I open my eyes. My green pupils reflect the dark above, nighttime already.

Staring blankly at the moon, trying to stop my spinning head, I lift myself up from the ground. The grass between my fingers, a soft breeze, and the sound of shaking leaves welcome me. The expanse around me seems completely covered by foliage.

"What am I doi-ng in here?"

As a distant lighthouse calling for my attention, the lights of the city far on the horizon flicker in an eerie fashion. Until they are gone.

"Wha-t in the-?"

I try standing up, but it is useless, my whole body feels wrong, just as If I had woken up from a long lethargic dream. I remain unmoving, sitting on the floor as darkness sinks between the branches of that forest, only the moon lights the way.

"What the hell happened?"

I utter in a weak voice, in an attempt to remember the reason I woke up here. I feel like I have to do something, to move maybe. The night is dangerous, I must return...

"I must return soon."

Gritting my teeth, I crawl next to a nearby branch, and with its help, I manage to stand up. The world seems to grow blurrier with each movement, and a sense of exhaustion fills me completely. Yet I somehow advance in lapses, my path lost in memory as I close my eyelids to sleep.

Both familiar and foreign, my surroundings become irrecognisable as I descend down the hill I initially found myself at, the landscape of far away mountains now burrowed under thick pines and bushes.

Walking in circles, dancing between shards of consciousness, hours pass in a flash. Like waves of the sea, my mind sways. The need to fall back into the cushion of sleep comes and goes, everything grows quieter for a second before I find myself buried in unconsciousness.

"Ugh?.."

I am awakened in a radically different landscape, not by anything in particular, but the smell. That smell of iron corrupts the air.

Dripping down from my arms bathed in blood. I find myself in a battleground, hundreds of irrecognisable corpses rest motionless, their guts and brains brutally splashed to the ground. That peaceful night forest is nowhere to be seen, a layer of collapsed trees and destruction.

"Wha-t the fu-ck happened he-r-e!"

My hand approaches the face, the same face tied to my body, trying to hide the gruesome scene from his eyes. His face now covered in blood, I finally realize what was out of place all along...

Like flashes, images of the carnage enter my memory. It was me all along that was out of place. The unmoving pool of crimson below my feet doesn't lie. That which is reflected spells only truth.

"What have I become?"

Covered in a hood, pale as the moon itself, glaring at the growing sea of human fluids stands a monster. The calamity itself.

"AGHHhh!!!"

A thundering shout echoes through the mountains.

I wake up in a hurry, agitated to the point of shouting my lungs out. The first thing I notice under my palms is the sensation of warm sweat covering the metal floor. I mutter in vain, the pleading for an apology, as I envision the vision of havoc.

"It's just a dumb nightmare."

I glance towards the compartment's steel door, it's still closed. I'm still safe.

Just a nightmare...

I calm down and start preparing my gear. I grab the grey rucksack from a corner and start laying its contents on the floor. Another flashlight, two bars of nutrients, a bottle of water, newspapers, and a camping lantern.

I lighted the lantern and placed it next to me, open the newspaper and prepare to read. Even if it's just minuscule, information about what happened is ultimately necessary, it could save me from a preventable death.

I open the piece of paper still maintained through the apocalypse, and begin reading.

While flipping those pages, I'm reminded of the reason I really despised reading the news. Political conflicts, gossip, unimportant events, and cases of corruption. It's the same old flavor of problems each and every day. I skip through the body of content and look for anything that could relate to the ending of the world. Someone must have noticed beforehand, right?

I arrive at the first page in deception. The irony of reading the news every day, not to be informed that everything is about to get fucked up. Isn't it ridiculous?

My eyes flash to the big title itself, a particular piece of information. Seems I found a key afterall.

Mysterious collapse of several Countries.

It was yesterday, 23/12/2069, at approximately 1:30 hours, that the last communications received from several countries in south-east Asia took place.

From internet networks to landlines and power supplies every signal of life fell in a span of fewer than four hours.

Even though at first glance satellite images confirm the integrity of most parts of the affected countries' infrastructure. Several viral tweets have spread all over the internet, a simple comparison with orbital images from some hours prior to the event reveals the inexplicable apparition of several anomalies in certain big cities and nuclei of population.

The white house has yet to utter any official statement regarding this concerning issue, although it is a matter of fact that government authorities all over the world are already undergoing investigations on set unprecedented phenomenon.

It is expected that today at 19:00 several world leaders will be holding a meeting to start an organized international response as soon as possible...

"How is it even possible?"

If the mysterious disappearance of those countries has something to do with these monsters, then there is no reason to believe it is only this city. If dozens of countries had fallen overnight, if whatever had caused could propagate...

Then the entire world could already be in shambles.

The whole image became a little dimmer now, the reason no one had acted, the reason this place was abandoned to this point. It's because the world has collapsed.

