The night started like any other boring and mundane, but that was soon to change. I was on my way home from work at the hardware store with a few items sitting in the passenger seat. It was late and a full moon was lighting my way home which was great because my headlights aren't the best. I was looking forward to heading home because I had just gotten a new warhammer book from my local games workshop, but before I could do that I had some crafting to do. Pulling up into my driveway I noticed everyone had their trash cans out and I thought ‘oh its trash night already, man time is really just flying by’. After pulling the trash cans out and grabbing my bag from my car I entered my house, it wasn't much but it was mine. I took my boots and jacket off and left them by the door then made my way to my garage. Walking into my garage I sat at my workbench that was filled with miniature models of soldiers and spray paint scattered throughout, what held my attention was the piece of pipe I had in front of me. It was a pipe bomb or soon will be as one end was still open. As I started to pour my homemade black powder into the pipe, the lights flickered. Raising my head I looked at the light bulb that was directly above the workbench, right then all of the lights in the room started to grow brighter and a buzzing sound grew to the point I could barely keep my eyes open and had to cover my ears but it didn’t help. Then all the sudden they all shattered, sparks raining from the ceiling. A single ember caught my eye as it was falling straight down seemingly in slow motion. Before I could even process what had just happened that single ember fell right into the open cap of the pipe. There was a split second of calm before a fireball erupted out of the hole burning a group of aerosol paint cans. I had just enough time to say “aw shi-“ before my world exploded and everything went black. 

For what felt like an eternity of nothing, no thought or no feeling. That complete nothingness was interrupted by a sudden pinprick of light that cut through the darkness and a feeling of a slow current pulling me towards it. Gradually the light got bigger and as it got bigger I began to regain my senses little by little. In the light I see a shape that looks like a child approaching fast. With this revelation I try to move but I'm stuck still moving faster and faster. I collide with the child then my world explodes into color and pain. Face down I groan “what the hell happened, how am I still alive…” my voice falters because it sounds completely different. I sit up quickly and pat myself down but quickly realize that my hands are different as well as my clothes. At that discovery a massive headache sends me reeling back to the floor as someone else's memories fill my head trying to force their way into any gaps gasping for air. I hold my head until the splitting headache dissipates as soon as it appeared blinking the strangest feeling of static fills me. The boy I found myself inhabiting was named Artreus Johnson, I…he…we just had turned eight years old a week ago and that's when the planet got invaded. The rest was hazy at best but I wasn't on earth anymore. I sat back up and observed the room I'm in, what once used to look like a bedroom was destroyed as if I was in the middle of a warzone. As if the world was waiting for that exact thought I heard the rattle of automatic gun fire and something else in the distance, a distinct snap that almost sounded like gunfire but not quite. Hearing that I quickly turned around then froze, on the wall behind where I was lying down was splattered with blood and viscera. Beginning to hyperventilate I stared at the wall for what felt like eternity until I heard more gunfire and a huge boom that shook the building I was in. 

slowly i made my way past the blood covered wall to the door at the very end of the room. It was slightly open when I reached it so without turning the door handle I moved the door slightly more open to take a peek out and what I saw was a long dark hallway with more doors either slightly open like mine was or wide open. There was a door that was wide open directly across from me and what I saw in there almost made me throw up. A girl about my age was torn in two with her clothes shredded next to her, I quickly knew that her death wasn’t quick. Turning I went further down the hall doing my best not to look into any of the rooms as I past by into another larger room that looked like a school cafeteria that's where i saw the first adult bodies most wore slightly strange utilitarian clothes but a couple of them wore a leather getup with what looked like body armor. They looked to be completely covered in scars and had some strange looking guns on them. They both had rifles and what looked like…oh no…oh no no no no no no. For the second time in an hour I started hyperventilating, holstered on the side of one of the corpses was a laspistol clear and distinct. The static I felt grew stronger and my head began to feel a little fuzzy but then levels out.Taking a couple of deep breath I walked up to the corpse and tried to tug out the laspistol but it was heavier than I expected and i had to use both hands after I finally had it free I tried aiming it, it was difficult because of its weight but I could do it. I went over the body trying to find any more charge packs that would fit into this pistol and found two which to my horror one had blood covering most of it.  After wiping the bloody magazine off on the owner of the blood over the gun I began fiddling with some of the buttons I found the mag release as well as the charge counter, the mag inside was at thirty two percent all the two mags I found on the deadman were at full charge. Realizing I didn't exactly have anywhere to put the extra mags, I remembered I have a small backpack in my room. I was happy for a second that there was a solution to my problem but remembering the girl my enthusiasm was curbed. Armed I felt a lot safer and remembering that laspistols don’t have a lot of recoil, if anything I was confident I could at least defend myself from anything normal.  

