The earth trembled.
Hundreds of soldiers were lined up behind the trenches, like mud-covered steel shields. Each one, with heavy machine guns on their shoulders, took deep breaths, as if they knew the next breath could be their last. As the dust cloud rising on the horizon turned the daylight into a dirty orange, the shadow of what was coming had already begun to pass before them.
"We won't be able to stop them this time..." said the soldier beside the man.
He gripped his weapon tightly, pressing his fingers firmly against the metal surface. The touch of cold steel gave him a strange confidence, but his thoughts were dark. He had unwillingly agreed with him; they had been forced to make a desperate decision to stop the terrible wave last time. Millions of innocent people, along with those disgusting creatures, had been subjected to heavy bombardment, cities disappearing overnight. The memory of that moment, even the thought of it, still disrupted his sleep - screams, flames, and then that terrible, suffocating silence. It had been called a military necessity, but their consciences continued to be crushed under this burden.
And then... the noise came.
Suddenly, beyond the trenches, like an ominous nightmare, a swarm of creatures appeared, swelling like a black sea covering the entire horizon. Each was at least the size of a tank or war chariot, articulated-legged, beetle-like enormous monsters. Their exoskeletons, as hard as steel, reflected sunlight in a dirty manner. Their sharp, bony legs pierced the ground like hungry spears, leaving deep pits with each step, and the yellowish acidic fluids flowing from their mouths vaporized everything they touched, turning the soil into a boiling swamp. They advanced in waves, like an organized army in masses, rhythmic and determined. Millions of them. Perhaps billions. As far as the eye could see, at every point on the horizon, a death army consisting only of shell, jaw, and teeth, moving with mechanical precision. They were approaching the trenches, humanity's last fortress, through broken trees, treading on burned lands, with a certainty from which no living being could escape.
An officer's voice was the first human sound to cut through the noise:
"FIRE!"
Hell opened up.
Suddenly, the deafening roar of machine guns filled every corner of the sky. Hot barrels working like flame throwers tirelessly spewed dozens of high-caliber bullets per second. The traces of these bullets drew lines in the air like stars shining in the darkness of night; the luminous paths created by the bullet traces covered the area in front of the trenches with geometric patterns, almost like a rainbow. The mud on the ground began to fill with thousands of empty shell casings, falling like an infernal rain, still not having lost their heat; these bright metal residues were crushed under the soldiers' muddy boots, sinking deeper with each step. Under continuous fire, the massive trees that once stood proudly and majestically in front of the trench line were riddled with holes in seconds, small pieces breaking off from their bark, leaves falling from broken branches swirling in the wind.
"Our firepower is too weak!" someone shouted, a static-filled voice from the radio, almost lost in the deadly noise. The desperation in the speaker's voice was clearly felt even amidst the chaos surrounding them. "We need to weaken them as much as possible before they reach the back ranks!" the same voice continued, words pouring from his mouth rapidly and anxiously. "Don't conserve ammunition! Every shot needs to hit its target with precision."
If this firepower was weak... what would be sufficient? What kind of force did they need to stop them? If humanity's most advanced weapons were ineffective against these waves, what remained? Perhaps there was no such thing as sufficient power. Perhaps the fall of the first trench was just a matter of time, and they were merely delaying the inevitable end.
Screams echoing along the trenches mingled with each other. Fearful voices, radio static, and the continuous noise of machine guns, the soldiers' cries rose like parts of a symphony. Among the whizzing of bullets and the sounds of exploding shells, people's desperate pleas echoed on the cold walls of the trenches:
"I'm running out of ammo!"
"Reload! Come on, come on, COME ON!"
"Sir, the right flank is breaking!"
"WE WILL STOP THIS WAVE NO MATTER WHAT!"
Ahead of the trench, some creatures had already fallen—exploding heads, shattered shells... but they were immediately replaced by new ones. It was as if the earth was spewing them directly onto the battlefield. Every second, a larger creature than the previous one was approaching.
And then another sound rose. This time not human, but a primitive and hoarse cry.
He could hear them approaching now. They had come for him. His luck had run out. That terrible, vibrating buzz of the creatures—as if a giant organ buried beneath the sky was playing.
Even though his hands trembled with fear, trying to ignore the cold shiver enveloping his body and not even having time to wipe away the sweat dripping from his temples, clenching his hardened jaw, grinding his teeth, he continued to fire. His fingers on the trigger, his eyes always alert, suppressing the thoughts flowing one after another in his mind, he watched every step of those horrifying creatures. Though the fear inside him grew increasingly, he had no choice but to do his duty on the defense line for humanity.
But in the midst of hell, his eyes drifted to the sky for a few seconds.
The sky was like a shadowed dream.
The tones that should normally be light blue now appeared like a giant nebula continuously fluttering between blue and red, intertwined. The sun, looking down from above like a dim eye due to the dust and smoke produced by the creatures, its light barely filtering to the earth as a muffled glow. The bare skeletons of trees and metal trench lines appeared motionless like a painting under this strange dome of the sky. But everything was in motion. Everything was dying.
The creatures were now climbing the walls. First one, then dozens, and finally hundreds... Their sharp claws dug into the hard walls of the trenches, sometimes breaking off, sometimes tearing apart the wall itself. Each left behind a dark green fluid as it climbed, this chemical substance slowly eroding the structure of the wall. This army of creatures, moving as if a single organism, had begun to overcome the barriers in a methodical but much more terrifying way, like ants building a nest.
