A hole in the f*cking sky.
Are you kidding me. That’s not something you see everyday.
As I stared blankly at the hole trying to come to terms with reality, the red and purple lights began to violently swirl and gather at the center of the hole at an ever increasing pace like a massive whirlpool in the sky. The wind picked up, forcing me to tighten my grip on my towel and the railing in order to maintain my decency and avoid being blown away. My knuckles were white from the strain.
The lights swirled faster and faster, until the lights were just a blur. Then all of the sudden, the world became still.
The wind stopped.
The earth no longer shook.
Everything was frozen, frozen in time.
At the epicenter of the maelstrom, a very deep crimson sphere laced with purple streaks hovered in the air. It slowly floated down, and all eyes were glued to it until it gently landed at the center of the quad.
It just sat there. I let out a breath that I wasn’t even aware I was holding in.
“BOOM!”
Suddenly the ball exploded, and a shockwave of dusty black particles shot out in all directions. Before I could even react, I saw a rush of dark light I felt an irresistible force lift me off my feet, throwing me past my desk and into the back of my room, slamming me against the wall. It felt like I got hit by a freight train. My body slumped down to the floor.
I felt something knock me on the top of my head.
I had one thought in my mind. Shit, I lost my towel.
Everything faded into darkness.
...
It was dark. Like really dark. Imagine black, but just empty. Nothingness would be the best word to describe it.
I was standing along in the middle of this 'nothingness.' Strangely, in this 'nothingness' I could still see myself. The darkness did nothing to obscure my view of myself.
What is this place? How did I get here?
All of the sudden, a small blue light flashed into existence. It was really small, as if far away. Curious, I squinted my eyes and began walking towards the faint blue glow. What is it?
I drew near the mysterious light, and reached my hand to touch it. It flickered and disappeared, only to reappear some distance aways. I frowned, did it want me to follow?
This process repeated itself a two to three more times, until at one point the blue light transformed into a blue girl. She was wearing a long blue dress, and sat on the floor with her hands wrapped around her legs and her face was buried within her knees. Her shoulders were shaking, it looked like she was crying.
It was probably one the strangest things I had ever seen.
I began walking up to her, when suddenly her head shot up, and her piercing gaze met mine.
I froze. Actually, it was more like something froze me. They were the most clear and breathtaking pair of eyes that I had ever seen, and would likely ever see. The curtain of hair hid the rest of her face, but could do nothing to hide those eyes. Traces of confusion and sorrow dotted her starry eyes.
I tried moving, but my body refused to listen to me. It felt like an invisible pressure was on my body and it wouldn’t let me move a muscle.
She sat.
I stood.
I tried to say something, but even my vocal cords were frozen up, much less my mouth. Only my eyes were still capable of moving, and even they were captivated by her deep blue pupils.
She looked at me in confusion, as if asking: "What are you doing here?"
Out of nowhere, a loud banshee-like scream broke the still atmosphere. Terror flashed across her eyes, and she broke eye contact with me, burying her head back into her knees, her shoulders quaking in fear.
The second her eyes broke away from me, I felt an invisible pressure lift off my chest, and realized I could move, and finally speak.
This time, another scream pierced the air, only to have several more follow. They were getting louder, and closer. I ran up to the blue girl. Or at least I tried to. There was an invisible wall that separated us, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t go past it.
"Hey! Who are you? What is this place?" I yelled at her. She didn't respond. I couldn't tell whether or not she heard me or not.
The screams were getting louder and louder, and out of the darkness I saw a dark filth oozing out of the 'nothingness' all around us. To make matters worse, the keening never stopped. They weren't regular ones either, but they were shrieks of fear. Of horror. And of terror. And it chilled me to the bone.
In the filthy darkness, I could see faces. Faces twisted beyond anything I had ever seen, and they were screaming. Howling in pain, begging for relief. They rose and fell, disappearing one after the other into the darkness, none were the same, as if billions and billions of souls were twisted and tortured unceasedly.
They got closer and closer. I could feel myself stiffening. My legs didn’t work anymore, they were bound by the darkness. I uttered one last scream before the darkness swept over me.
