God...

Since childhood, we grow up under the influence of religion, of a god, of a higher existence ruling over mortals.

The fact is, sometimes things may not have a greater, divine meaning, and that frightens most of us... It’s hard to accept that a tree is just a plant, the Earth is just a planet, the ant is just another insect, and man is nothing more than a thinking animal.

This idea... This truth has terrified the greatest minds since the dawn of existence. Great scholars throughout the ages have consciously expressed their disdain for the concept of a God explaining creation and death; however, subconsciously, the fear of the unknown is something deeply rooted in every being.

It took me years to reach this line of reasoning, and only minutes to prove I was completely wrong.

Gabriel was going about his routine, as peaceful as ever, unaware that this day would mark his life forever. He had an ordinary life, nothing truly remarkable, just living day by day, paying his bills and wasting his money—a truly insignificant existence. He always felt invisible to others, and in a way, he wasn’t wrong. People walked past him without giving him a second look, and he was fine with that. There was a certain comfort in being ignored, a certain... "peace," and it was that which kept him alive that day.

It all started with the sky.

A deep, terrifying darkness covered the horizon and, in the blink of an eye, swallowed the sunlight entirely. At first, it seemed like a storm, but there were no clouds and no wind. Just an oppressive, unmoving darkness; it was like staring into an abyss, frightening.

And before anyone could react, a voice... no, a thousand voices echoed across the world as one. It was as if the very heavens had come to life, speaking directly into the minds of every living being.

“The time has come. Peace has lasted long enough. A new pantheon must arise. Let chaos reign, and from the survivors, we shall choose our equals.”

The voices were neither male nor female, human nor inhuman. They were something entirely different, a legion of countless beings speaking as one, their words vibrating through the earth, through the air, through Gabriel’s very core. It was as if the whole world had paused at this proclamation.

The silence that followed was more terrifying than the voices. For a moment, everything remained still: the people, the cars, even the wind. The world held its breath, waiting for the inevitable.

Then the earth opened.

Gabriel stumbled as the ground beneath his feet gave way, jagged fissures splitting through São Paulo’s streets. Skyscrapers groaned, their foundations splitting, windows shattering as buildings swayed like leaves in a storm. People screamed, running in every direction, but there was no safe place, nowhere to go.

From the open cracks in the earth, something emerged. It wasn’t just one thing; it was several. Grotesque creatures seemed to come straight from the myths taught in school, something from the worst of nightmares.

One of them was as large as a house, and it seemed only half of it had emerged; its form resembled a giant human, but coiled around its body were numerous black serpents moving about. Its red eyes were the only visible feature on its face, showing a complete lack of emotion.

This “being” grabbed a man trying to flee and brought him close. Screams and blood erupted as the man was torn apart piece by piece; this scene instilled even more despair in those who witnessed it.

Humans were no longer the rulers of this world. Now, inexplicable, ancient, almost forgotten creatures were crawling to the surface. Some had too many limbs, others too many eyes; some had faces that seemed to twist and melt, as if reality itself refused to hold them in a coherent form.

They were horrors beyond any explanation, beasts from a time before humanity had words to describe what lurked beyond the darkness.

Gabriel froze, his mind struggling to grasp what he was seeing. These creatures moved with a purpose: to kill. But, fortunately, none of them noticed him. They destroyed the city, tearing apart buildings, vehicles, and people with equal indifference, but Gabriel remained invisible to their eyes. He was insignificant—beneath any attention.

It wasn’t that he was being spared. It wasn’t that he had been chosen for something greater. He was simply irrelevant, background noise in this great turmoil.

Above him, the now completely dark sky began to take on unnatural hues—purple, black, and crimson—colors that seemed to bleed into each other. It was no longer just twilight; it was as if the fabric of the world was being rewritten into something never seen before. The trembling sun was swallowed by the abyss; the light emanating from the sky had no warmth, only a blood-red glow that bathed the ruins of what once was a thriving city.

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Gabriel took time, but he escaped the creatures along with others. He heard pleas for help as others were torn apart in the mouths of beings resembling wolves, though only in form, as they were shadows that seemed to have taken this shape solely to enjoy the hunt. The only visible thing was their blood-stained mouths, where there were remnants of what had once been a man.

These beings made no distinction between man or woman; even children were not spared. Piercing, ear-splitting screams echoed from every direction.

Gabriel ran for his life; he saw people who had already given up. One of them took out a gun and shot himself, and his body was spared no dignity by those creatures.

