It was the next morning. Valen and Lancey had already eaten and had been preparing to go outside. Lancey held his machete in his hand along with a backpack full of bottled water and cans, as well as a lighter, had found. Valen held a rake that he reformed into a spear and had a backpack of his own.

The two walked through the cabin door, Valen locking it on his way out with a key, and headed off in the direction opposite of the city. Valen wasn’t too familiar with the area. He only remembered a few landmarks that were filled with the memories of his childhood; so even heading out into the forest was dangerous, but they had to do it. It was unavoidable.

As they traversed in the constant direction, Lancey marked trees with his machete, leaving a trail of signs leading back to their cabin. They moved silently and without speech, always scanning their surroundings. The air felt light, and the sun illuminated most things. But the forest had changed. They did not hear any animals or humans, but worse creatures instead.

The sun was directly above them, leaking through the canvas of trees. They had been traveling for around an hour. The silence of the forest was unsettling and eerie, and the boys had always been on guard. That was why the moment that Lancey stopped still in his tracks, Valen knew something was wrong.

Suddenly, Lancey turned and sprinted towards Valen, who had been a step behind him and grabbed his arm. “Run!” He yelled urgently; his face struck with a panicked look. Valen didn’t question it and dashed with him away from whatever he had spotted.

It wasn’t long until he found out. A beast the size of a bulldozer raced after them. It had ten legs, each like a long scythe, and was built of a combination of black fur and some sort of reflective material that looked like stone. It had two huge pitch-black eyes and a massive body that bent upwards like a walking squid. It snarled as it precisely coordinated its many legs to move, revealing a frightening mouth with hundreds of teeth.

It was not the first monster he had seen, but that did not calm him one bit. It mowed down trees, logs, and bushes that the boys had had to avoid. For now, it was far away, but Valen recognized that it would soon catch up.

“Don’t just stare at it!” Lancey panted, looking back at Valen in stride. “Keep moving!” Valen grimaced under the strain. He dropped his backpack onto the ground and bolted forward. The monster paid the backpack no heed and kept ferociously pursuing them. The boys ran through bushes and down hills and over fallen trees, but whatever they did wasn’t enough.

“We have to do something,” Valen gasped, barely getting the words out and running as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure how long he could maintain this speed. They had already been running for a minute, and the beast was getting closer and closer.

“To the Cabin!” Lancey yelled out, not turning back. Lancey was surprisingly fast and pulled away from Valen.

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“We won’t make it!” Valen said. Lancey didn’t respond. They both were sprinting with all their might. Valen kept pushing himself as much as he could, but then his foot clipped a large root, sending him coursing onto the ground and rolling. Valen scrambled up to his feet, but the beast was already on him. This was it. This was Valen’s end. The ten-legged monstrosity headed straight for Valen and picked one of its bladed legs off the ground; and then the beast reared it back, preparing to slice off Valen’s head straight. Valen didn’t move and closed his eyes. “Go, Lancey!” He shouted with finality, but the end didn’t come.

Instead, he heard footsteps to his right. He opened his eyes to pandemonium. Lancey came back, wielding his machete, and thrust it into the side of the distracted monster that was trying to kill Valen; but the machete hardly went deep. The beast pulled back its slash at Valen and whipped one of its back legs into Lancey, sending him flying into a tree. He hit it with a loud thud and a pained cry. The monster angrily moved to finish Lancey off, scurrying towards him, until something hit its back.

A wooden spear bounced off the reflective armor of the beast but got its attention. Immediately after, Valen was picking up rocks and branches off the ground, throwing them too at the beast, and then hollering at it. After a few throws and seconds, the beast finally forsook going to finish Lancey and madly turned toward Valen, whose eyes widened in response. He sprinted away with the beast in close pursuit. It wouldn’t take long for it to catch up again, and Valen’s mind was scrambling to find something – anything that would allow him to survive.

Hide? He couldn’t. Not this close to Lancey. If he hid, the beast would just turn back and kill Lancey. He had to lure it away for as long as possible and then… he didn’t know what would happen. His lungs burned.

The whole ordeal was foolish. They shouldn’t have gone out. Valen knew what was happening outside. He saw what happened in the city, yet he still went out, and now Lancey was paying the price. Valen made the wrong decision. There was no defending against the monsters. There was running and escaping and hiding, but he shouldn’t have thought himself able to defend and have the luxury of exploration. That would be impossible. Tears formed at the corners of Valen’s eyes, flying off him as he was sprinting.

He took a deep breath. At least outside, there was a chance, he thought. Staying inside the cabin was waiting for death, one way or another. Valen didn’t want to do that. Not like his family… but maybe they were still alive. He wiped away his tears with his hand, but they still flowed. He knew that they probably weren’t.

Valen ran and lost track of time. All he knew was that he felt like he was burning alive with each passing second. Soon, his movement wasn’t even a sprint anymore, nor a jog. It was a mess of flailing limbs and a vain boy. Valen was midway through a grass clearing. The beast caught up but was only a few yards into the meadow. Valen was sprawled on the grass, still slowly crawling away. At this point, he was in and out of consciousness. He felt his mind slipping away, and no matter how much he wanted to live and stay awake, his body wouldn’t respond. It couldn’t.

As his consciousness succumbed, in the corner of his vision, he saw the beast reel back as a trail of explosions suddenly hit it. Cascades of orange fire burst upon the beast, who let out a harrowing roar and entered a maniacal frenzy. Grenades and hundreds of bullets swarmed into it at once. None of them took care of it, and it still stood with only a few knicks in its reflective armor. It seemed like a long battle was ahead, but his vision soon became black, and he lost consciousness.