I ran away, away from the city, away from all these people. They can do what they want but my priorities were different. I admit that I acted out of emotions and didn’t put much thought into my sudden departure. I just didn’t want to stall any longer, they can fight all they want. I only cared about my family and their safety, everything else was secondary.

Most people think that this event… how many days has it been now? Right… It has almost been a full month. Time sure passes fast if you are fighting for your life. Many of the people I talked to called these recent events a ‘world destroying catastrophe’, an ‘apocalypse’, or ‘the end of humanity’.

At first, I thought the same, but after seeing the wildlife over the past few weeks myself I think differently; this isn’t an apocalypse it's a cataclysm. A great event that will change the lives of every species. At least that is what I believe, I have no idea how the rest of the world is doing right now. You only realize how dependent you are on things like wifi if they are taken from you.

Churchville is not a place where information gets to. If not for the internet we would know nothing about the world and with it being cut away this problem became even clearer. Not that this is important right now. This event, no, cataclysm, is a new beginning. For me and everyone else.

It is hard to put my finger on how I’m feeling about this situation and these new changes. Our past lifestyle was very comfortable and we didn’t need to worry about war, not having enough food or a roof over our heads. You could say life was good but only for some of us. While the majority could live well, a small minority still suffered from the lack of basic needs, not that mattered to me.

This luxury brought many advantages and solved problems of the past, but at the same time, created completely new ones, that weren’t really apparent in the past. One popular example would be the depression our society faces or that our wasteful behavior has caused our planet to die, destroying many ecosystems all over the world just because of our need for more.

Truth be told I don’t really care about what becomes of this world nor did I ever care, it was not a problem I saw or faced myself. Yes, when I heard of misery it was always a short moment of: "This world is so sad, unfair, and cruel.”

After a few hours, I moved on with my life and forgot about the misery that didn't seem to affect me. However, as time passed, I began to feel the impact of that misery on my own life. It was only then that I felt prepared to take action against it.

So I gave it some thought and asked myself, “What can I do to change the world?” Sadly I realized that I need the power to change something and as it was very hard to change the world without political power, which was not easy to acquire and also limited so I quickly grew frustrated.

The thing one person could do to change something is very limited. It didn’t even have to be too big, just for example try to convince one hundred people to do the same thing. The truth is that these one hundred people wouldn’t act without benefits.

Without benefits, not even a hundred people would come together and do the same thing. Looking at the history of humans it was clear that we only did things when we saw some sort of advantage in it or were forced to do it, because of certain situations or beliefs that were installed on us since childhood.

When I realized this I lost interest in changing the world. It was just too bothersome. I’m a lazy person and like everyone else make my decisions for my own benefit, or beliefs that force me to act a certain way, even if I don’t really want to.

At this point, I decided to take my life into my own hands and tried to break out of the perspective society forced upon us. Who cares about the morals that you're told? I want to make my own judgment and not follow the opinion of others. I want to decide for myself where I live, how I live, and with whom I live.

Unfortunately in current society, it is limited how free you can decide for yourself. Every last meter of land on this planet belongs to someone. A person, a country, a city… It didn’t matter. There was always someone that had rights and control over lands, there is not something like an empty spot of land.

The more I experience the wildlife out here and all the changes this cataclysm brought with it, the more hope I have that the world is finally changing. I don’t know if it is for the better or worse, but I’m sure I want to see it for myself and experience these changes firsthand.

Especially after I learned more about this energy, which I don’t have a name for, did realize that the world truly has changed. The previous laws and rules are to be soon thrown overboard. This is the opportunity I waited for… the opportunity to decide over my own life, my own purpose.

As long as I have the power to protect myself and those close to me I would be free to decide my own life. I know that one person can't change the whole world so I will just change my own small world. In this world, my family and friends are the most important and with this resolution, I disregarded everything else and looked for my family.

For me, it doesn't matter if Jim, Charlotte, or anybody else survived. Sure we were in school for the past six years but I never talked much with my classmates and we are nothing more than acquaintances. For me, my family matters the most.

Apart from Chris I don’t have many friends anyway and never needed them. They didn’t understand me… no. I don’t think anyone understands me, including myself.

Sighing in frustration I looked at the sky above me. Like many humans, I always felt misunderstood. I just didn’t fit in society. Sure I followed the rules like everyone else but I never felt like this was my home, like I wasn’t meant to be there.