"I'm so sorry..." A soft voice entered my mind seconds before the darkness engulfed my mind and everything ceased to be.
...
I gasped aloud, and my eyes shot open in terror. My eyes flew around the room, my breathing was heavy, and I was sweating buckets.
It was just a nightmare. I kept telling myself, it was just a nightmare. My head was pounding, my ears ringing, and my left shoulder was hurting like a bitch. I felt like I just woke up after a long night of drinking. And damn was it cold.
What kind of fucking nightmare was that? I shivered again, and this time it wasn’t because of the cold. The images of the wailing souls swallowed in darkness kept on popping up in my head.
And what was with that smell? It’s so strong and minty. I looked down beside me. Oh, deodorant. I usually put it on when I don’t have time to take a shower and I need to go out on a date or something. Which means I pretty much don’t use it at all. Normally it just collects dust on my shelf, so was it doing being empty and on the ground?
Oh, that must be why everything smells minty, and a slight hint of iron. It must have spilled on me after I hit the wall.
Iron? My deodorant doesn’t have iron in it. At least not that I know of. Then why do I smell iron?
I had so many questions, yet I didn’t even realize I had so little time.
The ringing in my ears finally stopped, and that’s when I began hearing these strange squelching and slurping noises outside my room door. It sounded like someone was enjoying a nice juicy steak.
Eating steak outside my room? Without inviting me? How dare you. At least you should have the decent courtesy to keep your eating noise at a minimum. You must be one of those guys who can’t eat with their mouth shut. I can hear it through my damn door.
I unsteadily got up to my feet and grimaced in pain. My left shoulder was bruised up pretty badly, and I could make out the faint purple signs on my skin. That’s gonna hurt for a while.
I swung my door open, about to shout at the bastard who was eating obnoxiously loud, but my words got stuck in my mouth. I was completely unprepared for the scene in front of me.
Giant Hornet
Oh. That’s my man eating some juicy steak. Except, it wasn’t a man, nor a woman. It’s definitely not a human. I was so surprised that my brain didn’t even registered the pop-up screen that showed up above the creature.
It wasn’t like I needed it anyways. It may have had some strange and weird white blemishes on its shiny black carapace, but it was stupidly big. It’s body was probably longer than I was tall. It’s bright yellow stripes on the black body coupled with it’s rather big and menacing stinger at the butt end of the body was enough information for me to figure it out.
It’s body was bent over what looked like a human body. Except, the body was clearly missing a leg. A right leg to be precise. From mid thigh down, it was gone. And blood was spurted out unceasingly off the stump of the thigh. There was a thick pool of crimson blood around the body and around the floor. I couldn’t really see the rest of the body, it was blocked from view by the monster.
Thank goodness it was facing the other way.
I didn’t have a good angle to get a proper view of what it was doing, but I wasn’t stupid. I reflexively slammed the door shut and pressed my back against the cold hard wood.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
What the f*ck. Why is there such a large hornet. And why is there a dead body outside?
A shiver ran through my body. Wait a second, why is the door so cold? I looked down at myself.
Oh wait, I’m naked. Then I noticed that my balcony window was still wide open. Well shit.
Well at least no one was close enough to make out who I was right? Well, there could have been one. But he or she was dead. Outside. In the hallway. With a giant hornet feeding on his or her dead corpse.
Lucky me?
“Bang!”
Interrupting my thoughts, a large stinger burst through the wood of the door, right beneath my precious, making my blood run cold.
I nearly lost my manhood, permanently.
“AHHHH!” I screamed in terror, staring at the stinger between my legs. My babies!
“Buzz!” An intense low buzzing sound reverberated through the door.
My sword! Fuck where is it! My brain went on autopilot and pounced towards the first thing that came to mind. I grabbed the handle of the sword and threw the sheath aside.
A blue screen appeared above my sword.
Tachi
A well crafted single edged curved two-handed longsword. Blunt and poorly maintained.
Effects:
None
What? I gave that bastard a good chunk of money to help me maintain my sword! I want my money back! Serves me right for being a lazy son of a bitch.
Well, it’s too late for regrets. By the time I grabbed my sword and turned around, the giant hornet was almost finished tearing up my door.
There goes my door, how am I supposed to pay for that.
