An angel appeared while David was sleeping, it's white wings spread, floating there in the void of his unconsciousness. The angel spoke. "I am the archangel Cael, and I've come to warn you all of an incoming invasion. If you are active, your actions will not be inhibited, you will only recall this as a memory, a clear memory. If you are sleeping, you will recall this all perfectly as soon as you wake. But take heed, this is not a dream, or an illusion. The armies of hell have begun their invasion of earth."

David was in this void, fully aware of himself. Unlike when he'd experienced lucid dreams though, he couldn't change anything. Dreams were one of the few places David truly had control, when he needed to. But right now, he couldn't speak, he couldn't act. He could only listen as the angel continued.

"The forces of heaven could not act beforehand. Our actions and power are bound by law. We can only react to this invasion, and even then, not directly. But we will not let humanity fall. You have been awakened, all you souls still living. Though I fear nearly half of humanity has already been destroyed by the foul magic cast when the portals opened. If their corpses have risen, they have already been taken, their souls are no longer in their bodies. When their corpses attack you, there is no time for hesitation. They are puppets of the forces of hell, commanded only to destroy humanity, fueled only by an unnatural hunger."

The angel showed him visions of what might come to be, of people dropping dead, spasming, bleeding. He could see a light leave them, like their soul, and a dark energy surround them. Then the bodies stood again, rising unnaturally, clawing and biting at people, taking them down with an unnatural strength. He saw visions of demons flooding out of red portals. It was almost too much to process, so much information was being shown so quickly.

Then the images stopped, and the angel returned as the focal point of this void, and he continued. "My time is limited. But know that you now have the power to fight these hordes. You must use your spiritual power, and strike with it. You must learn to channel it through whatever weapon you choose to use, or even as a pure elemental spell. Your enhanced strength may be enough for the corpses, for a time. But it will not be enough for the demons. Learn to use this power, the mana within all of your souls, feel it, and grow stronger as you struggle against the forces of hell. Otherwise, your souls will be forfeit. You must fight back against them."

David felt a power welling up in him, like a sense he never had. It felt more real than anything he'd ever experienced in life. Everything in this dream somehow felt more real than anything he'd ever felt. Finally, he woke up, and the feeling was still there. He lay in bed, the white light of the cold spring morning just starting to come in through the darkness. Then he heard screaming.

He lived in apartments, over two hundred of them packed together, sets of four, only two stories each, and he was nearly in the middle of it. He heard banging upstairs, and he got out of bed. He quickly threw his clothes on. Old steel toed work boots he'd only kept wearing as winter boots, long since working in a dead end office job. He took an old backpack covered in dust, sturdy, meant for hiking, though he'd never used it for that.

He stopped for a moment when he thought about what to use for a weapon. Was he crazy, was this a delusion? No matter how real it felt, that must've been a dream right? Had he become so detached from reality? But what about the screaming and the banging? Was it a coincidence, was it in his head?

Even if he had gone crazy, he decided to grab something. An old hammer he'd had since he was a child, though he didn't remember where it came from. It had a wooden handle, with the dark metal head crudely glued on. He often worried about trusting something like this, but it'd always stayed on. He put it in the front pocket of his hoodie, though it barely fit. It was a bit too long. He'd been too cheap to buy a gun, he'd never even bothered buying a graphics card. And now, if this was all really happening, the bit of money he'd saved up was worthless anyway.

He grabbed his phone, his keys, and some money, just in case it was still useful. It was seven AM. What if this isn't real, and he's just walking around with a hammer like a psychopath? Either way, he had to know. He stepped outside and locked the door. He'd heard the door slam upstairs before he left. Now it was eerily quiet. He saw a trail of blood on the stairs, this wasn't normal, even for the shithole apartments he lived in.

He was lost in thought watching the blood trickle down the stairs, remembering what the angel said, remembering everything from the visions. He was taken out of this trance when he heard a child crying. It was getting closer. He walked down the sidewalk and turned the corner. There was a boy, no older than five or six, standing in the grass openly weeping. David didn't recognize him, he likely wouldn't recognize most of his neighbors.

He approached the child, but he didn't know what to say. "Are you okay?" Was all that came out, his rough voice sounding unintentionally harsh. The child kept crying, but looked at him. After a moment the child spoke, choking out words through tears. "My... Mommy. He attacked her."

"Who did?"

