Ella knew the location of the hospital from memory. Aided by a bird’s innate compass that allowed her to navigate the globe, she made it to the hospital in minutes. A rising worry within her hoped that she had arrived on time.

The hospital was a large complex of many concrete buildings adorned with a faint brown paint. Her attention was drawn to the lawn near the main building, where bodies were strewn about, the rustic odor of blood hanging heavy.

She returned to her humanoid form as her feet touched the grass. The dead bodies near her belonged to the officers, one of whom placed in the request for reinforcements. Piles of spawn remains and hundreds of bullet casings covered the main road leading into the hospital.

After taking everything in, her attention fell ahead to the man-sized hole in the main building’s wall. It illuminated the night with a spill of white light, while also admitting a trail of blood into the hospital.

Her mind steely and determined, she ventured into the hospital past the halls littered with still bodies, spotting lifeless eyes she would not hope to meet with her gaze. Sometimes she peeked into the rooms, then shut the doors, locking the horrors within. With no signs of life present on the ground floor, she changed into a wolf and listened. The beeps and hums of machines graced her ears. Then came the flicker of light and other insignificant sounds. On the verge of giving up her sound search, she picked up something—the wet thuds of heavy feet dragging across the ground and the scared whimpers of a woman on the second floor by the west wing, by her estimation.

She embraced her humanoid form, where her strength was the mightiest, and jumped upward while shielding her face with her arms. The meter’s thick ceiling of cement and rebar exploded as she thundered through. As soon as she landed on the cold tiles of the second floor, her feet propelled her swiftly through the hallways. The uniform doors flanking her whipped by, the heavy pounding of her footfalls rising with the tension.

When she rounded the last corner of the long hallway, she spotted the demon. It was exceedingly tall and thin, hunched over to squeeze through the hospital’s walls, its rib cage peeking out of its chest. Its right hand ended in an elongated blade while its left gripped the throat of a terrified nurse, who was pressed up against a dead end.

“Why don’t you stay still?” the demon said, hissing. “I’ll make it painless and quick.” It pressed the tip of its bladed hand against the woman’s chest. “Right there should do it.”

“Hey! Ugly face! Release her!” Ella called out, still racing toward them. “Release her, you malnourished piece of shit!”

Thankfully, the demon heeded her words, turning to sneer its yellowed teeth at her. It widened its stance, welcoming her to take her best shot while the nurse slid to the ground behind, too scared to move. Wary of its bladed hand, she moved closer to its other hand in her approach. Regardless, when she reached, it stabbed its blade at her, its hand blurring from the immense speed it applied to the attack. If she were a regular human, perhaps she would have been impaled. If she were a regular superhuman, perhaps she would have suffered a similar fate to those she passed, offering little resistance. But she was a god. And from her very limited view, a powerful one at that.

She swiped away the lunging blade mid-attack and delivered a bone-crushing punch to the jaw of the demon with her other arm. The demon toppled backward, crashed through the concrete wall, and smashed into a car in the parking lot below. She cast a glance to confirm if the woman was unharmed.

“Run,” she said, before jumping through the hole.

The demon, groaning profusely, lay flat on the hood of the deformed sedan it landed on. As it deigned to regain its bearing, she dragged a nearby pickup truck by its tailgate, swung it upward, and held the groaning metal vehicle in the air as she met the demon’s eyes. Panic flashed in its eyes, followed by a determination to evade her. She swung the truck downward with such force that a thunderous shockwave erupted, metal crumbling and the earth quaking as the windows of nearby cars shattered. Then she pried the sandwich of vehicles apart to fish out the demon. Hand reared back to unleash more attacks, she found it lifeless, utterly deformed beyond recognition.

Then the weight of everything bore down on her shoulders. She slumped down by the carnage and took in deep breaths to combat her rising heartbeat, dizzy vision, and raging mind. Tears cascaded down her face. This senseless wave of destruction was proving too much to bear. The endless deceased, their lives stripped from them by demons, begged her to gaze upon their still forms to be reminded of the grave sin those in charge brought down on the people. How would this city ever move past this?

The droning whine of helicopters snuck up on her. Just as she looked up, a spotlight shone down, highlighting the dead demon and herself. She shrunk from the bright light, shielding her face.

“Identify yourself,” a booming voice sounded.

“Ella Nkanga!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

Two helicopters, sleek and agile, circled the hospital while the rest, nearing twenty, pushed on toward Midtown. After a few sweeps by the overhead helicopters, one of them descended rapidly, stopping just a few feet above the hospital’s roof. Ropes then deployed from the helicopter and men she recognized as U.S. Army operatives slid down and landed on an empty patch of green grass. They wore heavy body armor, night vision goggles, and an extensive assortment of firepower. As soon as the first helicopter deployed its load, it ascended and gave way to the other.

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The operatives spread out around the hospital’s perimeter while two peeled off toward her. The lead man, with a distinct red beard, reached out to shake her hand, his other hand resting on the rifle slung over his shoulder.

“Captain John Mercer, U.S. Army Special Forces,” he announced. “I received an order to neutralize a demon. Is that it?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

Mercer gave a nod and his partner left to check the demon’s corpse.