Even though it couldn't be rationally explained, there had always been the notion within me that I wasn't the only one. If I made it out of this place, I would be able to find help, find people.

Now that possibility vanished before my eyes, maybe this was true hell after all.

It doesn't matter.

"How doesn't it matter? Don't you realize the whole world could be in shambles right now? This could be--"

Rain or shine. Our goal remains.

Thoughts of loneliness and defeat threaten to enjail me from my true objective. I must remain centered.

What if there is no one out there anymore? What if humanity had lost?

I doubt I would live enough to care about those questions.

"I should get going soon enough anyways."

After packing everything essential, I opened the container's backdoor. As dark as always, the scenery had not changed at all from the last day. Or had it?

Safety is a lie.

I couldn't help noticing there was something just slightly different, although I couldn't get my hands on exactly what. Was it the atmosphere? The ever-burning fire? Or...

"SHIT!"

With the same wicked smile and a new set of eyes gazing down at me, the spheric skyscraper felt closer than ever.

A simple gaze toward the horizon is enough to understand my situation, with dozens upon dozens of smiles hidden in the shadows between the rubble, I give up on counting past the double digits. Stealthily preparing for the order to strike my head down.

| HshRiEKk!!! |

My heart stops beating for a few seconds as the rumbling starts, like a storm, those nightmarish creatures approach and run in my direction. The orchestra of piercing concrete, collapsing buildings, and explosions start.

Is this it? Is it going to end like this?

No.

"It's ok. I can still escape"

There are no cars near here, the only working vehicle is the same derailed truck I used as cover. What do I do now? Running on my own two feet until I find something?

| Plop |

I glance at the floor as something dark falls from the side of my head. Fresh blood. I touch my ear, I'm bleeding.

Everything I learned so far seems to come a little more compact as I realize. The same symptoms, bleeding through the nose or ears and a slow death matched the profile of each one of the carcasses I had seen so far. It seemed like it was now my turn.

| Clack |

My eyes bulge and redden, and my teeth clench in agony. The end is drawing nearer.

"I CAN'T AFFORD TO DIE HERE!"

Scratches, bruising, worn-out articulations, or weakened muscles. It doesn't matter, I start running in the opposite direction of the incoming storm with all my might. Those damn motherfuckers must have some kind of intelligence, it's my fault I thought about them as mindless balls of flesh.

I'll have to make up for my error.

Limits break as I run faster than I ever had, only my fast-paced rhythm matters now. And for a moment that is the only thing I'm able to hear. The persecution seems to have stopped somehow.

I'm not stupid, I do not stop in my tracks to check what is wrong, but I do l give a glance. In the distance those meatballs form a semicircle all around me, encasing me from approaching the city any further.

They are intelligent...

What do they want to achieve by stopping?

The rumbling of the distance felt muted by something closer. I feel the tingles of adrenaline through my veins, my eyes move faster than ever. Searching for an answer to the imminent danger.

No one will make decisions for you.

"Act."

As if completing those words, a diminutive flame of confidence sparks inside me. I check my pocket and grab a single handgun. Each second counts.

My eyes won't lie this time, the gloomy shadow of death approaches. Hidden behind a dead angle, opposing the direction of his fellow abomination's blockade stands a towering calamity just a couple of hundred meters before me.

|Bump Bump|

|Bump Bump Bump Bump|

|Bump Bump Bump Bump Bump Bump|

My emotions are still up in a tornado, I'm losing control. Security lock disabled, I press the trigger ruthlessly.

| SCRHEEETCH!! |

A burst of bullets lands in the monster's eyes preventing him from seeing anything. For now at least.

The enemy has an advantage in numbers, strength, and quite possibly strategic superiority. Still, none of it matters if I somehow make it out of here alive, does it?

I pass under the blind monster's crustacean legs, as I continue running without a hint of tiredness.

I saw it before, an open passage towards the sewers just a couple of hundred meters ahead, if I can reach it in time their own size will render them powerless. I can make it.

I can...

"Ugh-gh"

In an instant, my body becomes paralyzed. The speed driving me forwards makes me fall to the asphalt, bruising my hands heavily in the process.

I can notice my eyes, ears, and nostrils bleeding.

"HARDER!!"

I grasp with my mangled fingers the black soil as I continue advancing like a slug. I can manage to grasp the other creatures in the distance, still unmoving.

I do not want to look back though. That thing's eye has healed back in a matter of seconds.

Is this it?

The mother steak's disfigured features shift. A sound rumbles and reaches my ears.

| CHECKMATEEE |

A river of crimson comes out of my mouth as I bite my tongue to remain conscious. In a last-ditch effort, my ruined hands press the trigger against the approaching minion. It's useless.

"FUCK YOU!"

Between cries of desperation, a lonely shot echoes in the distance. One last battle for survival. Yet another silent death.