*Harold*

Adam is dead. That thing killed Adam. Adam is dead. It will come for us. It killed Adam. It will kill us. We will die. Die like Adam died. Run. We have to run. It will kill us. Escape. Escape where? It is right there. It killed Adam. It will come for us. Run. Run where? Run. Run anywhere. Anywhere not here. Run. Run away. Run from the creature. Others. Take others. Run. Run before killed. Take others and run. Run and live. Stay and die. Run. Run! RUN!

I grab Alex who has collapsed to the ground and hall her to her feet. She is screaming. We all are screaming. Am I screaming? Yes. What am I screaming? Yes, run, I am screaming run, “Run! Get up and RUN!”

The thing looks at us. Looks at me, no, looks at Lora. She is closest. She is screaming. She is on the ground. She is in danger. She will die. It will kill her. Run. Run away. No. Have to help. She will die. She is already dead. We have to run. No. She is alive now, alive still.

I reach out, call her name, the creature lurches forward. Claws glinting red. The light makes them glow. Red streaks of death, streaking for Lora’s neck. I am too far. Run. Help. Jump. Run. Escape.

John tackles the creature. They both grind against the pavement. He screams to us, “RUN!” Yes run. We must run. I am next to Lora. When did I get here? She is screaming. Get up. Get her up and run. Run. Mike grabs my shoulder. There is panic in his face. Why is he scared? Yes, the monster. Run. Escape. I look down. Lora is collapsed on her knees crying. Grab her. Grab her and run.

Mike and I grab Lora from under the shoulders and start dragging her back. Run. Run with friends. Alex. John. Adam. Adam is dead. Adam was killed. Alex? I frantically look around for her. She is behind us, at a corner. A building? Yes, hide, hide in the building. John. Have to tell John.

John is not with us. John tacked the creature. The creature that killed Adam. Where is John? I snap back to where the creature was. John is still there. Why is he still there?

“John!” Mike is screaming at John. Lines. There are lines near John. John is still wrestling with the creature. John does not see the lines. The lines that brought the creature here. More lines, more creatures.

I scream with Mike, “John, run! More . . .”

Another one appears. It looks at us. It looks at John. Lora screams. Mike screams. Alex screams. I scream.

We are too far. John is too far. The creature is too close. It jumps on John. It grabs John’s head. It pulls John’s head back. It pulls John’s head back, and back, and back. Is see John’s eyes. The eyes of fear. The pleading for rescue, for life. The creature pulls John’s head. It pulls, and red lines split across John’s neck. Blood flows from those fissures, slow, only a little. The muscle underneath strains. The fissures grow, lengthening, widening. The blood starts to flow. The Muscles snap, little cables breaking and curling up under the skin that tears and reveals more muscles to snap and curl.

John is no longer screaming, John is gurgling. Why is he gurgling? John’s throat is torn. Blood is flowing down into his lungs. John will drown. More muscles snap and curl revealing John’s spine. There is so much blood. Like a fountain, bright red, a spire of blood, only a few inches tall, spilling and gushing into John’s throat, staining his shirt. John just got that shirt, his new favorite shirt, Lora gave it to him. It is covered in blood now. John’s blood.

There is a crunch, a snap. John’s spine breaks, cracks, and shatters. The last dregs of John’s skin tear, the last muscles snap and curl. John’s head comes free from his body. John. John has died. Died like Adam. John and Adam are dead. Dead. We are next. We will die. Run. Run away.

Alex is here with us now. She is pointing and screaming. She is not pointing to John. Can’t she see John is dead? John died. I look to where she is pointing. There are more lines. More lines. More creatures. The lines are bigger. More creatures? Bigger creatures?

It emerges. Large. Too large. Almost as tall as a man. It is covered in dark, long, spine like fur that drags along the ground. From underneath, large pearlescent ivory fangs, and claws glisten. It raises its head. What is it doing? Is it sniffing the air? It looks to where John and Adam are. John and Adam are dead. The creatures screech at it. Then it looks at us. Lora is on the ground. Mike is not moving. I am not moving. Alex is gripping my arm. I cannot feel my arm, she is shaking. I am shaking.

We are too close. It is too large. It will kill us. We will die. Die like Adam. Die like John. Run. I can’t move. Run. The others are here. Run. We can’t escape.

