Something is coming.

The sound of earth splitting under pressure, of an end drawing nearer. The echoes contained between those narrow streets are free to reach my ears.

I won't let them. My arms bent together over my head, covering both eyes and ears, my knees stuck to my abdomen in a desperate attempt to appear small and inoffensive in front of danger. The headache grows stronger, I feel something warm escaping my nose, the unwelcome flavor of iron in my mouth.

It knows you are there. It is coming.

No. This can't be possible. This isn't happening.

I'm not here. This is a dream. A nightmare. A sick prank of some kind. There is no way the city has been destroyed. There is no way all this is happening. It is impossible, the military, the police, firefighters, someone must be coming right? They must be on their way, right? I'll wake up soon. Will I?

No. No one is going to help you and you know it.

Another sound. A different sound.

The beeping of a car sparks hope in my decaying heart, I lift my face from the dirt and open my eyes slightly. Am I saved?

|BOOOM!!!|

The beeping ends with a flaming explosion. Just behind a line of dead trees. Whatever images filter through the lifeless branches are enough to block my muscles completely now, my thought process enters a state of loop, just on the frontier between denial and fear.

Can't move. Can't think.

The rumbling stops in its tracks. Nothing moves anymore I simply stand frozen in place as the flames of gas dance a few hundred yards from me. Seconds dilate in length as time warps around my deliriums. Time passes without a move on either side, but the tension never disappears, it just lays dormant in my mind.

Once more, that thing moves just on the periphery of my vision. Should I ignore it?

| Tshh |

Clenching my teeth and embodying all my might I manage to turn my neck slowly. The mass of flesh that occupies the heart of the city remains in its position, its giant appendage-like claws penetrate buildings, asphalt, and hard concrete alike.

Its eyelids seem to curve as we make eye contact, the meaning behind it is revealed as it opens a giant maw splitting half of its titanic body open in the process. It's smiling, those two gigantic asymmetric eyes drawing a hint of mockery as it gazes despicably at me.

"Why is it- smilin-?"

I manage to utter a few words before reflexively gulping down. It can't be.

I amass the courage to turn my vision once more. The flames are no longer there, the thin fence that separated us is now gone, and the dead trees crumbled like paper to the revelation. Its only eye and gaping mouth provide the exact same disgusting expression I had just witnessed. Gazing down at me, the giant meatball consumes my fear. Its five sharp legs sink in the dirt as it leaves the road. It advances slowly, but its massive size more than makes up for it.

I stand there. Unmoving.

I stare at the ground. I don't want to face it.

"This is not- reality, this- is a nightmare, this is - nightmare, a nightm-re. Nothing- like this could ever- happ-."

I can't even speak anymore, tears form in my eyes while I sink my face deeper into the dirt.

Denial is the ultimate comfort zone, and its tender and warm arms have already made their way to my soul.

The stomps come to a halt as the shadow of the three-floor tall monster arrives. Its clownish expression has only grown madder. Its giant arm is about to crush me to oblivion and end this joke.

Like a guillotine, it rains down upon my neck. The return of that complete and eternal silence.

Time slows down. The bulging and grotesque end of its arm is about to reach my nape. I look around me one last time, some part of me hopes to find that hero who makes an unexpected appearance just before disaster, that warrior who will risk his life to save another from the claws of death. To save the innocent from evil.

At that time I couldn't find any golden hero.

There was no star, no moon, no light. Just darkness, dead trees, dead silence, a dead world. And that smiling meatball towering in the sky, in my blue sky. Standing authoritatively, taller than any other building or mountain. Feasting on the joy of my suffering.

Truth hurt. It hurt more than anything that happened to me ever. An absolute truth.

No one will save you.

You are your only hope.

Darkness fills my vision, with one last impact. Death.

|Thud|

No, not yet. That part of me who will refuse to die no matter what, wired by the most basic self-preservation instincts dashes out of the way just before the impact. I'm running away, streams coming from my eyes, my face covered in sweat dirt, and blood, my heart beating faster than ever.

