Chapter 7 - Flight

The flight was taking off at 2 AM this night. my parents would probably put up the missing persons report as soon as possible. It looked like the USA government would handle the report for me and all I needed to do was reach the airport. Right now, it was around 3pm. The drive to the airport, when I checked on my phone was around 2 hours. I asked the store vendor to give me a pack of biscuits which I quickly finished eating and left the store. I got back on the moped and opened the map to the airport. Along the way I looked for a petrol station to refuel as well. I then started the journey. 

I was not worried actually, I felt so right doing this. Like it was all I needed to do. I made my way through the familiar highways, highways that I probably wouldn't see again for a long time. I was avoiding the policemen on the street because I had no license. About an hour or so later, I went into the petrol station and got some of the tank filled. I wanted to save money, and I only needed enough to get to the airport. I looked on my phone to check on any updates on the world of Domus. It seemed that some people had taken notice of the ongoing war in the Domus world. Though it wasn't many people at all. And these people seemed dedicated to just gathering information, so I was sure I was one of the only few who joined the military in the other world. 

The petrol had been filled and I had a sandwich from the store in the petrol bunk. At this time it was around 5 pm and it was an hour more to reach the airport so I got back on the moped and continued my journey. I was so excited for the future I didn't even notice the time go by as I reached the airport. I noticed that I had reached the wide highways, and clean roads and I stopped zoning out. I parked up far enough from the airport in some grass, so that I wouldn't have to pay for parking. I then took my ID out, and the flight details and entered the airport. 

The checkpoints were pretty simple to get through, I simply had to show them the email that the USA had sent me and I had priority to get through the queues. It seemed the countries were working together well this time. I sped through all checks and had reached the waiting lounge at gate 14. The flight was going to land in LA. Unlucky for me. But it's all I had. The flight also connected in Paris so maybe I could see the Eiffel Tower as well. I had a normal economy seat nothing special but I still appreciate that they paid for the flight. Right now after all the checks and in the lounge it was around 7 pm so I still had 6 hours until boarding time. From my time measurements, I saw that the time passed exactly 1:1 so I could spend 5 hours in Domus and come back in the middle and have dinner. I was pretty happy that I could do so, since I hadn't gone in for a long time. I sat down on a chair and slept to enter domus. When I logged back in, I noticed that I had been moved to a bed. It seemed like a hospital and first glance and I looked around for someone to tell me what had happened. As I did I noticed Cathryn standing to the side, looking at a sheet of paper that seemed like an official document. I got up off the bed and said "Hey, Cathryn what happened to me?" She turned around and said, "I'm not too sure, we just found you passed out right outside of the bathroom. We were not sure why so we just brought you here to rest." I nodded and thanked her before asking her once again to show me where the training room was. She showed me where and said that she would need to do some more work before joining me. 

I started to walk towards the training centre, which was in the basement of the building. While I was getting down the stairs, I saw a group of 4 people grouped around the bottom of the staircase. They seemed to be having a casual conversation already so I just chose to walk by them. Just my luck, I could only get a few steps forward before they called out for me. 

"You must be the new recruit." a tall, bald man said from the stairs. I turned around and nodded before saying "Yeah, name's Amitav." They all seemed to be wearing the same military uniform which I had not gotten yet. Then a woman with jet black hair then said "If you're looking for the training chamber, its right through that door" she said while pointing at a door. "I could help you figure out your attributes as well." the same woman said. I said "I'd appreciate that." and started walking towards the door she pointed at. It sounded like she talked to her group for a second before joining me without them. I went through the door, and it was pretty simple. Just a couple dummies in a wide 50 foot by 50 foot room. Above the dummies, there were small screens that I was not sure what purpose they had. I walked in and waited for my co-worker. 

She walked in and stood next to me, before asking "Well, can I see your attributes?" I had no fucking clue what to do. For 5 seconds straight I just stood there wondering what she wanted. She seemed to understand my confusion and then said, "You really are new here huh? Go to the share profile part of the settings page in your device, select my profile in that menu." she paused before saying, "Oh, my name is Raven. Just select my name in that menu I told you about." I did as she said and quickly shared my profile to her no problem. These devices were really convenient. While she was looking through my page, I could actually look at her for the first time. Like I mentioned earlier, and quite close to her name, she had dark hair that reached all the way to her waist, she didn't have it tied up so it looked quite elegant. She had dark brown eyes, and had a tanned skin tone, similar to mine. She had a sharp nose and jawline and had slanted eyes like that of a cat. She also had a mole close to the right edge of the lips that was cool. 

