Fear. An emotion or instinct animals and humans have, to warn them of threats. It is an emotion only felt when someone thinks they are in danger and is the reason many have survived and preserved their lives.
However, over the years of human rise and the evolution of technology, we lost this feeling of fear and wariness towards many threats. The most important one being animals. They were after all these years not a threat to society or even most individuals.
So when the Cataclysm eventually arrived upon us, humankind couldn’t have been more unprepared. Suddenly animals were able to not only harm but kill multiple humans without a problem.
This number of casualties could of course have been drastically reduced if humans hadn’t lost their initial fear of animals and avoided one grave mistake; overconfidence. When we were still clueless and had no idea what the Cataclysm really meant for humankind, we thought that we were still at the top of the food chain.
Sadly only Sapien-Gnos could have known how far this was from the truth…
Notes from ‘History of Althera’ - Ethan Quinn
----------------------------------------
An ambush. Laying a trap for someone to surprise them, while in a concealed position to get an advantage over your prey. A simple concept animals have used since the beginning of evolution.
Sadly neither Jim nor anyone else in the group expected the spider to have seen them and prepared an ambush right where they thought they were safe. They didn’t know how it saw them but it hardly mattered knowing that it was about to put a hole through Clay’s head.
*THUMP*
At the last moment Clay reacted only out of instinct and held the lid of the trash can he previously picked up in front of his face.
"AHHHH"
A miserable steam resounded as the spider sliced the lid in half and pushed its sharp leg deep into the flesh of Clay's left arm, only after it reached all the way up to Clay's elbow did the force lessen and he was able to push the spider away. A deep and huge slash mark was left behind, which went all the way from the wrist to the elbow.
If the attack didn’t lose most of its force after slicing the lit the spider would have definitely cut all the way to the bone if not through. The spider was sent back into the storeroom and gracefully landed on its eight legs.
Jim was already in running motion so he sprinted at the spider to slice it in half and end it all in one hit. Unfortunately, the spider was already on him and soon was on the ceiling where it had a favorable position to attack. Without giving Jim the chance to think of a plan the spider launched itself from the ceiling directly in his direction.
Barley being able to move his body to the left he barely avoided the attack and by pure accident held the machete high enough for one leg to be sliced off. Surprised by the ease he could cut through the spider, Jim felt new hope.
Even with one leg less the spider didn’t falter, only losing a little speed, and launched itself directly from the wall it was flying against. Losing his balance Jim fell over and lost his machete, but thanks to that he was barely able to avoid the attack of the spider, while its legs only grazed his back.
It then landed on one of the shelves in the room and prepared for its next attack. By now Lukas and Max were able to enter the room and not really understanding the situation they realized that the spider had to die.
Without thinking, Max threw the hammer he used as a weapon at the spider, who was able to successfully avoid it, but gave Jim enough time to stand up. Before he could even straighten his back the spider was on him again.
This time he couldn't avoid it and could only hold his arms in a cross shape to defend himself. The force sent him to the ground and he fell to his back as the air was pushed out of his lungs and his vision briefly turned black.
After he could see again he was greeted by a frenzied spider who tried to bite and claw its way through his arms. Thankfully the spider couldn’t amount a lot of force in this position, but its legs were still sharp enough to cut Jim's tender skin open and reveal the arteries underneath.
*CLACK, CLACK, CLACK*
The spider tried really hard to end Jim's life as its mouth tried to bite past Jim’s arms and after his throat. In this situation of life and death, the stench of the spider's mouth didn’t help the least to give him hope, as the heavy stench of iron and acid invaded his nostrils.
He didn't know how many humans this thing killed but the stench was really bad. Even if Jim tried his best he couldn’t shake the spider off and it was getting dangerously close to his throa-
*crack*
*Splash*
A fountain of blood rained down on Jim's face as the head of the spider was sent flying across the room. He could only see the glint of the black machete before his vision turned red.
The blood dripped from the tip of the machete as Clay held it with a ragged breath.