Can't die this way.

"Fuc-!!"

My throat resonated with a growling shout as I ran at full speed towards the road, just in the direction that thing came from. My lungs contracted and expanded in rapid fire, exhausting my limited reserves of energy.

With a short burst of speed, I wouldn't arrive very far, knew that.

I glanced back at the creature which remained in place, its monstrous size still towering over me. The grin over its face had been erased and replaced with a penetrating scowl, that of an entitled kid who has been reprimanded for the first time.

That thing is angry.

Faster, I need to get the distance between us now that I can. My bloodshot eyes scanned the irregular terrain in a flash, falling meant death. Hiding wasn't an option either, if the meatball mother had managed to spot me from that distance, I had to escape its eyesight as soon as possible. Only then would I be safe.

"Let's sh- stick to running for now- sh-."

As a teenager I had been especially inactive, I had gone to the gym once or twice in the last year. The payoff was my ridiculous stamina.

My only option is a car. If I can get in a car, I can get out of here.

The timer had begun its countdown, signaled by the rumbling intensifying on my back, this time adorned by cries and wails of madness. The thing had gone berserk.

My route described a straight line, the fence of the cemetery was broken and each meter of ran distance meant that creature drawing closer, a straight path was the only sane option.

I crossed the gaping hole in the fence. Three vehicles to test my luck with, all of them were probably left abandoned in a rush, likely leaving the keys inside. At least that is what I liked to think. A white pickup, a Grey Wenault, and a truck.

The truck was too slow big and unfamiliar, while the pickup was further away than I was confident in surviving.

"Wenault it is."

Brazing for impact, I closed my eyes, protected my head, and made myself into a ball, entering straight through the car's window, which was far more resistant than I expected it to be. The hit made me dizzy and made my energies leak out rapidly. Still, I clenched my teeth and sat in the driver's seat. Fainting here wasn't an option.

The wails became stronger, the ground shakes with its footsteps, that thing was already near the fence.

My eyes take their time to look at the contact. Empty.

My racing heart skipped a beat, but I refused to give up after running all the way here. I scanned the back seats and started pulling out compartments in a rush. My mind took no care of the headache I felt and went into full overdrive managing the possibilities like a stressed student the day before the finals.

Should I keep looking? Where would the driver hide the keys? Did he run away with them? How much time do I have left 10, 8 seconds? Do I leave now and test my luck with the pickup?

My hand was ready to open the door outside, bargaining with fate with the next option again seemed my best card at hand. But the outside had been marked by death, my instincts screaming at me not to give that step. It was only then, that the shaking of the car opened a compartment in the roof, a single pair of keys dropping from it.

"Yes!"

My hands moved faster than ever, plugging in the correspondent key and starting the engine. The smooth movement of metal gear raged fervently in a matter of seconds and I accelerated out of that meatball's path just as one of its legs crushed the pavement I abandoned a few moments ago.

I looked at its expression and fed off its rage as it ran after the ever-accelerating car in vain. Its cries intensified to the point the windows on the back broke off, it couldn't reach me anymore.

"Ha- sh- hahaha! HAHaha!"

I started laughing like a madman. The hurricane of emotions, pain, anguish and near-death experience swiped my remaining sanity clean. All sense of fear was lost, the only thing that mattered was that I survived something I thought would be the end of me.

That was all I could think of as the vehicle sped further. The towering screaming monster merged with the horizon on that A-53 road.

I kept looking back in the rearview every once in a while though, a part of me expected it was not over, that the adrenaline would flood my brain once more. Still, my feet refused to let go of the throttler. I gazed through the rearview back at the sea of orange that used to be my home on the horizon.

I ignored the ever-vigilant mother meatball and limited myself to watching that scene without thinking too much of it.

It was only when I was too far away from the city that the complete absence of lights transformed that window to the outside into a mirror. Looking at myself had always been a difficult task. I didn't like the way he looked back, this time though. I didn't dislike him, didn't hate him, didn't love him either. The man that I saw. I didn't know him.