I heard that a regular sized hornet could cut in half and kill a praying mantis. Not to mention that it could kill up to 40 bees in a single minute. That’s terrifying. And you know what’s worse? A human sized one hornet.
Whiz!
Suddenly the giant hornet put on an impossible change of speed, and sped straight at me, it’s blurred mandibles brandished wildly in the air.
F*ck! It was big but so damn fast! I didn’t react quick enough to sidestep it, and could only take it on full force, taking the brunt of the blow, and sliding me back all the way until I had my back touched a wall.
I desperately tried to fend it off with my blade, pushing it against the still bloody mandibles sprayed blood all over me. It wriggled around ferociously, trying to bypass my blade and chop my head off. Fat chance you ugly bug bastard.
Why is it bending its body like that?
Oh shit! The stinger! I was so preoccupied with it’s scary mouth I forgot that it had another weapon. I reflexively kicked out with my leg, striking it’s midsection and launching it flying.
Oh, it was pretty light. Lighter than I thought. Probably because it needed to be relatively light so that it could fly.
I glared at the giant hornet. You my ugly sir, are going down.
The hornet circled and buzzed angrily as if searching for an opening. It was hovering now, I could see it’s wings flapping at an unimaginable speed.
Zoom! Like a lightning bolt it charged at me.
You got me last time motherfucker, but not this time. Sidestepping it, I allowed its body to fly by my and slam into the wall behind me. It’s mandibles got stuck in the wall.
Bam!
Seeing that, I immediately brought my sword down on its head. Die!
Dink!
What? It’s armour was so thick! My slash only left a white scar on its carapace, similar to the ones it already had. I panicked, and tried slashing down a couple more times, but to no avail. The giant hornet pulled it’s head out of the wall and I was forced to distance myself.
I regretted not maintaining my sword properly.
Unrelentlessly, the hornet charged at me again.
At this moment in time, I wish I had a habit of cleaning my room. The moment it charged at me, I sidestepped. Or at least I tried to. Tripping over a bag I fell right on my butt and the hornet pounced on me with increased ferocity, going in for the kill.
As I struggled desperately, one of mandibles cut deeply into my shoulder and drew a gasp of pain from my lips. The giant hornet was on top of me, blessing me with wonderful first class seats of its bloody mandibles dripping saliva or whatever it was down on my face.
Click, clack. It’s large eyes glared at me, sending shivers down my spine.
Clack clack yourself motherf*cker! I’m not dying here!
Bringing my knees up to my chest, I bundled up into a ball and planted my feet into the midsection of the hornet, and kicked upwards with all my might, knocking it into the air. With as much strength as I could muster, I grasped my sword with both hands and thrust it straight up, and into its midsection.
Thank God it worked. The force generated from its downward motion and my thrust was enough to penetrate its thin midsection with my sword.
“Grah!” I looked down at my chest, a large gash spilled blood out of my chest. I shoved it’s body off of me. In its death throes the body violently spasmed and one of its mandibles slashed across my chest.
It fell to the ground, buzzed weakly, and finally went limp. I collapsed on my back spread flat on the floor, panting from exhaustion. The time it took for that to take place was less than a minute, but it felt like an hour.
At the time, there was only one thing on my mind. I need to take another shower.
It was at this moment, the adrenaline rushing through my blood finally wore off, and everything hit me. And it hit like a truck.
Losing strength in my arms and legs, I collapsed like jello to the ground. My hands were shaking, my brown hair was matted down in sweat, and my breath came shallow and quick.
I almost died. I was literally a hair's breath of losing my life. Not only that, it was to a supernaturally gigantic bloodthirsty hornet. Nature doesn’t just go up and do that, it doesn’t create some massive killer hornet that goes around and eats people. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Yet the reality of it was that it did.
How long had I been unconscious? Why was there a deadly Giant Hornet on the loose? What had been that strange sphere and explosion? And what happened to the hole in the sky? ARe there more of those Giant Hornets running around? Where is everyone? Is everyone dead?
Am I going to die?
I drew in a long and deep breath. Whew… I almost lost it there. The worst thing to happen in dangerous times would be to lose myself in panic. Rather than stress about what could, worry about the present, the now.
