Chapter 1 - Clones can be scary
They loomed over me with their grotesquely disfigured faces morphed into something completely inhuman. Their tongues lapped out of their openly bleeding mouths as they smelled my fear. They had been chasing me for several hours resulting in me trying to hide in an abandoned barn. The cover didn’t work. I knew that they had smelling senses that reached out miles, but I never thought I would be in this sort of predicament. They survived on terrorized souls; growing stronger with each consumed.
If it hadn’t been for the Dawn, there probably would have been more of these monsters. But even with their heavy machinery and Electron Pulsars, no one could have ever stopped their advance on humanity. They wandered the streets of the broken-down villages and destroyed cities looking for victims to engulf. The souls that they consume become corrupted and evil, haunting the living and possessing the dead. They do not stop until they are satisfied, and even then they are menacing. That is the curse that was put onto our world: the curse of death.
The blood from their mouths drooled down onto my dirt-stained shirt, making it dirtier than it already was. I closed my eyes as one of them leaned down to my face and bared his rotting teeth. The stench was unbearable, but I dare not move to increase the pain that their claws had already inflicted into my side. There was no hope for me under earth or sky. I would die and cease to exist. There was no delaying the inevitable.
As I felt my soul loosing grip with my body, I dreamed of flying. Flying away from death, from Earth; from my problems. And then, nothing. All was quiet.
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13 Hours Earlier
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I woke up in a puddle of blood. As revolting as the idea might be, I did not immediately jump out of it screaming, mainly because I had a splitting headache and couldn’t feel my arms. As my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit alleyway around me with the small amount of light trickling in from an unknown source above, I began to become aware of the abundant lack of sound. Interesting.
I could feel my arms by now, but me head was still spinning, so I collapsed a few times while trying to get up on my feet. Where were my feet anyway? Oh yes… down there.
I glanced down to my scuffed up Vans and my torn jeans. What had happened to me? Why can’t I even remember my name? There was no sense in my vivid lack of knowledge at this moment, and the deficiency of sound as well.
I regarded my surroundings just to make sure I wasn’t delusional, or more importantly, deaf. I was sitting in an alleyway all right, but it was a broken down one at best. There wasn’t any real semblance of walls at all, but for some reason, there was a dirty brown tarp still attached to the sides of the backstreet that were still upright. The end of this tunnel of crumbling stone was an exit that was too bright for my darkness-adjusted eyes to see any objects beyond it. What is, or was this place?
My head had cleared by this moment, and I found some time to get a good look at myself. I squinted down and noticed that I was wearing a light gray hoodie… that was sporting a bloody hole right through the middle of it. The hole went straight down to my stomach, or what used to be my stomach area. Now it just looked like a torn up piece of steak. For some reason though, none of my pain was originating from that general area. Great! Not only was I deaf, but I couldn’t feel anything! Then I remembered the headache. Never mind the numbness from pain.
I pushed my body off of the ground, and after quite a bit of trial, error, and energy spent, I finally was able to get myself on my trembling feet.
I saw a piece of shattered glass lying on the side of the passage, and went over to pick it up. Being careful not to cut myself on its sharp edges, I stared into its warped reflection. The face that greeted me was… grotesque. Blood was dried all across my visage, and all through my short, blonde hair. It almost completely encased the left side of my mouth, and the entirety of my right eye. And my eyes… blank. Expressionless. Dead. I reached up and scraped off the blood from my eye and mouth. Then I just touched my face. What had happened to me?
Not wanting to stare at that monster for any longer, I dropped the glass shard, not having the strength to throw it against the alley wall. I started to stagger towards the blindingly bright alley entrance, all the while being forced into a daze. I didn’t see the body just right outside the entrance until too late, so I put my foot down on it. Needless to say, I recoiled in horror and emitted a little cry of surprise as I came out of the daze. As I stared at it, I felt a slight feeling of recognition in this body’s apparel and wounds. I squinted at it, and then it struck me. He and I were wearing the exact same thing!
For a moment, I had no idea what to do. Run? Stay? Stare or don’t stare? I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. I was cemented in place. I might as well make sure I wasn’t mistaken while I’m stuck here. I cautiously and gently used my toe to lift up this body a little so that I could see its front. Sure enough, there was a bloody hole right in the middle of its abdomen leading to a mash-up of flesh and dried blood. And there it was, the scabbed up left-side lips and encased right eye. I released him from my toe’s hold, and took several steps backward; tripping over another body.
This time I really did scream. I scrambled to my feet. Both bodies were exactly identical to each other! I plastered myself to the outside crumbling alley wall and looked away in repulsion. That was a bad idea because straight in front of me was a crater of sorts littered with identically clothed bodies. I opened my mouth to scream as I finally took in my surroundings. Nothing came out.
To my left here was a toppled skyscraper that had strewn its materials all across the hard packed earth. Glass was everywhere, accompanied by wires, support struts, and huge slabs of concrete poking out from their final resting place.
To my right, there just – I quickly turned away – more bodies.
And then it hit me. No literally. Something hit me in the back of my neck. My knees buckled, and my head started to spin again. As I blacked out I heard a growl and then a sharp pain in my leg region.
Then nothing. Again.