A minute or so later, she refocused on me before saying, "You wanna start with training with your weapon?" I nodded before saying, "I would, but I'm not actually sure how to summon my weapon." She looked at my attributes again, and said "Well, you have the weapon summon attribute, so you must have been given a weapon. Just think about summoning it in your hand." I calmed my mind, thought about holding a weapon in my hand and started to visualize.. but then I realized that I didn't have a clue what the weapon looked like. "I'm sorry, but what weapon am I supposed to imagine?" She seemed to be looking at her device, and she continued to do so while saying "Just do what feels natural to you." At that point I remembered that Shiva often had a trident as his weapon of choice. I closed my eyes again, and visualized holding a trident again. I did this for a couple seconds before I felt a weight in my hands. 

I opened my eyes then and saw a weapon in my hands, that could only be described as divine. It was a pure black trident, as if it was made of the void itself. Around the weapon, streak of the brightest gold snaked from one end to the other existing within the void reminiscent of stars in space. At the connection between the prongs and the long handle, there was red ribbon tied around a 'damru' that was attached to the handle. This was quite similar to the trident that Shiva himself held. 

I had never held a weapon in my life before this. Yet this weapon felt completely comfortable in my hands. Almost as if it belonged here. Raven seemed fairly surprised but did not say anything about it. Holding the weapon in my hand, I walked towards the dummy and made a simple thrusting movement at the dummy. It was clumsy, but definitely not that of a complete amateur. It still had some strength to it, which seemed to be confirmed when Raven said "Not bad for a beginner, but you have a long way to go." she then continued "To be fair, its quite a strange weapon. I'm sure it has its merits though. You can come in here at any time and practice with the weapon. Connect your device to the dummies and they can launch a training regiment to teach the basics of whatever weapon type you have. Other than that your other arts are not combat related, so if you have anything else just ask me ok?" "Yeah, I think I'll train for a while. Thank you for helping, I really appreciate it. I owe you a favour if you ever need anything." I genuinely appreciated that she didn't know me but still took the time to help so I made sure to thank her. She said it wasn't a problem before leaving through the entrance again. For the next hour or so, I pulled up several videos that of people using tridents in this world and their techniques. This weapon really had a lot of potential once mastered, but it was quite hard to do so. It had large range, but was weak at short range. I probably need to back up the weapon with some martial arts at a close range if I wanted to be a good fighter. After this, I told Cathryn that I would be leaving for an hour or so before coming back tot he military outpost. She agreed and told me not to be late before leaving me to be. I walked out and went into the housing inside the military outpost and hit the bed. 

Ironically, this was the way I woke up and entered back into the real world. I looked around me ad noticed everything to be as it was before. I looked to the right and saw a McDonalds. I went in, ordered a Big Mac meal and had it in half an hour or so. During that time, I looked at some YouTube videos about domus. All the big youtubers seemed to be making videos on the topic and a couple of them had more than 50 million views. This seemed to be what everyone was talking about, which was definitely justified. I didn't wanna go back just yet so I walked around the airport for another half an hour to freshen up. At this time it was around 10 pm so I had 3 hours left until boarding time. During that time I went back into Domus, and wanted to practice my weapon skills more. 

After waking up, I walked to the training centre, but this time the group with raven was nowhere to be seen. At the training centre, I connected my device to the dummies and initiated the training. It just took me through some basic swings and strikes but I wanted to master it so I spent the remaining time, hitting the dummy and it judging my technique and it telling me what to improve on. Eventually, time passed by and my swings got pretty decent. It was late at night at domus like it was in real life as well, so I left the world of Domus and woke up again. It was around boarding time so I walked up to the queue and waited for queue to pass by. It was pretty fast due to the email and I was eventually seated at seat 23 E. I put in my earphones and played some music that was set to turn off in half an hour. The flight was around 11H to Paris so I would have to be asleep until then. The music put me to sleep and I couldn't wait to be in the US.