Bulgaria-Turkey Border

Like most of the rest of the world, both Bulgaria and Turkey were attacked by frightening beasts equipped with various super abilities that would only come out in myths. In Turkey, a mountain-sized humanoid creature that was completely covered by a sack tanked most of the firepower of the Turkish military, allowing the other beasts to freely wreak havoc. Bulgaria was directly carpet bombed by several thousand ugly flying hags that could fling fireballs.

The border between these two countries however, was strangely peaceful. Most of the beasts and monsters were more concentrated in the cities and towns while the people in charge of border patrol were all called back to help out in defending the country. That was why there was relatively few people around.

At this moment, there was one brown-haired girl holding a small dagger sitting down on the ground as she leaned on one of the chain link fence surrounding the border. Her skin was deathly pale and she was wheezing over and over as if she had just done something really strenuous. If a beast came around and found her, the girl would be quite the easy snack.

“What are those things? What are those monsters?” the girl said as she seemed terrified.

Her name is Adelina. Originally, she was going to move to Turkey with her family because of her father’s new job, but then weapons started appearing in their hands while a voice talked in their heads. Then, a big bull the size of a truck rammed into their car and sent them flying to the wilderness. With both of her parents dead, Adelina became scared as her brother told her to run away with all her might.

She was completely bad at sports in school, but during the last few hours, she felt like she could easily beat any long distance athletes. With the threat of death in front of her face, Adelina’s body suddenly felt like it had unlocked some hidden potential inside her. A 5 kilometer run through the Bulgarian wilderness, and she had done it in about less than half an hour. Even Adelina could not believe what she had managed to accomplish with her chubby body.

When she arrived at the border and finally escaped the fearsome beasts, she was completely spent. She couldn’t even get up anymore as she leaned weakly on the border fence looking as if she was about to die. Worst part is that she didn’t think to bring her water bottle out of the car’s wreckage when she ran away.

After she had managed to slightly calm down, tears started running down her face as she cried, “Mom, Dad …. Mikhail....”

All of her family died by that giant bull’s charge. Her father, her mother, her big brother, all of them died tragically. The worst part was that she was grumbling all the way about having to move to Turkey before this.

Her father and mother died instantly from the initial collision with the bull as they were sitting on the front. The reason why Adelina was not seriously injured was because her older brother Mikhail had taken the brunt of the impact. When the bull started charging at them again, Mikhail forced both of them out of the car and told her to run away. She still remembered Mikhail’s last words to her.

“Run Adelina! Run to the border and call for help! The military will know how to kill this beast!” Mikhail said.

“But what about you? Aren’t you coming?” She remembered herself saying that.

Hearing that, Mikhail just smiled and said, “Don’t worry about me. Someone needs to hold this beast back. We can’t let it chase after the both of us. I’ll hold it off.”

“But…”

“No buts! I am the older sibling remember! That means you have to listen to what I say!” Mikhail said as he gave the same mischievous smile that he always do.

Usually, Adelina would feel annoyed when seeing that smile as if her brother was teasing her, but at that moment, she knew that smile contained no smile. The mischievous smile was more similar to the smile on the photos of world war 2 soldiers going to their deaths to protect those they cherished. She had only seen such a smile on the museums and the internet, so she was completely shocked to see her brother displaying that same smile.

Adelina grabbed Mikhail’s arm as she said, “No! I’m not leaving you! We’re going together!”

Roar!

A huge sound suddenly broke their intimate family moment. The giant bull who was still going around the wreckage of the car had finally found them. Smoke came out of its nose as it readied itself to charge at their position.

“Sorry Adelina, but you are going to survive,” Mikhail said before he pushed her towards the bushes as he ran towards another direction.

“Hey bull! Go die!” Mikhail shouted as he threw the sword that had appeared in his hand when that mysterious voice showed up in his head.

Mikhail had completely nailed his throw as he managed to hit the bull right between its eyes and made it focus its entire attention on him. Once he got the bull to look at him, Mikhail immediately sped up in a direction away from Adelina who was still lying dazed on the bushes. Despite the fact that he had dislocated one of his shoulder and had blood flowing out of his body, he still ran quickly like his life depended on it.

