This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

First published on my wordpress: Here

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From what I had observed so far, it looked like the area that had been transported to this ‘world’ was a giant circle. A circle of around 5km in diameter judging from its curvature. 5Km meant that most of the town and its 5000 inhabitants had been transported. I was on the east side of the circle, in the most rural area of it all.

The following efforts made in order to find survivors turned out to be unrealistic. I tried to reach the centre of town by foot, and by truck, but the further in town I got, the more dangerous and numerous the ‘wildlife’ became. After penetrating almost one kilometre in, I had already met 5 new species.

Of course none of them had been cute little rabbits or even birds but instead, all looked like mutants from horror movies. I didn’t take the time to carefully observe them as I immediately turned around and ran back home at the first sight of them.

All I knew was what they looked like. I saw some that didn’t look like anything I had ever seen before, so I couldn’t really say ‘it looked like this or that’. Between all these monstrosities, only two of them had a familiar appearance.

The first one had me confuse them with dogs at first sight. Closer inspection showed that they were nothing like dogs and were much closer to reptiles. They had monstrous dentition, and their bodies seemed built for speed. Luckily, I was in my trusty pick-up truck when I came across a pack of those.

Then the other familiar looking creature was something like a bull, but more like a bull on steroids. It had horns everywhere on its head, some type of brown feathers as fur and a strange body-shape. Its shape made me think of a mix between a gorilla and a bull since its forelimbs were longer.

There were too many… I didn’t have enough ammunition to kill all these creatures, and that’s without considering where they had originally come from. If I kill all the monsters in town, more will come from the forest. This was a losing battle.

Not being the courageous type, I quickly gave up and concentrated on my own survival which was still difficult. I had spent a few weeks looting the neighbourhood, stockpiling their non perishable food. Entering a new house was always a horrible experience.

Each time I would see the same thing. Perfectly intact houses, no sign of struggle or fighting, but each time there was one or more corpses. Some times I would come across children and baby corpses. These were the hardest to deal with psychologically.

Seeing that some people had died in bed, or even watching TV, it seemed obvious that their death had been quick and painless. Thinking back on it, if the fear of that first cockroach hadn’t made me run back inside my bunker back then, I would surely have died the same way instead of simply getting sick.

I first thought of burying their bodies, but their sheer numbers forced me to ignore them. I didn’t have time to bury them all right now. Instead, I took everything I thought useful, loaded it in my pick-up truck and went to the next house.

I was still unsure as to why some of the corpses hadn’t been touched. Only the houses with opened windows had been visited by the local creatures. In these cases, no corpses were left. All that could be seen were brown stinky stains on the ground, indicating something had rotted and leaked in this area.

In comparison, if the house had closed doors and windows, no creatures seemed to be able to get it. I couldn’t imagine why a 2 meter long insectoid creature couldn’t break the windows but apparently, they couldn’t, or preferred not to. This was reassuring as it seemed to indicate that as long as I was somewhere barricaded, they wouldn’t come for me.

The smell of death, would never go away. These houses were uninhabitable and should be demolished, I even thought about burning them, but decided not to. I spent around 3 weeks gathering everything of value from the neighbourhood, going as far as towing their vehicles to my yard.

My yard now looked like a car dealership. There was so much useful stuff in cars, I couldn’t bring myself to leave them. By useful I meant the wiring, electronics, batteries, the gas contained in their tank etc. The plan was to siphon them all dry and store the gas in a giant tanker truck I had spotted at the nearby truck-stop.

I would also need to go to a ‘Canadian Tire’ store, where I knew I could find fuel preservative and stabilizer. Little known fact, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel all have an expiration date. Normal gasoline will last no longer than 3 years which is why I needed this preservative.

Actually, even with preservative, 3 years should be its limit. The big difference would be how fresh the gasoline stay in the first 2 years. Without the preservative, gasoline will lose some of its volatility (ignitability) after only 12 months.

I could have done a lot more during these 3 weeks, but I didn’t. I stayed in my bunker most of the time, eating my new canned food. I was feeling demoralized, barely surviving at all. The reason for my lack of effort was simple, I was doomed to die soon.