A roar echoes through the streets. IT opens its maw. More teeth. A dark void surrounded by teeth. Is it the one roaring? No. It will eat us. It will kill us. We will die. The roaring grows closer. Another one. Another one to feast on us after it is done. After we have died? The roaring is on top of us now. The roaring has arrived.

Blood. There is blood covering Lora. Entrails drip from Mike. Guts plaster Alex. I am soaked in refuse. Have we died? We are still together. The roaring has stopped. Screaming and pulling is there instead. Where IT once was, something else is present. Larger, harder, made of steel rather than teeth and claws. Made by man. Behind the new coat of blood, a name. International Disaster Response is pained along the side. The IDR has come.

*Ebel*

What the hell is going on? Out of the blue I am called back to post and when I arrive, I get told to sit tight in my truck. What is going on? We have had emergency standby drills before, but not for this long, and not this widespread. Usually, these drills are only carried out on a unit-by-unit basis. Not the whole base. Not just my unit, but every unit is present and on standby like we are about to face the end of the world.

“Ebel, any idea what’s going on?” Dani, my armorer knocks on the back window.

I look back to her, “tell you what sergeant, when the sky starts falling down then you’ll know whats going on.”

My driver, Manuelle, barks a laugh and Dani shrugs her shoulders, “just want to know how much longer we are going to be stuck here.”

Manuelle grins mischievously, “Oh? Who is the lucky hot date you had to stand up?”

Rodriguez retorts, “sure as hell wasn’t you.”

Manuelle blushes fiercely and the truck erupts in laughter. George leans over from the far back and chimes in, “she wants to know if she can make it back in time to help her Shattered World team in this year’s Dungeon Run. Which just ended, by the way Dani. You never know, without me, Greg here, or Charolette, your team might just have a chance to beat Hound Dogs this year.”

Dani sits back against the cabin grumbling. Looks like George hit the nail on the head. Greg leans forward to see into the cabin, “What about you lieutenant? Sorry you missed the expo?”

Manuelle looks back at him, “the lieutenant? She is too busy climbing cliffs and punching bad guys to be interested in going to an expo.”

I give him the stink eye, “Specialist did he ask you? Or me?”

Manuelle sinks back into his seat again, “you ma’am.”

More snickers in the back of the truck, “to answer your question private, no I do not regret being able to do my duty to always be ready to respond in case of a disaster.”

Everyone just shrugs, Dani looks to me, “why don’t you play Shattered World anyway? We get free premium access and daily bonuses as well. Hell, we have a permanent discount on any purchases to do with Shattered World, both in game and out.”

I lean back some, “I tried it a couple times, and yes it was amazing, but then I saw what it was doing to those around me. It was draining them, making them depressed. The game is a feat of technology, but it makes people believe their lives outside the game are worthless. In there they are superheroes, out here they feel like losers, and it makes them depressed.”

Everyone just kind of looks for a bit until Rodriguez finally responds, “deep words LT, deep.”

Greg lowers his head a bit, “where did that come from anyway lieutenant, you’re not really the philosophical kind.”

George kicks him in the knee, “shut up man, don’t you remember, her little brother almost killed himself after losing his ability to log on,” George’s face goes a shade whiter when he realizes what he just said, “sorry lieutenant, I just . . .”

I rub my forehead, “yes, my little brother tried to commit suicide, yes I blame that stupid game, yes I take him to go mountain climbing, yes he is very much better now. If you all are done complaining and bringing up old scars than refocus yourselves and recheck you gear. These drills are meant to make sure we can respond at a moment’s notice no matter what happens. So be sure you are ready to do so.”

After my tirade I turn back around and settle myself while the rest of the squad checks and rechecks their gear.

Although this whole drill is strange. We have been sitting here since this morning with no word of what is happening, and we got the notice of muster only hours prior to when we needed to arrive. If not for us being stuck sitting here for so long, I would actually believe this to not be a drill, and some disaster is occurring somewhere near here. Yet if there is a disaster happening, why are we not going and just sitting here. It’s not like we wait until it is safe for us to move, we always show up as soon as we can, safe or not. Our entire meaning of existence is to show up where it is not safe.

