Rift

Chapter 1: Survivors

"It's almost time for us to camp, I think that building over there will do" said Imamu, a bald, dark-skinned man that recently joined this improvised group of vagrants.

"Right, but let's take a look around until there's still light, I don't want to risk being ambushed while I'm asleep" returned Terry, our leader in this world of ruins. Despite his white hair that betrays his years, he has little to no wrinkles and his posture is as straight as it gets.

"Then what about splitting up? We can go to set up the camp while you make sure the surroundings are clear" I proposed.

"Yeah, that should be fine, it doesn't look like there's any signs of someone passing by this place in recent times anyway" agreed Terry, pausing for a moment while glancing at all of us before continuing, "Lemmy, check your rifle and come with me, we will take a look at those ruins on the right", then he turned to Imamu, "You and Eric, go to the left, we will meet behind the building and head inside together if we don't find anything to worry about", lastly, he turned to me, "Chris, Evelyn, Will, go ahead, but before you set up the camp, check if the building is safe."

"Sure, leave it to us" I answered smiling, then I turned and began walking towards the building, Evelyn and William in tow.

Evelyn is the only girl in the group, she is cheerful, but most importantly, she is quick to grasp the situation and adapt to it, maybe that's the reason she is still alive, thing that can't be said for most people nowadays.

William is the youngest, he is quiet and barely speaks, unless we ask him something, furthermore, he has an aura of uneasiness around him. Unsurprising, since he saw his parents die in front of him, torn to pieces by those giant mole-like monsters. It must have been sad for him, not that I could know what losing a parent feels like, I've always been an orphan for as long as I can remember.

"I wonder how many people are still out there", I whispered, not loudly enough for the two of them to hear me, things were already hard enough, there was no reason to sadden them discussing things we couldn't change anyway, "I think we were 8 billions, or something like that, before this happened", I concluded.

We kept walking until we reached the building, there was no door, but that wasn't important, after all, most of the walls had already collapsed. Debris could be seen outside and inside the building, we took a quick look inside and decided to climb over a half-collapsed wall. What we saw inside left us with a little of a bad taste in our mouths, after all, it was a place where we had lots of memories, and to see it reduced to this poor state... well, it just highlighted how our lives were turned upside down.

"I miss going to school" muttered Evelyn.

The classroom wasn't big, there were seven desks, including the teacher's. There was even a projector, I tried pressing some buttons, and to our surprise, it actually turned on and began projecting a video towards the wall behind the teacher's desk, the least collapsed one.

"You can follow the lesson if you want" I said smirking. The video showed what was probably some high-level chef, busy preparing what looked like a shrimp tartar, assembled to resemble the shape of a lobster.

"Mh..." she answered, without removing her eyes from that virtual yet inviting dish, "I'm already starving, turn this thing off and let's go check the rest of the building, so we can begin to prepare dinner with the sorry ingredients we found today."

Agreeing with her, I turned off the projector and proceeded to the next room, oddly enough, it was not a hallway, but a smaller room with a trickle coming in through the cracks in the wall and going all the way to the wall on the other side of the room, probably continuing its course in another room. We kept going and this time we ended up in what was once a hallway, we were on one of the long sides, and the wall in front of us was almost totally missing. Looking in that direction we could only see scarred lands, which growing plants were already beginning to cover. The sun was already setting.

"It doesn't look like there's anything dangerous inside this building, let's divide the tasks, I'll keep checking the remaining rooms, Evelyn, you can start making dinner, William, can you set up the tent?" I asked.

"I don't know how to do it" he said, his voice monotonous and soft, "Can I make dinner instead?"

"Sure" Evelyn responded promptly, "I'll take care of the tent."

I kept looking inside the rooms that the hallway led to, almost all of them were of no interest to us, except one. That room, the one where the trickle ended up, had climbing plants growing from the first floor.

I was getting ready to start climbing when the rest of the group entered the building from the missing wall of the hallway, they had finished checking the surroundings and apparently found nothing to worry about.

"Terry, I only need to check the first floor and we're done" I said.

"It's fine, there are no tracks in the surroundings, everyone probably evacuated when the first earthquakes started, go help Will" he replied. I turned to look at William and noticed he was having a hard time cutting some vegetables.

We then proceeded to make dinner — a sort of soup we made with all the most edible-looking vegetables we found today — and eat it sitting around a makeshift campfire, while they discussed what they saw. The signs they saw in the surrounding ruins could not be completely attributed to an earthquake, so they came to the conclusion that some monster had to be the culprit, but it was long gone.

After dinner, we unfolded the bedrolls and went to sleep. We only have one small tent, so we let Evelyn and William sleep there, the rest of us settle with just a bedroll and whatever rooftop we can find to protect ourselves from the weather. Aside from the kids, we all take turns to keep watch, today is Lemmy's turn.

Before going to bed I was stopped by Eric, and we discussed a little about the past. Eric is almost the same age as me, that is, about 20 years old. We knew each other before this situation started, but I can't really say I'm fond of him. Telling him directly would do no good to our teamwork so I just keep it to myself. After talking, we both headed to our bedrolls.

While laying down, waiting for today's built-up fatigue to do its work, my mind began wandering. The day this life started, was it two months ago? I lost track of time. I was about to steal some food from a convenience store, when the ground began shaking, the first quake wasn't so strong, but many more, and of increasing intensity, followed soon after. I was on the outskirts of a small city, so it wasn't too bad, but big building-filled cities were completely destroyed, and the news channels were saying that the earthquakes were occurring throughout the world. But that wasn't the end, after some days, some never-before-seen animals began being spotted, and the casualties kept increasing. People began scattering, because it looked like these monsters were attracted by highly populated places, furthermore, the buildings that were still standing threatened to collapse at any moment, so staying was dangerous regardless.

That's when I first met Terry, Lemmy, and Evelyn, we began travelling together with Eric, who happened to be there when we were forming groups, and other people, but every day new dangers arose and soon the group was reduced in number.

Soon after, we saw a family running from a pack of big monsters with little to no hair and big claws which they used to burrow through soil and concrete alike. The beasts weren't fast and it looked like the family would manage to run away safely, but suddenly a clawed paw sprang up from under them and injured the woman, she fell to the ground and was bleeding abundantly, the man stopped running and went to rescue her, only to be slaughtered, the kid kept running, at some point he turned back, the moles had lost interest in him and were sating their hunger feasting on the two preys they managed to catch. We reached him and took him with us, that's how William joined the group.

Then, weariness began to kick in, and I quietly sank into sleep...