With the winter drawing in and the nights lengthening it almost seemed as though the sun would never return. Yet every morning, even if it were late, the would sun rise over the world, bringing warmth and comfort back to the hearts of everyone under it. What if it didn't, though? What if the sun set and never came up again? What if night lived on continuously, allowing the creatures that lurk in the shadows to do their bidding across the world? The world and everything in it would fall like a rock, just because the sun didn’t come up anymore. Your life would be dominated by avoiding the despicable creatures and the only light would be from the flames licking across the horizon…That’s when you wake up in a cold sweat, praying that the creatures haven’t got into your house while you unwittingly slipped into a eerily calm sleep. As you gaze around the dark room, into the shadows, a chill strikes up your spine and catches you unaware, making you look up and out of the window at the dark sky. Slowly you begin to think about the absence of that haunting glow from the fires off in the distance. With courage you manage to get up and walk to the window. Outside everything is calm, the night is dark but the street lamp on the corner casts a reassuring pool of light on the pavement. You begin to contemplate that it was all a nightmare but you still can’t help thinking what if… What if it wasn’t a dream? What if the sun wasn't going to rise again? You eventually go back to your bed and once again try to peacefully sleep, all the time with that nagging thought at the back of your mind, what if…
The sun finally began to spill over the horizon and I breathed a sigh of relief. Even so the thought of that dream was still with me. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was more than just any normal dream. I wondered whether I was loosing my mind, but soon abandoned the thought for the aspiration of breakfast. As I walked to the kitchen, no matter how I tried, I still couldn’t get it out of my head. Every time I closed my eyes, there it was again, the horizon on fire, with those creatures everywhere. I composed myself and looked through the window. The only thing wrong with the horizon today was the city's smog obscuring the skyline, yet that wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary. I sat at my table and switched the news on, only to be greeted with the general terrors you had come to expect from the modern world. Once again troops had died in Iraq, there was an oil spillage in the North Sea and none of the governments really knew what to do with themselves. I was just beginning to relax and forget about my dream when they said it. “A meteorite hit the north midlands last night…” I saw it in my head, the pitted country side that used to be England, now charred with flames licking what vegetation there was left. The television buzzed and brought me round again. “…The meteor was thought to have been approximately the size of a football and is reportedly a fragment from the a much larger body currently passing close to Earth. The public is asked not to panic as the meteor is passing well outside our orbit.” Even with these words a chill still shot up my spine.
They began talking about statistics which really didn’t interest me so I turned to see to breakfast. I was alerted back to the television only when it began crackling with increasing intensity. Static spread across the screen and panic slowly spread across the reporters face. Suddenly the camera was thrown round and it seemed like they were running, jerked images showed a huge fireball steaking through the early morning mist. The camera was abruptly dropped and seconds later there was an immense explosion, then the picture was gone, yet I could still hear the explosion. I hurried to the door just in time to see the mushroom cloud rise and spread out over the land…but how…the midlands was over 230 miles away. And then none of it mattered anymore because it was coming. I could feel the wind start to blow, the heat intensify. I ran in search for cover but I was too late, the shockwave hit and I was thrown across the street along with my house with the heat boiling my skin. The last thing I remember was thinking that I was dead already and then being swept away by the scorching dust cloud.
The lad couldn’t have been much older than seventeen. He looked out of a crack in the rubble up on to the street above. The blast had obviously destroyed everything worth speaking of and I assumed that we were now in the remnants of someone’s cellar. The rest of the house was collapsed above us, sealing us down here, beyond that I had no idea. As if with surprise I realized that I was awake and with a certain amount of shame I became aware that I’d been awake for several minutes now. Questions began to flood into my mind, various ones about what had happened but most of all about that lad, still looking cautiously through the crack. He had terrible burns to his arms but only minor injuries on his face. He had obviously shielded his face from the heat wave with his arms when it had hit. He had other wounds, though, different from the burns and gashes you’d expect. Along the side of his chest and again on his face I saw, now, that there were slices, almost as though he’d been slashed with a knife several times. His injuries made me think of my own predicament. I scuffled to sit up properly, unaware that I could have lost any or all my major appendages. With the sound of my futile attempts to gain purchase the lad turned around sharply and I stopped. He breathed out and fell against the wall.
