Way of the Immortals: Path of the Divine (Chapters 1 and 2)

(Here it is! the start of my cultivation novel... Enjoy and let me know what you think -- Harmon)

Chapter One: Portal Nonfiction

“I’m glad you all could make it,” I told the small group of guys who had gathered for Tom’s bachelor party. I held my beer in the air, ready to kickstart the celebration.

“Hey, I was supposed to deliver the toast,” Bobby said, the balding middle school teacher not bothering to stand. Evan was next to him, Tom’s friend from college already drunk from an afternoon of pre-gaming.

“No, you told me you’d be drunk by this point, and that I’d better handle it. I literally have the text message from you that says ‘you’re doing the toast, Nick, I’m drunk,’” I reminded Bobby. “I’ve only had one beer, remember? I just got here.”

“All right, you got me,” Bobby said, showing me his palms. “Maybe I did say something like that.”

“Sit down, Nick,” Hugo told me with a grin. “And get the hell off your damn high horse with that ‘I’ve only had one beer shit.’ You’ll catch up soon enough.”

Hugo had travelled the furthest to make Tom’s bachelor party, taking the redeye from San Diego to Boston. He was an ex-Marine, and by my estimation, he was going to be the only one that made it through the night. 

I would give it a shot, but Hugo always made it to the finish line, ready for another lap.

“Enough, enough,” I told the group, my beer still in the air. “To Tom Gryff, future Mr. Lindsay Hale, one of my oldest friends… ”

Tom snorted. “I’m not taking her last name, you asshole.”

“Are you sure about that, dude?” Hugo asked, punching Tom in the leg, both of them laughing as Tom winced in pain. 

“Just let me finish the toast,” I told them, my words cut short once the windows burst open, a purple spark of electricity exploding into the room. 

A subsonic sound rattled the floorboards and all the glass in the home shattered, a sphere of energy taking shape before us.

Suddenly awake from his beery slumber, Tom’s friend Evan tried to kick over the coffee table, only to be sucked right into the purple sphere kicking and screaming.

“What the hell?” Bobby shouted as my feet were whipped out from beneath me, a lasso of energy pulling me toward the oscillating sphere of purple energy. 

“Nick!” Tom screamed, the groom-to-be frozen in place. 

Launching into action, Hugo dropped to the ground and hooked his arms around me. 

“I got you buddy!” he said, his muscles bulging as he tried to stop me from being sucked into the sphere. 

But the sphere was stronger than both of us, and it was only a matter of moments until we were both sucked in. 

There was no tunnel made of light, no freefalling, no pain and no warning. 

Hugo and I were simply deposited on a breakwater made of stones covered in algae, the air smelling of brine, seawater spraying into our faces as a wave hit the rocks.

I gasped as I took in my surroundings, not at all familiar with how we could have ended up near the sea.

“Okay, okay…” Hugo said, nodding his head. “Evan, we have to find Evan. First thing.”

“Wait, what the hell just happened?” I asked, everything around my spinning as I tried to figure this out. 

“Doesn’t matter, we find Evan and… ”

Tom fell out of the sky and straight into the water.

“Tom!” Hugo cried, taking off his shirt, ready to jump in. I caught his arm just in time, preventing him from diving.

“What the hell, Nick!?”

“Dude.”

“Dude… ” Hugo said, his eyes going wide.

There was no way in hell we were going to be able to take on what we saw rise out of the water.

A sea serpent? 

No, a fucking sea dragon, something easily as large as a city bus, with glistening scales and a terrible maw filled with sharp teeth.

But rather than run, Hugo lifted one of the smaller rocks and tried to hurl it at the dragon, which was definitely a mistake when the monster lifted even higher into the air, smashing onto breakwater as it tried to eat Hugo alive.

The wave it created slapped me against the chest, sending me under the water. 

I felt something move against my side, the dark water and gray sky making it difficult to see what lurked beneath the depths. 

A hand came around my mouth, another hand landed on my chest and my waist. 

I squirmed away and started kicking toward the breakwater, faster than I’d ever swum before. I pressed forward with all my might, fueled by adrenaline, trying my best to come out of the water and figure out what had happened Hugo. 

Reaching the breakwater, and I scrambled up onto the rocks just as Bobby fell before me, the middle school teacher shrieking until he realized he was on solid ground.

“Nick! Nick!” he started screaming again when he saw me kicking at the water, pale white hands trying to grab at me feet.

“What the fuck was that?”

“No idea… ” I said as I managed to free myself.

“Where are the others?” he asked, his hands on his forehead. “What the hell was trying to pull you into the water?”

“I really don’t know, man!”

I could see something ominous moving beneath the sea, something causing a small swirl in the surface of the water.

Bobby and I heard a terrible roar as the sea dragon came out of the water again, landing on the breakwater, spines lifting off its back.

“Hugo… ” I started to say, pointing toward the sea dragon.

“Hugo’s a fucking sea dragon!?”

“No, that’s where he was… ”

“I’m out of here!” Bobby said, starting to run.