That was the last that Adelina had seen of him.

“And yet… where did the border patrols go? Why is this place so empty?” Adelina could not help but ask.

When Adelina reached the border, she didn’t actually stop running. She kept on moving around the place, trying to find other people, but no one seemed to be around. The only thing that Adelina could see was various tire tracks moving back towards the country, as if everyone had abandoned this place.

Feeling alone and helpless, Adelina sobbed on the ground as she brought her knees to her chest.

A few hours ago, she was still just a normal 16 year old girl who was moving to another country with her family. It was the first time she had seen a person dying before her eyes. It was the first time she puked after seeing the dead bodies of her parents. It was the first time she had to be scared for her dear life.

And now she’s all alone.

“Mom, Dad, Mikhail …” she said limply as she fell lifelessly to the ground.

Her tears were still falling, but Adelina felt dead inside. The family that she spent all of her life with, dead just like that. Although Adelina felt that they were not as close as other families with their bonding, she knew that she loved them all very dearly.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Mom would always argue with her when they were at home. MIkhail and Adelina were both naughty children, so Mom would always scold them. Adelina always felt like her mom was too strict, but only after she died did she realized that mom had done it for her own good.

Dad was almost never home as he would job hop all over the place. Adelina used to hate him since he never spent time with her or her brother, but only now did she realize that he was doing it for both of their sake. When he’s gone, Adelina realized how deeply she missed her father that she rarely saw.

Mikhail, who was always beside her since they were kids, was the one that she missed the most. Unlike her, who was more of a chubby nerd, Mikhail grew up to be the sporty center of attention in the school. He would usually drag her around to socialize and make her feel even more insecure. Furthermore, he never let up on the teasing ever since they were kids. Adelina always hated the fact that he always seemed to be the same goofy older brother she knew, as if he didn’t want to mature unlike her that was forced to do it.

Now, she felt like there was nothing she would want more than to hear his teasing again.

All of her family members, dead just a few hours after they were having their normal family road trip. Her parents both died and her brother had sacrificed himself just to let her get away safely. For the first time in her life, she felt that everything was bleak and filled with sorrow.

Adelina regretted not listening to her mother and being a good girl when she was still alive. She regretted not being able to thank her father for all the gruelling work that he did to keep the family alive. She regretted not following Mikhail and making friends.

It was true what they said. You only appreciate things when you have lost them. After losing her family, Adelia finally realized how much her family meant to her, but it was already too late.

Roar!

A sudden noise suddenly made Adelia’s ears perked up. When she looked at the source, she saw the giant bull that killed her family. On one of its horns, Mikhail’s dead expression could be seen.

“You! YOU!” Adelina shouted as tears flowed bitterly down her cheeks and rage filled her heart.

She was scared. To be facing a monster that can ram into a speeding car directly without getting hurt, she might as well be facing down a tank. There was no chance for her to win.

Yet anger and desperation have clouded her head. With no one around and her brother’s corpse hanging on the one of the bull’s horn, Adelina felt a rising feeling of vengeance. She wants to strike back at this evil monster that stole her family away from her.

“YOUUUUUUU!!!!!!” Adelina screamed as she used the last strength of her tired body to rush at the giant bull.

She knew she could not outrun the giant bull. If it weren’t for Mikhail sacrificing himself before, Adelina probably would never be able to escape from it. Now that she was alone, the chances of escaping was zero.

‘At least I need to land a hit on you! As mom always said, it is better to fight back and fail than it is to just do nothing,’ Adelina consoled herself as she did her suicidal charge.

When she saw the bull’s thick horns coming quickly to her face, Adelina strangely curved her sorrowed face as she made a smile and thought, ‘Mom, Dad, Mikhail, looks like I am joining you soon.’

The dagger that she got when the voice spoke in her head was still in her hand, and she used it to stab straight at the giant bull. At least one hit, that was all Adelina could want at this point. Just one hit to say that she had tried to avenge her family.