With more confidence than leaving I walked down the corridor only to lose that confidence when I glanced in the first open door. there wasn't even a body left, only gore everywhere. Holding tighter on the laspistol I make my way to my…his…our…as I think this a twinge of pain spikes my head for a second. I make it to the room, careful not to look at the blood splatter I reach under the bed to find the bag. I find it as well as a bloody tooth, gulping. I pull the bag out and empty its contents onto the bed. There were a couple of books, an emperor's tarot, a metal bottle, and a stuffed animal of some kind. The books were unimportant because they had to do with grammar and mathematics which a quick read of them made me realize that I could read the language a little too well but these were secondary concerns and I left the books on the bed. Moving over to the night stand I saw a picture frame with a few kids, adults and me in it. Their names were fuzzy but I recognized the girl across the hall was right next to me holding my arm then I remembered her name, it was Karla. With tears forming in my eyes I slipped the picture out of the frame and slipped it into the bag along with the laspistol mags I had, closed it up and walked back to the cafeteria where I heard a skittering sound. I lifted the laspistol, which was heavy in both of my hands, up to chest level and scanned the room. The skittering sound came again from my left and when I turned that way I saw the biggest rat-like creature I have ever seen eating one of the corpses, it had to be at least the size of a great dane. I struggled to lift the laspistol to eye level but barely managed before it rose its head to look at me , the shot rang out loudly making my ears ring, even though the laspistol wasn’t supposed to have much recoil it was too much for me and I dropped it. The head of the giant rat creature exploded into a mess of gore and bone leaving only a stump of a spine behind. Dumbfounded by the power of the laspistol that I only read about, I just stood there for a second before I scrambled to grab the laspistol and looked around the room for any more of these things. 

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The area was empty of anything living besides me from what I could tell, even then the fact that there was something like that in here wasn’t a good sign so I kept the laspistol ready as best I could. Heading towards the kitchen to try and find something edible I hear some scratching sounds coming from the door heading to the back. I tense up waiting for one of those creatures to pop out of the shadows but nothing happens so I continue to the door and open it and what I find makes my blood turn to ice. Sitting about twenty feet away is something I can only think of as a lovecraftian monster mixed with the rat creature I had just killed. It stood on two legs hunched over with what looked to be an ink black carapace covering its body except for five fleshy tentacles on its back. It was eating something I couldn't see but the squelching sound of whatever it was eating made my stomach churn . I began to move back through the door without taking my eyes off of it. As soon as I was back out into the cafeteria I closed the door as quietly as I could then began to look for a way out of here. I spotted another larger doorway on the other side of the room instead of bolting away like my instincts told me to i slowly and quietly made my way to the door and cracked it open to peek out, what I saw was a large amount of sandbags and rubble along with what looked like astra militarum troops the…I think I recognize these ones are the mordian iron guard. If these tough soldiers died this hard then it must be really bad out there. To be perfectly honest my chances were probably the same if I stayed here or if I left, although keeping on the move instead of sitting around to die sounded better to me. Walking up to the sandbag emplacement I peeked out into the street and what I saw was no longer a city but a collection of partially or completely destroyed structures as well as what looked like a blown out chimera transport in front of the building I was in. It still radiated heat so this must have been the loud explosion that shook the building. That means there is still an imperial presence in the city taking a guess on why I need to go by the direction the chimera is facing. I headed out down the road opposite the direction the chimera was facing.      

