stood before us resembled an ant, the only difference had been that it was only standing on it’s back four legs and was our size, which I already mentioned before.
       “What is that?” Albert asked.
       “I am as you see,” the giant ant-like creature said.
       “Did we travel to another planet?” Doug asked.
       “If you used that device to get here, then you are in another dimension,” the giant ant-like creature said.
       “Oh, do you have a name?” I asked politely.
       
[Doug]

       “My name is Ryvjha or Ry for short,” the giant ant-like creature said.
       “Are you the only one here?” Akira asked.
       “No, I am only one of an entire race,” Ry said.
       “Ew, what are these?” Alan asked suddenly, and I noticed he was trying to brush something off of him.
       Crawling on him were these small creatures the size of ants from our dimension and they resembled humans oddly enough. They even were wearing tiny clothing on their tiny little bodies.
       “Those are called Humants,” Ry said. “My race is called Antans.”
       “Ant-ans...Hu-mants,” Euan said, trying to pronounce the names correctly.
       “Close but, try not to stretch the names,” Ry said to Euan, apparently not knowing that he was only trying to pronounce the names.
       “These Humants resemble our species only much smaller,” Akira said. “They even wear clothing just like us humans.”
       “Is that what your race is called?” Ry asked. “Humans?”
       “Yeah, and a race that resembles your race from where we come from are called ants,” Akira said.
       “It’s as if humans and ants switched places,” I said.
       “Anyway,” Akira said, “can you -”
       “Take us to your leader,” Roy said, while making his voice sound weird. “I always wanted to say that.”
       “I shall do as you ask but, first I must ask you to do something,” Ry said to Akira.
       “Okay,” Akira said, shrugging his shoulders with a ‘what could happen’ look on his face.
       Ry left the room we were in only for a moment and came back holding a palm sized tetrahedron shaped device in her left hand. The device was silver in color, it had the infinity symbol on each of it’s sides, and it had a small red diamond inserted in the bottom. I only saw the bottom of the device when Ry handed Akira the device.
       “That symbol again,” Akira said, looking at the device he was now holding in his right palm.
       “Yes, I figured you would notice that the same symbol is also on the D.R.G.,” Ry said.
       “So what do you want me to do with this?” Akira asked.
       “Place it in the middle of your palm and then touch the top point of it,” Ry said.
       Akira did like Ry said and I saw him jump as a small jolt of electricity went through his body. Then the device glowed a bright gold and silver color. The glowing started to speed up going from gold to silver and back again. I started thinking that it may be some kind of time bomb and formed an extremely worried face. Suddenly a white beam shot out from the top of the device and into Akira’s left palm. Shortly after a device appeared in his left palm that also has the infinity symbol on it, the word “Datavice” on it, and a thin opaque black screen on the front side of the “Datavice”.
       “Great! You are ‘him’,” Ry said, excitedly.
       “What exactly are these devices?” Akira asked.
       “The device in your right palm is called the ‘Powerhedron’ and the device in your left palm is just like it says on it, the ‘Datavice’,” Ry said. “They now belong to you so go ahead and take them.”
       “What did you mean by ‘him’?” Akira asked, putting the devices, including the D.R.G., into his right jacket pocket.
       “I mean the ‘Chosen One’,” Ry said. “Who is also leader of this little group of yours.”
       “Me? I’m no leader,” Akira said. “I don’t have any experience as a leader.”
       “Yes you do Akira, or did you already forget about the Monster Hunters?” Jackie asked.
       “Oh, yeah,” Akira said, remembering as Jackie mentioned it. “Why me though?”
       “Follow me,” Ry said, ignoring Akira’s question to her.
       We followed Ry through a wide dirt tunnel. Along the way I saw many smaller dirt tunnels going every which way, and Antans starring at us with what appeared to be saliva dripping from their mouths, as if they were drooling at the site of us.
       “What’s with them?” Jackie asked.
       “It’s the first time they have seen ‘humans’ freely walking and talking here,” Ry said.
       “Huh? What do you mean by that?” Jackie asked.
       Ry didn’t answer and we continued to follow her to a wide open room.