“YAAAARHHHH!!!!”

Everyone within the classroom awoke to a painful scream. Shaken and groggy from the rude awakening by the recent events, they look over to the source of the scream only to find half of the shins on Mr. Val’s left leg being swallowed by a large black Beetle-like creature.

The Beetle was huge, around 10 feet long (about 3 meters), as wide as a meter, and 4 feet tall (about 1 meter). Its body was covered in black chitin plates each with orange accents to its edges. Under said plates, 3 pairs of chitin-plated legs perturbed from some green slime-like skin. Its back was much bigger than its front, sporting 3 large chitin plates on top of each other barely covering a green behind. The front would be by far its most terrifying aspect. Its neck had smaller plates for mobility, its front pair of legs were much more armored than the back, sporting hook-like pincers. The head was completely covered in chitin plates, with a large one on top making part of both 3 horns and a backplate. Its eyes were big and completely blue in its multiple segments, Its mouth was crocodilian-like with 4 huge teeth at the bottom, and 2 from the top, all of which rested outside at all times. The creature also sported 3 feelers on the bottom of its jaws. 2 on either side of the jaw and one on its chin. These feelers were green in color with some black chitin on them, ending with purple hairs, each of which was wrapped around Mr. Val’s leg as the creature gnawed on his shins.

It took a second for everyone to register the scene before them. Soon many people began screaming and backing away terrified at the monstrous creature before them as it cruelly and slowly advanced on their teacher’s legs. From all the noise made, the creature's feelers turned from bright green to an ominous red.

“F******CCCKKKKK!!!! Get off you damned monster!” said Mr. Val as he repeatedly slammed his right foot onto the head of the monster, doing little to nothing to it. Apart from possibly mild annoyance.

“What is that thing!”

“Where the hell did it come from!”

Panic soon took over the classroom. A few just stood there completely mesmerized by the scene before them. That was when an explosion went off somewhere outside snapping everyone's attention and even causing the monster to stop for a while.

Everything looked completely different from what it used to be. The peaceful cityscape from before had disappeared and has been replaced with a bit of an overgrown city with multiple vines and a few huge trees growing everywhere. As if no one had done any environmental maintenance for years.

Pure absolute chaos reigned such an overgrowth as creatures and beasts from both all of Earth's eras and mythology rampaged across the overgrown city. A smilodon attacking cars, Raptors ripping humans to pieces, and even 2 triceratopses clashing with each other, fighting hard to survive such a confusing situation. Far in the distance, jets flew overhead, launching missiles, only to be snagged from the sky by dragon-like beasts.

Far in the distance, multiple skyscrapers have long since collapsed on themselves. There was even a silhouette of some titanical creature being bombarded from all sides by the military. It was truly a scene no one had imagined for their lives.

“AHHHH! Goddamn it! get off!” Said Mr. Val as the Beetle resumed his advance on his legs.

Everyone looked back at the sole monster before them, some wanting to help but ultimately too afraid to move, others already hiding into cupboards to save themselves.

Rai recovered faster than everyone, and on impulse grabbed the textbook on her table and launched it at the monster as hard as she could. The book sailed towards its target and hit the Beetle straight in the eyes, exploding it.

“SRRRREEEEIIEIIIIIEIEKKKK!!!”

The Beetle let out a wretched screech at the ceiling, Chitin plates on its neck expanded to allow for such a movement. The creature pulled back on Mr. Val’s leg causing 6 large gashes on his shins which dwarf the others from its numerous teeth.

“GRAHHH!!!” screamed Mr. Val as he pulled back his head and crawled himself away from the beetle, all the while blood dripped from his wound.

The Beetle flailed around in pain crashing into the table, shelves, and other things at the front of the room, even ripping the vines and plants that had managed to enter the building, till it reached the door. Then its head swerved towards the general direction the book had been thrown as it did a mad dash towards Ria. Those who haven’t hidden away yet screamed as they ran to the back of the classroom, those who were closer to it took some nasty gashes on parts of their bodies due to its sharp legs. Desks, chairs, papers, and the equipment they were supposed to use for the day's test were sent flying as it charged towards the attacker, further harming some of the students still nearby.