Even canned food has expiration dates, but worst of all was my gas-mask. Gas-masks use filters which are screwed onto the mask near the mouth piece. Well little known fact, these filter last no longer than 24h. Right now, I only had 3 filters left.

I only had 72 hours of outside time left. All I could do was maximizing my use of time, and gather as much food as possible. I estimated I could last 6 months at most. So here I was, sitting on my usual chair, munching on some craft diner’s cheesy noodles.

I was watching some episodes of my favourite anime, trying to get my mind out of things. Today I had planned something big. Just at the bottom of my street, was the land owned by my father’s ex construction company. I had ended up selling it for a few million dollars a few years back.

There, I knew there was exactly that I needed right now. A giant wheel loader! A 5 tons… Ln900 something… Doesn’t matter, I knew how to drive it (sort of) and knew where the keys were (kinda-ish). I only needed to go get it, bring it back to my house and turn it into an apocalypse ready vehicle.

I will weld iron plates over the windows and leave only small cracks for visibility. Then I will need to go back there and hitch the big trailer they used to carry tools and materials. I will need to rapidly empty its content, then plow my way to the grocery store.

Since everybody probably died instantly, no looters should have been there before. It was even less likely, knowing there was a bigger grocery store closer to town. If a grocery store had been looted, it would be that other one.

I grabbed and put on my equipment, then once more exited the safety of my bunker. The thought of me being alone in this world, and the loss of internet had affected me differently than how I would have expected. For the first time in my life I felt loneliness.

As I was walking out of the house, I was still surprising myself at how easy it was to go out now. Having no society or other people around had forced me out of my old NEET way of life. There was nobody to hide from anymore. (Excepted monsters who won’t judge me.)

All these past weeks had been spent clearing this neighbourhood. It had taken me some time but the entire area was now relatively safe. Still, I walked down the street with my head swivelling around, making sure nothing was sneaking up on me.

Few minutes later, I finally arrived at my father’s company property. I immediately spotted the wheel loader at the back but turned right toward the office first. It was a very dull looking building, a two story grey box with windows.

In front of it, scattered everywhere were bones and some pieces of ripped off clothing. I had already seen this before. When the giant cockroaches get to your body, this is all they leave behind. These bastard seem to eat everything excepted the bones.

Ignoring all this I walked to the door, shotgun in hand. Unsurprisingly, the door was opened. Most doors in town were unlocked since everything seemed to have happened during the day. From what I had observed so far, people were apparently at work or at school during the first events.

The door slowly opened without a sound, and a sudden wave of stench assaulted my nostrils. “This smell, I will seriously never get used to it.” I couldn’t help but say out loud to myself. In the room, laid on the floor, were some employees who were probably on lunch break at the time.

Their bodies were highly decomposed, to a point where you couldn’t differentiate between male or female. Closing the door behind, I walked up to the counter at the reception. This is where the key should be so I began to look around.

As expected, the keys were all together on a board behind the desk. I grabbed the familiar set of keys and looked around through the windows before going back out. I’m certain I saw some movement outside but I was slowly getting used to it.

Since I first met the group of ‘wild hell dogs’ (Let’s call them like that) they had continuously stalked me. I would catch glimpse of them on my CCTV cameras and everywhere I went outside. I kept my guard up but I assumed it was mostly curiosity since they hadn’t attacked me so far.

Switching to my assault rifle, I went back outside, still careful of my surroundings. It’s surprising how silence can be the scariest thing sometimes. With no electricity, engines or electric motors, the silence was inexplicable. It was the type of silence that makes you realize how noisy our modern world actually is. (Or in my case, was.)

I made haste toward the desired vehicle, always inspecting my blind spots. From the corner of my eye there they were again, hiding in the bushes were 2 of these monster dogs. I unclipped my rifle-scope caps and rapidly brought it to my shoulder.

As I was staring at them through the lens of my rifle-scope, I heard rustling in the bushes to my right. “Fuckers!” (PRnote: clever girl) Rapidly letting go of my rifle, I reached over my shoulder and grabbed my short-barrel shotgun as I twisted my body to the right.