Thankfully Clay was fast on the uptake and grabbed the machete when it fell out of Jim’s hands. Taking some seconds to stand up he eventually reached the spider and with his uninjured right arm slashed the head of the spider cleanly off.
Jim collapsed exhausted on the ground. He had cuts all over his arms and lost a good amount of blood. Fortunately, the wounds were rather shallow. Pushing the body aside, Jim couldn’t understand the situation he was in yet.
This attack by the spider barely lasted a dozen seconds, but for Jim, it felt like hours. Slowly relaxing his stiff muscles Jim felt like he lost a few days of his life span from the shock alone. By now the others were also in the room and were shocked beyond belief.
“AHHH” Before anyone could even calm down Clay screamed as he convulsed in pain and collapsed to the ground. Not even able to think about Clay’s sudden breakdown, Jim felt a pain rushing through his body, as he too started convulsing.
“Jim!” With panic written all over his face, Jake ran over to his side. Not able to speak let alone form sentences Jim lay helplessly on the ground. He felt like his blood was boiling as it rushed through his vines faster and faster. He could hear his heartbeat like a war drum in his ear, as it accelerated.
Soon his complete body began to sweat profoundly as his body tried to desperately cool it down. He could feel how his muscles and nerves began to rip and renew themself at an incredible speed, while pain shot through his whole body.
Now that he thought about it was similar to the transformation he just experienced barely an hour ago. But in comparison, this one was actually bearable if also very painful, while he was forced to stay conscious as his muscles and nerves continued to destroy themselves just to be rebuilt from scratch.
It was comparable to Jim’s worst muscle ache, only that it was on his whole body and wouldn’t stop hurting. Clay didn’t look any better as he had similar symptoms, as Chris and Dennis beside him were just as helpless as the rest of the group.
This process took about ten minutes, while the group helplessly tried to understand the situation or help Clay and Jim. They were beyond relieved when they realized that Jim and Clay started to calm down and sleep. The good thing was that this transformation almost completely healed the wounds on their arms.
Their clothes were from top to bottom drenched in sweat and their skin looked like the worst sunburn they had ever seen. Not knowing what else to do they laid them on some old blankets that they found and waited while discussing this event.
They didn’t have to wait for long as Jim’s skin quickly cooled down and regained its previous skin color. Just a few minutes later Jim slowly awoke from his sleep and was greeted by the worried face of their group.
“W-what happened?” muttering this sentence to no one in particular Jake answered, “I would like to know that too. Are you alright my friend?”
Hearing the question Jim could see more clearly and began to remember what just happened, as he suddenly sat up faster than he expected he could and frantically looked around the room. Seeing that everyone was fine and the spider was dead he relaxed.
Slowly moving his body, circling his shoulder, and moving his limbs he slowly stood up and stretched himself. Looking around he saw the bewildered look on the faces of the others and asked, “What?”
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Are you alright?” asked Charlotte with bewilderment.
“Yes, actually I don’t think I ever felt better.” Slowly jumping on the spot Jim suddenly ducked down and sprang up so fast that he seemed like a trained athlete.
Moving his body a little more and stretching some parts Max asked, “Jim do you know what just happened?”
“I’m not sure myself but from the pain, I was in moments ago and the health of my current body I had a transformation similar to what happened before,” replied Jim with a thinking expression.
“We also had a similar theory. The only thing we are not sure about is why this happened. The only logical explanation is the death of the spider, but it only affected you and Clay and no one else,” said Lukas with a confused expression on his face.
Hearing this Jim turned his attention to Clay who was still lying on the blankets the others had put him on. “Why is Clay not awake yet?”
"No idea, maybe this transformation is different from person to person but he definitely had similar symptoms to yours," replied Charlotte with a shrug.
Hearing this Jim nodded his head. “That he should be fine, how much time passed?” Hearing this Lukas replied, “Not much, only a few minutes. More important, is what is actually going on. I know that no one really understands the situation but we should probably summarize what we know before doing anything else.”