After everyone finishes their gear check, they fall back into their chats and jibes, although none try to drag me in this time and just wait until I initiate the discourse. I wonder whatever happened to the discipline they learned during initial training. Although, it might be better this way, them being this close to each other might just be the difference between relying on each other to have their backs and believing that they have each other’s backs.

As we continue to just wait, the truck suddenly stops idling. I scrunch my brow and look to Manuelle, “why did the truck turn off?”

Manuelle is fiddling with the starter, “I don’t know, it just went off and won’t come back on.”

I glance outside and see the lights on the other convoy trucks and APCs are off as well. What is going on?

Greg calls from the back of the truck, “Lieutenant! The Sky!”

What is he talking about? I look up to the sky from inside the cabin and I freeze.

The sky was bleeding colors. Everywhere I looked an Aurora seeped through the clouds and reflected off every surface.

From the back of the truck Dani calls out to me as well, “LT, were you being serious about the sky falling? I don’t think we’re quite equipped for that.”

I forcefully peel my eyes away and take stalk of myself, “Seargent, if not us then who? Everyone get ready, I have a feeling this drill just stopped being a drill.”

*Ebel*

“Greg, you and George head to the captain, figure out what’s going on and report our situation,” I issue orders after checking and failing to get the radio working, “Dani help Manuelle figure out what is wrong with the truck, we need to get it running ASAP. Roderiguez, you’re our radioman, get this radio working.”

With a resounding “Yes, Ma’am,” everyone got on their tasks. I exited the cab and looked around our surroundings. Our truck wasn’t the only one knocked out. Throughout both our convoy and the others, located in the staging area, IDR troops are exiting their vehicles and opening up their engines. Besides the vehicles, there are no lights on either. I check my phone and watch to see neither are working. Looks like all electronic devices are down. Could this be an EMP? I look back to the sky. No, this is a solar flare. A big one.

I turn back to the truck, “Alright you three, switch everything to analogue functionality. The computers and electronics are done for.”

The three respond with a “yes, ma’am,” and get to work. From down the convoy line my two privates are sprinting as hard as they can back here. On their arrival I only allow for a two second breather, “Report.”

Greg reports, “Captain says we got hit by a solar flare and to switch everything to analogue.”

Figured that out already, but what do we do now? The cities are going to be in absolute disarray.

Greg continues, “he also wants any thermite grenades and armorers that can be spared.”

I open my eyes a bit, “Why? What for?” We only have two thermites and Dani is helping Manuelle change over the truck. We will likely need the thermites to break into some of the more securely locked buildings city side, to recue those trapped inside.

George answers me this time, “the flare overwhelmed the APC’s protections, their latches are sealed tight and the O2 is no longer pumping inside. The crews are trapped and will run out of air within less than an hour.”

Damn. I turn to the front of the truck, “Dani! Drop whatever you’re doing and get our thermites. You need to bust open the closest APC before her crew suffocates!”

Dani pokes her head out from the front, “What?!”

I point to the back of the truck and then to the closest APC to us, “Thermites, APCs, Open, Now!”

With a sharp nod and a panicked, “Yeas, Mum” Dani crawls into the back, grabs our two thermites and sprints to the APC I pointed too.

I turn back to the two privates who are still wheezing, “did the captain say anything else?”

They nod and Greg reports, “As soon as the trucks are back up and running the convoy will be heading to the city center.”

I nod, and from our side I can hear Dani call out, “Thermite! Thermite! Thermite!” A gun shot later a bright flash of light nearly blinds us as we turn our heads and shield our eyes.

Dani comes running back up to the truck. I look at her and she is covered in soot, “How did it go?”

She stops halfway crawling into the back, “I took the thermite out of the grenades and piled it on the latches and locks. After setting it off with a shell that I took the bullet out of they melted, but the latch is still too heavy, and it is jammed in there. I need a crowbar to pry it open!”

I nod to her and motion to George, “George, go with her.”

With a sharp nod he runs after Dani who had already got the crowbar and taken off.

I look to Greg, “Go help Manuelle with the truck.”

Shortly after the Lieutenant of the APC arrives with Dani and George, “Thanks for getting us out of there Ebel, I have some extra non-lethals and a few extra mags and an extra rifle for your armorer here.”

