Five years after the Earth was struck by disaster, in the ruins of a once bustling metropolis now overrun with wildlife, a lone man quietly digs through the remains of a rusty car on a lonely street.
Nearby, a coyote bickers with a handful of crows over rights to a deer’s carcass. The smell of the dead animal wafts over to the man, making his search all the more unpleasant.
The sun is setting, he starts rifling through the glovebox looking for anything useful amidst the remains of decomposed documents and tissues.
He is dressed in a large cloak fashioned from various waterproof fabrics that he stitched together over the years. Under the cloak, he wears a simple black shirt and jeans, along with damaged sneakers.
Sacks and satchels cover his body, each holding a different collection of items useful for survival.
Hanging from his hip is a leather holster that holds a 9mm service pistol he stole from a police officer’s corpse a few weeks after the disaster. He only has five bullets left.
Within the car’s glove box, he finds a half-empty box of expired painkillers, a still-functioning lighter, and two double-A batteries.
The man pumps his fist in the air in celebration before stuffing his findings into his jeans’ pocket and moving on.
As he is stepping away from the car, the sound of the fight between the coyote and the crows fills his ears. He finds the duet of barks and caws reassuring; if the animals can afford to bicker in such a way, it means that no larger threat is present nearby.
He gradually makes his way out of the city and reaches a small hilltop. Before he continues his journey, he takes a moment to turn back and appreciate the sunset.
From the top of the hill, he sees the city in its entirety; some buildings still stand tall, others have collapsed from wear and lack of maintenance, and some have been fully reclaimed by nature. In the middle of the city, an impossibly tall tree wraps itself around the last standing skyscraper, becoming the support that it lacks.
The man has wanted to explore the skyscraper for a long time, but the strong presence of predatory wildlife has always dissuaded him. He smirks and tells himself that he’ll take the risk once he finds a stronger weapon.
He produces a worn-down Polaroid camera from his satchel and takes a picture of the skyscraper in the setting sun. Once the picture is done printing, he takes out a small notebook and places it within it before stowing both of the items and continuing down the cracked asphalt road.
The camera can still take seven pictures.
Along the road, the man hears a loud snap in the distance that he estimates to have come from eleven meters to his right. He immediately turns to meet the source of the sound, placing a weary hand on his pistol.
He sees the source of the sound—a large, pale, translucent beast, walking on two long, spindly legs. It resembles an impossibly tall emaciated human; its head is missing, and in its place a large clouded eye sits atop its neck.
The creature’s arms start as flesh and slowly taper off into nothing but bone near its hands that seem to distort the space around them.
The man breathes a sigh of relief and takes his hand off of his gun. He has dubbed these creatures "Scapegoats." They are of little threat to him, as they never take interest in their environment. Their eyes always seem to be sporadically looking at things that do not exist in this plane.
It emits a low droning sound similar to a constant groan; though it is inoffensive, the sound is incredibly unpleasant to his ears.
Its danger lies in their inherently disruptive nature that seems to call other beasts of the same ilk to their locations.
Knowing this, the man slowly walks away from the creature, making sure not to catch its attention. Once he is a suitable distance away, he breaks into a light jog.
The road ahead is quiet, yet he hears chirping from nearby trees; the area is safe for the time being.
He spots his encampment in the distance. In the middle of a clearing stands a small salvaged nylon tent with various installations for cooking food and manufacturing tools, along with a small fire pit in front of the tent.
The fire he lit in the afternoon is still burning, with a metallic rack of thinly cut venison slowly being cooked by the heat and smoke. As he gets closer, the smell of smoked jerky fills his nostrils and makes his stomach grumble.
Distracted by the smell of the meat, the man fails to realize that the birds around him have stopped chirping.
The silence is oppressive, so much so that he can barely hear anything other than the sounds of his own footsteps.
He realizes something is wrong; he is around a hundred meters away from the tent; he knows something is here; he doesn’t want to lead it back to his camp.
The man stops in his tracks and ponders an escape route. Suddenly, he turns to the left and breaks off into a full sprint, aiming to make as much distance as possible from whatever is stalking him.