Right as it lunged for the shocked and terrified Ria, with its mouth open and red feelers outstretched, a chair came crashing down on its head.

Niko had no idea what the hell he was doing. Seeing the Beetle charge toward his friend while he was so close terrified him but his body just reacted on its own, taking hold of his chair as time seemed to slow, due to the adrenaline pouring through his veins, and just as the Beetle came into range he hit it with all he had.

Though the beetle was covered in Chitin plates, the chair left a fairly noticeable dent on the Beetle’s carapaced head. The creature in question was stunned and couldn’t move much but was still well and truly alive. Before anyone could tell him to, Niko hit it again harder, and harder until a loud and audible squish rang through the classroom as blue blood sprayed from the Beetle's head, some landing on his face.

“Kkre…..ree...kkckcr….”

Seeing it was still alive Niko smashed its head a couple more times with his shoulders getting sorer by the minute, he lifted the chair for another hit but was ultimately stopped by a hand that fell on his shoulder. He looked over to Rai with clear confusion in his eyes.

“It...it’s dead Niko…..y-you can stop…” she said, still visibly shocked at the turn of events.

Niko looked down as the mash of black, blue, and green, the Beetle’s head was truly unrecognizable from what it had been earlier. Niko, let go of the chair as it clattered onto the mush on the floor as he staggered back grabbing hold of the black sink countertop behind him. He was breathing hard staring at what he had done on the floor, the adrenaline in his veins coming to an end. Looking down at himself he saw his black-blue blood-soaked hoodie, pants, and shoes. He wanted to vomit but he held on, too tired to even do that. He was thankful for having worn black today.

Looking up to the rest of the classroom, everyone was staring at him and the dead Beetle with wide eyes, even those who had hidden earlier had come out of their hiding place to see what was going on. Many looked at him with thankful eyes, some questioning if he had been in the right mind when doing that. But all looked at the Beetle with satisfaction at its death.

The room was silent as they just stayed frozen in place as the sound of chaos rang out from both within the building and outside it. Someone rushed past their vine-covered classroom door as a similar Beetle screeched as it dashed towards him. Some heads had turned towards the door, but for now, they knew it was locked and they hoped the Beetles couldn’t break through nor open the door with the feelers, seeing as they used it like hands; more so tentacles.

“Window…Close the window.” Groaned Mr. Val as he did his best to try and bandage his wounds.

A student close to Niko and Ria moved over to lock the windows, but it proved to be a little difficult as most of the vines that had spread across the room had come from the 2 opened windows. He pulled on them in an attempt to rip them but they proved much too tough to be done like that.

Seeing his struggles, another student hurriedly came forth with a butter knife they were to use for the semester exam to help cut the vines quickly. Soon enough both windows had been locked shut.

With the Beetle dead some people regained their composure with a few who were in the medical side of school going over to help bandage the teacher and the other wounded people. Others went on to close the window blinds or drag tables and other large objects to block the door. Of course, the vast majority of those in the classroom were too terrified to move, doing their best just to cope with such a traumatic experience; such as listening to music or repeatedly counting down from 10.

Everyone is trying their best to ignore the sounds of chaos and death around them as they lock themselves in. It was hard not to listen, but there was nothing they could do to help those out there with this chaos raging everywhere.

“Bring! Doring!”

Then out of nowhere someone's phone rang, scaring the daylight out of multiple people in the room. Callie, a pretty blonde girl with hazel eyes and a strong personality, she did a lot of sports and was one of the toughest people in the room, stopped dragging a desk to the door and reached for her back pocket for the blaring phone. Looking at the caller her eyes widened before she immediately answered the call.

“MOM---!” she shouted but then stopped herself and began to whisper, worried she would attract more Beetles or other monsters, ”are you and dad ok?!”

As her conversation with her parents went on, many of the students began grabbing their phones to call their parents and/or loved ones. Suddenly everyone began calling for people, even the teacher, Mr. Val, was calling for his wife to see if she was ok.

