"What are these horrifying creatures? What force took with it the dense, humid mist that covered every corner of the world?
Creatures of unreal sizes and complexities. Grotesque shapes, mockeries of nature, that seem to have only one goal in mind: to extinguish the human race.
Without explanation. Without prior warning. In a single blink, the world was plunged into a great and unending despair.
Two years have passed now. I don't know how I'm still alive, but honestly, I'm very grateful for it…"
—Kai! —the voice of a young girl echoed from the ground floor, one of the few areas with a trace of life.
—I'm coming! —Kai replied, a nineteen-year-old boy with black hair dirty from the dust.
He got up from his broken, dirty mattress, and, careful not to make much noise, he closed his thin, worn notebook and put it under the pallet.
He quickly left his "room," a dark hole that only fit his body and a couple of blankets. He went down the stairs, two steps at a time, dodging debris and the dozens of people who swarmed the hallways, a ghost of the apartment's old lobby.
When he reached the first floor, he pushed the crowd aside with his arms and ran towards his sister.
—Alright, alright. —he said, smiling slightly as he took a plate of mashed potatoes that looked more like liquid than mash and a burnt corn on the cob.
—If you'd been a second later, I would've eaten your food —it was Lisa, his sister. Her voice was deeper now, her blonde hair tied in a messy ponytail, and her blue eyes, which always shone with a spark, looked a little duller from the darkness of the shelter.
—You would've eaten it... —Kai mumbled, poking the mash with a bent fork, not wanting to eat.
—You have to eat, Kai. You'll look like the monster we saw the other day if you don't. —Lisa said, her voice softer now, with a tone of worry in it.
He kept poking the mash. His sister, tired of his stubbornness, took the spoon, dipped it into the mash, and brought it to his mouth with the speed of lightning. Kai complained, but he ate.
—So, what were you doing in your room? Why did you take so long? —Lisa asked.
—Writing… —Kai said.
—About what? —Lisa asked, with curiosity.
—Nothing importan…—
—CREATURE RANK 5 APPROACHING FROM THE SOUTH WING! —a man's voice sounded over the shelter's speakers.
The people, accustomed to the alarm's voice, began to run, pushing each other, seeking refuge in the basements and on the highest floors of the building, leaving the combatants alone.
—Rank 5? —Lisa asked, her eyes wide with surprise. Rank 5 creatures, though small, were fast and hard to kill. Their numbers were what made them dangerous.
—Yes —Kai replied, with a knot in his throat. His mind was already somewhere else.
They reached the combat zone, where the team was already getting ready. Kai put on a seemingly protective suit, made of layers of thick fabric and a backpack full of weapons. He headed to the weapons area, where the others already were.
—It'll be easy, it's a rank 5. —Ethan, a 20-year-old boy he had met in the shelter, said, tapping Kai's shoulder from behind. He had brown hair and a scar that crossed his eyebrow, making him look more intimidating.
—A rank 5 killed Leo, Ethan. —Kai replied, harshly removing Ethan's hands from his shoulders. The mention of his lost friend was a sensitive subject.
—Stay here, Lisa. —Kai told his sister, giving her a look of warning.
Lisa nodded without saying a word. She knew there was nothing she could do.
Ethan sighed, his face full of weariness. —Leo went alone, Kai.
You and I, and everyone here, knows that going out for supplies alone is an idiotic thing to do. It was rule number one. —he said, in a softer tone, but with a hint of frustration in his voice.
Kai, who was already furious, grabbed the collar of Ethan's uniform and pushed him against the wall. —And if it was an idiotic thing to do, why did you let him go alone? —Kai shouted, his voice trembling with rage.
—HEY, HEY, HEY! This is no time for your childish fights! —Mark, the leader of the combat group, a thirty-year-old man, interrupted, with a katana at the chest of both of them.
Kai let go of Ethan, and Mark sighed.
Kai tightened his grip on the hilt of his katana, the same one Mark had given him years ago. Lisa, his younger sister, gave him one last hug. "Please, be careful. I can't lose anyone else." Her voice was barely a whisper. Kai gave her a confident smile that he didn't quite feel. "Don't worry. I'm not going to die."
Once in the hallway, Mario, the group's strategist, joined them. "The information is scarce, but we know it's a rank 5. Its size shouldn't exceed 5 meters. It's a slow creature, but with very resistant skin." He explained that the strategy was simple: attack in a group, without getting in each other's way. "If something goes wrong, the vanguard will be ready with the catapults to back us up."
Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the ground. A guttural, primal sound that made everyone's adrenaline spike. Mark shouted: "Go fight! Don't you dare die!" In unison, they all replied with a "Yes!" and ran towards the exit.