As he runs, he hears the sound of leaves shuffling and branches snapping behind him; his intuition was correct; something is chasing him.
The sound made from the creature’s approach is unnatural, as if it were crawling along the floor with a large number of legs, like a scuttling spider.
The man spots a tall chain link fence in the distance; it belongs to an old electricity substation. There is a small hole in the fence, big enough for the man but hopefully too small for the creature.
He collects the last of his strength and makes a mad dash for the fence. He hears his pursuer come closer and closer to him; now, along with the sounds of footfall, he hears an unnatural rhythmic breath.
With the beast mere meters behind him, he dives for the hole in the fence and hears a loud crash.
He quickly rises to his feet and turns around, pistol drawn.
The creature is large, around three meters tall and five meters wide, with nine large spindly legs ending in pointed bone making up the most of its width. Its body is fuzzy and circular with not a single orifice in sight; how it manages to function is a mystery to the man.
He quickly backs up further into the substation, sensing danger. Sure enough, soon after, the abomination sends five of its spear-like legs through the gaps in the fence; their reach is impressive, but they are not long enough to strike him.
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The man carefully points his pistol towards the creature, aiming for the middle of its body. He fires a single well-placed shot into its center mass; he is down to four bullets.
As the bullet pierces its skin, a crimson liquid begins slowly dying its pure white fuzz red. In response to its injury, the creature’s hairs all stand up, as if it had been charged with static electricity, and it begins to emit an ear-piercing screech.
It starts thrashing around, trapping its legs in the fence. Though this buys him time, the man sees that the fence is weakening and bending in on itself. He quickly turns around and resumes his escape.
He manages to find the entrance to the substation; it is slightly ajar, just enough for him to squeeze through.
Once he is out of the station, he begins looking around frantically for another location he can flee to, but only sees an imposing forest to his right and a large open clearing to his left.
He decides to take his chances in the forest; he breaks into a full sprint once more, climbing up a small dirt hill and entering the thick woods.
He runs without paying any attention to his surroundings, desperate to make distance at the cost of his rapidly dwindling endurance.
A loud crash from the direction of the substation reveals that the creature has broken down the fence. He hears the creature approach once more; whatever it is, it has a means of tracking him.
The man is running out of options; he desperately takes one last look around himself. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spots a bright flash of light followed by a tremendous quake in the ground.
Out of options, he turns towards the source of the light and begins running once more. He knows that the creature is steadily gaining on him, but he presses on, spurred on by his desire to survive.
Passing a few trees, he spots an unnatural crater in the ground, along with a single trapdoor at the very bottom of it.
He slides down the side of the crater, reaching the trapdoor. He sees a handle on it with no visible locking mechanism, so he decides to take a gamble and pulls on it.
With a bit of effort, it opens up, revealing a long concrete staircase. He turns around only to see the creature appear out of the treeline. Without a second thought, he enters the stairwell and closes the hatch behind him.
After a few seconds in pure darkness, he hears a loud banging from the trapdoor that eventually subsides.
He breathes a sigh of relief, then produces a flashlight from his satchel; he switches its batteries for the new ones he previously found and turns it on.
The staircase is in surprisingly good condition; the man thinks back to the sudden appearance of the trapdoor and wonders why someone would have built such a structure so far beneath the earth, only to be revealed in such a strange manner.
He concludes that the staircase is an anomaly and that he should leave as soon as he feels safe.
Half an hour passes in silent contemplation before the man decides to leave. He goes to open up the hatch, but it is stuck. He desperately tries to bash it open, but to no avail; the only path forward is down the stairs.
The man makes his way down; the staircase almost smells sterile, like an operating room. He doesn’t hear anything other than his rhythmic breathing and the sounds of his footsteps.
Eventually, he spots a light at the very bottom of the stairs; he hurries down and finds the source of the light, a small oil lantern hanging from the ceiling. He wonders how it's still burning.
Further down, past the lantern, a single rusty iron door stands alone in a narrow hallway.
