OMENS [updates biweekly on Wednesdays]

Chapter One: Resurrection

As Ember ventured onward walking past the remains, she thought the scene resembled the aftermath of a battle. The only things intact were the array of weapons, such as medieval looking spears and gun models she didn't recognize, strewn across the bloodied floor. The bodies were too mangled for Ember to differentiate which limb belong to which. She felt hot bile rise up her throat.

Maybe this is just a nightmare, she thought, trying to reassure herself.

She stepped forward and a crunch from a jutted bone snapped beneath her weight. Ember gulped, fighting to calm herself.

Her hand shook as she reached to grab a spear as a potential weapon. She held it in her hands, feeling a tiny amount of comfort creep into her. Then she set the bottom of the spear onto the floor, distributing some of her weight on it, using it as a makeshift cane to help her stay upright.

She discovered a empty warehouse-like room larger than an airport hangar with rusted and partially destroyed catwalks stretching across. Black vines entangled the walls and platforms. At least there were no longer fleshy veins attached to these walls. Below the damaged catwalk she stood on was a giant of a creature, more fearsome than the woman she encountered earlier. It was large enough to swallow her whole.

From a distance, it almost looked like a pincushion with dozens of swords, spears and arrows jutting out. Giant metal stakes pierced its hands, as if pinning it to the ground. Ember could easily imagine people throwing their lives away to subdue the creature, only for everyone to perish at the end.

She climbed down to get a closer look.

The enormous creature was bloated as if it was full of post mortem gases. Its over-sized tongue drooped out of its mouth like an overripe fruit. Shuttering, wheezing noises escaped from the disfigured carcass. Each breath rippled its saggy flesh. Its eyes stared blindly into the back of its skull.

There was a gaping vertical slash of an orifice on its large belly. Warts and boils covered its bumpy skin with pus festering out, dripping and mixing with the blood of the fallen. The giant looked a sickly green as if almost dead, but not quite, as if ready to bring more deaths with it to the afterlife. What if this was the afterlife?

Suddenly, a figure slinked out from the shadows. Whoever they were, climbed into the opening in the belly of the beast. The person didn't re-emerge.

It left her scratching her head. Why would someone choose to go inside something so revolting? Was there more to this monster than what she was seeing?

Then all at once, Ember felt a cold chill roll down her spine as if something sinister and dangerous was close by. She heard the reverberating sound of metal against metal, one falling against another like heavy footsteps. Klunk... Klunk... Klunk... The sound got louder and louder as seconds rolled by. Ember was paralyzed. The sounds stopped right above her.

She slowly lifted her eyes to the source of the noise.

A demon stared into her from the catwalk.

It was shaped like a man, but human resemblance ended there. It had either horns or pointed ears protruding from its skull. Its skin was something like a metallic exoskeleton the color of dark smoke. Rivulets and barbs glistened like silver thorns on its body. Its form was massive and looked sharp all over, as if she would bleed if she touched it. Pitiless craters for eyes looked down on her.

She let her spear clatter to the floor. Her flight instinct took over her body and adrenaline spurred her into sprinting toward the most recent escape path her mind last filed away-the belly of the monster.

She didn't know what she was leaping into, but she leapt in.

Ember woke up with a jolt. She was alone in her bedroom. Golden sunlight streamed through her window blinds, casting striped shadows across the room. Songbirds chattered merrily outside. It was obvious that she woke up to a beautiful day, but the remaining goosebumps on her arms indicated her uneasiness.