I look at the rifle and ammo. I am glad for the non-lethals, but the live ammo?

The fellow lieutenant sees my expression, “Ebel, look at the sky, things are going to get really messy out there, and you just lost your thermites too. The Armory will be locked up tight because of the flare. Non-lethals wont shatter windows, won’t break doors. It is a lot more messy than the thermites, but the rifle and ammo will come in handy.”

I look at the seasoned squad leader. He would have seen much more deployments than my one. I nod to his advice and have George load the gear in the back. The truck revs to life and Manuelle shuts the hood, “good to go LT!”

I look back to the lieutenant and he grabs my shoulder, “good luck out there.”

I nod to him, “You as well.”

We part ways and my squad, and I pile back into the truck. I check on Rodriguez, “how’s the radio coming?”

Still buried in wires, he doesn’t even look up, “Ham’s not getting anything, I am switching over to telegraph.”

Shit, “Dani, help him with anything he needs.”

I peer back outside to see most of the convoy has started back up. A private is running from truck to truck. When he finally arrives at ours, I open the door to hear his report, “Orders from the Captain, convoy is leaving in under five minutes. You are heading to the central downtown expo convention center. You are to evacuate the expo and set up a temporary relief center on site.”

At his conclusion he runs off to the next truck in line. Manuelle knocks on the back window, “Seargent, it looks like you get to go to your precious expo after all.”

I order, “Run a final gear check and keep alert, we got a job to do and let’s do it right.” My squad give a deep nod and begins checking their gear.

A trooper is waving us forward while the convoy begins to exit the compound. I announce to my squad, “Let’s GO!”

*Harold*

Someone is shaking me. There are loud cracks, they reverberate through my head. I can feel my arm again, Alex? I glance over my shoulder to where Alex was supposed to be. Did we not Die? Where is IT? I can see someone dragging Alex toward the truck. Is that Greg? Greg shouldn’t be here. He was called into the IDR alongside Dani and George. I am being shaken by George, he is here too? I peer to the top of the truck, to the source of the splitting cracking sound. Dani is there. She is on top of the truck with a rifle? She is firing at something. I look behind me, toward the expo, as I am hauled onto the truck. There are more creatures, more Its. They are still attacking people. They will attack us. They will kill us. Dani, Greg, George, Alex, Mike, Lora, we will all be killed. There is one heading this way, it will kill . . . its head explodes. Dani shot it in the head. Dani is shooting the creatures.

Once on the back of the truck with Alex, Lora and Mike, my senses start coming back to me. Outside of the slats in the side of the truck, I can see more IDR trucks surrounding the expo’s parking lot. Nearly all the trucks have someone on their roof firing at the creatures, both the smaller grey ones and the larger black ones. IDR troopers are calling out to the panicked survivors and dragging them over to the trucks. More and more creatures keep appearing. The smaller ones are more nimble, with three fingers and a thumb, all equipped with small claws. They have what look like rudimentary cloth covering swaths of their bodies. Their heads are larger than ours although they appear to be similar in height with a leaner build. Their eyes are larger around and their mouths split across their faces all the way to their jaws. They don’t seem to have cheeks. The larger creatures are stronger and seem to resist the bullets fired at them better than the smaller grey ones. They prowl on four legs, all angled out, and away from their center torsos. Also, unlike their smaller brethren, instead of just killing people, these things are eating them. I can see several of them with limbs hanging from their mouths while blood seeps from the fir around their snouts.

I finally lose my lunch and vomit where I sit looking out the side of the truck. Alex twirls me around; she is still covered in the insides of the Black Hound. The larger creatures look just like the Black Hounds from Shattered World, so do the smaller creatures look like the Goblins from the same game. Alex grabs my face and looks me in the eye, “Hal, calm down, we are going to be okay. Look, Dani came to rescue us. She came Hal. She and Greg, and George. They came for us.”

Tears are wiping away the gore on her face, I force out a smile as best I can, “they came.”

From next to us a large claw pierces through the side of the truck, lacerating me in the arm. I can barely feel the pain as Alex hauls me away from the side. The top of the roof is torn away from the truck, revealing a monstrous form. Bulging muscles, tallons the size of my head and a long, hardened beak. Massive, feathered wings larger than the truck we are on, flap as the Rok Eagle strikes and repositions itself on the truck.

