Trudging on towards home base, my sand boots sinking slightly more into the black sand with every step. The home base, a hodgepodge of ruined vehicles and whatever we could scavenge, was looking more ramshackle than usual.

Pushing open the curtain that is used for the door I am greeted with the few others in my group all tinkering and building on something in the middle. Walking up to the guy bolting steel plates to the sides and asking what it is he responds that It’s what it looks like. It looks like a car with slightly oversized wheels and no doors.

Helping out with the project I go outside with a glass jar and fill it with the black sand. Tightening the lid I place it in a microwave and after about three minutes of waiting pull it out and pop it open and hand it over to one of the others. I had made the glue.

…

With the vehicle finished we all get inside with a bit of squeezing and drive off leaving everything not in the car behind.

Jumping over a dune we come across an abandoned warehouse. Most of us go to search the place for resources and a few stay behind to watch for any storms. Everything is just as run down as the outside and we find nothing until coming across a covered hatch in the back. The hatch leads to a ladder and at the bottom a small square room with shelves of food, water, and dead bodies wrapped in web.

Descending the ladder first I surveyed the place finding no abnormalities beside the giant mutated rat bigger than me in the corner with acid blood and bloodshot eyes. Someone had altered it to be hyper aggressive to everyone except for me for some reason.

Taking a step closer to the rat I start having visions of it’s veins, the blood a psychedelic trip of colours. I wake up in the car speeding along the dunes. Looking back I see the building on fire and collapsing in on itself. I don’t question it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Jumping over another dune we come across a small settlement of only three buildings, built around each other and close to a river that runs next to it. A garden made to cover the entire shoreline runs along the river. Armed people rush out to meet us and invite us in.

One of the buildings is a restaurant/tavern and is where me and another guy talk to the leader of this group to discuss things and eat into the night. I exasperatedly exclaim ‘oh my god’ to something said and the leader comments on it saying how weird a turn of phrase it is and assumes me an exorcist.

Outside in the dark as I'm having this conversation, two girls sneak through the gardens and into one of the buildings, stopping to make a plan to save me. The building is completely empty except for a sword on a mount at the back wall opposite the door.

Someone screams.

Inside the restaurant everything has been destroyed. Tables and chairs are broken and upturned, the walls have huge gashes and claw marks through them, and people around the place are either injured or dead. The only exception being me, the leader of this settlement and the chef. The man I came here with is dead.

The chef leads me and the leader upstairs to even more destruction and into the kitchen. We discussed some things and before I left I took a peek into one of the pots, its lid slightly ajar and showing the contents to be meat. The chef closes the pot lid sealing the inside.

Leaving the restaurant to rendezvous with the two girls, I am being followed. Walking up to the door I try opening it but it's blocked from the other side. That door being the only proper entrance to the place. Crouching under the house I come out onto the other side of the door.

Looking up I see nothing but darkness and a few steps in front of me laying on the floorboards are two sets of eyeballs and nothing else. Looking up from the gruesome site a man walks out of the darkness wearing a blindfold and holding a sword.

“Are you angry?” he asked me. I am not.

“You are not worthy.” He says in staccato like all his other sentences as he stares me down.