The sound of tearing also alerted the others, they were awakened to the beasts presence by the time I looked at them, we all looked to the left.

We didn’t see anything at all though, and, that’s what scares me. We can hear it, but we can’t see it! How small is the monster? Or is it even invisible?

“Hey, Jason,” I said, “is there… something like invisibility magic?”

Jason only wriggled with his eyebrows. “Are you thinking of something indecent here?” My head felt warm.

“No, we heard something loud just now, but I can’t see it. So, I just wanted to ask… Is there invisibility magic, or maybe even an invisible monster? There are no small dangerous monsters like that in our world.” As I said that, I noticed Jason go paler and then he said:

“There is a beast that can camouflage with its surroundings. We called it the Death bringer. Everywhere it goes, it brings death and destruction. And nobody can see them easily. So, they lives on, destroying whole empires in nights.” Jason shuddered.

“So, is it just one or is there… an army of them?” As I asked, Jason’s neck quickly turned to the left and he said:

“Usually they travel alone, since they can’t exactly see their pack.” As he said that, we heard the sound of sticks… breaking.

In the distance, we heard the wailful scream of a reaper. I’ve never heard a reaper scream this gruesome before, but I know what a reaper sounds like, or, to be more precise, what he doesn’t sound like. Not like the scream at all.

“IT’S HERE!!!” Jason shouted as he started shooting violently in the direction of the reapers scream.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

When Jason stopped to reload… we heard it, the death bringer was still alive… and it was slowly going towards our direction.

“Kiddo, I think we should run.” Glenn said to me.

Distinct other cracking sounds could be heard.

“How fast is that monster, Jason?”

“About ten times faster than a reaper on cocaine.” Jason gulped.

“We’re fucked, aren’t we.” Jason only replied with a short nod.

Crack

We heard the sound of cracking coming closer… and closer, until Glenn and I started shooting in the general direction.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

I don’t know if we hit it or if we completely missed, I could only hope.

Whoosh CRASH

We heard the sound of another house collapsing in the wind.

“It’s still out there” Jason whispered. I could tell, he was frightened.

“How strong is it?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t that strong.

“Strong enough to destroy a building in a single swipe…” Jason said, as a tear went down his face.

“Hey hey, Jason, everything’s alright, we’ll kill that bastard.” I said as I moved about.

“Do you have any water spells?” Jason nodded.

“I have one… it’s just a straight water ball reaching around 50 yards away.” Jason said. “I can’t kill him with just that. Besides I’m getting pretty empty on mana, I can only recover when sleeping.”

I thought that we could use the water to have its footsteps appear on the ground. But it looks like it’s unfeasible.

“Shit, maybe… we could light a few fires and dig some pitfalls?” I said, hopeful.

“Not enough time. We’d be dead by the time we dig a single pitfall. In other words, we are thoroughly fucked.” Jason said with a voice that seemed like, it was deprived of hope.

“Maybe we only have to dig one… right here, we could hide!” I pointed to our surroundings. Debris was still scattered everywhere, we hadn’t quite left Manhattan.

“That might work… let’s hope it doesn’t have a good sense of smell.” Jason said, as a little bit of hope appeared in his eyes.

“Okay, let’s start digging” I said, ignoring what he said about the sense of smell.

---

After a short amount of time digging using earth magic, we made a decent hole to hide in. Problem is, we three men only barely fit inside, without weapons.

“Okay, put your weapons near the place! Hopefully we can grab them if it can smell us.” Jason said as he put his gun near where he jumped.

“Glenn, you go in first.” I said.

Glenn retorted, he wouldn’t go into this smelly hole, so I just pushed him inside.

We waited for what seemed like hours. Waiting for the beast to either find us or leave us alone.

It never came.

But, it also never left. Buildings around us keep getting destroyed and one time a building landed near us, luckily none of the debris hit us.

“How much longer?” Glenn asked Jason.

“At best… when the sun comes up, at worst… the whole next day” Jason whispered.

“Shit” Was all I had to say in that conversation. “What if another monster comes?”

“Dumbass, the Death bringer will kill it before it gets to us” Glenn replied.

Jason just made a silencing move.

After only 7 hours, the buildings stopped collapsing, and with a sigh of relief we carefully went outside again. The constant sound of charring from other monsters was ever-present again, no longer was the world only filled with the buildings collapsing.

When I left the pitfall I looked around and could only sigh in amazement. All of the surrounding buildings have fallen, you could even see the capital city in the horizont.

We took a rest and marched onwards to Jason’s secret base.

We found a small town from some survivors. I hope they’re not hostile.

“Hey there.” Jason greeted as we walked to the town gate.

“What do you seek? Fortune, work or something else?” said a burly man at the gate. His eyes were fixated on Jason for a moment, then his gaze went back to normal again.

“We seek temporary refuge, there’s only three of us. You can take our weapons, as long as you give them back when we leave.” Glenn said.

The burly man looked at Glenn, then rubbed his eyes, before he smiled and pulled the chair back, standing up.

“Glenn, you old bastard. Is that you?!” the burly man asked with wide eyes.

“Thomas!?” Glenn’s eyes also went wide.

“The one and only. Why are you here man?”

“One of those flying monsters got to me, if these two didn’t save me... I might not be alive.” Glenn said as he gestured his hand toward us.

“Well damn, I knew you could survive anything. But one of those flying monsters!? Goddamn Glenn!” Thomas said, amazed.

“So, can we go inside?” Glenn asked Thomas and he replied with “Yeah, sure. Just don’t cause too much trouble for the ladies, Glenn”

“I won’t cause TOO much trouble, he he he” Glenn said with a perverted grin on his face.

“So, Glenn’s a pervert. At least he looks like one now.” I whispered to Jason.

“Pfft! Ha ha ha ha!” Jason burst out laughing, holding onto his stomach.

Thomas looked at us. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, at least Glenn looks like a pervert now!” Jason gestured towards me.

“Pfft! Ba ha ha ha!” Thomas also started laughing like a mad man.

“That’s not funny” Glenn said, clearly annoyed.

“Get in here” Thomas said as he opened the large rusted metal gate with his own two arms.

“Damn, he’s pretty strong”

“Not as strong as some of the people I’ve met” Jason replied.

“They aren’t here.” I responded.

The inside of the town was a little bit shabby compared to manhattan. But on the other hand, there was a tree growing on top of water. Water was scarce now, trees even scarcer.

Because of the nuclear catastrophe some parts were completely devoid of trees, other parts are just jungles. Nonetheless global warming took a turn to the worse, and now we have to pay attention to not sleep too low, else we’ll get suffocated. So we had to go higher and higher, and the higher we went, the colder it was. To top it off, the global warming also increased the discrepancy of the local temperatures, so apparently it’s more cold than before the point Zero.

In other words, trees shouldn’t grow here.

Either it’s too warm or too cold, or too dry.

But there is a tree here in the town centre, so, just maybe… There’s hope after all.

I really hope so.

___

_Went a little bit overboard._ Writer 0

[I can see that, luckily you know… science shit, I don’t XD] -Writer 1

_This is where chemistry and geology pays off. They both can be lifesaving_ Writer 0