“Do it then.” I say. “Shit.” I shake my head and then make eye contact with him again. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
When he doesn't respond for some time, I make my exit.
There wasn’t any reason for him to go like the rest. I progress into an entrance leading back to a wide street and proceed through an alleyway to yet another open street where a limousine appears to be waiting. Another one of the agents nervously steps out while speaking to someone on his headset. He sounds as if he's lost; he’s no idea what's just transpired.
Another ‘newbie’.
When he spots me in the distance, the gang member mistakes me for one of his own and rushes over immediately. His eyes are wrought with worry.
“You’re hurt!” I back away from him as he tries to touch me. “You hear that explosion just now—is HQ under attack!?"
I think for a moment and then decide to act this one out for my own benefit: "I need you to follow the directives you’re given! Right now, we have to go!” He stares at me with a mix of fear and confusion, and so I order loudly: “NOW!”
-
Janelle
-
The mobster rushed back to the limousine, and Tavon ignored the middle seating altogether while making his way to the passenger side. After getting in next to the driver, he demanded to be taken to a specific street not too far from his own private apartment complex in the Citadel.
This is the conversation that followed before the driver was subsequently found much later:
“What made you come work for these fools anyways? You another newbie?” Tavon began to succumb to his own post-battle exhaustion.
“S-sorry, but I don't know the bosses very well… –what happened to you, dude?!”
“Don't worry about it.” Tavon brushed him off. “Why would you work for people who do what they do?”
The driver chuckled. “You must not have heard about me; I'm a little bit of a legend around these parts.”
“Yeah?”
His snicker conveyed a foul mind. “Let’s just say I made something of… ah, a 'pet' out of these mutated lizards from the World Below.” The driver's focus broke as he began to laugh even more. “So there was this chump who snitched on one of our guys. My task for initiation was to just kill him—but I didn't just kill him!” His face reddened as he tried to contain himself.
“…”
He continued to stare at Tavon while nervously cackling. “I got the snake thing to EAT him! So, I ended up with the name 'Boa'!”
Tavon directed him down a different path altogether and remained silent for the rest of the drive.
By the time they’d arrived in another forsaken section of the massive city, Boa realized far too late that his passenger wasn't a member.
2
First Light
MY NAME IS JANELLE. I was real once, like you.
Year 2320.
Before the end of the world, I remember watching the news.
An anchor delivered a story about soldiers closing in around GAIA Headquarters, located far in the mountains—only a few hours drive from where I lived. I always wondered what they were up to, as GAIA was mandated as an off-limits facility to the public and extremely evasive about the nature of their work.
I guess you could say I was happy with life the way it was—I mean, I was stubborn enough to stay behind in my part of town after everyone began escaping in droves. All major cities were experiencing the same mass evacuation under the impression that the government would protect them. That is, once they’d escaped their respective, often smaller settlements.
But there was no way out.
The Chairman of GAIA, known as Doctor Hideyoshi Keung, had played a tragic joke on us. We spectated as some hideous animal took up every possible media outlet in the area; the creature was screeching incomprehensibly and in a disturbing fashion as it glared at the public. I felt like he was staring at me—hungrily looking at my family. When the broadcast stopped, I knew there was something bad happening, but I couldn't foresee it in time.
Not long after, people began talking about leaving the city; they wanted to find shelter from what they feared would be global conflict. GAIA was the primary reason, and they’d been surrounded by military forces from two different governments. Despite this, nothing was being done. To me, it felt like an unfounded superstition…
Demons.
Demons in this world.
And so, I'd put off travel plans for months despite my husband's insistence otherwise. He bought into the whole thing and wanted to stay away from the city in case it was hit. My husband was paranoid of reactionary governments scurrying to locate a solution to an unsolvable problem.
Every day we held some measure of fear, because our peaceful future no longer felt granted to us. How much time did we really have before the war reached its conclusion?
It was evening when I'd gotten back from my interview from one of the only local businesses brave enough to remain open in spite of the threat. The company owned a higher tier cafe which had profited enough to the extent that they paid a decent amount in exchange for good, unapocalyptic customer service. I was so focused on this position, on contributing my part to support my family, because I'd been so out of touch after having had our son I'd forgotten what it felt like to earn something on my own.
While I was feeling blissful about this new opportunity, my husband—a man constantly on guard—kept shouting at me to come with him as he took our son and even the family dog to flee the town. He was too kind to really force me to do anything.
I wanted to drown out his voice, because I wasn't going to leave our home no matter what anyone said. I tried to stop him and convince our family to stick together… I begged, but I couldn't remove an obvious terror inherent in the looks they gave me. They'd seen something.
And they wouldn't tell me.
Instead, I was told I was insane for wanting to stay behind—but where would we go, I thought. If the world had truly come to this, then I wanted to enjoy the time we had left and make life the way it was before dread permeated our society. It felt like our last days together, but I stayed hopeful about the future…
I didn’t realize then how wrong I was.
