He was Jayke Cipher.
To the best of his knowledge, the first time he had ever died, went something like this.
An explosion rippled violently, throwing him hard against the floor. Bruises were already forming around a fractured forearm. He held a simple tablet, one near indestructible. At least, so far as he could manage to make it.
He swiped the dust off the screen, initiating emergency subroutines.
Immediately, his hideaway bloomed in red light. Alarms blared, more geared towards disorientation than any real warnings. He was, after all, the only one who lived here. His earbuds muted all sound, but it looked like everything was functioning correctly if the vibrations he felt through his bones were any indications. He grimaced, feeling the fracture in his arm jostle.
When the end of the world found Earth, no one had seen it coming. It was not some predicted, slow condemnation brought upon the world by themselves. It was much more violent. And Jayke had been living it.
He burst through a door, one that opened automatically. His facility was top of the line, the AI helped immensely with programming everything just the way he liked, but if he wasn't already proficient with the systems there was no telling how long ago he would've died. Though, Jayke Cipher was no slouch. He flicked a finger on his tablet. The security room lit up in blue light, multiple screens whirred quietly to life.
His hands swiftly found the tactile keyboard glowing with rainbow light. He winced at his forearm, the pain was temporary though, one shot of the medicinal serum they kept here and it would go away. Quickly, he shot through multiple commands, finding the pertinent routines which would activate automated defenses that needed to be manually initiated. The regular defense protocols were always running, but some measures needed to be decided upon on a case by case basis.
He stared at the creatures loping up the hill of the far side of the base. "How did they even get this far in?"
One such measure: mines. Ones that laid dormant unless activated. The resulting shockwave was a near physical thing. Jayke felt it even from this side of the facility, and through multiple layers of concrete and steel. They had never gotten this far before, sheer numbers threatened to overtake what he had since begun to call home. The smoke from the monitor cleared, but not before a resounding roar escaped the creature's throat. It was missing its legs and torso, but it lived. Pieces of meat and gore littered the landscape.
Turrets slid out of panels hidden on the walls. Ammo was scarce and so a personal program limited their firing rates and hit detections. Lethal targeting, unless threatened. Today, they were spraying bullets like Satan himself had decided to visit. In some ways, Jayke did regard the horrors outside as demons.
Other monitors lit up. Creatures of all shapes and sizes, some bounding so fast across the screen their location was virtually unknown. Unfortunately, for such creatures to make it this far into the base meant that they were particularly dangerous. The base was essentially breached. Compromised. No one knew it more than the man activating every failsafe he could plausibly get to.
Explosions and shockwaves, bullets, electricity, fire. Nothing was wasted, every form of energy was directed towards protecting the facility and those in it. Though, that only amounted to a single person. In truth, such retaliations were futile, he knew he was lost either way.
Jayke moved through underground tunnels, coated in reinforced plating and two-meter thick concrete. Even if any of the creatures wanted to get to him, they'd need some dedicated method of boring through rock-hard materials to reach him.
A handprint scanner and retina scan opened a door for him. Once he passed it, relief flooded through his veins. The door was one that marked safety. Nothing, absolutely nothing, could ever make it through to this section of the base located underground. Nothing short of thousands of nuclear warheads could ever pierce the alloys present in making the shell of this place.
Unfortunately, it went both ways. He wouldn't be leaving either.
Finding a medicine cabinet, his injury was scanned and a small serum produced itself from the inner workings of the facility. This place was one prone to bodily damage, both mental and physical, even before the end of the world. There was a chemical lab in the westwing that housed all the ingredients for targeted medicines.
He pressed the syringe into his arm.
Jayke slumped against a cushioned chair. The immediate room was white, just like the rest of the sanctuary. Though pristine in color, wires of all colors snaked their way into this room, connecting to a huge monitor where he watched everything impassively. He flexed his forearm and reflected.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He had been on one of his patrols circling the base. A routine perimeter check he'd often do simply to confirm the fact that he was safe. He hadn't seen another human in months. He imagined they were all dead, in fact. Not many places could boast the security of his location, nor could anyone likely command such an area with the ease he did.
After all, long before any of this happened, Jayke had been hard at work automating the entire facility. He was one of the few trusted with the keys to the functions which dictated the state of the facility's defenses. He'd likely written, rewritten, optimized and finalized thousands of lines of code. Code dedicated solely to the automatic functions that allowed him to sustain an entire perimeter defense.
Or at least, it did.