“Thank God, I though you were dead,” he said trying to regain his breath. He was obviously scared of something and by the looks of what he'd been through, I didn’t blame him. “This place is safe from what’s out there…” he nodded towards the crack leading outside, “but it could collapse at any time, so we really need to get out as soon as we can.”
I couldn’t help thinking what kind of dangers were now ‘out there’ but my mind was brought back to the more immediate point. “Get out of here? I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”
“It’s a building on Wards Street, or at least what used to be Wards Street,” he looked at the charred walls, seemingly in remorse, “it came down when I was searching it. I managed to get down here before the walls collapsed. The floor above seems to be holding for now but I don’t know how long it will be that way.”
I couldn’t believe it, this was my house, although it’d obviously ceased to look like my house a long while ago. I again tried to get up and again failed.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the lad gestured to a rudimentary splint on my leg, “I suppose St. Johns Ambulance wasn’t such a bad idea, in the end.”
“I should think ‘what happened?’ would be the most obvious question,” I mused, pointing to his side and knowing full well that the answer wasn’t going to be pretty.
“After the meteor hit a whole lot of people died, you couldn’t move for the bodies. A group of survivors banded together to support each other, that’s who I got separated from,” his eyes told me more then he was letting on, that group had been through a lot and I suspected that they’d become like family to each other. “Then, one day the bodies were gone, just gone, no trace. There are rumours but I can assure you, though, that they’re not rumours. There are creatures out there…”
Those words triggered something in my mind and I remembered that dream on the night before the meteor struck.
“They take the bodies,” he said weakly, “of both the living and the dead.” The dream flashed through my mind again and I saw them, twisted and deformed with the blood of their victims on their-
“You were attacked weren’t you?” I spoke sudden and fast, driven by the rapidly diminishing chance that it was a dream.
The lad nodded. “It jumped me when I was scavenging. It clawed me and tried to get me with this weird tube thing. I think that’s what they do, suck your blood or something. I was lucky, though, it heard someone coming and fled. They’re easily enough spooked but I doubt their gonna be shy for much longer. You see there have been more attacks lately and people are going missing.”
Something outside startled the lad and he ducked down, peering awkwardly through the gap in the rubble. I could hear footsteps outside and dust was kicked through the gap in the rubble onto the lad but he didn’t even flinch.
“Jase? Jason, man, are you here?” came a lowered voice from beyond the wall of debris. I was surprised
to hear another voice, some part of me still didn’t believe that people had actually survived.
“Guy?” whispered the lad getting up, “is that you?”
“Jason! Where are you?” I could see the souls of Guy’s shoes suddenly start moving around in a frenzy.
“Down here,” he reached through the gap and waved up some dust, “I’ve found someone, get help.”
The feet went running off and I remember seeing the lad, who I now knew to be called Jason, slump down grinning and then nothing much else. I knew we were rescued, but after that everything was a blur. We were taken back to some kind of bomb shelter but after that we just survived. No purpose to our lives. Just existing on rations and condensation, barely managing to keep each other sane. Then around three weeks later something happened.
By this time, I’d heard about the fires raging all around. Since the meteor had struck the temperature had gone up, supposedly it was the same all over the planet and if science was anything to go by soon strong acid would begin to fall in the rain. Eventually the fires would run out of things to burn and die down, leaving the whole world clocked in a veil of smoke and ash. It wasn’t like you'd be able to see the sun now, let alone after the fires had been raging for weeks on end. But there would come a time when all the fires would cease and the temperature would plummet. Something akin to a nuclear winter I would suspect, a seemingly endless, desperately cold night were vicious electrical storms would constantly rage overhead. Some future to look forward to, we'd be lucky to survive a week longer in here, let alone out there. If that wasn’t enough, Jason had been right. The creatures were becoming more confident and now they were readily roaming the streets. We had already lost three more people on scavenging runs, as if there was much left to scavenge.
