Silver Card

Chapter 5: Gray World

"Someone littered again? That's not good, it must have been a kid." Calvin moves towards the slide, trudging to the sandbox. He picks the card,"I've never seen a card like this before, is this a new card game or something?"

Calvin shows it to Alan "I don't know. Never seen it before" Alan ploddingly walks toward Calvin who is as curious. The card consists of a "V" emblem with curved lines in the  middle of a double layered frame  and a twisted cross symbol on each corner. 

"Let me see it," Alan asked, wondering if the card was handmade. Calvin walks closer to Alan and gives the card to him. Alan examines the card as he receives it. He feels a thin sheen of plastic covering the card. "This is definitely not handmade." Alan confirms. "It's probably a new card I've never heard of." Alan raises his head and tries to hand  the card back to Calvin. Except, he is not there.

Feeling taken aback, Alan scans around to look for Calvin. He is nowhere to be seen. He also notices Aiden disappears. Is this a prank? That's the first idea Alan came up with. He'll be extremely upset if that is the case. But there are two facts that refute the idea. One is that they won't have enough stamina to hide quickly enough to not be noticed by Alan. The other is the fact that everything around him has turned gray, the slides, the sandbox, the concrete bench, the ground, even the bushes are gray.

"The hell?" Alan reacted, bemused by the current situation. He looks back to determine what could have led him here. He remembers that Calvin, Aiden and him were planning to catch the suspect of Eula Es's case. Alan personally believes they were chasing the wrong person because the presumed drunk suspect outran them from block to block which led them to stumble in the park. Aiden spots a card on the sandbox under the slide. Calvin picks it up out of curiosity and so does Alan, then a few seconds later, he is in a different world.

The one thing that stands out is the unfamiliar silver card. Once Alan picks it up, everything around him is gray. Now that he remembers it, Alan can't feel the card in his hand—the mysterious silver card has disappeared. "Now that's messed up."

Screech! An unexplainable blood curdling cry alerts Alan. He hastily scans around him. His survival instinct urges him to hide, but his fear of the unknown never fails to haunt him. Alan can't risk doing something without knowing what the presumably creature is capable of. But standing in the middle of the park won't help him. For that reason, he walks gently, making sure his steps don't cause a single whit of noise .

Huff... Huff... Huff... Alan tries to walk calmly while looking around. He tries his hardest to suppress his fear—advancing with an obnoxious weight clinging on his legs. Alan observes the houses as he steadily trudges, attempting to adapt to the gray atmosphere that blurs his mind. 

No sooner does he discover a small brown furred creature under a car in one of the houses. He can't see its face, which led him to believe what he is looking at is the unknown creature's back. I have seen this before... A common stereotype in movies where characters underestimate a small monster and end up being eaten alive appears in his head. He prays the creature that is standing 3 meters away from him is not as or more dangerous than the monsters he has seen in movies.

Alan is sweating. His heart thumps, as if attempting to push outside his chest to escape the cumbrous feeling. Heavily burdened by his cloudy thoughts, Alan instinctively walks backward, stepping on a dry leaf. The mysterious small creature turns its head, staring at Alan with its big black eyes and a human finger on its mouth.

Crap... Alan didn't move a muscle, hoping the creature is blind and can only hear. He is aware that he stepped on a leaf, but he is flabbergasted at how sensitive the creature's ears are. The creature stares at Alan, analyzing whether he is a prey or not. Alan used all his might to not move a muscle, but a drop of blood that spilled on his head failed him. Alan slowly turns his head up. He sees multiple creatures with the same figure standing on the balcony staring at Alan with different human body parts on its mouth. The sight of blood spilling from human fingers, ears, nose, and skins overwhelms his nerves. Alan's survival instinct kicked his brain, screaming to run. In the end, Alan decides to follow it.