The heavy, noisy metal door slowly lifted. The mist covering the outside blinded them for a moment, and then, they saw it. The creature. A being 3 meters tall, grotesquely fat and covered in scales that seemed about to peel off, revealing its bleeding muscles.
It had no eyes or nose, just an open mouth full of fangs that screeched and dripped saliva.
Kai swallowed. Fear was a knot in his throat, but he was the first to react. With a war cry, he charged head-on with his katana held high. The creature responded with a roar and ran towards him as well.
Mark, showing his agility, slid under the beast's legs and got up behind it. With a quick, clean move, he cut off one of its arms.
The creature howled in pain and fury. Kai took advantage of the distraction to try to cut off the other arm, but at that moment, the arm Mark had cut off regenerated instantly. The new limb emerged with a blow that forced Kai to retreat.
At that moment, Ethan arrived and plunged his katana into the monster's back. He tried to pull it out to stab it again, but the monster's skin closed over the blade, trapping it. The beast turned around, looked at Ethan, and delivered a slap that sent him flying through the air.
The other warriors attacked in a coordinated effort, but every wound they inflicted healed almost instantly. The creature, as if it knew who the leader was, focused its sole attention on Mark. The beast lunged at him. Mark plunged his katana into its chest, but the creature was unfazed. The monster threw itself on top of Mark, pushing him with its own weight. Mark, with his last breath, tried to stop it with the force of his sword, but he couldn't.
Kai, seeing the danger, attacked from behind. With his katana, he aimed directly at the creature's neck. He plunged it in, but once again, the skin regenerated. Kai, without giving up, pressed with all his might. The edge of his katana finally gave way and, with a sound of tearing flesh, the creature's head fell to the ground.
Mark got the beast's body off of him. Kai approached and extended his hand to help him up, but at that very moment, the decapitated monster began to rise. Kai, confused, wondered what the hell was going on.
"I don't know," Mark whispered in terror.
The creature began to deform, to stretch, its bones and skin twisting. The body mutated, growing and growing, until it reached 60 meters in height. From its deformed body, seven tentacles emerged, a single eye formed in its center, and a huge mouth with fangs opened at the tip of one of its tentacles.
"It's mutating!" Mark shouted. "It's one of the mutants!"
Kai backed away. Ethan's screams could be heard in the distance, along with those of the others. Kai whispered to himself: "It can't be... It's just like the one from that day..."
2 years ago
Kai sank into the sofa, setting the controller aside with a sigh of resignation. The buttery popcorn, still warm in the paper bag, refused to give up its artificial aroma. On the television screen, a weatherman with a too-big smile and an impeccable blue suit pointed to a map of the state, full of suns and wind arrows. "Clear skies for the rest of the week, folks," he said, his voice sounding as placid and empty as the forecast.
Kai, at seventeen and with a life that felt like a loop of normality, couldn't find anything to get excited about. Television, with its endless channels of documentaries, reality shows, and repetitive news, was a mirror of his own existence. He had the money to subscribe to every streaming app in the world, the result of working hard over the summer to pay his share of the rent, but it seemed like an unnecessary expense. He always ended up doing the same thing: watching the news, a corner of life that felt so predictable it was almost comforting.
He was about to change the channel when the weatherman touched his earpiece. The smile fell from his face like a mask, revealing an expression of confusion. "Excuse me," he said, with a voice that was no longer so sure. "I'm getting reports of extremely low visibility. A fog... but not a normal fog."
Kai stopped, his thumb an inch from the button to change the channel. He squinted, not from the sun, which was now gone, but from a strange glow that grew on the screen, as if the television studio was being invaded by a thick smoke. The weatherman stood up from his seat, looking around, and his voice became more high-pitched. "What's happening?! Where did all this fog come from?!"
A voice-over, from a speaker in the studio, leaked through the TV's speakers, cutting off the weatherman's words: "We're getting reports from all over the world. The phenomenon seems to be global. It's spreading everywhere. We have no information about its origin."
Kai frowned. He got up from the sofa, leaving the popcorn forgotten. He looked out the window, just out of curiosity, out of the need to confirm that he wasn't watching a movie. Next to the apartment, fourteen stories up, you could see the city center. But now, there was only a white wall. A wall of mist so dense that it was impossible to see beyond the window.
"What the he—?"
The weatherman's scream made him turn around. "WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT IS THAT?!"
The weather map disappeared, and in its place, a window of grainy, shaky video opened. It was a cellphone recording. Muffled screams and the roar of the ocean could be heard. The camera moved frantically, pointing to the coast.