His hand wasn't the only one present, though. Months had passed and his thoughts would inevitably drift to his guardian angels, if not spiritually, then in the targeting of the facility railguns or the perimeter laser sensors. Even the self-sustained solar panels angled towards the sun were a blessing. Or the water filtering system that cycled every bit of moisture. He wasn't the only one keeping himself alive.
All of the dead were too. Coworkers, acquaintances, friends.
He breathed out, eyes reflecting the brilliant horror taking place upon the surface. Here, underground, the gore and explosions on the screen were nothing more than slight tremors, barely enough to cause a ripple in a cup of water. His fingers flicked across the keyboard, calling up different views, different angles, and different monsters. The fascination he held for these abominations were one of the few things that kept his mind off of his impending, inevitable death.
He tried to ignore the itching habit that accompanied that thought. The urge to glance backward at it.
Yes, when the end of the world found Earth, it was both sudden and unimaginable. When the world was by and large still in contact with itself, no one had believed what anyone else was saying. Right up until they died. Television and media didn't last long enough for any concrete information to be disseminated.
It was an apocalypse.
And that was more than most could say. Most, presumably, were dead. Jayke's lips tugged downward, the creeping loneliness and complete absence of any other friendly entity wore at his psyche. It was only so long that he could withstand staring at bloodthirsty horrors and not think of when they'd finally get their hands on him.
In that sense, perhaps, Jayke Cipher was the most informed.
He guessed the average amount of these things people saw would generally be one. That would, unfortunately, also be the last thing they saw.
His thoughts were interrupted.
"Camera thirty-four, down. What happened? I missed it." Despite it all, the cameras usually stayed working unless some freak accident managed to knock them out. The creatures ignored it as part of the environment, the other defenses often drew their ire much more effectively.
He ran diagnostics, checking every security measure and their status. The display changed to accommodate every camera feed the facility had, grouped by location. The northern wing had a handful of disabled cameras, enough that he wouldn't be able to get a good look at the damage.
Switching to a camera further up the facility he finally caught sight of it. The one explanation as to how these creatures managed to swarm through the perimeter. And it was a big explanation. Jayke was never a religious man, he knew too much of the world to buy into any of that crap. Sometimes, sometimes, he'd refer to these things as demons, but even that was much too biblical. There just wasn't any single word that encompassed them completely.
But this thing couldn't have been anything but hellspawn.
It shambled on two legs, ten feet tall at a crouch. Its body was burned crimson, the air around seemed to shiver with heat. Blackened footprints followed its gait. Gaping mouth seemed to run endlessly with drool and blood. And its eyes were dilated largely, too large and much too seeing. Its teeth were an absurd shiny white and it held itself up against a wall in a way that was eerily human. The wall melted at its touch.
Suddenly, its head jerked upward. It stared right into the camera. Its long gaping mouth curved into a crooked hanging smile. Then it reached over slowly as if to grab the equipment, but long before that the camera gave way to the heat and melted. The screen went static, and a cold shiver shot up his spine.
"What the fuck." He whispered.
His eyes darted to the metal capsule again. It, his eyes darted to it, he corrected himself. If there was any day that would call for such measures, it would be today. They had never gotten this far before, retaking the facility at this point might be moot. And if that was the case, it was only a matter of time, wasn't it?
His fingers flashed across the keyboard with the familiarity of one who worked with one his entire life. In response to his commands, the monitor displayed multiple angles tracking the creature's movements. It had an odd loping gait and left gouges in the cement foundation of the facility as it walked.
Northwing, inner courtyard. Section E4, vehicle garage. Sensory laboratories. Training facilities. Deep-dive testing quadrant.
Jayke followed its movement and had an eerie feeling. On another monitor, he summoned a map of the entire compound. Tracing the path of the creature, he eyed its trajectory.
"How?" Jayke blinked.
He took manual control of a few cameras and scanned the immediate surroundings above ground. "How the fuck does it know where I am?"
Too late, he realized the creature had stopped moving. In fact, it began to sink. Right into the concrete. That bought him some time.
As a precaution, one that Jayke had never even been a part of making, the bunker he found himself in was not marked in any map. Indeed, it was hidden from the entire facility and discovering it was an entirely different story. One story of many he could've reflected on. It was the only reason he wasn't entirely sure why the creature had stopped moving.
Then like a sudden, creeping premonition. He felt hot. He thought he could hear a bubbling sizzle. His eyes went to the monitor. Where the creature stood there was nothing but a hole.
To his credit, Jayke Cipher only hesitated for a single second when that first piece of melted concrete fell from the ceiling. Months he had been preparing for this single second. He wouldn't fail at the most crucial time.
Like any sane man, Jayke Cipher entered it and killed himself.