Dead Rising: Lens of West

The cool night only made Frank nervous to a small extent. He felt very curious, however, as to where he exactly was.

Fortune City obviously did not have a large forest from what he remembered. Trees loomed over him, the skies soared as silently as they could, and the stars glistened effervescently. No star field compared decently with the vast scene that rested above him. Judging by the brightness of the stars, Frank concluded that he was not in a city.

That was also where the most important question, “Where am I,” jumped into a dead-end in its journey for answers. Frank really had no idea as to where he was. He had experienced getting knocked out by certain people and suddenly finding himself in a different location, but he doubted that something like the military would drag his unconscious body out into an open field. If the stars shined so brightly, then he must have been taken to a location very, very far from cities.

So where was he?

Walking down a dark path by himself, Frank West whistled in an attempt to keep himself a little less nervous. And it worked, for he soon found himself indulged in whistling down the path that carried him to wherever it led to. All he wanted was for the path to lead into some town. Anything, really.

…Except for zombies. Or psychopaths.

Frank sighed.

What the heck, he thought worriedly as the path continued to lead him deeper into the forest. How deep am I in this stupidly large forest?

The photojournalist sighed. Out of all places he could find himself after getting caught in an explosion within an elevator, he ended up in a forest with no signs of life.

A handful of minutes rolled by, and soon, Frank finally found a sign of life. He walked up to a signpost within the dark path. Due to his dark surroundings, he had to turn on the flashlight attached to his camera in order to properly read what the sign said.

Ponyville.

…

…

…That’s really funny, Frank thought, mentally flipping a bird at the skies as he stared at the sign post.

“There is a place on God’s Green Earth,” Frank muttered out loud, “called Ponyville.”

The photojournalist did not know whether to scream in frustration or laugh out of confusion. Thus, he decided to do both, first laughing before screaming with agony tinted all over his voice.

It took him a while to control himself, but he eventually did find the ability to keep his cool.

Actually, no; he did not find the ability to keep his cool.

What on Earth were these people thinking when they named this place? Frank thought, admiring the intensively original minds of human beings. There were so many things they could have come up with, like “Horse Harbor” or some random shit like that, but noooooooOOOOoooooo, it had to be Ponyville out of all god-forsaken names.

Life just keeps getting weirder and weirder the more I travel...

It seemed that Frank had no choice but to go to the strangely named town.

Again, the road for shelter was a boring and tedious one. No matter what he tried to occupy himself, he always ended up encountering boredom at its finest. Nothing dangerous came out to hurt him, nothing awesome came out to impress him; all he saw was a single road that seemed to have no end.

Okay, maybe a zombie or two would actually help me out here, the photojournalist thought sarcastically as he cracked his neck.

Frank West never did receive a zombie in the end.

Instead, he got a road that suddenly sank through the ground.

“…?! What the- WHOA!”

Barely reacting to the path that crumbled into an empty void, Frank kicked the ground and pushed himself away, landing roughly on his back. His eyes widened, the zombie-killing photojournalist watched the dirt road that used to sit so silently get pulled into a dark vortex.

“This is some Star Trek shit I’m seeing here!” Frank screamed to himself. The man raised his camera and snapped a picture of the black hole, despite the fact that he was in a tight situation. It had become a habit of his to simultaneously take pictures and save his own life in many dangerous situations.

With several shots of the vortex taken, the startled freelancer crawled back before getting up on his feet. He backed away from the road that continued to crumble in front of him.

And soon, the vortex began to consume the ground beneath Frank West much faster than before.

His eyes widened as he reacted swiftly once more, kicking himself from a part of the ground that flew towards the vortex.

“Oh shoot. Oh nonoNONONOOOAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

Soon, the man found himself torn off the ground. Tumbling into the vortex like a ragdoll, the photojournalist screamed as he lashed his arms out to grab onto something. Barely catching onto a tree trunk that coincidentally passed by him, the man yelled at the top of his lungs,

“WHAAAAAAAAAT’S GOOOOOOIIIIIING OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON?!?”

Frank West flew into the vortex, holding onto a tree trunk with his life at stake.