Now that I think about it I wonder if Jim was able to find his family. I don’t even know if he is still alive. Thinking of this I couldn’t help but think about my own family. I went to my village as fast as I could to save them, but in the end, I was too late…

There wasn’t even a chance that I could have saved them. Arriving at my hometown and sprinting into my house I was greeted with blood, organs, and scattered limbs. That was all that remained from my family after they died to our own... dog.

Fully mutated, driven by instincts, the little and cute dog was no more. In its place was a furious beast that attacked me at first sight. It wasn’t a fight I like to think about. The dog I loved and cared about for the past nine years suddenly attacked me.

At first sight, I didn’t even recognize her. Only after I was about to give the killing blow did I finally realize what beast I was fighting. She was on the second rank and wasn’t anything special, she was like any other beast we faced before.

By the time I realized who I was fighting, I already inflicted many injuries and she was sure to die from blood loss sooner or later. Littered with wounds that I caused she lay weakly on the ground.

Putting her head in place I forced her to look at me. I didn’t want to believe that she forgot me and all the things we experienced together. Looking deeply into her eyes she first struggled before she slowly gave up and only stared back.

After a moment her fierce demeanor changed and her eyes cleared up. She shed tears - a sight that I only saw a couple of times -and gave me a slight smile as tears strolled down from her eyes, along her fur, and finally dropped on the ground.

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It wasn't unlikely that my dog would be mutated, but I still didn't expect it, and seeing it for myself pained me more than I thought it would, especially when I realized that I'm the one responsible for her death. She was slowly bleeding to death and not wanting for her to suffer more than she had to, I put my sword above her heart.

Looking at her, I was sure she knew what was about to happen. Closing her eyes she prepared herself. Finally, she could rest from her wild instinct. With one clear motion, my sword pierced her heart and killed her instantly.

Why every mutated animal was turned into a frenzied beast, that only knew to kill everything it saw, was one of the many mysteries I swore myself to solve. At that one moment, I lost everything. My mother, father, sister, and even my dog.

I felt furious, sad, devastated and besides all this, I still felt hope. I loved my family more than anything else in the world and even if they didn’t understand me they always tried their best to help me no matter how small or idiotic my problem was.

They were the pillar that gave me hold and hope. The only ones I could rely on and to know that they are gone and I will never see them again, just…

Before realizing it I started to cry yet again. I don’t even know how I could still cry after so many days of nothing else but crying and fighting. At least not entirely everything was lost; I still have my best friend Chris and we support each other as we are faced with the same situation.

Both our families are dead and we are the only ones that remain. This strengthened our bond more than I could have ever Imagined and we both tried to distract ourselves with fighting.

To be truthful at first I wanted to take my life after I found out that my whole family died. I never really lost a person in my life so it is hard for me to handle all of these new emotions.

Even when Lukas died I was overwhelmed by emotions I thought I never had. I couldn't even handle his situation not speaking about my own family. I must be somewhat crazy by now, I can't explain my state of mind otherwise.

In the end, I didn’t take my life, my family wouldn’t want that so I kept going, encouraging Chris to hold on to his life while I did the same. The death of my family showed me that in this new world, survival will be brutal and will take unending persistence and without power, I would get nowhere.

To distract ourselves, Chris and I began to kill one beast after the other. They were the ones responsible for the deaths of our families and we had to fight them anyway so we did exactly that. Every day, from morning till night, for weeks now.

Strangely we weren’t afraid of dying. Apart from each other, we lost everything and death didn't seem that bad in our minds, but our bodies refused to die and we just kept surviving no matter what beast we faced.

The only reason I could survive this was because of Chris, and our very peculiar relationship. We both were prepared to die and could accept our own death, but not the death of each other. Chirs wanted to die before me and I wanted to die before him.

We both wanted to die first and risked our lives to save the other. We fought recklessly and were no better than the frenzied beast we faced. I lost count of how many times I escaped death over the last few days, but in the end, we did survive.

Another important factor was because of my senses for this new energy. I first noticed it after I wanted to save Lukas and over the past few weeks, this ability has strengthened a lot; by now, I can feel the strength of everyone around me clearly.

This aura, as I like to call it, is very unique for everyone. The changes are slight but every aura feels a little different, like the fingerprint of us humans. At first, I could only feel how much energy someone had, but now I can feel their aura even if I’m not directly seeing them. This is a very subtle feeling but it is there.