Boom!

Contrary to her expectations, the impact that she had imagined did not come. Instead, when she took a better look at the bull, she saw that the bull was charred dead. There were some static electricity around the beast as it looked like the bull had taken some lightning directly to the face.

“What...what happened?” Adelina asked bewilderedly.

The bull that looked so mighty before actually died right in front of her. It happened so quickly in an instant that even Adelina, who was near the bull, was not really sure what happened. Judging from the metallic smell in the air, Adelina felt like some high voltage electricity had passed through here. It smelled like that one time she accompanied her dad when he was fixing the telephone pole that was hit by lightning back when her dad was an electric repairman.

“I-is this God’s judgement?” Adelina suddenly muttered.

She had heard that some gods in certain mythologies would strike down sinners with lightning, but she never thought that she would witness it for herself.

“Silly child. Of course it is not God’s judgement. God doesn’t exist,” a voice suddenly spoke and startled Adelina.

When she looked to the source, she found a giant black hole forming in the sky as clouds and lightning swirled around and thunder boomed in the sky. Adelina could only watch dumbly at the miraculous phenomenon that she never thought was possible. It looked like the black hole was trying to open up and spit out something.

Boom!

For a split second, Adelina actually saw that the sky actually looked like it split apart. Five gigantic lightning bolts the size of aircraft carriers scattered from this split and instantly flew apart into five different corners of the world. From the black hole in the sky, a shining figure emerged.

It was a 7 meter tall brown haired woman draped in a white gown. Her facial features was so beautiful and her body was so gorgeous that Adelina felt like she wasn’t looking at a human being. With the glow surrounding the giant woman, she was more like a divine goddess coming down to grace the mortal world.

“A-are you a god-goddess?” Adelina nervously asked.

“Goddess?” the divine-looking woman smiled. “No, child. I am not a goddess. I am you from the future.”

“W-wait...what?” Adelina said as she felt completely lost.

“I do not have much time. Just my presence here alone have already greatly affected the timeline’s corrective force. I cannot stay for long,” the woman said.

“Listen well to my warning my past self. For what I am about to tell you is knowledge of the future; knowledge that is far too burdensome for you currently, but I have no choice but to impart,” the woman said.

“Knowledge of the future?” Adelina said as she became even more confused at the situation before her.

“Yes. You should know it child. This world is ending. We tried to stop it, but we failed in the end. That is why I am here. To make sure you avoid our mistakes. To help you save our universe.”

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Santa Cruz, California

After putting 20 points into vitality, the pain of the injuries lessened and Alex was finally able to prop himself up. Although he was still too weak to walk or even stand, he could still crawl. That was the best thing that Alex could do right at the moment with the electric squirrel on his back charging some sort of killing move.

Alex immediately dragged his broken body over to the corpse of the giant tortoise. He hoped that whatever powerful attack the squirrel would dish out, Alex could defend through it by hiding behind the tortoise's tough shell. Of course, Alex didn't hold out much hope.

Just as he was only about halfway to the tortoise's corpse, Alex felt all the hairs on his body standing on end. A split second feeling in his gut had told him that he was too late. His instincts were screaming in alarm as Alex felt like something really terrible was about to happen.

Boom!

A deafening sound surrounded the area as Alex saw what looked like a gigantic lightning bolt the size of an aircraft carrier suddenly streaked just past his head. When he looked back, the ruined building that he was on was reduced to rubble. A giant crater was formed on the street outside as if an atomic bomb had detonated in the middle of it.

Inside the bottom most part of the crater, Alex was surprised to find the charred and blackened remains of what looked like a little furry animal. Since there were no charging sounds anymore and he was not attacked, Alex was confident that the dead little animal in the crater was the squirrel. After he realized this, Alex could not help but feel that the electric squirrel that was killed by a lightning bolt had quite an ironic death.

When Alex looked at the crater again, he could not help but ask in his mind, 'What the fuck just happened?'