And then, he saw it.
In the distance, a dark and gigantic shape rose from the sea.
It was something so big it seemed impossible. The camera zoomed in and the figure began to take shape. It wasn't a creature, it was an aberration. Seven gigantic tentacles, a dark purple and black color, writhed in the air like gigantic snakes. In the center of all of them, there was a single eye, milky white, the size of a bus. At the tip of one of the tentacles, a toothed mouth that should not exist opened, and from it came a roar that vibrated the glass of the television. A roar that joined a humming, a deep and constant sound that Kai suddenly realized had been there the whole time.
He was perplexed. He couldn't process what he was seeing. It was as if his brain was collapsing.
Then, a door slammed from the adjoining room. A door slam that didn't come from an invisible force, but from a hand.
His sister, Lisa, with her blonde hair disheveled and a sports T-shirt, came out of her room with her cellphone in her hand. The girl, popular and competitive, who joined every club and was good at everything she set her mind to, had a pale face and a look of panic that Kai had never seen on her. On her phone screen, the same video was playing.
"Did you see, Kai?! What is that?!" she shouted, with a voice that barely sounded like hers.
"I don't know," Kai replied, his voice choked. "Is... is it real?"
He wasn't sure what he was feeling. Panic, disbelief, the sensation that the world was splitting apart. The only thing he did, almost by instinct, was to grab his sister's hand.
"We have to get out of here."
He didn't know where to go, just that the house, his supposed sanctuary, was no longer a safe place. They ran towards the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the silence of the apartment. The elevator, with its flickering lights, seemed like the only way out.
They pressed the button for the first floor, and in the cabin, the silence was filled with their ragged breaths. Lisa, with her hand trembling in Kai's, kept looking at her cellphone screen, as if by looking at the horror she could understand it.
"Do you think it's a joke?" she whispered. Her voice, normally confident and secure, was now that of a scared child.
"I don't know. But... we have to get out."
The elevator doors opened with a creak on the ground floor. The building's lobby, which normally had doormen and people waiting, was empty. The air conditioning had stopped working, and a strange heat filled everything. In the background, the glass doors opened and closed with the wind, showing the mist.
They left the building, and the mist hit them like a wave of cold water. The humming that Kai had heard on the television was now a choir, a sound that reached your bones and made your skull vibrate.
Outside, the scene was chaos. Hundreds of people were on the street, some crying, others screaming at the sky, and many simply motionless, watching the mist like statues of salt.
"Kai!" a familiar voice interrupted them.
It was Leo, a friend who lived in the same building, running towards them with his cellphone in his hand. "Did you see! Did you see what the hell that is!"
Kai nodded, speechless. Leo looked at Lisa, and then at Kai, his eyes full of panic. "What could it be? A joke? Tell me it's a joke!"
"I wish it were," Kai whispered, his hands sweating.
Lisa, with a determination that didn't fit the moment, looked at him. "Kai, call mom and dad. Maybe they..."
Kai nodded and took out his cellphone, his hand trembling. He dialed his mother's number, but the call didn't go through. The phone emitted an error tone. He tried again and again, with his heart racing, but nothing.
An unknown man, his face covered in sweat and a three-day beard, approached them, showing his own phone. "Nobody has a signal. There's no communication. We're alone."
Suddenly, the earth trembled. The humming was interrupted for a second, and was replaced by a sharp, bone-chilling scream of horror. Kai, Lisa, and Leo turned around.
And they saw it.
It wasn't the monster from the ocean. It was different, but just as terrifying. A creature 60 meters tall, with a humanoid shape that walked on all fours. Its skin, a pale and sickly white, was stuck to its bones, revealing a skeletal and grotesque structure. Its head was tiny, barely a meter in size on a body of those proportions, which made it look like a deformity, a cruel mockery of the human form.
People screamed, some running aimlessly. But Leo and Lisa were petrified. Their eyes couldn't process the image of that being. The paralysis of shock had trapped them.
But Kai wasn't. With a scream he didn't even recognize as his own, he grabbed Lisa's hand and slapped Leo's shoulder.
"Run! Run, now!"
The creature wasn't looking at them. It just kept walking, its body swaying with each step, like a gigantic puppet. It lifted one of its front paws and brought it down with a demolishing stomp. Several people in its path disappeared under the sole of its foot. There were no screams, just an abrupt silence.
Lisa screamed, a scream of pure terror, as Kai pulled her along. Leo, as if he had come back to his senses, ran without looking back. Kai, holding his sister's hand, dragged her through the panicked crowd, his only thought to survive.