Two of these bastard hell dogs were in a frantic race to get me, but as they were about to jump for my throat, BAM! BAM! BAM!* Three consecutive blows of buckshot to the face, turned their body into pasta-strainers. Overloaded with adrenaline, I kept making sudden turns in all directions, looking for more of these fuckers to blow up.

The two I had first spotted were not in the bushes anymore, they were gone. I had seriously underestimated these bastards. They had been stalking me, waiting for the best opportunity to strike. They were working as a team and were capable of highly intelligent hunting tactics.

This was now a lot more terrifying. I don’t have anyone to watch my back, I am alone in this cursed world. Once again, I was feeling lonely. Surprising how what I miss the most now, is what I used to fear the most before. Human company…

Still panicking, I ran to the wheel loader and closed the cabin door. “pant* pant* pant*” Finally in a closed area, I could relax. I stuck the key in and started the big diesel engine. Giant puffs of black smoke covered the area as the familiar diesel engine sound made itself heard.

The fuel tank was not empty, but lower than half full. I would probably need to fill it up before leaving on the mission. Luckily, I have a manual pump at home that I can use to do that later. Right now I only need to bring this puppy back home, and turn it into a bug/dog squasher tank.

I put it in gear and loudly go up the road. With my front gate controller in hand, I opened the front gate to my property and entered with the giant piece of equipment. There, I parked it in front of the garage door, where I could easily work on it in the next days.

Still shaken by the dogs’ attack, I went down in my bunker, undressed, sat on my couch and lit a cigarette. My hands were still shaking, my stomach had a knot in it and I felt like crying. This fucking life of mine, this was no game, this was no fantasy fiction. It was fucking scary, that’s what it was. No matter how bad-ass you are, you’d be scared in my situation.

The day after, I was cutting some of the car hoods with a plasma cutter. It was thin metal but for some reasons, the creatures of this world didn’t seem to be able to break windows. Using metal plates over the windows was just in case they ended up realizing they could break through.

I had already welded pieces of hood over all the windows excepted one when suddenly, something life changing happened. I spotted something small from the corner of my eyes, it was a rat. It was something I had seen so many times before but at that moment, I felt like crying as I observed the little animal scurry around.

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This was not an alien rat, I was certain that it was an earth rat. This was a major discovery, mammals from earth could adapt to this atmosphere? Sure, rats were highly adaptable, but as fellow mammals, if they could do it, maybe I could as well.

With my gas-mask filters slowly running out, this discovery brought me a new ray of hope. I quickly finished welding the last metal plate over the door window and removed my mask for a few breaths. I filled my lungs around ten times before putting my mask back on and going back inside.

Well, I got sick and puked my guts out all night. The day after I was still feeling under the weather but was already feeling better, so I got out and repeated the same action. “Inhale, exhale…”

That time, I got sick again but for only a few hours. Day after day I persevered, going out and trying to breathe outside longer and longer. I made sure to never over do it and observed some drastic increase in my tolerance to whatever was in the air.

One week later, I was already able to stay one entire hour outside without getting sick. This meant that I could indeed adapt to this world to a certain degree, but I was growing worried about something else. Everyday I would wake up, do my exercises, then eat breakfast but recently changes began to happen.

I had always been doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 jumping jacks but since I began building a resistance to this world’s atmosphere, my body seemed to change as well. I was seriously worried that whatever was in the air was slowly making my body mutate.

I could now do my exercises without breaking a sweat. I decided to push myself to the limit to see how much stronger I had became and the result was, 1000 push-ups, 1000 sit-ups and 1000 jumping jacks… Worst of all, I felt like I could keep going.

After pushing my body to its limit I witnessed something even more scary. Red vapour, or something like a red mist began to slowly perspire through the pores of my skin. It looked like my sweat was evaporating but it was something else, something red.

Immediately my thought drifted to the red sun. “So what’s toxic in the air truly comes from that red sun eh?” I thought to myself. I suspect that whatever is toxic in the air gets accumulated in the body, and maybe exercising allows me to expel it… I’m still unsure whether having it leak like that is a good or a bad thing.