Gabriel found the remains of a building during his escape and squeezed under it; now he could no longer see the chaos. The screams continued for hours as he prayed not to be found. There was a huge chance of being crushed alive amidst the chaos, which would be a far better death than what awaited him outside.

He slept, not knowing for how long. Hunger consumed him more and more. Maybe he wasn’t going to be crushed or eaten right now, but he would certainly die of starvation.

Deciding to venture outside, he now walked among the wreckage, finally seeing what had become of his city. A once bustling metropolis, now a graveyard of twisted steel and broken concrete. The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh and decay, the streets littered with the bodies of those who hadn’t been fortunate enough to escape the initial wave of destruction.

But it wasn’t just the destruction that haunted Gabriel. It was the silence. A city once filled with the constant hum of life was now eerily quiet, except for the occasional distant roar of a creature or the unsettling whisper of the wind through ruined buildings.

Amidst the wreckage, he heard sounds of what seemed to be human—crying, and even whispers:

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll be the one to kill you.”

Gabriel had no time to worry about others; his biggest concern at the moment was himself.

Days passed in a blur. Gabriel, still ignored and untouched by the horrors around him, wandered through the ruins, collecting the little food and water he could find. The world had become something different, something unrecognizable. It wasn’t just São Paulo; it was everywhere. Whispers from survivors he encountered spoke of the same chaos unleashed everywhere; those who tried to venture somewhere else in search of safety ended up dead before they could get far.

At this point, people were not yet accustomed to this new era of chaos. Monstrous storms of fire and lightning ravaged entire continents, while rising seas swallowed whole cities. From the depths of the earth, ancient creatures now roamed the surface once more. Beasts that had slumbered for ages were now awakened, drawn by the call of the gods.

In his wanderings, Gabriel saw places where the very fabric of reality seemed to have completely ruptured—places where time flowed differently, where the laws of physics no longer applied. These were dimensions of madness, where those who ventured in never returned.

Amid all this chaos, Gabriel began to notice something more. It wasn’t just that the monsters ignored him. The world itself seemed indifferent to his existence. He could cross a battlefield where indescribable beings fought one another, and no one would glance at him twice. He was invisible—not because of any divine protection, but because he was insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

It was this insignificance that kept him alive. Gabriel quickly learned that survival in this new world required cunning. Brute force was useless against creatures that could tear apart tanks with a single swipe of their claws.

He began to explore the ruins of what was once São Paulo, searching for anything that might give him an advantage. He avoided the monsters as best he could, slipping through the shadows of the ruined city like a ghost. It was during one of these incursions that he encountered something truly terrifying—a creature from myths and movies he had seen as a child: a Hydra.

The creature, with all its heads, was enormous and terrifying, its black scales covering its entire body. At the moment, it seemed to be sleeping, but even so, it looked like an insurmountable mountain. Each time it exhaled from any of its mouths, a greenish, toxic air was expelled.

At first, Gabriel was paralyzed, terror-stricken, but realizing the risk he was taking by staying there, he quickly fled without alerting the creature.

To his relief, Gabriel stumbled upon a small store that appeared to still have food. Looking in from the outside, it seemed untouched, which was unusual in times like these. His hunger and excitement overrode his caution, and he entered without much thought.

This was his worst decision yet. Inside the store, there were at least a dozen creatures that resembled wolves, their forms made of gray smoke, giving them the appearance of mirages. They were larger than an average person, comparable in size to a horse.

Gabriel ran, fleeing as he’d never done before. Whether it was the best choice is uncertain, but his retreat seemed to ignite the hunting instinct in these creatures, who now pursued him relentlessly.

Gabriel used his smaller size to his advantage, slipping through narrow spaces, but he couldn’t lose the creatures. Remembering the Hydra, he headed back to where it had been, as it seemed his only hope. Yet, to his despair, where the Hydra once lay, there was now only a carcass; three of its heads lay lifeless, and the rest of the creature was nowhere to be seen.

Breathless from the relentless chase, Gabriel had no time to think or draw conclusions. He hid in the most unlikely place—he crawled into one of the severed Hydra heads, hoping it would mask his scent. But he’d forgotten one crucial detail: the Hydra was a venomous creature. Gabriel was wearing thick clothes, which offered some protection, but they soon began to melt away, and his exposed skin started to burn upon contact with the Hydra’s blood. 

Gabriel couldn’t bring himself to choose between being devoured or burned alive, so he remained where he was. His clothes had already disintegrated into rags, and the pain of being burned alive slowly stripped away his sanity. He wanted to scream but held back, afraid of being found, until finally, as if his mind wanted to put an end to his suffering, he passed out.