Black clouds cover the sky above me, the lampposts on the street are flickering as I try to find some help. My neighbor, Annie, is with me. We had to escape the building as it somehow got swarmed with weird creatures from what I think is an alien invasion. I am carrying a piece of steel from my clothes rack and Annie got a gun. She is a cop and although I am not a fan of them, she is keeping me alive right now. We are running for the nearest police outpost as it is our best bet of a safe place.
As we turn a street, I see a person on the ground, crawling into our direction while covered in blood.
“Look! There is someone who needs our help!” I say to Annie
Annie immediately proceeds to help the injured person, she must be used to similar situations as a cop. When she touches the injured stranger, the man turns to face us but there is something odd... My body stops and cold runs through my nerves
"What..." Annie says
There is only one eye on its face. ONE BIG FUCKING EYE.
Long and sharp claws move in the direction of my neighbor and the next thing I know the creature is dead, a bullet wound right in the middle of the eye.
How she can think so fast in a dire situation without losing control? Were I in her place, I would be dead before blinking my eyes.
“SHIT” I yell
“What the hell was that... Let's just... hurry. Don't stop, avoid every moving thing." She says
More people showed up as we run through the streets. Some were calling for help, others were fighting monsters and others… turned into monsters. There is another one with an eye-face coming at us from behind. “ANNIE, BEHIND!” I yell. Annie pushes me to the side and shoots the thing on the chest, but it continues running at us. Annie tries to shoot again but nothing comes out of her gun, it’s out of ammo.
I need to do something… she will die if I don’t… Move, move! MOVE!
Annie grabs the steel cylinder from my hand and uses it as a spear, thrusting right in the creature's eye.
“WRYYYY” I hear the thing scream but there is no mouth on it... the sound came directly from my mind... Am I imagining things?
The thing is still alive, but Annie doesn't let it do anything, she swings the steel downwards into its head twice and the thing falls on the ground.
“Leave it there, we need to run before more shows up. You okay there?” Annie says.
I try to say something but the words get stuck on my throat so I just nod to her. This whole thing is so bizarre... Why is this happening? It’s humane to try to find logic in insane situations but I think this is the kind of thing no explanation can suffice.
We keep running until we find the police station. All entrances are barricaded, but Annie shows her badge to an officer who was keeping an eye on the street and he lets us in.
As I enter, my eyes met the fearful looks of all the people here. The few hopes I had of the police knowing anything about the situation were crushed, they clearly are scared by this as much as I am.
“What is the situation here?” Annie says
“It’s the end of the world. We got no way of communicating and all officers who left to help the civilians haven’t come back yet. We are using the emergency war protocol, so if they find anyone, they will take them to secured places in control of either the military or the police.”
“I see. Any information about the... Creatures?” Annie asks
“Not much. We saw some big spiders with four legs and… humans who turned into monsters. The Mono-Eyes, we call them." The officer says.
"We met two of those on our way here. They can take bullets in the chest as if they were zombies. The eye is a weak spot, however.” Annie says.
“Noted. I just hope the military act soon, or else, we will have trouble dealing with it on our own, we don't have unlimited supplies” The officer says.
Annie goes to talk with the officers about establishing radio communication, an old way of sending messages without using the internet. Apparently, someone knows how to do it here and we could reach the military to ask about the situation.
God, I need to get some coffee, my body feels heavy, I could use the caffeine to get myself up. After getting the magic hot brown liquid of awakening, I sit on the couch close to the coffee machine to relax a little bit.
I wonder how all the people I know are dealing with this… Dad is probably fine, being an owner of a company and not giving his daughter any money must give him lot’s to spend with bodyguards I guess. My sister should be fine as she lives with him. I don’t go well with her either but she is still my sister... I hope she is safe. My friends are all away from here too… but this alien invasion thing is probably a thing in the whole world.
Just as I was spending my time trying to relax, I hear a loud noise from the entrance.
What do I do? Do I run? Do I go see what is it? What if its a monster? Fate is giving me choices with too much weight lately… I am bad with choices.
When I enter the reception, My eyes met with some even weirder creature. It looked humanoid, but with four elongated arms and a spherical head. Multiple eyes were on the monster’s body, all of them in the wrongest places an eye should be, looking at different directions and moving independently of each other.
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There is a dead person on the ground, The monster is holding a severed head with blood falling out of it.
“AIM FOR THE EYES” One officer yells as he shoots at the thing. Only bullets hitting the eyes had any effect, the ones that didn’t just bury on the flesh of the monster without it showing any sign of damage.
There is no way I can fight this.
The things move so fast, grabbing the officer who managed to hit the eyes and ripping off his arm. I can only imagine what feels like to lose an arm… The pain should be unbearable.
Tears are forming on my eyes. People are dying here... What chance do we have against that thing?
The creature shows up in front of me, dozens of eyes looking at me for a moment before the thing grabs me with its monstrous arms... That is it, I am going to die now...
I heard many gunshots from my afterlife and a few moments later, an angel comes to visit me
“Hey, are you okay there? I am glad we got here in time to save you at least…” Said a familiar voice…
“Annie? Is that you? Are you dead as well?” I say
“I am not, and neither are you, get up. This place is no longer safe.” She says as she helps me get up.