In a completely round sphere around me, I can slightly sense the auras of others. Seeing them is of course a lot more precise and just feeling the aura makes it hard to gauge their strength.

Chris and I got much stronger in our constant fighting and reached the peak of the third rank. I have no idea how the others in Churchville are doing, but rank three is getting more and more common out here in the woods. I guess in the city where so many people and beasts gather there must be some rank fours already.

It is definitely a lot harder to fight in the woods, as the terrain is a lot more troublesome, there are constant ambushes and we saw a pretty wide variety of beasts. Our fighting strategy against them was simple yet effective. I'm not particularly strong, or fast but I do have pretty good senses and a huge amount of stamina. Chris on the other hand was very fast and nimble on his feet, so I always distracted the beast and exhausted them with a few injuries here and there, while Chris waited for an opportunity to strike and give them the killing blow.

The best thing was that it was hard to ambush us, as I could feel the presence of the beasts before seeing them. With this ability's usefulness, I put most of my time into practicing it and I think I’m not far from a breakthrough.

With the experience of the transformations from various people, I was able to get a lot of information and have a loose system of how this energy exactly functions in my mind. There is a lot of speculation of course but I’m certain that these changes aren’t random but follow a specific system.

The most confusing part of this structure was the abilities that people like Solaire have. He was the only person who had a clear visible ability, but it seems like there are a lot more that are hard to perceive and were just overlooked by me.

Chris for example has somehow developed the ability to conceal his aura. I was really startled as I noticed that it was getting harder and harder over the days to perceive his aura. Then once it became harder to feel his aura the beast also began to react to Chirs a lot later than they used to.

Most beasts have superior senses over us humans and they often use their supernatural reflexes to avoid attacks, which now didn’t work even half as well on Chirs as it used to. Since then our hunting went a lot more efficient as the beast sometimes straight up ignored him, even if he stood in the corner of their vision. They were only focused on me.

This new energy really interests me and never in my life was I so curious about something. Which is normal, when you consider that these abilities are nothing short of superpowers even if a lot less flashy.

For now, I decided to learn everything about this new world and what secrets it holds. After I listened to Soalire talk with Jim about their reason for living I also asked myself what I wanted to live for and even though I don’t have an answer yet, I do know that I want to live a life with no regrets and be happy with my decisions.

Now that society is breaking down, my family died and I’m not forced to find something like a job. I can decide for myself what I want to do and I decided that I will start by learning everything about this aura.

Everything around me is new and exciting, even if this cataclysm killed my whole family, I can't help myself but feel thrilled. The last few days changed my perspective of the world a lot and I decided to travel the world - something I never wanted to do before.

Another point that surprised me is that I immensely enjoy fighting. This is really strange for me as I never had anything even close to a fight with another human, was afraid of the smallest of injuries… okay I’m still afraid of injuries, but I have overcome my fear of fighting.

Nothing is more exhilarating than the feeling of gaining new strength, and knowledge, or the taste of a hard-fought victory. I still fear pain or death but the excitement is just too alluring…

A duel to the death is the most thrilling thing I ever did in my life. And after I wanted to take my life I indulged myself wholeheartedly in these fights and even if some changes scare me I can’t stop going forward. Now, it is too late to go back. I have to see what awaits me at the next turn, be it death or victory. I don’t care.

I would risk my life again and again just to see more, experience more… live more.

Thinking about the past, present, and future I heard Chris' voice, which tore me out of my thoughts. “Clay?”

“What is it?” I asked with curiosity.

“We should get moving, while it's still early, you know that the forest is ruthless at night,” replied Chris calmly.

Nodding my head I said, “Right, let us hope we have more luck in the other villages. There must be some survivors. If not, we have to go back to Churchville.”

Agreeing with a nod, Chris started moving and I followed. If I could I would leave this place behind and see how the rest of the world is doing, but leaving Churchville was easier said than done. Between here and the next city lay many kilometers and without proper preparation, we wouldn’t survive this journey.

If we are lucky the roads are still intact and we can use a car, if not we have to walk the complete distance on foot. I also couldn’t abdomen all the people at Churchville.

I said they were less important than my family, not that I didn’t care at all about them. The more we are, the more likely we are going to survive. I just hope that they are all doing fine…