After what felt like a few hours of walking I heard another firefight in the distance which to my surprise I automatically started to walk towards and continued to do so for another hour until I found a small café shop to refill my water bottle and grab something edible which happened to be a handful of what looked like grain bars filled with a jam that vaguely tasted like strawberry. After stocking up I noticed a pillar of smoke rising in the distance and began to walk towards it. After another hour of walking the buildings started to be more intact and I even saw a few windows that weren't shattered. Even then there still wasn't any sign of people besides abandoned vehicles, pockmarked surfaces and discarded belongings. But once I rounded the corner of the next street I found the source of the smoke and it was a partially collapsed storefront that was filled with sand bags supporting the structure. Corpses of what could only be the leather clad chaos worshipers litter the front of the shop but not a single mordian corpse in sight and the barricade is relatively intact. All the sudden I hear some whispers coming from a hole in the sand bags, slowly I make my way towards it until I'm right up next to it. All the sudden a huge green hand reaches out of the hole and pulls me bodily into the barricade. What I see there fills me with hope and fear, what could only be a space marine holding me in the air by the neck, choking. I could only squeak out “w-wait” a few seconds passed before he said “drop the laspistol and I will consider letting you live”. 

I Immediately dropped the laspistol then the grip loosened and I could turn my head and I must have looked terrified out of my mind because with a huff the space marine opened his hand and I fell about five feet before I landed on the floor, slipped and landed on my rear. He was a giant. I knew that space marines were supposed to be huge but he was easily twice the size of a normal human. “Thank you so much for letting me live” I started to tear up. “I don't know what's going on, I woke up and everything was destroyed and there were dead people everywhere”. Clearly perplexed, the space marine, which now I can see was a dark angel by his livery, pursed his lips slightly then said “how are you alive, this part of the city has been overrun for the last month by cultists and beasts?”. I gave a slight fearful smile “I haven’t seen anyone alive besides you, and for how I survived your guess is as good as mine”. I stood up and moved away from the hole in the sand bags, we were in what seemed to be a toyshop. It was kind of surreal how relatively normal it seemed in here besides there being some dust in the air and the smell of gunpowder. Everything was still in place, the floor was clean and the toys were still on the shelves. I turn back to the space marine that was currently looking out into the streets aiming his massive gun out towards the end of the street only then do I hear the sound of engines and tracks ‘oh god don’t tell me that's a tank please don't let it be that’. As the sound grows louder and louder a ragtag group pours from around the street corner, there has to be at least one hundred of them just rushing to this position. Laz and solid shot careen into the sandbags and building at random places a few lucky shots making it into the hole striking the space marine with little to no effect. When he began to return fire it was as if I was being struck each time he shot, one by one each cultist blew apart into bloody chunks though that did nothing but spur them on into further mania with some who got closer dropping their guns to pull out grenades and hurl themselves at us. With this revelation that the cultists were getting closer by the second I hurried to grab my laspistol. 

Taking aim I fired at the closest man and shot him right about where his heart should be and he tumbled dropping the grenade he was holding which shortly exploded causing the death of a couple of nearby enemies. At that point the engine noise rose to its peak and what could only be a leman russ battle tank pulled around the corner and leveled its massive gun at me and the space marine. But before my life ended for a second time I heard the sound of roaring turbines and then the tank detonated with tremendous force leaving me stunned for a moment with what could only be described as a flying tank screaming past overhead ‘that must be a thunderhawk I'm saved’ I said in my head as I regained my bearings. I continued to shoot at random cultists that seemed to flow endlessly from the street corner. The thunderhawk came back for another pass leveling a couple of buildings and culling swaths of cultists, the figures of four more space marines adding their volley into the mass of deranged cultists. They must have been nearby, there was no way the thunderhawk could have landed that quickly. The space marines switched to automatic fire and I felt more confident of survival as it seemed there were less and less cultists by the minute. Just as I thought I would make it out of this remarkably unhurt a rocket sailed straight into the sandbags and everything went black.