I don't think there is any place safe anymore. There never was… I stayed in my home for months after my brother died, the fear of going out and meeting the same fate as his…
And now, the world is ending. Why am I resisting? What is making me try to fight the apocalypse? I don't have anything left to care… nor does anyone care about me.
"You know, I was worried as fuck when I saw that monster grabbing you. You are the only person I know in this city, even if we didn't talk much." Annie says
"Thanks for saving my life… I…" I cry as I try to speak more… the reason? I don't even know, but I have many, pick one.
Annie hugs me lightly "you can count on me. Let's go."
Everyone grabs any weapon they could find. There is also riot equipment since people rebelling against the government was a frequent thing lately, as the living conditions got worse by each year... Annie dresses me up with the bulletproof vest, helmet, shield, and a police baton. No one complained, taking into consideration the situation we all are in but I don't feel comfortable wearing this. If it was some time ago I would be out there protesting against the police in riot gear, not wearing it.
"Ever used a gun? Here, this is how it works…" Annie says while giving me the gun. This would be against the law but there are literally aliens and monsters on the streets. We all have to be prepared… but I don't want to use a gun if I can avoid it. I still despise those weapons even if they saved me just a few moments ago.
As everyone finishes getting ready, we leave the station. Our goal is to take the cars left here to reach a military base up in the north. The cars work at least, except for the navigation systems but that was expected. Officer Bento leads the way at the front. We divided people into 3 cars, I am on the last one with Annie, The drive is a cop named Ezequiel.
As we exit the station, we see how much worse the situation got. No more people were seen alive. If they survived, they left or hidden away from the view.
Some spiders jump on us but police cars are quite durable, the small things causing no damage. One of the four-armed things, or Many-eyes as we are calling it tried to grab our car but Ezequiel maneuvered flawlessly away from it.
Everyone is tense and alert, which keeps them focused, I think. Unknown danger awaits me at every corner and I don't even have the time to feel bad about it all. Adrenaline keeps as awake with watchful eyes.
After some driving, we hit the road. Now we should have an easier time, as some of the monsters appear to be made from… human bodies. And there are fewer human bodies around here.
The sun is starting to show up, it's early in the morning now. We are driving fast, not looking back.
From the car window, I can see the fields shining up with sunlight, A shadow of a cloud moves through them... Wait, the shadow is moving too fast...
Looking up I see a huge flying creature that looks like a giant manta ray with a big eye at the front. The car shakes from the sheer pressure of the immense amount of air being propelled by the creature's wings.
It looks right at us and screams, A circle of light appears in front of it with many colored markings too far away to understand what they are. The next thing I know is that we are no longer on the road but in the middle of a city. Our car was somehow teleported away with us inside.
"What… where…" Annie says
"We are in a city… but I don't know which one." I say.
The car is not working anymore. It seems part of the front was teleported into a concrete wall, so there is no way we can use it to move. We try to figure out where we are but all we see is a city in a similar condition to ours.
Glass shatters. It’s a many-eyes, he broke the glass on my left and is now grabbing the person that was sitting right next to me, another officer gone. We all leave the car to attack it but the thing just ran… And the person is probably dead now, which leaves a sour taste on my mouth… I hate the apocalypse.
We stick together and search for a safe place, no time to mourn each other. Where should we go? supermarkets should have food but they are designed for people to easily go in and out so it wouldn't be safe… Perhaps we should find a building and just barricade it? For now, all we can do is run through the city with tired faces.
After seeing some boards and stores, Ezequiel recognizes the place, we are still in São Paulo, albeit in a different neighborhood. We didn’t get very far, thankfully. Ezequiel says there should be a building good for us to hide close by so we follow his lead.
We turn a street and… What the fuck is that? A Figure wearing red robes with golden details walk on the street with weird animals around it. They see us and the robed figure removes his hood, it’s a man with medium hair and trimmed beard.
“Ahklo vrort falur emkruz!” the Man says while signaling something with his hands.
Everyone except me points a gun at him. The robed man places his hands up and the creatures with him all standstill.
“Who are you? identify yourself!” Ezequiel say
“Marhu vrort mozura!” he says in his unknown language
Behind him, I see some figures approaching… The big spiders. The lizard close to the man jumps at one of the spiders and rip off a piece of it. Another one of his creatures, a weird bunny-dog thing vomits fire into the monsters. Things have gotten a lot weirder all of a sudden… what the hell.
Seeing this weird guy fighting the monsters, the officers focus on taking out other spiders that come at us instead. One of them came at me too, but I defended myself with the riot shield in reflex. The thing screams before dying to a shot from Annie. We and the mysterious stranger move with Ezequiel leading us to a museum. The creatures of the man in robes follow us too.
As we get to the museum, we see why Ezequiel thought of it as a secure place. The entrance is heavily blocked by closed gates of metal, to keep the things inside safe from possible thieves.
The thing is, Ezequiel used to work as a security guard here and he knows a way in, through some stairs at the side and the key is on one of the guard's outposts.
We all get in after that. But what now? Will we live like this? Running with our lives on the line for how long? And what about this weird man? Can he be trusted? I lay down to get some sleep and so many thoughts run through my mind. But I am so sleepy after all that...
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My body feels heavy as I wake up. This dream was… real. I am sure of that. It was one of my memories… I hope one day I find out when, how, and why I ended up in that lab...