"Step dad! He bit her and she told me to run. And. And..." The weeping started again. David knelt down and put his hand on the child's shoulder. "Can you show me where she is? I'll see if I can help her." The child choked back tears and nodded, then he started running toward wherever he came from. David followed at a quick pace. He wasn't sure if having the child see this was a good idea, but leaving the woman didn't seem better. Maybe she would still be alive.

They went upstairs to the child's apartment. There was still screaming, a woman sobbing. They saw her in the kitchen, blood trickling down her neck and shoulder. She was wearing a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. She was holding the greyish bloody man below her down at his neck. His eyes had gone black, and he bit at the air. His nails scratched at her arms madly.

"Mommy!" The boy shouted and ran forward.

"Stay back! I told you to leave!" She looked over and saw her child, and a large man standing there. He looked a bit too old for school, but she still wasn't sure if he was a high schooler or a college student with his backpack on. The only thing that stuck out to her as strange was the end of a wooden handle poking out of his pocket.

"You can leave lady, I'll finish it." David pulled the hammer out of his pocket. "You've gotta crush the skull right? If they're zombies." The woman's eyes went wide, she looked back at her husband. Those black eyes, the vision. In that moment she realized this was real, and there was nothing else she could do for him. She couldn't kill him either. So she jumped away from the man, and ran toward her son. She grabbed her son and ran out of the apartment.

David saw the man rise after she left, and wished he would've tested out this power the angel told him about before leaving his apartment. But he'd always picked things up faster by doing the real thing.

David brought the hammer down on the man's skull, with more force than he'd ever mustered before. But despite the sickening thud, the man's skull held. The undead only briefly reeled back from the blow. David felt that power, and tried channeling it into the next blow, into his hammer. He felt it was partially successful, he felt the power flow through him, but he hadn't felt it fully connect. The hammer itself was harder to channel the power through than his body. Despite this, there was a sick cracking of the undead's skull, and it seemed momentarily dazed.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

David poured more power into the hammer this time, not just into the strike. He felt it enter the weapon. The weapon felt like an extension of himself, and as he smashed it into the undead's skull, he felt the power burst forth, completely destroying the man's skull. It burst everywhere. In that moment, David felt like a kid again. He really felt alive. He couldn't wait to find more to try this power out on.

As he walked out of the apartment and down the stairs, he felt he had less power than this morning. But he felt it coming back, slowly. As David walked down the stairs, with the gore from the undead man's skull splattered against his sweater, he realized there was no going back.

"I've either gone crazy and started killing innocent people, or the world really was ending." David thought. Either way, whatever bit of a meaningless life David had before, it was over.

When he reached the ground, the woman, holding her child, came out from around the corner of the apartments. "Is it... Over?" She asked, the words catching in her throat as she saw the gore splatter over his chest. But still, she had to make sure. She had to hear the words.

The man looked at her. He'd had a faint smile on his face when she first turned the corner, but now he just looked expressionless again, like when he was standing in her kitchen. "Yeah." was all he said at first. "His head popped, don't worry. You can go get dressed or whatever. And grab a bat or a hammer or something." He smiled and lifted his hammer up. "They work pretty well."

The world was spinning for her. This all seemed like a sick joke. None of this could be real, it couldn't be happening. She must still be dreaming. She must've thought she got up after the first dream, but she must still be asleep. Maybe she was holding her son, laying in bed. Maybe that's why he felt so real in her arms.

But the man's face looked so real too, and she was sure she hadn't seen him before. Could you see people's faces so clearly in dreams? And how did the pain feel so real. Her heart ached, her shoulder felt agonizing, but she wouldn't let go of her son.

Those dark grey eyes caught her attention again. It was like he was staring into her. The sunlight reflected off his ghost white skin, it was like he was glowing. His dark black hair was thick and wavy, coming just down to his shoulders, but it went back like a mane, revealing his face. And those dark grey eyes. The man was nearly as tall as a doorway, and his shoulders were nearly as wide. Something about him scared her more than her husband did. The way he stood there smiling with the hammer in his hand.

"Hey lady, are you alright? You must've lost a lot of blood." David didn't feel like playing house sitter, but now he felt obligated, he couldn't just ignore an injured woman and a crying child, even as he heard cars start up and tear through the parking lot. Things were going crazy, or he was, but he might as well pace himself. It's not like he could really do much to help everyone.

"How about I move the guy into the bathroom and you can get changed, maybe drink some juice? It's good for blood loss right?" He'd kind of hoped she'd say no. But she didn't. She blinked, and seemed to come back down to reality. "Yes, please. I can't see it. Please don't make me see it. But I need to get ready."