I looked back to the sea dragon to see the monster opening its mouth, water spritzing the air all around it, its beady red eyes locked onto me.

I took off toward the shore.

Chapter Two: Driftwood on a Foreign Shore

We reached the shore at the same time, Bobby jumping forward, as if the land was moving away from him. I glanced over my shoulder to see the sea dragon had dipped back into the water, a whirlpool the only proof it ever existed.

“Where’s Evan?” Bobby asked frantically. “Tom? Hugo’s goddamn dragon food, you said so yourself!”

“I did?”

“How the fuck? We’re drunk. We’re drunk. You’re drunk, I’m drunk. We’re drunk.”

“I had one goddamn beer, Bobby.”

“Did you put some mushrooms in my beer or some fucked up Western Mass hippy concoction?”

“What? No!” I bent forward, my hands on my knees now as I tried to catch my breath. I was sopping wet, but it was the last thing on my mind.  “Evan was the first to go into the portal.”

“Yeah, I saw that, Nick.”

“I’m… ” I swallowed hard. “I’m just trying to get a grip on what happened here. Then Hugo and me went in. Tom’s out there.” I nodded toward the sea.

“Are you saying that Tom was… ”

“I don’t know what I’m saying! We were just sitting in your apartment, and now this.” 

I looked back out of the water, to the end of the breakwater. The sea was calm now, and for a moment I questioned if there had been a dragon in the first place.

“We’re going to die here,” Bobby kicked a piece of driftwood. “Wherever the hell we are, we’re going to die here.”

“I don’t know… ”

“What you talking about, Nick? Two of our friends are already dead. Evan may or may not be dead, but he wasn’t our friend to begin with,” Bobby said, pacing now. “You said Tom fell into the sea. I’m guessing Hugo went after him… ”

“Correct. And then the dragon came.”

Bobby paused. “Nope, dragons don’t exist. No way, no how.”

“We both saw it,” I reminded him.

“Sure, that complicates things. And we both know Evan’s fat ass isn’t getting very far. Who knows if he can even swim.” 

“I’m sure Evan can swim.”

“He’s severely overweight.”

“Maybe by a hundred pounds,” I told Bobby, not sure why I was arguing with him.

“Well, if he did make it to safety, something will eat him. If there are dragons here, they will eat Evan. Mark my fucking words, Nick. I mean, if I were dragon I would eat Evan. He has the most meat on him.”

“I thought you said he was fat.”

“You know what I’m goddamn trying to say here, Nick.” Bobby clenched his fists at his sides. “Okay, okay, enough shit-talking. Sorry. I’m upset. Where are we? Let’s start there.”

Both of us looked around; all I could see was that we were on a beach in front of a vast sea, mountains to our right, and a jungle behind us. Bobby checked his phone, grimacing. “No service. What about you?”

“My phone’s on the table at your place.” I took another glance around. “New England? Are we still in New England?”

“No, it was winter in New England. That’s a jungle. There are no jungles in New England.”

“The water kind of reminds me of New England, it’s coldness, it’s darkness.”

“No way. We’re somewhere else, maybe somewhere… ” Bobby looked at the mountains in the distance. “If we were somewhere tropical, there probably wouldn’t be snow on the tops of the mountains.”

“Maybe we are in Asia?” I asked with a shrug.

“How the hell would we go from Boston to Asia in a matter of seconds?”

“Shit, man, I’m just throwing out suggestions here. How often does a portal opened up in the middle of a bachelor party?”

Bobby nodded. “Good point. Sorry. This has my blood pressure up, and yeah, crap. You think someone spiked our beers do you?”

“Who’s going to spike our beers? It was a bachelor party with five people, all of whom have known each other since childhood. Well, except for Evan. He’s new to the group.”

“That’s a nice way to say. He’s Tom’s friend, Evan was never part of our group. But I agree with you. No one would spike our drinks.” Bobby ran his fingers through his goatee. “Except Evan, but even that seems like something he wouldn’t do.”

“We’re not hallucinating, Bobby,” I said, reaching down and taking a fistful of sand. “I’ve tripped before. This is not what it’s like.”

Our dialogue was cut short when we noticed something on the other end of the beach. A group of men moved along the shoreline, and from a distance it looked like they were…

“Soldiers?” I asked.

Both of us peered off into the distance, confirming what we had seen.

“Looks like it to me,” Bobby finally said. 

The soldiers were about a quarter of a mile away, and if I wasn’t seeing things, it seemed like they had swords at their sides. 

“All right, follow my lead,” Bobby said with a firm nod. “I speak Spanish.”

“What good is that going to do?”

“I don’t know. Do you speak any other languages?”

“I dabbled in German college.”

“Before or after you dropped out?” 

“Actually, it was after, during one of my trips to Berlin.”

“And no matter how long you spent in Europe, you still never found yourself.” Bobby turned in the direction of the marching soldiers. “Let me handle this.”

“If you say so.”

“I speak Spanish, Nick,” he huffed. “Just let me do the talking.”