Dawn had yet to break as Michael left his home. His first stop was to check out the road outside. It was still dark, so he had to use his torch, which cast a yellowy-white beam that illuminated the street in front of him. The air was cold, and the street was silent.

As Michael stepped out into the road, he looked around. He was surprised to see that the fissure in the road had disappeared, as though it had never been there. He wondered if that was a good thing or not.

The street was empty, and there were no signs of life. He could see the houses on either side of the road, but they were dark, and he could see no lights on in any of them.

He walked up and down the road, looking for any sign of life. There was nothing. No cars, no people, no animals. No birds sang, no insects buzzed. It was as if the whole world had died.

He stopped at the end of the road, and turned to look back at his house. It was still there, but it seemed different somehow. It looked smaller, more fragile.

Michael shook his head. He had to get on with his plan. He carried on down the main road, which acted as artery to the town, flowing down the hill into the town centre where'd he'd find a row of shops, the town church and other buildings of interest.

As he walked, he thought about his parents. He hoped that they were okay, and that they hadn't been taken by the death-girl. He wondered what she had meant by "find the Tower". He didn't know where the Tower was, or even what it looked like. But he knew that he had to find it, and soon.

As he walked, he kept an eye out for anything unusual. He saw nothing, and he felt nothing. The world was still, and silent.

The road was long, and it was dark. It seemed to stretch on forever. Michael had to keep reminding himself that it was only a mile or so from his home to the town centre. The road seemed to go on and on, and he felt as though he had been walking for hours.

Within a few minutes, he came to the local rest gardens that had been installed to celebrate the Millennium twenty years or so ago. Usually, even at this early hour there'd be the sound of cars driving by, but it was silent, and it was dark, and it was eerie.

Michael shivered as he looked around. He felt as though he was being watched. He turned quickly, shining his torch in the direction he'd just walked, and then turned back to the rest gardens. It was just as empty and quiet as it had been before.

He walked up to the bench, and sat down. He needed to think.

The rest gardens were a small park area with a couple of benches, some flowers, and a small pond. It was a nice place to sit and think. Michael sat there for a while, staring at the water. He felt as though he was being watched again.

He got up and walked around the park, shining his torch at the ground. There were no signs of anyone having been here recently. He walked around the edge of the pond, and then he walked back to the bench. He sat down again, and he tried forcing himself back onto the task at hand.

He needed to get to the town centre and see if there was anything to be salvaged from any of the stores. He needed to check out the church, and then he needed to get back home.

His head snapped around as he thought he heard a faint noise behind him. He shone the torch into the darkness, but there was nothing there.

Michael stood up, and walked quickly towards the exit of the rest gardens, which would take him to the next road along, and then he could get to the town centre. As he walked, he heard the sound again. It was a faint scratching sound, like something scraping against wood.

He turned and shone the torch in the direction of the noise. There was nothing there. He turned and continued walking. He heard the sound again, and this time it was louder.

Michael stopped, and listened carefully. The sound was coming from the other side of the pond. He shone his torch in that direction, and he saw a dark shape moving slowly across the ground.

He watched it for a moment, and then he realised what it was. It was a dog, and it was walking very slowly. Its legs were moving very slowly, and its head was down.

Michael walked towards it, and it stopped. It looked up at him, and he could see that its eyes were glazed over. Its mouth was open, and its tongue was hanging out. It looked as though it was dead.

Michael shone the torch on its face, and he could see that it was covered in blood. He tried to guess the breed, figuring it was probably a spaniel, but he couldn't be sure. Its fur was matted with blood, and there was a gaping wound in its neck. Its eyes were glazed over, and its tongue hung out of its mouth. Its body was still moving slowly.

Michael felt sick. He didn't know what to do. He didn't want to leave it there, but he couldn't take it with him either. He didn't want to touch it. He didn't want to get any closer to it. He didn't want to see it again.

He turned away from the dog, and he started walking again. He heard the sound of the dog's body dragging across the ground, and he tried to ignore it. "Keep focused on the task at hand, Michael," he told himself.

Michael was a little shaken, and he'd had enough of the rest gardens. He decided to move on. He walked down the road, and he didn't look back.

As he walked, he wondered what had happened to the dog. Had it been victim to the creatures he'd seen the previous day? Had it been attacked by something else? Had it been attacked by some of the people that lived in this town? Michael shook his head. He didn't know, and he didn't want to know.

He continued walking, and he didn't look back. Soon enough, he was in the town centre.

There was a church at the edge of the main shopping area; a large, Victorian-looking structure with stained glass windows. The shops themselves looked normal enough, but there were no people around, and no cars driving by. He felt like he was being watched again. He turned, and he looked behind him.

There was nothing there. He shone his torch in that direction, but there was no sign of anything. He turned and continued walking.