"Alright." David said. "I'll move it into the bathroom, just give me a sec." He walked up the stairs and back into the apartment, then he grabbed the man by the ankles and dragged it into the bathroom. He threw it behind the shower curtain, and he figured it was good enough, as long as they didn't pull it back. He exited the apartment again.

"Okay, it's behind the shower curtain, so go ahead and get ready." David had briefly wiped the gore off in her bathroom with one of the towels, he thought she wouldn't mind. The woman set her child down, and they went back into their apartment. They locked the door shut.

"Guess I can leave then." David thought, as he started walking down the stairs again. Thankfully, he'd felt most of his power had returned. As he walked back to the grass where he'd met the child, he saw a few people hunched over a corpse. But this corpse wasn't moving. The other three were though, and they were biting and chewing voraciously. The body was mostly picked clean, and they were mostly chewing on bones at this point, biting off every last bit of gore, licking the blood off bones.

David was pretty desensitized, ever since he was a teenager, but even he started to lose his appetite after seeing this. One of the undead turned toward him and leapt up, running at him. It no longer cared to gnaw on bones when there was a full body there instead.

David wished he had something better than a small hammer, but he channeled his power into it, and swung, crushing the undead's skull and bursting it all over the small square of grass and the sidewalk. This caught the attention of the other two. They both ran at him.

David focused his attention on the closest one and slammed down, but he missed, instead destroying most of it's shoulder and part of it's torso. The thing fell and started clawing at his leg through his jeans. The other zombie lunged and grabbed onto him before he could swing again. It bit onto his shoulder, tearing the thick sweater.

He grabbed the thing by the neck and pulled with all his might. It was easy to muster his strength with all the pain. He ripped it from his shoulder, with a strand of flesh being ripped off with it. He swung the hammer down and destroyed it's skull. The other zombie had started biting his shin. He could feel it's teeth on the bone.

David kicked it off as hard as he could. It went flying into the wall of an apartment. The dull yellow wall of the place being spattered with it's blood. That didn't kill the zombie though, but before it could try standing, David walked over and stomped down on it's skull, channeling the power into his leg. He felt the power burst into it's skull, and it broke apart like a watermelon, grey matter and blood smashing out all over the dirt.

He was glad it worked, and he felt another power filling him. Not like the energy he used for his attacks, the mana, something else. The angel said they could get stronger. Was it like experience? That'd be great, but he messed up. He got bit pretty bad on his left shoulder, and the other one started biting into his right calf. He didn't have any normal bandages, just an old dusty box of the small ones. He could try cutting up a shirt and wrapping it though. That's really all he could do.

Thankfully David's leg still held his weight as he walked back toward his apartment. He got back inside and started cutting old shirts with some scissors. At that point though, the bleeding had already stopped. He walked to the bathroom mirror and took his sweater and shirt off. After he rinsed the area around the wound, he watched it. The wound already seemed to be closed off. It was still torn, a piece of meat was missing, but it had sealed itself. He stared at it, and over the course of a minute or two, it started to become fuller, the pain lessened after a while, but at first he felt it. He felt it regrowing. Soon there was no sign of an injury, not even a scar.

He washed off the rest of it, and there was no sign of an injury. He checked his leg, and it had healed too. He even pulled up the other leg and looked at a scar he'd gotten as a child. It was still pretty big, even as an adult, but now it was gone. He'd been shortsighted for most of his life, but he could see so clearly outside, even without his glasses. If anything, everything looked clearer than it ever had been.

David put his clothes back on. He only had so many clothes to wear through, and this was the first day of the apocalypse. That, and this hoodie had the biggest pocket for his hammer. He didn't bother putting the backpack on though, part the strap had been torn, so he didn't trust it even if he found something worth carrying.

He washed his hands and drank some water while he still had it, though he didn't think he could force himself to eat right now. He never liked eating breakfast anyway. He plugged his cellphone in to let it charge while there was still power. He looked through the cupboards and started absentmindedly eating a candy bar he bought on sale. By the time he was halfway through with it, he realized he was eating it. "Guess I got my apatite back."

There was more screaming outside, almost like it was just outside the window. David grabbed his hammer again and left his apartment. If nearly half the population had already died, how many zombies would there be here? And how long until the demons came?

David decided he'd try to save as many people as he could before then. And he'd try to kill as many of these things as he could before more came. He only regretted not wasting his money on some medieval weapon while he could. But he vaguely remembered there being a construction company not far from here, within walking distance even. That was great, because he had to sell his car a few years ago. Hopefully they'd have a bigger hammer.