The beginning

Today was a great day. Everything had started ideally. After a long time of low-paying delivery jobs, Mark finally got the call of a big one.

He was still uncertain how these people found him or who these people were, but he needed the money. Even if their secrecy seemed disturbingly weird, when he checked the package, it didn't look to be something illegal.

At least it wasn't drugs or guns or anything like that. Besides being some machine, Mark wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't look like a weapon of mass destruction to him.

He was driving his small truck, which fortunately had more than enough space at the back for the package, which was just a box of two-by-two meters. He had asked to see what was inside it, as he didn't want any trouble, and the clients had no problem with him opening it and having him a look.

Of course, they were there when he took a look to make sure he didn't break it or something, but he had no intention of doing that either way.

Even if it was full of bars of gold, he would keep his contract, as if he fulfilled this one, most likely more would follow. So, in the long run, working with them and being on their good side would be better than the opposite.

If he got another one like that, he could buy a bigger truck, allowing him to find better contracts easier. After all, the most decent-paying ones required more space than what his current small truck offered, and he was fortunate to find a high pay one for such a small package.

He had to travel out of town, heading to a factory just half a day of driving from the nearest city and to his home base.

His deadline was to be there before nightfall, so he had started early in the morning. They had given him the package late tomorrow, and he even noticed people outside his place keeping watch at night.

Mark didn't have anyone else to count on, so he needed to make a living. His parents had given up on him long ago and were focusing more on his younger brother, who was considered a genius.

Mark was a piece of trash compared to his brother, who seemed like there was nothing he couldn't learn to do. Only his driving skills were a little above average, while in everything else he had tried to put his focus on, he failed to make progress.

His parents were businessmen that looked forward to the next generation of the family taking control of the family business. Usually, the firstborn would be the main successor, which, in this case, was Mark. But his parents, after being disappointed repeatedly, had exiled him from the family, like he never was one of them.

They claimed they adopted him when they thought they couldn't have a child of theirs. But now that they had a child, even if he was born almost a little over one and a half decades ago, they let the truth out.

Mark wasn't sure if the story was true, but they did not give him any chance to find out. They gave him some money, though, to start his new life. But being independent like that after being under the care of a family full of servants who cared for everything had led to the quick spending of what they gave him.

He could not communicate with them as his family had tight security, and they wanted to ignore him. For a moment, he had thought that his parents had sent this strange client, but he couldn't be sure.

As he kept driving, he had to go on the road around the nearby mountain. A tunnel was going through the mountain, which would shorten his trip massively, but it wasn't open for all to use.

People needed a special license to use tunnels or routes like that. Unfortunately, that special license was open to anyone but was too expensive, so not everyone could afford it. Hopefully, if everything goes well, Mark could save enough money in the future to get it, which would help him get some contracts that the clients only gave if you had it.

Mark was whistling to the track's rhythm that was currently playing on the radio, as his mood was great. But things could change so suddenly before one could take a breath.

Mark noticed a weird sound that sounded both familiar and not familiar at the same time. But another sound followed before he could have any time to think what the other sound was.

An explosion happened at the back of his truck, which caused him to lose control of his vehicle. He tried to take control back as there was a cliff on the right side, which would lead to certain death if he fell from it.

He pushed the brakes and tried to keep himself on the road while his vehicle was coming to an end. He glanced behind him and noticed that almost a third of his truck had blown off.

The package was still in place and looked to not have been affected by the explosion. It was heavy enough not to be moved around by the sudden movement, turns, etc.

It didn't take long for his vehicle to come to a stop, and after taking a deep breath, he went out of it to check the damage.

His prop shaft had been heavily damaged, and he had lost his left back wheel. Most damages were at the back of the body of his truck box container and on its roof.

As he checked how bad the damage was and if he could make the delivery, he heard another sound — a gunshot. He also had no time to think this time as he felt something going through him, and his mouth was filled with blood.

At that point, he felt nothing, and he wasn't sure if it was because there was nothing to think of. His senses had already been overcharged so much that he felt nothing in the end.

He fell forward and down to the ground, with his face being turned, looking at the other side from where the truck was. At that point, he was aware of his surroundings but, at the same time, unable to process what was happening fully.

It was like someone heavily anesthetized him, and he was just barely awake. But then, he noticed people getting down from the mountainside and heading toward his truck.

All of them wore the same outfit as one ninja would wear in the movies. It was completely black and covered most of their face, leaving some space for their eyes.

As Mark's eyesight was turning darker by the moment, like the environment was losing its light, he noticed, at the last moment, a light reflection some distance away.

Everything then turned to complete darkness and silence.

But not long after, a set of voices broke the silence.

[Finally, a new user. Hopefully, this one will get further than the rest.]

[Who will get him? It's been such a long time since those bastards gave us one.]

Mark heard two individuals speaking, but their voices were very weird. They sounded very neutral and mechanic, like one was using a text-to-speech program.

[Truckie, it seems it is your lucky day. You get to have some fun in the end.]

As the voice said that, Mark could hear almost a dozen different individuals; they were celebrating out loud.

[You assholes could wait at least for me to leave first.]

The last voice sounded to Mark slightly different from the rest. All the voices had a different pitch so one could separate them, but all of them followed the same neutral tone, except for the last one.

It was still far from being like human speech, but there were signs of emotion behind his sentence, unlike the rest. Even the celebration sounds he heard didn't sound like that, but one could understand their purpose by what they said.

Mark could see a white dot on the horizon, which looked to get bigger as time passed. Not long after, he noticed it was light, like he was inside a pitch-dark tunnel heading to its exit. After a while, he started feeling his body again and noticed that he was instinctively moving toward the light.

When his mind was clear enough to control his body, he didn't stop and continued towards the only exit to whatever this was.

But no matter how much he ran after a while, the entrance looked like it wasn't getting any close, but it was getting further instead. At that moment, Mark heard a very familiar set of sounds coming from behind him.

It was the sound of his truck's engine and its horn.