Not climbing actually—it was like an ascent. Thousands of insect-like creatures progressed upward by stepping on each other, implanting their thorny limbs into the stones. Each one's back was armored with bony protrusions emerging from the abdominal region. Some had no eyes, only mouths. Mouths consisting only of teeth. Like an abyss.
The soldier standing on top of the wall pressed his machine gun downward. Bullets were now flowing with gravity, not against it. Down, to those climbing at the base of the wall. Each time he pressed, the weapon vibrated, straining his shoulder, the heat seeping into his gloves.
The creatures were falling. Those hit opened like wings and tumbled down, sometimes dragging others with them. But this wasn't a solution. For every falling body, five came in its place. They were climbing on top of each other, killing each other, sacrificing everything to reach the top.
A sound tensed in his ear like a cracked rope.
The soldier beside him—the one who was supposed to watch his back—suddenly dropped his weapon. His eyes were wide with terror, his forehead sweating, his knees trembling. Then he screamed. It was such a high-pitched, desperate scream that he thought for a moment that not only humans but also the creatures would pause. But no one stopped. The soldier turned around and began to flee, sinking and rising in the muddy ground, tears in his eyes.
The man gritted his teeth, the pressure felt as his jaw tensed had almost turned into physical pain. The muscles in his face tightened, the veins on his forehead became pronounced. Drops of sweat flowing from his eyes passed over his eyebrows, leaving a thin trace on his cheek. As the silhouette of his fleeing friend disappeared between the trenches, the anger and determination within him mingled.
"Damn it..." he said only, his voice hoarse and broken.
But now he was alone.
He looked around. Throughout the trench line, all the soldiers there had begun to unravel. First individuals. Then groups. Then... commanders. No order had come. The radio was silent. But fear didn't require an order. People were fleeing. Dropping their machine guns on the ground, without even bags on their backs, fleeing with only the instinct to survive.
And he was still there.
The rumble from below grew closer.
A creature that had climbed to the edge of the wall jumped.
He met its eyes. They were bright green eyes. In them was neither mercy nor anger... just a foreign intelligence burning with instinct. And then... pain.
The sensation of the spear-like arm impaling his abdomen felt first hot, then sharp. His breath was cut off. Everything suddenly slowed down. The creature lifted him up. His weapon slipped from his hand, falling among the thousands of creatures below. And the next moment, the creature threw him to the other side of the wall, downward, into death.
He was falling.
The sky continued its blue-red dance.
The wind howled in his ears, the thousands of creatures waiting for him below appeared like a moving black carpet. Each with teeth, claws, hungry.
The wound in his stomach had deepened, his blood scattering in the wind. But there was no pain. Just emptiness. Just thoughts.
"This is it..." he thought.
So this was how he would die.
A body thrown from above, to be crushed, torn to pieces.
But...
But if he was going to die here... he would take them with him.
He reached for his belt.
His fingers found that familiar metal: a hand grenade.
A painful smile appeared on his face like a shadow.
He pulled the pin.
"If you're going to swallow me, you'll choke."
Darkness.
Nothingness.
The fall had ended, but there was no ground. While waiting for thousands of creatures to tear him apart below... nothing had happened. No sound of impact, nor the echo of breaking bones. Just emptiness.
The man's consciousness, as if not belonging to a body, silently floated in a void. There was neither up nor down. Neither time flowed, nor space.
Were his eyes open? Were they closed? It no longer mattered.
But there was something. In the middle of this void, invisible but pervading everything, an indescribable weight. Like the breath of a being, so dense it could suffocate even this silence. As if the skin of the universe itself had been peeled away, and underneath, the naked face of a nameless truth had emerged.
Then...
Like a heartbeat...
A crack appeared in the middle of the blackness. A stirring. Not a trembling light, but like a trembling entity. Watching him. Approaching. The very embodiment of pain, loss, despair.
There was still no sound... but there was an intention. The coldness of a consciousness cutting through the void... making its presence felt by crushing his existence. It was neither human nor divine. This was something more primitive, more ancient. Perhaps something even time had forgotten.
But not through ears. Like being carved into the brain. Like words etched into wood with fingernails:
[WE HAVE CHOSEN YOU.]
Each letter was hammered into his mind like a nail. It didn't hurt—it did something worse: it reminded him. Of death. Of helplessness. Of the flight of people he called friends before his eyes. Of the eyes of the climbing creatures. Of that creature lifting him into the sky.
And his fall.
Again.
Again.
Again.
As if he was reliving that moment a thousand times. Each fall was longer, sharper, and more meaningless than the previous one.
Then, in the middle of this endless fall, something changed.
A light appeared.
No, this wasn't a light. This was... an eye.
In the center of the darkness, a single eye opened. Not a human eye. Not belonging to the creature. Perhaps the eye of a star. Or the pupil of a forgotten curse stuck in a god's throat.
The eye focused on the man's existence.
And everything began to tremble.
The void... cracked.
His mind cracked.
And that's when the screen appeared.
Slowly. As if each word was being written by piercing the veins of the universe like thorns:
[SWARM has destroyed all living beings in your universe.]
[You were the last defender.]
[You were chosen as the soul with the highest will to resist.]
[No suitable body was found in your universe.]
[Redirecting...]
[Searching for another reality.]
[Searching for suitable universe...]
[...]
[...]
[Connection established.]
[A usable body has been found in the new universe.]
[WARNING: THE SWARM CURSE IS FOLLOWING YOU.]
[If you cannot stop it, the new universe will also be destroyed and the cycle will continue.]
[NEW MISSION: STOP THE SWARM.]
[Time remaining until the next Wave: 336 hours.]