One thing for sure was that it was making me stronger. Ironic considering how weak the local creatures seemed to be. Back on earth, humans were usually the weak ones. (Without our modern technology) Animals run faster, are stronger and better at almost everything excepted brainy stuff, but here in this world, humans seemed quite strong.

I ran to the mirror to look at myself but the red mist didn’t seem to be visible through it, which was seriously disconcerting. Why? I could clearly see the red mist with my eyes, but mirrors couldn’t reflect it? Strange, very strange indeed.

Scared and worried at first, I decided to ignore it. If I couldn’t adapt to this atmosphere I was no better than dead anyway. From now on, first thing in the morning, I planned to go out and breathe some of this ‘red air’. Then exercise intensively before breakfast. This would be my new routine.

During the next week, I went out and filled the wheel loader with diesel stored in a big reservoir back where I had found it. With no electricity, I now needed to use a manual pump directly from the underground tanks since the normal fuel pumps didn’t work.

I was finally ready for ‘operation grocery’ but when I got out to fuel the loader, I noticed something strange again. The red mist I was now seeing seeping through my skin on occasion was now all around. It was everywhere in the air and seemed to be denser in certain areas.

There were what seemed like red air currents blowing through everywhere. This was either a new natural phenomena, or had always been there, invisible to my non-adapted eyes. The second choice seemed like the most likely at this point considering what I had seen so far.

The phenomena was even more clearly visible during a ‘red day’. This was the name I had given to the times when the big sun is hidden and only the smaller red sun is out. The red sun seemed to have a faster orbit than the other sun, so sometimes there was 24h of light. (I know suns don’t orbit around planets, but with two suns, how does it work?)

A few hours of normal lights, then a few more hours of red light. With only red light around, it was very spooky. The entire world looked like a black room where you develop pictures. It was an apocalyptic vision of horror, a night you would expect vampire to be out.

Because of its creepiness, I had avoided going out during these ‘red days’ so far, but when I finally did, the spectacle was unbelievable. I waved my hands around, playing with the red mist. It seemed so thick, as if the air had doubled density.

Now able to breathe 1h30 without mask, I felt ready for the mission. I was going to go grocery shopping tomorrow. Knowing that it was possibly my last night alive, I popped open my best bottle of brandy and got piss drunk.

The day after I was so hungover that I aborted the mission. Better go tomorrow, when I feel better. I still did my breathing and training program but it was all I managed to do that day. The day after I woke up early, completed my training program and had breakfast. Today was baked beans.

I dressed up, filled my ammo belts, inspected the surroundings through my CCTV cameras, put my mask on and exited the bunker. I was nervous, today was going to be very dangerous. Most annoying thing was that with my mask on, I couldn’t smoke.

I got in my mad max style wheel loader and started its engine in a thundering roar. I had selected this vehicle not only because of its sturdiness, but also because of it’s speed. I had first considered using a dozer but those things were far too slow.

There was a big Deer D10 dozer over there as well that would have made a perfect tank, but for what I needed it, a wheel bucket was even better. I went back to my father’s ex business property and hooked up a big box trailer in the back of my vehicle. This vehicle was not meant to tow any trailers but I made due with what I had.

Since the wheel bucket is ‘articulated‘ in the middle, carrying a trailer with it was awkward and unpractical, but I attached it with some seriously heavy duty chains and straps. The chances of losing it half way there were almost nonexistent.

Articulated: (An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivoting joint in its construction, allowing the vehicle to turn more sharply. There are many kinds of articulated vehicles, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains.)

As I was doing this, I kept a look out for cockroaches and these damned dogs but didn’t see anything. Surprising considering I was making so much noise. Once everything was hooked up, I got back into the cabin and began to make my way down the road.

Once at the and of the road, I could either turn left, or right. To the left I could see the road being cut straight through as if it had been a cul-de-sac all along. To the right, was the way going toward the centre of town, but midway was the grocery store I was trying to reach.

Since the road was going up and down over hills, I couldn’t see very far away but I turned right and pushed the pedal to the metal. Even a creature as big as an elephant couldn’t stop me in this. I roared my way through as tens of weird creatures began to either run away, or try chasing my vehicle.

