------------------[ an journal extract from an civilian after the fracture]-------------------------------

It started when the sky cracked.

Oh, it was an incredible sight. The sky crinkled like a sheet of paper unwrapped, Warping the sky with a sense of glory and dread.

Oh, how arrogant we were all. How could we not see it? It was not manmade, nor was it manufactured.

How could it be!!!! That warped sky leering down at humanity. This was not made in a factory, nor was it just a new spectacle to sell to the public, yet we all still believed in the scientist's explanations. "it was just a new wether sensing devise... Oh, this? it's just a solar flair; it's a new movie technique.'' Oh, how they spat out lie after lie and we, as foolish sheep, believed them, lapped it up even.

We all laughed at the fact that this might be the doom times and joked about the various people online who rightfully called for our scepticism and such, begging us for our attention.

But we ignored them; At least we did until the sky twitched.

We all felt it then that primal atrophied part of our brain recognised the danger, And as finally a union, as one, we too trembled. Now no longer sure of the words that our trusted leaders and scientists uttered. A change simmering within the depths of the public, a change in demeanour.

The stance of the average man and woman became unsure, almost ready to turn and run or prepared to plant feet into the ground and root in place. And whether either reaction would be in fear or courage? Well, no one knew.

And as a new civil war began to brew and as tension rose higher, poised and ready to consume the world, the skies underbelly slathered in yellowy warped cracks started to swell.

And anyone who looked would be beset with disgust and revulsion wrapped with the thickened coat of almost palpable malice so intense that sickness would surely befall them if one did not immediately throw up.

As within the trembling sky was where the concept of strangeness once lived and from whence the aberrations would arrive.

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I awoke to the sound of the wracked sob of a human.

My eyes, crusty and blurry for unknown reasons, prevented me from seeing clearly. My ears hurt for some reason, and when I reached up to feel them, I could feel a wet texture upon my fingertips.

Rubbing my fingers together in front of my still blurry eyes, noting the graining texture idle-mindedly, I realised then that my eyes were not going to focus and that I most likely had an eye injury.

But even though my eyes were damaged for unknown reasons, I could still make out the colour in one of them and recognised that my fingers were coved in some sort of crimson sludge, speckled with black bits of what looked stone.

Looking around, I noted that the room was barely lit, with cracks of light slipping through gaps in the cube-like room.

Raking over my mind with a mental tool, I searched the folders and crevices to discover how I arrived here and why and how I had received so many injuries. I instead came across an even more pressing question.

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"who.. who am I?"

I had knowledge, yes, but it was sparse and fickle. Various concepts seemed vague, hazy, and almost lost to me.

As I pondered why so much of my mind seemed blank, a background noise ceased its sound, putting my guard up and making me tense.

*I should have kept my mouth shut*

Stumbling to my knees, I looked around in search of the source of the lack of crying, and although my eyes were damaged, I could see the figure clearly as if my sight was never blurry with my right eye.

Piercing the blur almost offensively, I could see every detail of the creature. It looked like an old man. It stood on two legs and wore old clothes that you could tell had been worn extensively to the point of wear and tear and amateurishly repaired sparingly as if worried that they would run out of materials.

But that was where the similarities to humanity faded. Its left arm was split down the middle as if a jagged knife had been cut from the centre of the hand down to the shoulder. The now disfigured arm could only be described as macabre feelers almost seeming to act independently, both split halves reaching up and around as if searching for something to grasp.

The other arm simply didn't exist, save for a single disembodied hand that, as if to spit in the face of biology physics and general lack of arm, acted nonplussed as if it was whole anyway.

But it was the face that genuinely made me freeze; where facial features should be, it looked like someone had rolled a sheet of skin over, smoothing all elements of the face, and then left it to bake too long in the oven, cracking the skin with a warped spiderweb of broken skin showing the flesh underneath.

And to tie this ghastly visage together was a faint sear and breakage on reality itself as if to assert itself existence, it needed to wound reality to reassert its own arrogant mistake upon the world.

With the now-silent room, I could hear the quiet buzz of what I could only assume was the creature resisting the erosion from the rejection of reality or it itself was eroding existence with its vulgar presence.

I prayed that it was the former, for that at least told me that it would die with time eventually. As it drew closer, I saw no reason to stay still and slowly started to inch towards where I felt a draft, hoping that an exit lay in that direction.

The creature must have felt my movements, because it swiftly swivelled in my direction and let out a gurgling wordless scream that sounded like it was underwater, the damaged skin on its face flapping from the force of its cry, adding a ghastly, almost revolting sound of skin flapping to the wind.

Waiting no longer, I burst into action, rapidly spinning while simultaneously starting to run, stumbling and jerking to the right as the corner of a wall momentarily blocked my way before opening to a natural cave-like opening. I could hear the sound of wet footsteps behind me. Risking a glance, I looked back to see that, like me, the abomination was barefooted but, unlike me, was running on what I could graciously only describe as pounded minced beef, and yet, despite that, it was somehow still gaining on me.

Drawing more energy from the fresh and stark reminder of why I was running, I sped up, looking back forward and almost sliding to a stop as the cave came to a narrow exit covered in what looked like rubble.

Looking at the gap barely larger than myself, I hesitated before I was without remorse, reminded of why I was running once more by the scream and cry of the creature perusing me, its wet flesh now close enough within earshot that I could hear the shattered bone in its feet scraping the ground.

Hesitating no longer, I dived into the crevasse and squirmed to further slide through the gap that led to oh-so-close safety and freedom. Around halfway through the opening, I felt the walls shake as the best impacted the wall in an attempt to get to me, its grasping limbs reaching out to grab my still wriggling figure.

With no room to turn, I could feel its cursed breath warm my neck as warm and wet limbs grabbed my escaping back and arm with what felt like blades digging into my limbs.

Screaming out in pain, I cried out in anger and indignation

*How dare this animal touch me, let alone harm me!*

I could feel my eye that lacked colour gaze over growing red, clouding my sight with the red tint leaching into my other working eye as I strained to reach for freedom, my only free arm reaching out for that last few feet.

Soon, the red in my sight covered everything, and I could no longer make out shapes within the red. And I felt my mind rescind from my body as what I could only describe as another took over.

Time seemed to change, stretching and pulling and sometimes compressing as it sped up and down, and my muted sense of touch grew with unrefined but pure strength. I could feel something rip and tear under my hands while something hard and unyielding gave way.

It ended with the sensation of pulling with unrestricted movement and eventually collapsed while the fog of unconsciousness pulled its curtains over our minds.