There were three or four stores of interest, but as Michael walked up the main high street he saw no sign of movement or activity from any of them; they were dark, empty, and seemingly devoid of any life.

There were no signs of people. The town was silent. It was a strange, unnerving experience.

He stopped and looked at the stores, one by one. They were all locked, and there was no way in. He shone his torch through the windows of each store, and he couldn't see anyone inside. The windows of some of the stores were boarded up.

As Michael looked at the boarded up windows, he noticed something odd. There were marks on the boards. They were made by claws or teeth. They looked as though they had been made recently. Probably during the monster attack.

He went over to the miniature supermarket that Mr. Singh owned that he'd raided early Saturday morning, but it, like all the other shops, was boarded up and looked completely empty.

The sky was beginning to lighten as dawn broke. It was time for him to head back. He had seen enough for now. He'd found nothing useful.

As Michael started back, he noticed the church. It looked old and decrepit. The building itself was built of brick and stone. The stained glass windows were broken, and there were cracks in the walls.

The front door was closed, and it looked as if it had been closed for while. It was chained shut. There was no way inside. Michael turned to leave, but then he heard something.

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Michael stopped. The voice - he was pretty sure it was a voice - came from the other side of the church, from a small alleyway on the other side of the church. Not knowing what to do, Michael crouched down, making himself smaller, and switched off his torch.

If it was other people, he'd like to see them before they saw him. If it was, well, something else, something more monstrous, then he'd really rather it didn't see him at all.

Slowly, he inched his way around the side of the Victorian-era church until the source of the noise became apparent.

In the small alleyway, about twenty metres from the church itself, there was a hole. It had clearly been dug recently; it was a wide circle about the width and height of a small person, with freshly-dug dirt scattered around.

But that wasn't the strange thing. From inside the hole came a small, purple flame that flickered, and with it, came a whispery voice that said something indistinct.

Michael thought it said something like, "I see you." He couldn't be sure, and he certainly didn't want to find out if whatever that thing was, it did know he was there. The small, flickering fire burned with the purple light.

He slowly, very slowly, began backing away, not wanting to take his eyes off the fire in the hole. As he moved backwards, he saw the light begin to grow larger. He could feel the heat from it now. The light began to flicker faster, and the flames grew taller.

Michael backed away further. As the flames grew bigger, the light grew brighter, and the heat from the flames became unbearable.

He could hear a sound from inside the hole, like someone was speaking. Michael backed away as far as he could. Realising that it was some kind of supernatural trick - just like the monsters before - he forced his mind to block the light out and focus only on what was real and in front of him.

And just as quickly as he did so, the purple light seemed to send out bizarre tendrils that threatened to take Michael over. Michael kept backing away. His legs began to shake, and his hands started to sweat.

The purple flames seemed to be trying to take hold of his mind. The voice inside the hole said, "Come, Michael. Come to me. Come and see what I can offer you."

"No," he said aloud, "you're not real."

The light seemed to grow stronger, and it started to pull Michael toward the hole. His body was shaking violently, and he felt as if he were about to faint.

He took one more step backwards, and he tripped over his feet, falling on his back. He scrambled backwards on his backside until he could see the church again, but it seemed further away, as if it was being pushed back into the distance by an invisible wall.

"No!" Michael screamed.

"Come," the voice said. "Come, and I'll give you everything you could ever want. Everything you've ever dreamed of. Come."

The purple fire in the hole burned brighter, and the heat grew hotter. Michael's head started to pound. The purple light filled the alley, and he was surrounded by it.

"I don't want anything!" Michael shouted.

"But I have everything you want. Everything you could possibly need," the voice said.

Michael threw caution to the wind, turning his back on the light and simply running as fast and as far as he could from the church and whatever supernatural creature was taunting him.

"I'll come for you," the voice called after him.

"Fuck off," Michael shouted as he sprinted away from the church.

He imagined that behind him, purple flames burned brighter and hotter, and Michael felt himself start to black out. He struggled against the light and the voice.

Then he felt his mind starting to come back. The flames started to die down, and the voice grew softer. He opened his eyes, and he was alone in the middle of a street in the town.

***

Michael had ran as hard as he could for the next five or ten minutes until the strange voice in his head had gone away, and then realised that he'd run in a direction completely away from the safety of his own home.

Looking up at the dark, cloudless sky, the first light of the morning sun began to shine. Michael took some deep breaths to try to slow down his beating heart, and took stock.

He'd ventured out, but hadn't really achieved what he'd intended. The church wasn't the tower he'd seen in the drawing he'd made the previous day, and all the shops seemed to be abandoned, closed or even boarded up.

His next course of action had to be to go to the next city and see what the hell was happening there.

Michael took stock, looking around. He wasn't sure where exactly he'd found himself. It was an old, residential neighbourhood on the rougher side of the town.