Once over the small hill, the road changed into a 4 lines road, allowing me to do a quick 180° and face my pursuers. I dropped the bucket and pushed the engine to it’s limit. As I was expecting, the creatures that didn’t avoid me got instantly turned into paste.

I repeated the process until there were no more of these fuckers left following me. I kept on moving without wasting time toward my destination. Still at the 4 lines road, I stopped at a convenience store to my right. I grabbed my shotgun, exited my loader and ran to the small building.

“Shickling*” The glass door bell rang, once again, unlocked. The employee’s corpse was no where to be seen. He probably was outside when he died and got eaten. Not wasting a second, I ran to the fridge, grabbed all the beer it contained and began to fill my trailer. Then, most important of all, I emptied the cigarette shelves.

I didn’t care what brand it was, I took them all. Then I began to grab the dried meat and other various non-perishable food items and threw them in the trailer with the rest. There was not enough food in there, I had no other choice than keep on going toward the grocery store.

I was one third of the way there, my vehicle had proven itself so far and I felt somewhat confident. “Kikaklak*” BAM!* A cockroach which was trying to sneak up on me got it’s head blown up to bits. They were probably amazing ambush predators in the wild, but on tarmac, their legs were surprisingly noisy which was good for me.

I got back up in my bug destroyer vehicle and got back on the road. Reaching its top speed of 25 kilometres per hour, I was doing good progress. As the shopping mall where the grocery store was located came into view, something else became visible. Something, worrying.

I clearly saw it, something looking like a 20 meters long snake was soaking up the sun, laid in the middle of the road but slithered away when he heard my engine. I hoped I wasn’t going to meet it again. A few seconds later I reached the big parking lot which was surprisingly almost empty.

I swerved in and kept my speed up as I turned in a circle for a while, trying to aggro as many monsters as possible. Since I had ample space to manoeuvre in this giant parking space, I kept attracting them and running over everything. The creatures I met so far had no chance against my giant piece of heavy machinery.

When things cleared up, I kept driving slowly while I inspected the building. Once again, no windows were broken. How such massive windows hadn’t already been destroyed by the wildlife, was beyond me. Luckily, intact windows and doors meant the inside should be safe.

I stopped in front of the door, and backed up the trailer as close as I could in front of it. I got out, grabbed my assault rifle and began eliminating the stragglers. I stopped the engine and climbed on top of the cabin to get a better view of my surroundings.

I waited a few minutes to see if anything wanted to come play with me. None appeared, except a dozen two legged creatures about one and a half foot high seemingly more interested in eating the corpses laying around. It was the first time I saw these creatures. I first thought of killing them, but they never even looked my way. They seemed totally disinterested in me.

Seeing these little monsters eating was unsettling, but I decided to ignore them. I turned around and looked at the big glass automatic doors. These doors were not going to automatically open anymore without electricity so I grabbed a crowbar out of my bag, got down on the ground and walked up to it.

I could easily break a window but doing that would allow all the creature to enter inside and eat all the food. The only way was going to be forcing the doors open. I stuck the crowbar between the doors and pried them open. I opened them just enough for me to slide my body through before closing them back up.

Inside, the smell of rotting food was unbearable but I had had a lot of training with an even worse smell recently. Rotting fruits almost smelled like perfume compared to corpses. I placed my assault rifle on my back and grabbed my shotgun. The shotgun was always better at close range.

A quick survey around the place confirmed that nothing had entered in here. There were a few cadavers, but nothing I hadn’t already handled before. I dragged them all in a corner and covered them with some cardboard boxes. At least that way, I wouldn’t have to look at them.

I didn’t have much time, I needed to quickly bring everything I needed closer to the door, then load it up in the trailer. Of course I emptied the stocks of cigarettes and alcohol shelves first, but then went for the big bags of rices and beans.

Next were the canned goods and other stuff I found along the way. I grabbed all the instant ramen noodles and products that seemed to never expire. Chocolate bars were also on my list for the quick boost of energy they procured.

I now had a giant mound of food piled up in front of the door and was finally ready to begin loading up the trailer but I froze after looking outside through the windows. The little fuckers I had decided to ignore earlier were now numbering in the hundreds.

“Ummm.. I haven’t got enough ammo for that kind of shit.”…