My husband always said that he didn't trust “media bullshit”, and he delivered constant reminders of why he thought our society was fundamentally corrupt. Now, he was prepared beg those in charge for his safety; he was going to place our child's life into the hands of people he once treated like our enemies. Odd how quickly people are willing expose their true natures when confronted with disaster.
I tried to hold on to my son, but the man I'd married easily took him away from me. My feelings, my concerns didn’t matter to him, and he rushed to get in the truck on which we were both still barely affording payments. When I’d been left there, I retreated onto the back porch alone to watch what I initially believed was some sort of show put on by someone—maybe a group wanting to “celebrate” the End.
I felt my curiosity begin a rapid transition into a feeling that clawed at my stomach. I could barely breathe as my heart rate began to triple in speed and the realization set in that I truly was in danger. I was the most terrified I’d ever been in my life.
I recall that I couldn't stop shaking; my knees had locked and weakened before I was compelled to get on the ground as the Earth itself quaked around me.
—The power went out in our home.
A large section of the skies looked as if it were the pane of an opaque window having been very subtly cracked. Between the myriad crevices of this astral mirror, a bright and blinding light radiated before pulsating in a constant rhythm. It preceded a great storm; one which submerged and isolated the flow of time itself in its immensity.
I was pelted not with rain but with fragments of hail of varying sizes—some sharp enough that my skin was almost pierced upon contact. Although I noticed that I'd begun to bleed from a particular spot on my forearm, I couldn't stop watching as the clouds froz
e in position before expanding to saturate the skies completely. Then, I bared witness to the glass shattering and giving way to brilliant illumination…
The First Rift.
I didn't look away in time, and the vision faded away in my left eye. I screamed as tears streamed down my face.
Suddenly, the earth trembled with such violence that I was thrown off balance and fell onto our porch railing where I slipped and hit the ground. The impact almost made me forget everything. I was sent into a peaceful but short slumber.
-
Once I awoke, I was instantly assaulted by a rather severe headache. I’d thought it all a bad dream for a fleeting moment in time—and then I was tormented by the following vision, made to see what my world had become:
Smaller panes of damaged glass had appeared in numerous quantities throughout the universe and filled my sight with the image of looming panes hovering in the atmosphere and shattering to uncover a force I didn’t understand. A force echoing forlornly into our world.
I looked toward the mountains where the GAIA facility had once stood to now see only an immense, dark form in likeness to an abnormally immense twister. I heard diverse noises from hundreds of vehicle alarms chiming along with bloodcurdling screams issuing from the center of my home city. I shuddered to think what could have produced those desperate cries, and I quickly gathered my belongings before hurrying to find the only place in which I could take real comfort:
The chapel.
It was located in the eastern district, and I believed that it would be the safest place to hide as I endured this nightmare. My family and I’d made a habit of going to the chapel every Sunday; it was the only place that truly gave me any lasting peace. Regardless of what was going on in my life, and more so when my son was diagnosed with a terminal illness, I’d take off work early to go and pray. Pray that he would find happiness in this world no matter what.
He didn't get enough time…
I wanted, more than anything, to be with my family. I was scared… for all of us.
I knew we had another car in the garage, one that my husband had kept maintained only for special occasions. I hurried to its location to find that the vehicle been forced against the wall due to the strength of consecutive earthquakes, and its right side had been crushed inward. I eased myself into the driver's seat and tried to start it anyways, realizing that I’d very few options now. Miraculously, I was able to twist the ignition to the ambience of a working engine. I drove onto the streets of the town.
But when I saw It, I broke out into a frigid sweat chilling my skin… a sensation I can't forget even now.
An enlarged, malformed and bat-like head.
Below its snout was set a broad jaw lined with massive, yellowed teeth atop which beamed two immense, pitch black eyes emanating feral rage. Its head was attached to a tall, slender, and emaciated grey body disturbingly humanoid in appearance. This creature used its pair of elongated, bony digits to pierce the leg of a man who 'd failed to get away from the terrible entity! His scream was shrill… harrowing as the beast hefted him in the air before it fed the man's upper torso into its mandible. The abomination bit down on the body, which flailed desperately, before ravenously tearing through its prey’s spine. The lower trunk of the corpse fell to the ground as it spouted torrents of blood.
I pressed harder on the gas pedal to cruise over a sidewalk preceding a road. I then witnessed as a faceless giant brought a colossal portion of its body onto the hood of a car speeding in front of me. I watched as tentacled appendages coated in a black fur emerged from its body as they broke through the driver's window, tightened two victims within their grasp, and slung the passengers into the walls of buildings next to me!
Panicked yelling was among the last sounds they uttered. Cries perpetuated by the sounds of bones crunching and all but bursting open as their figures became scarlet stains upon outlines of brick.
I proceeded to speed around the thing's body, a being that had sprung from a widened manhole leading to the sewer passages below us. I narrowly escaped just as I'd accidentally drawn its attention and accelerated as one of its appendages reached out for me.
Even after I'd gotten away and hastily driven up the street ahead, I was stunned once more while I was forced to avoid a series of what looked like overgrown rodents… rats feasting on dozens of corpses strewn across a road marred by potholes and broken concrete. Fallen street lamps, park forest oaks, and other forms of debris had taken their toll on the victims following the storm, and the resulting demons took advantage of the weak; they devoured and demolished everything daring to stand in their path.