“It’s dead as shit, Captain.” The partner voiced out after his inspection.

Then they looked at her, flickers of respect flashing in their eyes.

“You a superhero?”

“Not yet.” Then she gasped. Here she was sulking while her friends faced off against a demonic army, the likes never seen on this planet. Had she not resolved to save as many people as possible? She shook her head in disappointment and turned to the captain. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

“Oh, I understand,” Mercer said. “You give those demons hell. Make sure they go running back to whatever shithole they came from.”

Following a patriotic nod, she changed into a needletail and gracefully ascended into the sky. Soon she was soaring over the bridge where they had encountered their first spawn. Now a constant stream of vehicles fled the district through the bridge. Some U.S. Army operatives already stood guard, ensuring that the streets were free of spawn. So she moved on.

A grouping of commercial establishments below was being ransacked by opportune civilians who saw the city’s imminent collapse as the ripe time to loot. They stole shopping carts full of groceries, electronics, and drugs, dumping the piles of goods in their cars as they rushed for more. Her heart could only ache at the downfall of society, which was breeding animalistic tendencies.

A few miles down, a flood of shell-shocked people were pouring into the underground subway station. A contingent of police officers, now joined by the U.S. Army operatives, were further ahead dealing with an army of spawn. The operatives had things under control, the spawn no match for their rifle fire that tore through them like butter as they mindlessly charged down a narrow street. So she elected to move on.

The constant thunder of gunfire gave way to silence, save for the crackling of flames that consumed a dead city. Her eyes were drawn to one such high-rise building currently engulfed in an infernal blaze, choking plumes of smoke forcing her to gain altitude. The streets below were deserted, littered with debris, smashed belongings, and dead people. So much was the level of destruction that she couldn’t even fathom what her next steps were. Was she to put out the raging fire that now spanned twenty stories high and threatened to spread? Or to search the surrounding buildings for survivors? If she managed to quell this fire, what about the others that burned at the edge of her peripheral vision? In the span of only a few hours, this uneventful day had unleashed the most hellish of surprises.

❊ ❊ ❊

On the outskirts of Oldtown, spotting the clearest view of the cityscape of Midtown that burned with the brightest blaze, thousands of concertgoers ran for their lives in a violent stampede that claimed the lives of anyone who dared to lose their footing.

The spawn, the ever-tireless soldiers of demons, chased the fleeing crowd, killing anyone that they caught in their grasp. Loud synth music with bass guitars boomed as a backdrop for their mass slaughter. Half the police officers called to the outdoor venue, abandoned their post, and fled home to their families while the other half, containing the brave or stupid, rushed to the people’s rescue.

Fearful of inflicting friendly fire, the officers were first hesitant to use their weapons in the mess of spawn and humans. But the horrifying cries of people dying before their eyes forced them to raise their firearms and pick their shots. Pistols proved ineffective against the spawn, only slowing them down. Unless they had limp-splitting firepower, headshots were the only sure way to put down the spawn.

As their firearms nozzles flashed, the mess of people before them soon cleared, either running away from the spawn or succumbing to the grip of death. Either way, the officers could now fire with impunity, felling many of the animated corpses. Still, their efforts proved futile as an endless horde of spawn loomed ahead.

“Shit!” Sergeant Walton exclaimed. “Our ammo will finish at this rate. Where is backup?”

“They deserted Sergeant,” Crespo replied while reloading her gun. “That’s the only plausible answer.”

“Fucking spineless cowards,” the sergeant said before shouting into his radio to overcome the crack of gunfire surrounding him. “Dispatch, this is unit 54, Sergeant Walton. Get me some goddamn help! Sergeant Perez abandoned duty.”

“Copy sergeant. Dispatching additional units. ETA fifteen minutes—”

“You call every goddamn squad in Oldtown down here this instant! We’d be dead in five! You hear—”

“Arghhh!”

A spawn had reached one officer and started ripping into his neck. The sergeant dropped his radio and placed a well-aimed shot that blew the spawn’s head open.

“Fall back!” Walton commanded.

They left the bleeding officer and retreated through the devastated venue into the street, their guns never relenting to cut down the chasing spawn. Try as they might, the relentless spawn still whittled down their numbers till they were just three.

“I’m out of ammo!” Crespo called.

“Shit!” The sergeant reached for his gun belt as his firearm clicked empty and found that he, too, had run dry. They were royally screwed. The only thing delaying their demise was the spawn’s meticulousness in confirming the deaths of their fallen comrades. Tears welled in his eyes as regret set in. Perhaps Sergeant Perez had been right not to show up. How could they ever hope to prevail against this evil?

As the spawn set their sights on them, he pushed forward, determined to prolong the lives of his last surviving comrades. He pulled out his knife and charged against the approaching swarm. One thing the humans excelled at compared to the spawn was their intelligence and use of tools. That advantage deteriorated as soon as the spawn closed the distance.

A spawn easily swatted his knife hand away and threw him to the ground. As they surrounded him, he closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.

A torrent of crackling gunfire poured on the spawn that encircled him. Miraculously, the gunman avoided spraying him with bullets as blood rained down on him and the spawn fell away.