Dani opens fire with a rip of bullets tearing into the bird. It shrieks and tumbles off from the truck. In the hellscape of a sky I can see dozens more. I point up as one dive bombs toward the truck, “Dani!!!”

I was too late. All I could see was Dani turning to engage, a flurry of feathers, the horrid sound of metal against metal, the truck tipping just enough to nock everyone inside over, and then Dani was no longer there. Just a large gash where she once was.

I just stare at that gash. Dani was gone. Just like Adam. Just like John. She was here to save us. We were going to be saved. She is gone now. We will be next. We need to leave. We need to run.

I turn over to find Alex curled up under the bench crying. Mike is covering Lora. Half of Mike is covering Lora. The other half gone. His left arm, his left chest, gone. I can see Lora through Mike. I can see her face. Her horror. Her trauma.

Someone climbs on to the truck. She is wearing an IDR uniform. She looks at what has transpired and starts barking orders. She grabs Mike and starts to heave him over the side. Lora does not move, just shakes. No. Don’t abandon Mike. Those things will get him. I start to get up, try to stop her. Greg grabs my bleeding arm and looks at me then at it, he grimaces and forces me onto a bench between Lora and Alex, who he had already drug out from under the bench. None of us can move other than tremble. Mike’s body is already over the side. More people climb onto the truck, more bodies are thrown off.

The lady climbs onto the roof of the truck. Her skin is dark, she has deep almost transparent blue eyes and dark black hair that has come undone from her hair tie. She raises a rifle and starts firing like Dani did. She starts slamming on the top of the truck and screaming at the top of her lungs. I cannot hear what she is saying, I cannot hear anything, only the constant buzzing in my ears and head. The truck we are on lurches, and I fall onto Alex’s lap. I feel cold, and the darkness claims me.

*Ebel*

We didn’t even bother with the main roadways. Our trucks were designed from the get-go to go on any terrain we needed them too, and the roadways were nothing but car wreck after car wreck. We passed by them all. They were not our mission at the moment, other convoys were stopping to help them. We were heading for the center of the city. We needed to establish a forward operating base and relief site for the medical teams to set up once they arrived. The hospitals would be useless. The solar flare would have knocked out the backup generators as well as the main power grid. The medical teams will need a large open area where they can set up their tents and gear, hence the expo parking lot. Go in, clear it of cars, evacuate the civilians present, find the sick and injured. Follow the mission save more lives. If we stop to help those here, no one will set up a medical center, and more will die.

As we pass by panicked civilian after panicked civilian, most nursing minor to major wounds I have to keep repeating to myself, another convoy is on its way. We are heading to save many more. Just wait, just be patient. You will be rescued. The IDR will help you.

As the buildings grow taller the devastation only grows worse. More and more convoys pull off from our column to perform their own missions.

“Alright guys, we are getting close to the expo, get ready to disembark and handle the crowds . . .” I don’t get to finish my orders before Manuelle swerves the truck almost knocking everyone in the back off their benches, “Specialist!”

Manuelle corrects our course, and I can hear screeching tires behind us, “LT, some crazy asshole just jumped out of fucking nowhere!”

I look behind us and hear Greg being an idiot, “was that a goblin?!”

I turn back around, “specialist, keep a close eye ahead of us. We are entering the city center; people will be panicked and there will be a lot of them. Some might just be panicked enough to try and stop us by jumping out in the middle of the road.”

Manuelle responds with a “yes, ma’am.”

As we continue, we start passing by larger and larger groups of people, running away from the city center. There are even people that seem to be attacking each other, or at least they appear to be people. It is hard to tell with how chaotic and fast we are moving. I knock on the back window, “Seargent, get your non-leathals ready, looks like we might have some rioters to deal with”

Dani looks worried but starts getting ready. George asks from the back, “ma’am, shouldn’t we be stopping to help these people, they look like they are being attacked.”

I know private, I know, “the last truck should intervene, if we stop while in the middle of the line, we will disrupt the whole convoy.”

I just hope they actually do stop. George calls out again, “ma’am, those things aren’t human! They are killing people!”

What the hell is he talking about.

Greg calls ahead as well, “I told you, those things are goblins! They look exactly like goblins!”