The streets were empty, and it seemed that no one had been there for days. Michael wasn't sure what was going on. Was it possible that everyone in the area was dead? Surely, he thought to himself, he couldn't be the only person left alive in this town?

As if to answer his question, a door to his left, that led into one of the more ramshackle homes in this street, creaked open and then shut as quickly as it had opened.

"Hello?" Michael called out.

No answer.

He began walking slowly down the road towards the door.

He at one point worried that he was putting himself in harm's way by calling out; but his sense of community, his sense that other people were just as scared as him, outweighed this fear.

He knocked at the door.

No answer.

He knocked again.

There was still no reply. Michael turned the door knob and the door swung open. It was dark inside the house, and it smelled like old garbage and piss. The walls were stained and the floorboards were filthy. This was clearly not something that had happened in the past few days.

The hallway stretched off in front of him. The stairs at the end of the hall went up, but they looked like they were about to fall in on themselves. There were no pictures or anything else in the hallway. The carpet was dirty and the wallpaper was peeling off.

As Michael crept his way along the hallway, it occurred to him once again that whoever he'd followed in here might not be friendly. So he once again adopted a half-crouch as he moved his way along the wall. There was a small kitchen to the front of him, and then a doorway on the left of the corridor and one on the right. As he got to the first, the one on the left, he inched his way into the open doorway to see what was inside.

The room was small and the curtains were drawn. There were a few armchairs and a coffee table. There was also an old, beat up couch. In one corner, there was an arm chair and in the other there was a large book case. This was obviously the living room, and Michael couldn't see anything particularly interesting or useful anywhere. The smell of stale cigarette smoke lingered in the air.

Carefully, he exited the room the way he came, and went through the hallway door opposite to check out the second room. This looked like once it had been a dining room before the current resident, a bit of a hoarder, had decided to fill the room with their own trash.

The floor was covered with boxes and the shelves were full of things. Michael picked his way through the mess. It seemed as though this room had once been used for something. He had to push past some of the boxes. There was a large cardboard box that looked as if it contained something. Michael pulled out the flaps to open it. There were books in the box. Michael reached down to pick them up, and then put them back.

Michael sighed, and turned his attention to the pile of rubbish on the dining room table. The pile of rubbish on the table seemed to have a purpose, but he couldn't tell what it was. He took the pile of rubbish on the table and placed it on top of the cardboard box. The box seemed to have been left in the middle of the dining room for some time. Michael picked up the pile of rubbish and moved it onto the dining room table.

The rubbish on the table seemed to be mostly junk. The dining room seemed to be used for junk collecting.

The door leading to the hallway swung shut with a crash. The door knob rattled.

"Shit," he said to himself. He was definitely not alone in the house.

As he approached the door that had just been slammed shut, he heard through the thin walls the sound of footsteps and some hushed, whispery voices.

There was definitely more than one other person in this house, and he'd clearly alerted them to his presence.

Slowly and carefully, he moved over to the door that separated the hallway and dining room. The voices sounded close but getting further away as the footsteps took whoever the people were back towards the front door.

Michael had two immediate fears pop into his head in that moment; firstly, these people might be assailants who wanted to hurt him. Secondly, they might instead try and get out of the house, locking him inside and effectively trapping him there. His parents had already been abducted, so what if these were more monsters?

Michael turned the handle to the dining room door and opened it as slowly as he could, not making any noise at all.

He stepped out of the door to the hallway. He saw a single figure making their way out of the front door, wearing baggy clothing that consisted of a hoodie, sweat pants, and sneakers.

Due to how baggy the clothes were, he knew it wasn't a fully grown man, but he couldn't tell much more about them. Maybe they were a teenage boy or a woman; he couldn't tell. By the time he'd made it to the front door himself, they - and whoever they'd been talking to - were long gone.

He sighed to himself.

At least they were gone. It gave Michael a little breathing space, a moment to take in what had just happened. It was the first real confirmation he'd had that other humans were still out there, still around.

His heart began beating faster, his stomach churning.

While Michael had no intention of spending the night in the house, and as he explored upstairs he found that his first assessment of this home had been spot on; it was filthy and not a nice place at all.

He'd spent enough time exploring, though, to see if anything was useful; whether it was something to eat or something that'd help with the trip he had in mind into the nearest city and his quest to find this so-called "Tower". Ultimately, the place had little that interested Michael. A few tins of beans from the kitchen cupboard were about all he could find, which was OK seeing as he only had his pockets to fill.

He left the home as soon as he'd decided he had what he wanted and began heading back to his house; if nothing else, the previous day and that morning had made it clear that he had some work to do before venturing into a new place, particularly if it was going to be somewhere that might have either monsters, or, perhaps worse, humans that were unhappy to see him there.

At least he knew he wasn't alone. For better or worse.