Less than 3 minutes later, I had my adidas sweatpants on, a long sleeve shirt and an athletic sweater on. I looked at my shoulder and chest in the mirror. There’s absolutely no way in hell that was going to wear jeans. I like to give my babies downstairs some room to breath and move.
I glanced at myself in the mirror. Good, the bleeding stopped, or it would show through my sweater. I used the emergency first aid kit underneath my desk to patch myself up.
At our dorm we were required to have an emergency disaster kit in our rooms in case of such events. It had a week’s worth of food and about a gallon of water. That should be enough to last me a while. Plus it had a couple of flashlights, matches, and even flint. I stuffed them all into my backpack. Any more would be unreasonably difficult to carry, and I needed to be able to move around unencumbered. I don’t think my roommate would be too angry if I took it with me right now.
Speaking of which, I do hope he’s still alive out there.
At this point, I already came to terms with the fact that my world, as I knew it, was gone.
Mysterious ‘Status’ table? Check, I could call it up at any time.
Giant Hornet? Check. The disgusting creature lying prone in the middle of my room and the dull ache of my shoulder and chest can attest to that.
Dead corpse outside my room? Check. I could clearly see what the body was, or what it was before. The rancid smell of death permeated through the air.
Massive hole in the sky? Check. Actually scratch that, the hole disappeared. What replaced it though however, was a sky full of extremely dark purple rolling clouds. With the occasional flash of red light. It wasn’t a sign of the end of the world.
No not at all.
The possibility of encountering more Giant Hornets or other monstrous oversized monsters out there with even more dead corpses? Very high.
The chances of me surviving? Pretty damn low.
But hey, 54 minutes into the apocalypse, and I’m still alive. I’m think I’m doing a damn fine job. At least better than the person there lying in a pool of blood.
Everything that I had experienced was far too real to be a dream or an illusion. This was real. That giant hornet is real. That dead body outside is real. The world had changed. And I was scared.
I was unconscious for about an hour. I don’t even know how I’m still alive. It might have been due to the deodorant that spilled all over me and masked my smell, causing the creatures not to be able to sense or smell me. That may have been why no other monsters were in the area. I would be long dead by now. Thank you Axe Spray, your sacrifice will not be in vain.
Or it could have been simply this hornet was a lone straggler, and I was ridiculously lucky not to meet a swarm of them.
Who knows.
After changing and patching myself up, I went over the still corpse of the creature that nearly took my head off. I grabbed my sword handle, and pushed my leg against it and pulled my sword out of it’s body.
What the hell is that supposed to be? A strange glowing translucent symbol was floating above the hornet.
Ding!
Agility Rune
Effects:
Agility +.1
Um… what.
Permanent increase in agility?
Before I could react, the symbol suddenly turned into a flash of light and shot into my chest. I felt a warm sensation sweep through my whole body. I looked at my chest, the previously glowing symbol was now imprinted on the right side of my chest like a tattoo, except that this tattoo was still warm, and black in color on my skin.
I reached my hand up and touched it. It was warm, the good and soothing kind of war. Rubbing it I wondered; Is it permanent? I went ahead and rubbed it. Nope, no effect. That’s not weird at all.
Next, I turned my status window.
Status
Name:
Soren Hall
Race:
Human
Age:
19
Gender
Male
Titles: Novice Martial Artist
Strength
2 (2)
Vitality
1 (2)
Agility
3.1 (2)
Dexterity
3 (2)
Intelligence
1 (2)
Wisdom
3 (2)
Abilities
← Abilities/Skills→
Passive
N/A
N/A
The increase was almost negligible, and I couldn’t even tell the difference.
Tying my sword to the left side of my waist where I had easy access to, I looked like a badass. I wanted to put it behind my back, but it was too inconvenient and unrealistic.
Dressed up and ready to go with a filled backpack with a sword at my side, I think I’m ready as I’ll ever be.
Surprisingly, my door handle and the edges of the door was still intact. The hornet only ripped a hole through it, tearing out the and the majority of the door, leaving sharp jagged ends in the middle.
Yeah I’m not gonna crawl through that.
I took deep breath, and pushed the door open.