I start to turn back when Manuelle screams, “Ma’am!”

I look to the front and see a monster. A horrible black beast. Manuelle starts to swerve away from it, but I see a small group of people cowering in front of it while it opens its maw, “No! Ram it!”

As Manuelle swerves towards the creature we all brace ourselves and strike the monster directly in the flank, with the corner of our truck. It explodes. Plastering both the truck and civilians in blood and entrails. After striking the thing, Manuelle slams on the brakes. We are just outside of the expo. Creatures are popping in from nowhere and attacking everybody they see. Ripping and tearing people, quite literally, limb from limb.

I turn back to see Greg and George getting off the back and Dani preparing to fallow, “Seargent! Forget the non-lethals! Go red, on the roof, shoot anything that doesn’t look human, protect the civilians!”

There is pure panic in Dani’s eyes. I open the panel further and grab the spare rifle, “Rodriguez live ammo. Dani, Roof, GO!”

Rodriguez passes me the red striped magazines full of live ammo. I load up and exit the truck, stepping in a growing pool of blood. I check my surroundings as I start hearing sharp cracks above me. Dani has started firing her weapon. Other trucks as well have formed a semi-circle around the expo parking lot and started firing their weapons. Please let them be firing live ammo and not non-lethals, I doubt those would even slow these things down.

Checking my surroundings one more time I can see several of the small grey creatures Greg called goblins closing in on several civilians. I switch to semi-auto and start firing in controlled pairs. One to the chest one to the head, ideally. Most shots end up missing entirely, but the few that make it through, thankfully put down the grey bastards.

Rodriguez jumps down as well but I order him back into the truck, “Corporal! Get back inside! Get that radio or telegraph or whatever working, NOW!”

With a panicked “yess, mhm!” he returns to the truck. Greg and George are hauling people inside of the bed as fast as they can gather people. I start shouting out to the panicked civilians outside of our ring to enter the trucks.

Behind me a large screech pierces my ears and smashes into the truck. I turn around to see a large bird ripping and tearing the roof off the back of the truck. Dani has fallen on her ass and is getting up. The bird creature is tearing and ripping above the truck bed.

There are civilians in there! I start firing at the thing, agitating it further and causing it to flail, shit! Dani gets back up and unloads full auto into the thing. It falls back, off the truck. More cries are heard above us as dozens of bird monsters start to dive bomb us. I dodge under one, but it strikes the truck. Dani is gone.

“Sargent!!!! DANI!!!!” I rush around to the other side of the truck only to see pieces of Dani scattered across the ground. By my foot is her leg, her arm slightly further ahead and her waist after that, with intestines trailing toward her chest. Dani.

Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, SHIT. I look around, the birds are attacking the trucks relentlessly. Most of the gunners are down and four trucks are turned over. This is going sideways! This is total foo bar. The captain, where is the captain, we need to evac now, we can’t hold the expo like this. I scan frantically, and finally see the captain’s truck, on its side with three of the black beasts crawling over it. Shit. No way to check if the captain is still alive, far too dangerous to try and force my way over there. Time to make a decision. Captain is most likely dead, we are being overwhelmed, we need to leave.

I make my way to the back of the truck where Greg is trying to get George on board, he is hurt bad, “Private! Get as many as we can on board right now, we are leaving! I’m pulling the emergency flare!”

Without waiting for a response, I climb onto the back of the truck. There are more corpses than people. The Bird creature gouged out several civilians, leaving their lifeless husks behind. We must make room for the survivors. I start grabbing bodies and heaving them overboard. Eventually, Rodriguez joins my morbid task, “the radio is no good, I got the telegraph working, but without the proper settings all I can hear is noise!” So much for help from the outpost or HQ.

I leave Rodriguez to continue as Greg ushers as many as he can on board. I grab the emergency flare from the weapons box and climb onto the roof. I fire the flare witch almost immediately is washed out by the god-awful pastel nightmare of a sky. I start firing my weapon again after reloading for the second time. Please see the flare, we won’t make it out of this without the full convoy.

Thankfully my prayers are answered, and more flares pop up. I slam of the roof and yell inside to Manuelle, “Get us the hell out of here, specialist!” Manuelle happily obliges and our truck along with the few remaining others lurch forward, myself and others firing all the while.