Niko himself was already calling his parents to see how they were, honestly if they were coming for him he would scream at them not to. Looking at the chaos from the second floor he could see just how much of a bad idea that was. However, they weren’t answering. Next to him, Ria was busy talking to her parents and while Niko was calling his parents over and over again, she turned over to him with her phone outstretched.

“It’s your parents, they were over at my place when it happened and they didn’t have their phones,” she said as Niko took hold of it and put it to his ears.

“Hello? Mom, dad are you guys ok?!” he asked with worry clear in his voice.

“We’re good kiddo!” replied his dad, ”Lil’ shook but we’re hiding out in the McAlister’s home for a while. I don't think it's safe right now to come get you, hold tight, and once we get things ready, we'll come get you, with the army preferably.” From his voice, he didn’t seem one bit worried, but in truth, Niko knew from his dad too well and understood he was just trying to keep a brave face which was how he was.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

“Ok, we’ll try to keep safe over here, can I talk to mom?” asked Niko.

“Yea, - Rosetta, come on it’s Niko,” he said in the background.

Soon the voice coming from the phone changed and the worried and stressed-out voice of his mother came through. ”NIKO! Are you ok! My baby you’re not hurt are you?! If those things touch you I'll roast them alive!” It was a good thing Niko was fine, or else he knew his mother would likely rampage across this chaos just to get to him. He could practically see it.

“No I’m fine mom, one...one was in our classroom and it's already dead.” He said

“That's good.” she said with a sigh of relief. ”Why do you sound so tired, are you ok?”

“Yeah…..it's been a long 20 mins.”

After talking some more with his parents, he returned Rai’s phone for her to continue talking with her family. The rest of the classroom was….dreary, a lot of people were crying enough to fill an ocean. They had begun fearing the worst when their calls or texts didn’t go through. Others were still busy talking to their parents, their teacher was quietly sitting at his desk with his completely bandaged leg, holding his phone with a death grip, enough for it to begin cracking.

Once Ria finished they moved over to the far back corner of the classroom where Zane had just finished calling his parents. However, he looked horrible with a bloody bandage around his head.

“You ok man?” asked Niko, looking at him with worry in his eyes.

“What happened?” asked Ria, noticeably calmer than before.

Zane sighed, ”When the whole crackling thing happened, I slipped as I passed out and knocked myself at the pointy edge of the table. Woke up to blood in my eyes, about the same time you began smashing that thing. Needless to say, I was shocked.” he said, scratching at the bandage on his head.

Niko was fairly sure if Zane had been awake, he would have hurled himself at the Beetle when it was gnawing at Mr. Val’s leg. No questions asked. ”Are you going to be ok?” asked Niko.

“Yeah, happens every once in a while in some martial arts competitions, this is not the worst I got, I’ll be fine…..more importantly, what the hell is happening?” He asked

“Question of the minute….” said Rai

All three of them settled down together, they didn’t talk, or couldn’t talk, the noise of chaos and death outside was still well and truly alive. The screams and cries for help bit down hard on their hearts, but they could only ignore it. Rushing out now would just kill them as much as everyone else.

