Yelling probably wasn’t the best idea. The Crocolator spun and with a combination of throw and spit, sent a mouthful of mangled Sand Murk corpses at me. I didn’t have enough experience tangling with the croc to foresee this move and the projectiles pelted me all over. I tried to defend myself, but my rush forward left me unprotected and something struck my head. I fell to the ground, my head half-sinking into the water. My ears were ringing and my head throbbing, but luckily, I managed not to drop my weapons and the croc wasn’t coming toward me. As I cleared the ringing, I noticed the croc was busy again with a group of Sand Murks. A lone Sand Murk hissed at me and attacked, lunging with bared teeth and grasping claws. I saw it in my peripheral, and I brought my machete up to block its attack and plunged my knife into its side. I threw it to the side and off my blade, and slowly started to circle around to a blind side of the croc. I saw my opening, but just before I was about to rush in once again, the air rushed in around the croc as it was covered in a faint glow and the water rippled away from it. It began fighting again with renewed vigor and quickly dispatched the Sand Murks in its vicinity with a sweep of its tail as it spun its body in a complete circle. I focused on its name again and noticed a significant difference.

Crocolator: Level 13

I cursed inwardly. If I was right about my own level increase, then this thing is full of energy and ready to kill since it just went up a level. I looked around and it seemed like I was the only thing left for it to kill in the area. So, there was no more sneaking up on it, it was no longer tired and it was now stronger than before. Why do I even bother making plans?

It looked at me as it did another one of those clicking growls. It was a lot scarier hearing it directed at me instead of another creature. Currently, it wasn’t making any move to attack me, it adopted a wide stance and I felt that it was waiting for me to attack. Clever Girl. While I had no idea if the Crocolator was a boy or girl, I felt the comment was fitting since I felt like I was about to face off against a dinosaur, which I kind of was.

I wasn’t stupid enough to attack though, whatever skill I had where I could read my opponent’s movements didn’t give me any information while they were motionless. Without a whole lot of options, I decided to see if I could get away. This creature was strong and I didn’t really want to tangle with it. I took a step back and then another. After my second step, the croc seemed to realize what I was trying to do; it took a quick step forward then lunged at me.

I could tell it was going to lunge right after it took its first step, so when it shot forward, I was already running to the side. It opened its mouth to try to catch me, but I saw that and moved out of the way. I took a page from the Sand Murk Queen and slashed its leg with my machete. It looked like I did more damage than the queen did, but it still wasn’t enough to faze the croc. Unlike the queen, I wasn’t able to make a twisting leap onto the croc’s back, so after my first slash of its leg, I was forced to jump flat on the bed of the lake as its tail came slinging around to intercept me. As I jumped back to my feet, I was face to snout with the croc and I slammed my machete into its nose.

I know my attack hurt it, but it still didn’t slow it down as it rushed forward ramming into me. I was lifted off the ground and then flung into the air as the croc used its massive neck strength to fling me away. I landed in knee-deep water, so it broke my fall a little, enough to keep me alive and conscious. My ribs felt like they were on fire and I was having trouble breathing. I think all the damage I was experiencing was from it ramming me with its head, not from my fall, so I didn’t think I could take any more of those hits. I had to end the fight quickly and I only had one crazy idea to complete it. I struggled to move close to shore while the croc was closing the distance. I needed more maneuverability to ensure success, but the croc was smart and it didn’t want to let me get away.

I was in about ankle-deep water when I turned to face the croc; my skill let me know that it was foolish to keep running. It wasn’t clairvoyance, I just knew based off the speed, direction and a couple dozen slight body movements that it was going to attack a certain way if I kept running, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge or counter. The depth of water didn’t matter though; it was more of the density of the ground underneath. I turned around and sheathed my smaller knife once the ground got hard under my feet and prepared for my attack.

The last time the croc rushed me, I ran to the side. I still felt that this action had been the best one, but when I did run in that direction, I had a small inkling of sensations that told me there were other actions I could do. Additionally, when the croc opened its mouth, I definitely had the same feeling. So this time, I ran straight at the monster as fast as I could. Just as the last time, the croc opened its maw to try to bite me. I waited for my skill to tell me the best time to attack and once it did, I jumped right toward its mouth, tucking myself into as tight of a ball as I could manage so I didn’t get nicked by any of its teeth. The aim of my leap was true and I landed deep in the croc’s mouth.

