‘I used love stories. You know, the ones with heroes winning against impossible odds, saving the world, and getting the girl. I liked those stories. Oh! And movies, I loved the movies!’

I’m running down an old street, cracked asphalt and small rocks tripping me up as I try to not fall on my face. No, falling on my face would be really bad right now.

There aren’t a whole lot of books left in good condition, but every once in a while, you could still find a good one if you knew where to look. But the best stories always came from grandma. When I was still young, she would sit me on her lap while we sat by the fire on cold winter nights and tell me stories. Soties about giants and magic beans, evil dragons, brave knights and warriors, and the fate of the world in the hands of the few. In her stories, the heroes always won, the princess was always freed, the weak defended, kingdom slash world saved, and the evil destroyed.

Grabbing a rusted light pole with my right hand I managed to swing my body around a tight corner without losing too much speed. Here the ground was even more broken up with grass and weeds growing between the cracks. On either side of the street stood tall office buildings with their windows mostly shattered and walls damaged. My breath was starting to come in short gasps now and my calves were starting to really burn.

I dodged around a rusted Volkswagen falling apart in the middle of the street and almost slipped again on the loose gravel. Switching my rifle over to my right hand I steadied myself while ono the move. I knew that I wasn’t going to last much longer. I needed to find someplace to hide. Casting my gaze around as I ran, I saw an overgrown alley tom my left. A sharp cry echoed from behind me, like a mix of a dog’s bark and a seagull’s scream. It came from around the corner that I had just come around.

            “I got time.” I gasped under my breath as I made a break for the alley and slid on my side, making it behind a bush in front of the alley . . . . and waited.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

            My name’s jake, Jake Hansen. I was born in Portland in 2016, three years later my parents moved to New York for work and to take care of grandma Ann. I don’t remember my dad well; he was always having to travel for work. I do remember that he was bald, and liked to wear tie dye when he wasn’t wearing a suit. I remember my mother a lot better. She was skinny, with dark hair and bright green eyes. She always smelled like lemons and flowers, and I almost never saw her without a smile. But I remember grandma the best. She was short, but strong. Not some creepy muscle grandma, no that would be really weird. She had a presence that just let you know you would be safe with her. She almost always had her silver hair done up in a bun and spent her time in a soft white embroidered chair next to the fireplace if she wasn’t in the kitchen.

            She would always make time for me; tell me stories, listen to me complaining about school, make cookies . . . I miss her cookies. In the end of 2020, my dad died in the pandemic and things weren’t the same after that. Grandma’s stories started to end differently, and sometimes the hero didn’t kill the dragon. Life continued, but it wasn’t the same. Then everything changed.

January 1st, 2023, the monsters appeared. At first people thought it was a hoax, but hoaxes don’t kill people. Giant wolves, bloodthirsty trees living water, shadows with teeth, nightmares, and you name it. Grandma’s stories came to life, and they weren’t the good ones. For me it started with faeries in my mother’s garden. Who’d have thought that the end of the world would start with faeries.

Then it got worse. People kept disappearing and the body counts kept going up. I didn’t understand all of what was going on, but I remember being really scared. There were always emergency lights and the U.S. military moved into the city. My grandma and mom talked about how the wars had stopped. That sounded good to me, but only because at the time I hadn’t realized that something much worse had started.

October 31st, 2023, it was just me and grandma. Mom didn’t come home that day. The television turned on and showed a monster the size of skyscrapers that had apparently appeared over the skies of Paris. It had three serpent-like heads and spines on its enormous back. The newsman said that thousands were already dead, that the E.U. armed forces was being mobilized to fight the creature. It was called calamity, though later would be known as the first calamity. I remember looking at it on screen as it walked through buildings and rained down emerald flames on the small soldiers, like ants fighting beneath it. I felt so small, so weak, and so very scared. Three days later Brussels was flattened, and all members of the E.U. government lost. After another nineteen days all transmissions stopped coming from Western Europe. Any broadcasts that we did receive from Eastern Europe were just rioting and chaos.

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December 10th, 2023, the second calamity appear in northwestern China. The only video ever captured of it showed a giant cloud of smoke swirling around . . . something. Then three days later it was our turn.