One of the bodies cried out as a rodent beast closed in around his neck with its maw; his pleading became quickly muffled, and I was helpless to do anything about it.
I had to get out of here.
There was a sharp, piercing squeal produced from one of my vehicle's tires crushing a smaller rat creature. This caused all remaining rubber on the wheel to begin tearing away from the steel it surrounded. My vehicle slowed and shook with the loss of a tire, and I was prevented from going forward when the street ahead exploded skyward!
A colossal, slug-like figure emerged. It bore a grotesque, contorted face of a humanoid male; I noticed pale white pupils and small antennae jutting from its skull. I froze and watched as the monster opened its jaws to devour both a woman falling from her motorcycle and the entirety of small car—both of which slid down its massive body as the slug moved onward. It demonstrated incredible agility while leaving a trail of blood and slime in its wake.
I responded by grabbing a bat I’d always kept in the car and getting out after distancing myself from the rats in order to find safety wherever I could. With the town in this shape, the chapel might’ve already been destroyed. I fled down a narrow street and found myself surrounded by both burning homes and the sounds of others calling out in the distance. In the background, there resounded the echoes of explosions coupled with gunfire. Military forces responded to the present threat, but… there remained little success. Their bullets couldn't touch them, hurt them.
Ahead of me loomed hundreds of more corpses. I saw a face belonging to someone nameless with half its skin removed to expose a skull that had been caved in before the contents within were ravaged and consumed by another rodent. I sprinted past severed arms still spasming on the concrete and carcasses torn of every other extremity.
A woman with a broken ankle had begun shooting at small, two-headed animals with scaled, reptilian bodies. The herd of them contained tails equipped with stingers that repeatedly stabbed into her calves until she slowly succumbed to a paralysis. Afterwards, a wave of them covered her form and voraciously devoured their prey.
I ran, hoping that I would find another vehicle that hadn't been destroyed—hoping that there was still some semblance of order left in the world. News stations, which were broadcasted every day and simultaneously on both radio as well as monitors littered throughout the area, had gone completely silent. It appeared that all outside contact had been cut off from the local population.
Finally, I located the chapel, now crushed and desecrated, and stopped in place when witnessing a black cloud spreading from the ruins.
In the eye of the gathering storm, I saw a tall, faceless woman garbed in all black and sporting dark hair that resembled tendrils which writhed and shuddered in the air. Exposed was a pale, featureless plane overlaying a broad skull; she uttered a gut-wrenching scream when she spotted me approaching. I dropped my bat and had to immediately force myself to function as the cloud surrounding the woman crept toward me.
An inviting cold. The promise of an endless night.
I turned and sprinted deeper into a valley on the very outskirts of the town—toward the hills where I might be able to obtain a view of a place not besieged by these… these spawns borne from another world. I’d never imagined something like this could invade our reality, creatures only foretold and described in legends. The truth: humanity's ow
n nature had turned upon itself; our reckoning was near.
The woman's shriek followed me, and so I pressed my palms against my eardrums and moved with the most speed I could garner. I couldn’t breathe; I was exhausted, but I had to live. I had to find my family and make sure they were safe.
As I traveled up a steep road, I noticed more bodies littered over damaged vehicles with shards of glass scattered upon the blood-and-sweat-drenched streets before me. Some had leaped to their deaths to avoid an unpleasant end and still others had gone out fighting. I was fortunate enough to discover a combat shotgun left by a police officer. His body revealed a stump once connected to a head that had been decapitated. Behind me, the dark storm had grown and lurked ever closer. It ebbed and flowed around buildings uprooted from the earth along with the cadavers of both humans and animals being tossed around limply.
The Earth was being torn apart by this deadly phenomenon; the citizens… they were defenseless. Seeing them suffer didn’t feel real, but it was. Their bodies so tense. Expressions distressed to the extent that they were all that was visible amongst features dwarfed by their own terror. To see them so freely thrown through the air…
—I-I couldn't bear it.
Hardly even now.
My heart pounded rapidly, and my hands struggled to hold onto my newfound weapon as the trigger well had been drenched in my own nervous sweat. Without paying attention, a car suddenly swerved around me only to plunge into a crowd of refugees who’d also been fleeing in the same direction! After crashing through the large gathering, the driver spun out of control, and his screaming form hurtled lethally into the side of a residential house.
I pressed onward despite the sorrow in my heart and thought only of Them; I was doing this for Them.
I followed a larger man in front of me who’d slowed from exhaustion after having sprinted for a lengthy period of time. He abruptly started cursing and pulled out a revolver that he hurriedly aimed at a massive shadow hanging eerily in the air. It suddenly expanded and revealed itself as a fearsome raven that swiftly grasped the man's head in its immense, razor-edged claws and twisted to promptly snap his neck. His lifeless body was then carried off into the skies above without further sound or resistance.
Angelos Odyssey Page 4