He was right Jim knew best that they won this last battle only because of one reason; luck and luck only. If Clay didn’t block the spider or if Jim didn’t luckily avoid the first two attacks from it they would have been dead and the others would have soon followed them.
Anybody could have died just now and way too many things could have gone wrong. This was a situation where the tiniest mistake could have cost them a life. They waited for Clay to wake up and then discussed their situation.
Jim organized what he knew and said, “So from my understanding, it all began with this strange bright light. I don’t know if you looked out of the window at the moment but there was a sort of meteor that came down faster than I could clearly see. It was just a blinding streak of light and afterward, like a wave, everything went bright.
Shortly after we all began to have some sort of transformation where many died. I don’t know for how long we were passed out but it couldn’t have been for long and soon everyone started to awaken. This seems to not only have affected us humans but also animals, as we have seen with the hawk, the principal’s cat, and this spider. They somehow all increased in size after this transformation.”
Adding his own thought, Clay said, “Their casualty rate is also higher than ours. I don’t know why the changes for humans and animals are different but from how I see it far fewer animals survived than humans. We would have not only seen one spider otherwise. I assume that the mortality rate is higher the bigger the size change, so insects would have the highest mortality rate.”
“That does make sense but weird is how we humans are the only ones that didn’t really change. I mean we are essentially also animals,” said Charlotte with a frown.
“No that is not right we also changed,” looking in Jim’s direction he explained, “The only difference is that our changes are a lot more subtle than from the animals. After this second transformation, I’m sure I’m stronger than before. I don't know how much stronger but my body is definitely stronger.”
“I agree and it seems like these changes are different for everyone. My body also improved but more than my muscles it feels like my senses are a lot better, especially my ears and eyes,” added Clay.
“Good that at least somewhat explains the situation, do we know anything else?” asked Max with a troubled look on his face. Seeing that no one wanted to add something he continued:
“I don’t know about you guys but what are we supposed to do now? From how I see it, only complete chaos is in the world right now, when the changes are everywhere the same. This also means that about half the human population is just gone, assuming that the mortality rate is the same and only half survive this transformation like in our class.”
Hearing this everyone grew silent and didn't want to think about this. This meant that almost four billion people just died. Considering the mutations of some more dangerous animals like bears, wolves, lions or boars could have, the number of deaths would increase drastically.
They just witnessed what a singular spider could do and it resulted in dozens if not hundreds of deaths. Everyone began to think and as they grew silent they heard a weird ripping sound. They looked over to Chris and Dennis who listened but didn’t participate in the discussion.
They saw how they ripped the legs from the spider. Completely startled by the sudden action Charlotte almost screamed. “What?! What the fuck are you two doing?”
Standing up while holding one of the legs, Chirs waved it around like a sword and said, “After the spider died its legs shrunk together and hardened forming something like a curved blade. Seeing how sharp these things are, we thought we could use them as weapon-”
“A-Are you crazy?! We are in a crisis that probably threatens all of humanity and you have nothing better to do than to play with a corpse?” asked Charlotte anxiously.
“No, I’m not playing around. I’m making us some weapons so we can kill more animals and absorb their power. I don’t know what there is to talk about. Everyone mutated and it seems like killing these animals gives us some sort of energy that strengthens our bodies. The last time I looked it is pretty useful to have a strong body to survive in a crisis where you have next to no information,” said Chris with a stern face.
“He is right. We can speculate here all day or just go out and find out for ourselves. I definitely want to know what is going on and finding more survivors is probably the fastest way to do it. Also, I want to find my family even if there are only corpses,” said Lukas in agreement.
“I also think finding more survivors and making sure our families are safe should be our next course of action. But before that, we should still get better weapons. Sorry Chris but I’m not trusting the leg of a corpse to protect my life. Some guns would be really helpful if we should encounter more beasts like this spider,” said Max with worry.
“And how are we supposed to get guns? The only place I know is the police station and that is way too far from here, we wouldn't survive it until then if so many animals were already at the school,” said Charlotte with a frown.