It appeared in Chicago, a giant scaled beast black as night and as tall as a mountain. Giant wings spread out breaking skyscrapers, blotting out the sun, and ending lives. A dragon, just like in grandma’s stories. The U.S. dropped a nuke on Chicago that day. I remember seeing a glow in the west after the sun had already set, one that shouldn’t have been there. The government had become desperate, and willing to try anything to fight back against the nightmares that were tearing down our world. Grandma and I watched as the smoke cleared on screen. Chicago was gone, but he was still there. The third calamity was here to stay. Grandma and I left that night, we left New York city and headed to a small house in northern New York near the U.S. Canada border it was pretty empty there and it only had a radio. Tucked away from any main roads, grandma said that it should keep us safe from any bad people. People can be bad. People can do some pretty terrible stuff, especially when they’re scared.

A few days later a group of men broke the door down and stole all of our food, saying that the Pact was claiming that area and everything in it was now their property. Grandma tried to stop them, and they threw her on the ground. I remember feeling completely shocked. No, grandma was strong, she was brave. No one could knock her down. I was hiding behind one of the chairs and the men left, leaving my grandma on the cold hard wood floor. She didn’t get back up. I was nine and in three years lost my dad, mom, and my grandma. That left just me, Jacob Hansen.

I buried grandma behind the house. I remember it looking kind of like a garden and thought that it would be a nice place to put her. I was almost ten and it was winter. The ground was frozen. I switched between listening to the radio at breaks and hitting the ground with a rusted and frozen shovel. In the end I got her covered up, not very well, but it was the best that I could do.

After that I went back inside and ate some of the dried meat I’d found beneath the floorboards. Yeah, my grandma was paranoid, but it saved my life. I turned on the radio and waited. The dial on the radio read January 11th, but only static came out of the speakers. ‘That's it? Is there nothing left?’ I remember thinking, and then said aloud, “Wow Jake, the world ended on your birthday.”

Soon after that some soldiers found me and took me south. It’s been more than ten years since the radio went silent. Our world ended that day, and a new one began.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Placing the Rifle’s scope in my sights I tried to slow my breathing. Panic would only kill me faster. Looking behind myself I only saw crumbling brick walls and a dead end. “Shit!” I cursed, nowhere to run.

Looking at the main street I hear it round the corner, its high pitch bark sending chills down my spine. “You can do this Jake, breath.” I told myself.

I hate blink-dogs, they’re tricky and almost never alone. I let out a long calming breath as it came into view. A large dog-like creature with four legs, small spines on its back, and huge drooling fangs ran into view. It was coming right towards my alley.

“Ah Shit!” I repeated under my breath.

Standing up I took my leather jacket creaked with the movement. It was about thirty feet from me and running. I put it in my sights and waited. It closed the distance and leaped, probably planning to rip out my throat.

I fired.

The mut burst into a cloud of yellow and black smoke that stank of sulfur. Without losing a beat I turned my back to the cloud of fowl smoke and pointed my rifle down the empty alley behind me. About half-a-second later there was a ‘Pop!’ as the creature appeared in front of me mid leap.

I fired again.

This time my shot took the hound between the eyes, and dodged to the side, throwing my head down. Its corpse crashed to the ground and one of its claws ripped into my left leg. Crying out in pain I looked back. The little bastard was motionless. Did I mention that they’re hairless? Yeah, ugly little suckers. I shot it one more time just to be sure.

“Yeah, I think that he’s real dead now.” I said to no one in particular. Just the alley and myself, I guess.

Leaving the enclosed space, I returned to the street. Broken and damaged windows in every building down the street. At the end I could see the large concrete wall and gate of the compound.

“Hansen! Where are you?!” A staticky voice came from my shirt pocket.

“Privat Hansen, if you are not already dead, I swear that I will skin you alive and feed you to a pack of werewolves if you don’t answer me son!” came the feminine southern drawl again from my shirt pocket. Taking it out I pressed the plastic button on the side and replied.

“Captain I’m on my way back to the compound, monster attack slowed me down.” And waited for the reply.

“He dead?” her voice came over the line again.

“Yep, it’s dead.” I said as I began to jog back, wincing every time that my injured leg had to carry my weight.

“Good work son. Now get back with the rest of the patrol before I throw you into the darkest pit I can find.” Her voice called back.

“Roger that captain Withers.” And I started to jog a little faster.

When I arrived the giant iron gates were slowly pulled back, and I entered the compound. Concrete and iron towers were stationed at regular intervals in a parameter around a section of Boston. Inside was a small city/army camp filled with people, tents, small homes in neat rows and activity everywhere.

In grandma’s stories the heroes always one, killed the dragon, saved the world, and got the girl. This isn’t one of those stories. I don’t know where the heroes are, the dragon is still out there, and our world ended. It ended on my tenth birthday, but we haven’t given up.