The whole time Rai had her arm wrapped around Niko’s arms and had snuggled closer to him. Niko in question just ignored it, she was still scared and so was he, being together made them feel a little safer. Zane on the other hand was sitting some distance from them looking on at the crowd of people sobbing as quietly as they could fearing the worst for their loved ones who weren’t answering.

~~~~~

It was like this that time passed….The noise outside only intensified with gunshots in the distance and missiles going off to take down hordes of beasts. Everyone was fairly sure a part of the building exploded somewhere in the vicinity. Hours upon hours passed and soon the sun began to set along with the chaos slowly settling down. Some people were on their phones scrolling through the internet looking at feeds or trying to distract themselves with games. There would also be occasional messages from the government on what to do or where to go to be safe.

Once the sun had fallen well behind the horizon, and all the chaos seemed to settle down, something miraculous happened. Instead of complete pure darkness, save for the occasional surviving streetlights, the night was lit dimly. Out of curiosity, someone decided to peek through the blinds to see what was happening.

“Hhhhu!” He gasped, ”woah! Check it out, guys! Everything's glowing!” He said looking back into the classroom, encouraging people to come take a look. Niko and his friend, along with a few others, came up to check it out. Sure enough, the overgrowth was glowing excessively in a vibrant mixture of all the colors from the rainbow with some dark areas. The grass outside glowed a soft neon green, the colors of the flowers and plants outside popped out even more, but most of all the dancing spheres of white light floated all across the street. It was truly a beautiful scene, a mesmerizing scene.

Seeing as all the plants outside were glowing, one of the students turned off the lights that had been on in the room. It irritated a few people, but within a few minutes the vines within the room gave off a soft neon blue grow, one much dimmer than the ones outside; likely due to the fact that they were dying from being cut off from their source. The Beetle corpse's green underbody doing the same, only even dimmer.

Despite such beauty, it was ruined by the eeriness of the situation. All the creatures and beasts that had been numerous some hours ago had all gone off somewhere. The outside was just littered with corpses of them or...humans. The people in some nearby buildings decided to use this to their advantage and make a break for the nearest government safe house, only to be met by those nocturnal creatures and eaten.

Some screams from outside startled everyone in the class as an unfortunate soul was ripped to shreds before accomplishing anything. Those who had been arguing that they should make their way out of the school, now realized that the silence of the night had fooled them into thinking they could make it out alive.

[Day 001 {week 1}] - ???

The first day after the end was relatively better than the last. The commotion from yesterday had picked back up in the morning, albeit a lot less in magnitude, as the bioluminescent overgrowth dimmed to allow the sun to light the world.

For food, the class mostly ate their lunch of the snacks Mr.Vall kept in his classroom, which he rationed so it would last. A lot of the students spent the time playing to distract themselves, while others looked at articles about the situation happening everywhere. It was then that information regarding the earth's situation from space was released by NASA.

Nasa had posted a short clip from space when the cracks first appeared. At the beginning of the video, the earth looked as normal as ever, it was then that a few seconds later cracks formed all over the place, in every country and continent of the world, even yonder into the void of space. The planet then split into multiple landmasses, all irregular in shape numbering in the hundreds, detaching from the planet's core….or Cores. A second bigger core, the size of the earth, materialized from one of the cracks, and seconds after it an unimaginable amount of landmasses likely from another planet materialized as well. When both cores fused, the landmasses reconnected into a titanic planet nearly 10 times the original size of earth! The resulting shock wave pushed the satellite further away into the new planet's orbit. The landmasses from the earth in question were small, compared to the others which dominated most of the new planet; they were spread thousands of kilometers apart from each other on a small region of one of the continents.

Mainland America had been split into 6 parts all separated by kilometers upon kilometers of monster-infested forest and other biomes.

It was horrific. The continents from earth could be considered islands - no small parks at this point. This new planet had 12 huge continents, with lakes bigger than the Asian continent! The mare thought of what sort of beast was hiding through the planet sent shivers down the spine of everyone watching this video.

Once the video was over everyone in the class was shocked. They wondered what humanity had done to deserve this. Although cool, it was dangerous, having already claimed the lives of many.

[Day 002 {week 1}] - ???