“We can just go to the museum two streets further down,” proposed Dennis as everyone gave him a questioning gaze. “Don’t tell me you forgot the only museum this city has?”
Slamming himself on his head Max reapplied cheerfully, “You are right! I completely forgot about this boring place, there are definitely more than enough weapons.”
It is important to note that this museum was not just a place with some ancient and almost broken weapons. The small city of Churchville has nowadays lost much of its meaning and former glory, but back in the middle ages, this was a rather famous city with a big castle and rich history.
The origin and most of the culture of this place came from these glorious times and is the only pride Chruchville has to show for itself as it has nothing else to offer apart from its scenery and being hard to reach.
Their castle was famous for its unbreakable defense and praised for its advanced equipment. This castle and the soldiers that could barely amount to an army defended the city for decades. The city didn't want to present some old and worn-down weapons to show its history.
No, they wanted to show their advanced equipment, like it was new to show how advanced they really were. Churchville had after all their own small mine or iron and had for their time brilliant craftsmen.
So after time passed and it was clear that no more wars were fought they assigned multiple smiths with the task to replicate the weapons which the soldiers were using. That means that the group could get weapons that were just forged a few years ago and they were every month properly cleaned, sharpened, and polished.
Coming to the conclusion that talking wouldn’t bring them anywhere they decided they should first make their way to the museum.
They could have explored the school a little more but they decided that it would be better to first get a proper weapon. They didn't want to risk stumbling into another monster like the spider.
The spider taught everyone in the group a good lesson and lowered their confidence. They realized what a dangerous situation they were really in. Thanks to his second transformation Jim felt a lot stronger but knew better that it was still far from enough.
He had to be wary at all times. If not, the next one to die would not be a spider but himself. They won purely through luck and because the spider underestimated them. Up to this point it had killed dozens of humans and was sure that it could kill the first person it saw instantly.
Thankfully Clay was able to react in time and with that, the moment of surprise was gone. Thanks to this Jim had a chance to react and counter-attack.
Leaving through the main door they looked down from the small hill their school was standing on giving them an overview of the city.
They all expected the situation to be bad considering the faint explosions they heard in the beginning and the fact that mutated animals now roamed the streets of Churchville. Even then they didn’t expect this...
No one could really imagine what it would be like but they sure underestimated the dire situation their city was in. Similar to the school, corpses from men and beasts littered every corner and street. They looked at something resembling a sea of carnage where every few meters one gruesome corpse rivaled the next, while the city was in flames.
By now no one was fighting anymore as more than an hour passed since the start of this whole mess. Everyone who was still alive would have fled to a safer place.
In just an hour the complete world of Jim was turned upside down and was not recognizable to the boring and peaceful life he had just an hour ago.
He looked to the sky and could see multiple columns of smoke rising high into the air like towers of doom signaling the end of humanity. Chaos ruled the streets and the carnage below him showed this clearly.
Alone all the drivers who were blinded by the light and got into a car incident were uncountable. Many would have severe injuries or directly die. This was probably the best way to go, more dreadful is to be near death.
You are pierced by some of the car parts and slowly bleed to death or squeezed in some of the parts and slowly suffocate to death. Maybe you survive but then the transformation comes over you with its unbearable pain.
Even after that, you are not safe as the door could get ripped out the moment you regain consciousness just to be eaten alive by some of the mutated animals. Here the ways to die are endless. They would rip you apart limb for limb, eat you alive, claw you to death, or use you like some toy for amusement…
*Pou*
Jim slapped himself on the cheek to get his thoughts together.
I first have to survive myself, then find my family, and after that find a safe shelter for them and myself. My house is about half an hour away from foot so maybe I can still get there in time. I hope they didn't leave the house. My sister should already be home. She should be safe with Mom and Dad.
"Are you okay?" Asked Jake with a worried expression.
Jim looked at him with a firm expression. "I'm fine, I was just lost in thought. More important right now is to concentrate on our survival. Let's go."
Looking at the sky again Jim couldn’t help himself from feeling like he was thrown into the depths of hell itself.