The acid rain had begun to fall in the last few days confining us in the shelter. Just as well, I suppose, over the last few nights there had been strange noises outside. Scratching on the side of the shelter, shallow, eerily soothing hushing sounds. Some said it was the wind in the trees, but I knew it wasn’t, there weren’t any trees out there anymore. I dreaded every night, fearing I would not wake up, but tonight was something else.
After a few hours of sleeplessness the scratching, the curious sounds all suddenly stopped. In any other situation this would have been a good thing but these creatures were persistent, they wouldn’t have given up just like that. Against all better judgment one of my new associates took curiosity and ultimately faith to heart and proceeded towards the hatch. He was convinced it was a sign, a signal to us that the rain had stopped, the creatures gone and the world was ready for us again. Against all our better judgements he quickly open the hatch, swinging it out into the world. There, for the first time in days I caught a glimpse of the outside world. It wasn't what I remembered. The winter had firmly set in, the acid rain destroying everything familiar to me. The sky was now sprawled with thick black clouds which possessed an odd green tinge. Through them blue and purple lightning struck silently. I looked down at the ground and saw nothing. The ground was charred lifeless and there were skeletons of trees as far as the eye could see. As for the city, well, there was no longer any city.
The acid rain had, indeed, finally stopped and my brave colleague cautiously took his first steps into the changed world. What was left of his shoes hissed as they touched the ground. He took a few steps and then with more confidence began to walk out into, what could only be described as, the desert of civilization. Soon he left our view but no one could bring themselves to look out for him.
“Where’d he go?” a woman at the back of the shelter mouthed quietly.
Suddenly there was an almightily clang on the front end of the steel building, making everyone jerk back. We looked, terrified at the ajar hatch, then slowly something began to slide from the roof into the doorway. He was dead. His head had been ripped half off and his torso was sliced open allowing his insides to trial behind the main bulk of his body from the roof. No one had the breath to scream, we all just stared at the doorway, trapped in a terror induced trance. I don’t know how long passed, but the time waiting seemed like a lifetime. Ironic really that we felt like we had to wait a lifetime in order to die. Then slowly and silently three long, grey fingers reached round and with a deliberate flowing motion gripping the frame of the hatch. The creatures head began to emerge from around the frame. It was as grey as its fingers and had three huge bug like eyes, each with an strange red tint to them. It had no apparent mouth, only a long tube that curled up and down, swaying with the creatures gentle movements. Even though it had no mouth in order to do so, something in its eerily proportioned eyes told me it was grinning. I watch as it hung in the doorway motionless, every bit of my essence saying that I wasn’t going to survive this. I could feel the terror of everyone else in the shelter pressing against the back of my neck, forcing the hairs up. Normally I would have shivered, but instead it made me realize that, even if I wanted to, I couldn't move. I was frozen, some primordial command telling my body to become as stone. Every tendon in my body was so tight I thought that if I moved then every single one would instantly snap. Then for some reason I began to relax, the creature was still there but now somehow I wasn’t as afraid of it. I could feel something from it, then as if it had never been there in the first place, it turned, its glistening skin reflecting what light there was, and left.