The second day brought new information from Nasa and other space agencies, all hastily made articles and pictures. Firstly a new blue star, the same size as the yellow one, had appeared from a lingering crack near the sun, vaporizing mercury as it formed a binary star system. Its appearance, the size of other planets, and the cracks shifted the orbit of every planet. Venus gained a size comparable to earth keeping its title as its sister planet; whatever disaster the planet holds now, remains unknown. Mars was now within the habitable zone and twice as big as it used to be. It was brimming with life and had large oceans along with the old red deserts. The asteroid belt now had trillions of new additions to them which was a story for another day.

Jupiter had remained the same size but was now blue with more rapid and raging storms. Saturn had grown to a comparable size to Jupiter and had gotten more rings that surrounded it at different angles. Uranus dipped and disappeared, while Neptune reformed into an ice planet with actual landmass within it, along with the raging storms. Pluto and its moons….well they joined the other moons around the new earth's orbit.

Apparently, due to the earth's new size, and the 2 suns, the cracks, and numerous other factors, the planet's rotation had slowed along with its orbit around the stars. After hasting calculation from the professionals, it takes approximately 32 hours for a full day, and 724 days for a year to pass. So to make up for this the calendar was changed:

[18 Months]- January 41, February 38, March 41, April 40, May 41, June 40, July 41, August 40, September 41, October 40, November 38, Vector 40, Alpha 41, Nova 40, Omega 41, Colvender 40, Arder 41, December 40.[Days a year] 724 days a year.

[9 weekdays]-Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Gammaday, Voltday, Saturday, Sunday

From this point on A.A would-be used for the Era, standing for Armageddon Age.

The new change was not welcomed. A full year on the planet just became 6-7(counting leap year) days less than 2 years, and the new time was going to be disorienting, as they already felt it for a while now. But who could they complain to? God? You can’t argue with God!

[Day 003 {week 1}] - January 3, 0000 A.A

The third day gave little information, it only mentioned the changes in location of other stars, rewriting constellations, and information of things to do for survival and places to go that have been cleared. There were also talks of Creatures from outside the previous earth's landmass coming into it from the edges, but that was it.

Outside had calmed down a lot since the beginning which meant fewer screams from monsters and dying people. The night before, the people in the classroom had heard the wail of a baby somewhere, its ending cries of pain were sure to haunt them for days to come.

[Day 004 {week 1}] - January 4, 0000 A.A

When the 4th day began with the chirp of birds as if they didn’t care for the monsters around. The battles had somewhat stopped with only occasional skirmishes now and then. The most pressing issue however was that they had run out of food and now sat hungry, but no one dared to leave to find some.

Somewhere around mid-afternoon of that day, the sound of stomping woke most of the people that had fallen asleep. The same student that had curiously checked the window for the bioluminescent overgrowth did so again, this time carefully looking outside for the source of the noise. The second his eyes locked onto the creature outside, a heavy sense of dread overtook him as he fell backward in shock.

“Renny? What’s out there?” asks a friend of his, looking too scared to want to know based on his friend's reaction.

Renny, or Rennard, in question audibly gulped as all eyes went to him,” I….I th..think we have a T…..T-rex outside…”

“Eh?” Although everyone had seen what they believed to be prehistoric creatures during the first few days of chaos, they had yet to view something as giant as a T-Rex. Fear was high, but for a few, the idea of seeing a living T-rex was too good to pass up….stupidity at its finest. They caused an unruly commotion as they looked outside.

“Oh my god! It's a living breathing T-Rex! Look at how big it is!” one shouted.

“I thought they had feathers?” wondered another.

“Look at that jaw man! A chomp of that could probably break steel!”

“Wait! I know my dinosaurs, and that looks too big to be a T-Rex, it might be a giganotosaurus!” called out another kid with gleaming glasses.

“No way a Giga! Are you sure! That----”

“Shut it!” Hissed Mr. Val who had been looking out from his window as the giant beast edged closer to the building. Its stomp was heavy on the vine-covered, overgrown, asphalt road, crushing the vehicles that were in its way. The noise from the people in the building as a whole, and not just Mr. Val's class, had attracted it closer to their position. Everyone pulled back away from the windows realizing what they had done when the light from the sun stopped making its way through the gaps in the blinds. It was evident what was outside when a low rumble came from its throat, a rumble they could feel in their very bones.

Silence, complete silence befell the room as no one moved a muscle. Within a few minutes, the creature lost interest when it couldn’t hear anything else and slowly lumbered away in search of some big prey.

With the impending threat of doom gone, all let out breaths they hadn’t known to be holding. Glares were soon directed at the perpetrators, who shrank back in shame. If these glares could kill, they would all have been dead a million times over. They all prepared for a blasting of insults on how reckless they were an---

“GRRRRUAAAAAAAAARR!!!!”

…….and thus the scolding was postponed till after the dinosaur had left the area.

Trivia ------

Power stations still worked, thus electricity was still available for the time being.