With all the strength my legs and arms could muster, I thrust up with my machete and pressed down with my legs. My machete quickly met resistance with bone at the top of the croc’s mouth, but I screamed and pressed through it as the bone crunched and gave way. My machete drove up into the Crocolator’s mouth and directly into its brain cavity. Blood cascaded down the wound and I received a warm shower in the thick metallic tasting liquid. The croc shuddered and twitched and I could feel it tipping over onto its side. As it began to fall, I let go of the machete and launched myself out of its still open mouth. Just as my feet passed the threshold of its teeth, it hit the ground and its mouth slapped closed. I hit the shallow water and small stones of the shore hard, skidding a few feet before coming to a stop. I laid there for a minute as my everything hurt and the croc continued to slowly twitch a few feet away from me. After a moment, I wondered if it was dead and decided to get up and make sure I finished the job. I also wanted to see if I could get my machete back. Walking over to the croc, I noted that it was a good thing I leaped out of its mouth; I might have had a difficult time trying to get out. The croc twitched one more time, causing me to jump back in alarm, but just as it did, a warm glow washed over me.

As the glow surrounded me and I was infused with energy, I looked around for something to expend the energy on. I noticed that even though the Crocolator killed a lot of them and the queen was dead, there was a large number of Sand Murks still in the area. I pulled my K-Bar from its sheath and ran to the closest one.

It noticed me coming and I could hear the chittering noise that caused the auditory hallucinations, but with only one, it didn’t faze me in the slightest. It dropped down into a fighting stance as I got closer, realizing that its main weapon was useless. The small monster jumped at me, but with my skill, I could easily dodge it. I pivoted to the right and as it sailed in the air, I struck down hard with my knife. I followed through with the strike as the creature fell to the ground, dead and impaled. That wasn’t enough. I went to the next Sand Murk and the next one after that. I didn’t stop until every single one of them in the clearing was dead. The sun was high overhead by the time I was done. The Sand Murks themselves were easy to kill, what took me the longest was moving between them.

After the last one was killed, I looked over the devastation I caused. There must have been a couple hundred Sand Murks spread around the open area, all dead by my hand. It was still a paltry number compared to how many the Crocolator had killed. I wiped my blade on the carcass of a dead Sand Murk to get all the blood off, then walked back to my camp and the place where I had awoken.

As I walked back, I took a moment to look around at other things than the clearing and it stopped me in my tracks. I hadn’t noticed it before because I was too focused on survival, but everything looked different from how it was before the sky tore open. The mountain in the distance looked twice the size as before and it had some extra mountains on either side of it. I looked down toward the lake and it too was different. It was wider and it looked like it extended around a small peninsula. Am I somewhere else? I looked toward the woods and the path that my father and I had taken from our car to this lake. Are the trees bigger? As I looked to the path, I could clearly see that it still existed, so I couldn’t be in a different place unless there was a path in the same exact area. I walked over to the path to inspect it. It was covered in the tracks of Sand Murks, but as I looked at the dirt closely, I could see the traces of boot tracks that matched mine. This looks like it’s the same place, but what is going on?

I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I couldn’t put it off any longer. I turned around and walked back to my campsite. It was in shambles from the horde of monsters that trampled over everything. It was covered in blood from the violence that had occurred, but I ignored that as I walked over to the prone body of my father. He was lying on his stomach with his head turned to the side. His eyes were open and lifeless. His face covered in so much bloody sand that I could hardly make out its pale color. My skin was a few shades darker than his; a mixture of genes from him and my mom. That was the best thing about him, he treated everyone the same. Damn it, why am I thinking about this now?

I dropped to my knees next to him and just stared for a while. My mind was numb and thoughts blank as I wiped the sand off his face.

“It’s not fair,” I said. I didn’t get to show him he couldn’t treat me badly. I punched him in the face. “You asshole! How dare you treat me like that for all those years and then die without letting my get back at you! How could you leave me out here?” I hammer punched his back. It felt horrible, so I did it a few more times. “I bet you’re sitting all relaxed and smug now that you were right about the apocalypse and the superheroes. But you just left me here alone, out in the middle of nowhere. Asshole!” I stood and kicked him once for good measure, but my heart wasn’t really into it. He was a jerk the past few years, but he was my dad, I didn’t want him to die, I just wanted to beat him up and make him respect me. Now that was taken from me.

I looked around at our small campsite and the surrounding area. I couldn’t stay there, with all the blood and dead bodies, it would only be a matter of time before some other animal came and I had no idea what kind of creature that would be. Plus, the bodies would start to rot and disease would spread. I need to get to the car and my phone. I looked at my shadow to gauge the time and judged it to be about two in the afternoon. If I gathered up all the materials I could, as quickly as I could, I should be able to get a good distance away before I had to make camp for the night, then I could finish my hike to the car the next day. I looked down at my blood-caked hands and first decided that I needed to clean off some of this blood and grime off my clothes and body. I rummaged through my pack and got a change of clothes and the rest of my ammunition. I then reloaded my rifle and went to look for a clean area of the lake to quickly wash off before any more monsters came.

Once I found a clean area, it didn’t take me long to wash away all the blood and viscera that still clung to me. I didn’t want another Crocolator, or something even worse to show up, Then I would have to fight it butt naked like Beowulf. Once I got back to camp, I gathered up and consolidated all the important gear and headed out.