I looked around, everyone was still ridged with fear so cautiously approached the hatch. There was nothing out there, no life, no sky, not even fires on the horizon, which had become the norm of late, there was only the bitterly cold air biting at my face. Most importantly the creatures were gone, I didn’t know where and I didn’t really care. I looked back into the shelter, thinking more about what the rest of our lives were going to be like, then the more immediate situation of why the creatures had just given up their attack. Just as I was about to re-enter the shelter a whooshing sound emanated from far behind me. I turned again, in the distance I saw what seemed to be a flare shoot up from the remnants of Greater London. The flare began to fall back to the ground. As soon as it did there were a number of additional whooshing sounds and a dozen or so more flares flew up into the air. That's when I knew, these weren’t flares, they were rudimentary rockets of some kind. There were survivors there and they were retaliating. It would explain why the creatures left in such a hurry. I tried to inform the others about the happenings but they had already figured it out for themselves. There was now a buzz of people stating their desire to help and how they would prefer to go out fighting. So that was it, with the last strength we had in us we began to head back to London, with one hope and one hope alone…survival.
By the time we reached the outer city limits it must have been getting on for dawn. It was hard to tell with the global ash cloud sprawled across the sky, blotting out the sun. None the less, it seemed as though the fighting had ceased and I had a disturbing feeling that the retaliation had not prevailed. Soon we managed to find the site of the battle. There were large lines of piled rubble with substantial breaches in them and a number of rudimentary weapons strewn around the site. This had obviously been where the barricades had fallen. Bodies were scattered about amongst the rubblt, Most were human but it looked as though they had managed to take a fair few of the creatures with them before they were overwhelmed.
Looking about at the death and destruction around me a powerful feeling came over me. I thought back to that question ‘what would life be like, now?’ What were everyone’s lives going to be like? Just then I heard them, they were calling to me, they were calling to everyone. They had always been calling but now it was noticeable, with the silence of our own species we could hear them. Again we started walking, towards and through the devastated barricade, just this time something was pulling us. In the distance I could hear the distraught cries of mothers for their children, the moans of despair. These were nothing but the sounds of people still with hope and hope was something I was rapidly beginning to give up
on.
The exodus of our people continued in the distance yet, to me at least, it all seemed like a blur. I walked onwards through the jungle of wreckage and out into the charred countryside. Before I knew what had happened I was standing on a hillside overlooking a vast plain. There was silence. The calling had ceased and I couldn’t even hear the low, icy breeze as it passed across the low lying common. Something then scratched at my ears, some low tone that passed through me and should have made me shudder, yet it did not. It resonated around me, gaining strength and pitch. Its beat was like that of a heart, but its eerie intensity seemed to slow, the momentum of the beat failed and as quickly as it had become known to me, it was almost gone, then with one last, defiant beat, it ceased.
The breeze returned to me and I looked upon the true sight of what was below. Hundreds upon thousands of bodies littered the blood soaked ground, only they were not human. Then I realized, it had never been us who were being hunted. These creatures were a bigger part of this world than we could have ever imagined, but we had been exploiting and abusing both them and this world alike for far too long now. That is why they had come. They were the essence of nature and they had brought the meteor in an attempt to put an end to humanities kamikaze existence. Man had brought war, though, the trait he had become most skilled in. Weapons, technology and the will to dominate were brought forth, slaughtering these cleansers, leaving the fate of the world firmly in the hands of those who could not be trusted with it in the first place.
With the breeze came the mournful song of Dolphins in an ocean across the horizon, they sung for salvation and also to mourn for the End of World.
I don’t know what happened. We had just found out about the special services being flown in from Sydney and of our victory over the aliens on the common, when we found he was gone. After finding the barricades he just started walking. We all thought that he knew something we didn’t but after getting caught up with the refugees, we lost him. As soon as we knew where our victory had occurred, more then just a few of us wanted to see if the news was true. We hurried to the cliff overlooking the common to get the best view, just I guess no one saw what they expected to. We arrived there just in time to see him fall. I don’t know what had possessed him to jump. I had been stuck in that hovel with him for long enough now so I figured I knew him well enough. I never would have thought that he would ever do anything like this. It must have been the whole idea of what the rest of his life was going to be like. I suppose it was the thought of having no home to go back to, hardly even any world left at all. I've seen things, now, things no person should see. I have no doubt they could drive people to acts you would never have thought possible. In the end it can save us but more often than not, it kills us.
Soul