He walks over and places a nervous hand on the door’s handle; the hinges creak and groan; it’s clear they haven’t been used in a long time.
Inside the room, the walls are plated with a pristine metal unknown to the man. In the center of the room is a single metallic casket that looks to be just large enough to fit an average person. It is covered in intricate lines and symbols, all culminating in a deep circular indent on top of it.
On the floor, the man spots a skeleton dressed in tattered clothes and a lab coat, holding a small metallic orb. It looks like a piece of complex machinery, with similar lines and grooves covering its surface. He looks to the indent in the casket, but the orb seems too large to fit.
The man wrenches the sphere from the corpse’s bony hand and examines it; he sees a single seam run down the middle of it and intuitively twists it until it eventually comes undone.
The two sides of the device come apart, and in the middle of it, a translucent circular crystal is revealed. In its center, a small bolt of white energy seems to be held in suspension.
He removes the crystal from the device, and upon contact with the crystal, his fingers start to feel numb. He quickly places it into the circular indent in the casket.
Nothing happens for a few seconds, then suddenly a bright light begins to flow from the crystal, through the casket’s lines and symbols, and into the floor and walls.
The light around the casket’s lid began to grow brighter and brighter before finally producing a final blinding light and dimming down.
Following the flash, the man heard a loud hiss coming from the casket, followed by a puff of freezing air. Shortly after, the casket’s lid swings open, and a small fog begins to emanate from within it.
Peering into it, the man sees the body of a woman, though something is wrong. She looks perfectly normal, but she lacks any trace of reproductive organs, and her joints look artificial, as if they belonged to a doll.
She has average physical features, yet her face is uncannily beautiful, lacking imperfections of any kind. Her hair is long and silky, colored in pure white with a streak of hair covering her left eye.
The man confusedly stares at her; this situation is very strange, even for an anomaly.
Out of curiosity, he pokes her cheek with his left hand, yet nothing happens. He looks around the room for clues as to who or what this woman is, but he finds nothing other than the corpse he previously saw.
He examines the woman more closely and spots markings on her sides leading to her back. Curious, he attempts to flip her around, succeeding after a short time.
On her back, the man sees a strangely familiar tattoo of what seems to be a star chart, with some stars appearing darker than others.
Examining the chart, the man finds that certain stars form a gradient, with the first few starting off lighter and the next ones getting gradually darker.
He traces over the stars with his finger, following the gradient and trying to find a common shape. As he reaches the final one, the woman springs up, rattling the casket and making him shout and fall in surprise.
They both stare at each other for a few seconds before the woman asks in a feminine yet fake-sounding voice.
“Who are you?”
“I’m a wanderer. Now who, no, what are you?” He asks in return.
“I don’t know.” She replies.
“Fantastic.” He grumbles, getting up onto his feet.
The woman steps out of the casket and onto the cold metal floor. She is around 170 cm tall, and as the man looks into her eyes, her hair is parted just enough that he can see that her left eye is cloudy while her right eye is red.
Suddenly the woman speaks.
“I remember,” she says.
“What? What do you remember?” The man asks.
“I must prevent the world from ending.”
The man takes in her words and lets out a low chuckle.
“It’s a little late for that, I’m afraid; the world’s already in ruins.”
“Then I must restore it.”
“Wait, what?” He asks, confused.
“The only thing I can remember is two objectives that were given to me: prevent the world from ending or, should I fail, restore it.”
“You’ve freed me from that casket; now you must help me.”
“What? Help you? Listen, I don't even know what you are, let alone how the hell you’re going to 'restore the world’ or whatever; why would I help you?”
“To address your first concern, to restore the world, it seems I need to make my way to a certain machine located in a place to the north-west of this location. To answer your question, if the world is truly already over, what do you lose by helping me? Do you have anything better to do?”
The man wants to rebut her words, but he finds it difficult to deny what she says; so far he has only lived to survive with no objective; he knows very well that he is fated to die either of sickness or to a monster’s claws.
“Alright, I’ll consider helping you, but first we have to get out of this place.” He answers.
“Noted.”