A low, pained groan was the first sound to break the silence.
The pain wasn't sharp but a steady, heavy ache that pulsed with each heartbeat.
The pain began at the base of his skull, a crushing pressure that felt like his head had been cracked open.
It spread, sparking a burning beat in his ribs and a deep ache in his jaw.
Rickon released a groan, the sound rough and rasping as it scraped its way up his throat.
His eyelids felt unbearably heavy, stuck shut with what he realized was dried blood.
Slowly, he forced them open. The world came into view, a blurry mess of familiar shapes.
He was on the floor of his bedroom, the wooden boards cool against his cheek.
Sunlight, bright and cheerful, streamed through the window, painting a warm rectangle on the wall.
For a moment, he wondered if it was just a nightmare brought on by too much pizza and guilt.
Then the memories slammed into him, not gently, but in sharp, chaotic flashes of terror.
The earth-shattering quake. Yara's scream.
The sun disappearing, replaced by a grotesque blood-red moon.
The news anchor's face, dissolving from professional calm into raw terror.
He saw the monsters, their bruised flesh and burning eyes.
He felt the splintering crash as they broke down the door. The wardrobe. The smell of mothballs and fear. Yara's tiny, terrified squeak.
"Kra'shel tikta vren'sa nol'tar."
The alien words resonated in his mind, sharp and clear as a bell.
He remembered the leader's cold, appraising gaze, the horrifying fascination in its eyes as it looked at his sister.
He felt the phantom kick to his ribs, a faint trace of the crack in his bones.
He saw himself, a fool playing the hero, launching a clumsy, desperate kick.
And then… white light. A crushing blow. And her face.
The last image burned into his mind: Yara, her mouth a perfect 'O' of a silent scream, being dragged through that shining, unnatural portal.
"Yara," he whispered, the name tasting like ash and blood in his mouth.
Pushing through a wave of dizziness that made the room spin, Rickon forced himself up, using the wall for support.
Every muscle ached in protest. A fresh surge of pain flared in his side, and when he carefully pressed the area, the rough grind of broken ribs shot a wave of nausea through him.
The physical pain was nothing compared to the cold dread coiling in his gut.
The house was silent.
Not the warm silence of a lazy afternoon, but a dead, hollow quiet that felt deeply wrong.
He stumbled out of the bedroom, his bare feet sticking to something tacky on the floor. He didn't have to look down to know it was his own blood.
The hallway was a disaster zone. The pictures of family vacations and school achievements had been smashed, their glass glittering on the floor.
In the living room, the couch was overturned, its stuffing ripped out. The coffee table was in pieces.
His father's favourite armchair had a massive, clawed gash running down its back.
His gaze fell upon the front door, or what was left of it. It had been torn from its hinges and lay splintered on the floor, leaving a gaping wound in the front of their house.
And leading out from that wound, tracked across their welcome mat and down the front steps, were bloody footprints.
They weren't human. They were large, three-toed, and vicious-looking. They led away from the house, and they did not return.
A strangled sob escaped Rickon's lips. His worst fears were screaming at him, but a flicker of desperate denial refused to listen.
He had to be sure. He turned, his movements stiff and robotic, and staggered back to his bedroom. To the wardrobe.
The heavy wooden doors had been ripped clean off, discarded like cardboard. He stared into the dark space, his heart hammering against his broken ribs.
The old clothes he had used to hide Yara were torn and thrown about.
He reached in, his hands shaking so badly he could barely grasp the fabric, and began pulling them out, one by one.
An old coat. A moth-eaten blanket. A stained comforter.
And then he saw it. A small scrap of pink fabric, peeking out from beneath a pile of old jeans.
It was from the sleeve of the t-shirt Yara had been wearing. It was torn and stained with a dark, reddish-brown smear of blood.
The wardrobe was empty. She was gone.
The denial shattered, and the full, crushing weight of the truth descended upon him.
Rickon fell to his knees, a soundless scream tearing through him. He had failed.
The one time it truly mattered, the one person he was supposed to protect, and he had failed.
He didn't know how long he stayed there, kneeling amidst the wreckage of his room and his life.
Eventually, a grim curiosity pushed him to stand and see the full nightmare.
He walked through the ruined house like a ghost, his bare feet crunching on broken glass, and stepped through the ravaged doorway into the outside world.
He was not prepared for what he saw. The bright, almost mocking, sunlight illuminated a scene of absolute annihilation.
His quiet suburban street was gone. In its place lay a scene of devastation.
Houses were reduced to skeletal frames, their walls collapsed, their roofs caved in.
Cars were overturned, some scorched and melted into grotesque sculptures of metal.
The neat garden of the gay couple next door had become a crater of torn-up earth.
And the bodies. They were everywhere. Dismembered limbs lay scattered on lawns like discarded toys.
Bodies lay in the street, their faces frozen in masks of final horror.
The brutal, senseless slaughter was staggering. The sight and stench of death were more than he could bear.
Rickon staggered to the edge of what was once his lawn, bent over, and vomited, his body shook as he vomited the bitter bile of fear and grief.
When he finished heaving, he wiped his mouth with his bloody hand and surveyed the destruction.
It was real. All of it. The world he knew, the world of lazy afternoons, arguments over chores, and missed football games, had been wiped from existence overnight.
A desperate, primal need for connection, for some sign that he wasn't the last man on Earth, surged through him.
He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. The screen was cracked, but it lit up.
No signal. Of course. He ran back inside, tripping over debris, and snatched the TV remote.
He pointed it at the screen, his thumb mashing the power button.
Nothing.
The screen remained a dead, blank eye staring back at him.
He tried the landline on the kitchen wall, dragging the receiver to his ear. The line was dead. No dial tone. Only silence.
He was alone. Utterly, completely alone in a world of corpses.
The last ounce of his strength gave out. He fell onto the overturned couch, the torn springs pressing into his back.
The silence of the dead world pressed in on him, broken only by his own ragged breaths.
The image of Yara's terrified face filled his mind, her silent scream resonating in the void of his soul.
"I couldn't protect her," he muttered, the words a raw, choked whisper. His voice cracked. "I let them take her."
He sat up, a spark of fire breaking through the fog of his despair. It wasn't only grief, it was a deep, burning anger turned inward.
"I could have died protecting her," he snarled at the empty room.
He got to his feet, his body trembling with a fresh surge of adrenaline.
His eyes landed on the television, the symbol of the normal world that had been stolen from him.
It was a stupid, pointless gesture, but he needed to break something. He needed an outlet for the storm raging inside him.
With a roar that was more animal than human, he clenched his fist and punched straight through the TV screen.
There was a shower of sparks and a sharp crackle of failing electronics.
The glass shattered, and sharp, burning pain shot up his arm as shards embedded themselves in his knuckles.
Fresh, red blood rose up, dripping onto the floor and blending with the old, dried stains.
He hardly noticed it. The pain was a relief, brief and sharp, offering a momentary escape from the constant torment of his failure.
He stood there, panting, his bleeding fist trembling, a lone, broken figure in a broken world.