I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

Panicking, I ran to the end of the hallway and headed to the last room on the left. As I entered, I closed the door and blocked it with some furniture. When I was done, I stood in the center of the room staring at the floor, stunned like a living corpse.

My breathing and racing heartbeats seemed to intensify, as the world became hell’s incarnation, decorated with gunshots and screams of horror. I looked up and turned my attention to the window in front of me, my fingers clawing at my palms under the pressure of terror and the certainty of a death that would come to me in just a few more minutes. I grabbed the mattress without bed sheets from one of the stretchers in the room and walked to the window. However, when I confirmed the scene outside, the certainty of inevitable death extinguished the inner fire of salvation, which kept me moving. I let the mattress fall to the ground. Outside, I could see a military vehicle parked in front of the building, with two soldiers holding rifles in their hands, guarding the entrance of the hospital. If I go out the window, those soldiers would see me. I slowly moved away from the window and knelt on the ground, staring at the exit of the room. Thinking that death was slowly approaching that door, I couldn’t help but grit my teeth in frustration and grab my hair with both hands as my body trembled in fear.

Desperation was devouring my consciousness and clouding my vision as screams of horror and periodical gunshots were heard outside the room.

Why…? Materializing that simple thought became the only purpose of my existence. And then, from one moment to the next, as if a hurricane had hit the depths of my brain, various visions manifested themselves in my subconscious. I knew very well what it meant.

Again?

Memories of unknown people filtered through the despair blocking my mind and allowed their psychic entry. I could feel the emotions and thoughts that accompanied those memories as if they were my own. But I knew they were not mine.

In the first memory, I was lying on a bed at death’s door, surrounded by four tall men who were watching me, but my eyes were out of focus, so I was unable to distinguish them properly. In the memory, I felt tired, but my real self who was watching and feeling that memory thought that this dying body was not human. The self in that memory had a surreal perception of the world. My real self felt that the identity of this being was not tied to the physical world. The confusion I felt from this inexplicable perception was interrupted when that being spoke in the memory.

“I had a vision…,” he said, looking at the men around him one by one, with a hate and a sharp gaze that my real self could feel firsthand.

“One of you, my children, is going to betray me.”

His voice was as deep as the voice of the soldier with silver skull face who killed the man in the waiting room, but it didn't feel artificial. That voice convinced me that this memory was definitely not the memory of a human.

“For that reason, you will have to end your own lives every time you use the Stakes of Pain.”

What that being felt after saying that was uncontrollable despair and frustration at knowing that he would not be able to avoid the upcoming disaster.

And then, that memory ended. However, right after, another memory came to my mind.

This time, the self in that memory was traveling in a military vehicle with nine other soldiers. We were all wearing a gas mask. I could feel it surrounding my face, and when I looked out the window of the vehicle, I could see it in my reflection. But what I saw beyond my reflection through the window only made anger and fear invade my mind. In reality, I saw a devastating scene of my hometown, which had been reduced to fire and rubble by the unknown attack a few hours ago, which occurred during the first solar eclipse in history.

The first solar eclipse in history?

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

My real self couldn't help but focus on that confusing thought the man in that memory had.

“William, check your weapon.” In the memory, I spoke to one of the soldiers for him to check the functioning of his weapon.

In response, Private William slowly moved the bolt of his rifle and stopped it before the round in the chamber was ejected. He then removed the magazine of his gun and looked at it for a moment before put it back in his weapon. He looked at me and nodded.

I made him that suggestion because his gun had jammed on a previous mission.

“Calm down, Blake. You’re unsettlingly nervous.” The soldier next to me lightly tapped my right shoulder before speaking to me.

Although he was right, I denied it.

“I'm not nervous. I just want to make sure that those responsible for this pay with every bullet we have.”

Even through the gas mask of the soldier next to me, I could sense the hatred that was invoked by my words.

“Well, you’re right. I’m a little uneasy about who we’re up against, too.” His voice trembled slightly as he answered, and after that exchange, no one else spoke.

After a few minutes, our vehicle stopped and we got out of it.

On the horizon before us, the city we knew no longer existed. All that was visible were the foundations and rubble of the enormous buildings that once filled it, along with the countless number of little red sparks that covered the air like a mantle of fireflies of fire.

However, the most unreal thing about this otherworldly scenario was what could be seen beyond that horizon. In the distance, four men stood like the kings of this new hell that they themselves had created.

They were huge men, about 20 or 30 meters tall. Their bodies were completely covered by black metal plates, as if they were wearing a polished obsidian armor. Their faces, which were also covered by that black armor and were still visible at this distance, were dark skulls. Their appearance made me think that those four men I saw in the distance were the true heralds of the apocalypse.

I turned my head to the left and looked at my brothers in arms. A gas mask was covering their faces, but I knew very well what they were feeling. Before long, desperation and terror were perceptible even in the noxious air that pierced our gas masks.

And then, the memory ended to give way to a new one. The self of this new memory was a girl. She was lying on the ground, dying and desperate for the fate that awaited her. However, she was looking in confusion at a young white haired man standing next to her, who had his hands resting on a balcony. The cause of her confusion was obvious. In reality, she was not present in that place.

The memory that my real self was seeing was that of a girl who had a vision before her death. In the vision of that memory, it was nighttime. There was no lighting in the surroundings. At least not artificial lighting in the buildings or on the streets. The only thing that illuminated that calcined city, whose buildings had perhaps been bombed, was the faint light emitted by the dozens of lightning bolts from the torrential storm that was lashing through it.

From the ground, the girl was observing the right side of that man who was standing with his hands resting on the balcony while he was looking at that city.

Then, the girl reflexively and slowly raised her right hand towards the man, as if desperately trying to call for help, but without saying any words. Perhaps sensing that call for help, the man looked at the ground in the direction of the girl. When he saw her, his brow furrowed in confusion. And with that, the memory ended.

I remained kneeling on the ground, staring into nothingness, processing the foreign memories I had just seen. They were all memories of the most desperate experiences that had marked the lives of these people. Fate seemed to console me with one last act of mercy through the suffering of others.

It’s true… I thought, remembering something very important thanks to these foreign memories. I had forgotten. It’s not the first time that death torments me with its presence.

The screams of terror and plea, which were abruptly silenced only by the gunfire, could be heard closer and closer.

Death would soon come to my door.

I moved to the wall where the window was and leaned my back against it as I sat on the floor, in the furthest spot from the door. I raised my head and looked up at the ceiling as I resigned myself to accepting my fate more calmly thanks to those memories of suffering I had just seen and felt. Those lost memories, which had crossed time and the physical world in search of a vessel with no future, had become the last fragments of pain that would go with me to hell in the next few minutes. But, in reality, for me, that was something insignificant. Because for beneath the ominous veil of an arbitrary massacre in this desolate room, all I could think of was the agony felt by the agents of my sins while they were killed by the verdict of the heralds of justice. A crime of destiny that would end in a short time and whose only witness would have no choice but to bear witness before the solitude of his own grave.