"Emun! Don't look behind. Run!"
The piercing scream, raw with terror, echoed through the dense, shadowed forest. "The screams are here. Just RUN."-----An hour earlier, in the bustling heart of Olopiun's central market...
"Mother, can I get this toy?" Emun, a small figure in the throng, gazed longingly at a brightly colored trinket.
His mother sighed, her expression weary. "No, Emun. You already have so many toys. Why do you want another one?"
Emun's lower lip trembled, his voice heavy with the gravity of his purpose. "Mother, I will make an army!"
A faint, tired smile touched her lips. "Ha ha ha. An army, you say? Keep dreaming, kiddo."
The mundane chatter of the marketplace shattered. Distant shouts and the panicked scuffle of feet erupted from the main thoroughfare. People began screaming and running, a wave of human panic rolling toward them.
"What is going on?" Mother asked the nearest shopkeeper, her voice taut with sudden concern.
"No idea, Ma'am. I'll go check."
The shopkeeper's response was swallowed by a sudden, ear-splitting, "ARGHHHHHH!!!"
The running intensified, turning into a blind, desperate stampede. Mother's eyes darted through the chaos, and she caught a fleeting glimpse of it. A figure, or perhaps an aberration, a shadow that defied definition. It possessed no color, yet it wasn't black; it was transparent, somehow visible, a shimmering, terrifying outline.
The sound that issued from this figure was a scream—a visceral, high-frequency shriek capable of rupturing eardrums.
She watched, horrified, as these spectral entities fell upon the fleeing crowd, consuming the people. Instinct took over. She clutched Emun's hand, her grip iron-tight, and threw herself into the desperate current of humanity.
"Emun, don't look behind," she gasped, her legs pumping, driving them toward the massive gates that offered the only exit from the central market, the lifeblood of Olopiun.
The gates were in sight. She spotted the city guards, their figures solid and reassuring amidst the phantasmal terror. "Help! Help!" she shrieked, the desperate plea ripping from her throat.
The guards, paralyzed by the sudden eruption of terror, watched the maelstrom unfold. "Why aren't you moving? Save us!" Mother's scream sliced through the air.
Emun, a seven-year-old on the precipice of understanding, registered the unfolding events with the detached curiosity of a child. The world was his, but its cruelty, not yet.
The pavement bled crimson. The carnage centered in the square, yet the protectors—the guards—fled, abandoning the fight to the monstrous shapes.
"Run, Madame! We cannot fight these things," a guard stammered, his voice brittle with fear, as he yanked open the main gates, a desperate escape route.
Emun and his mother were swept away in the tide of refugees, spilling out of the market square.
The creatures were phantoms of fury, not visible in true color, only in the distortion of their outline—gigantic, long-limbed, headless, a torso with a gaping maw, moving with a terrifying, airborne speed.
"Don't be afraid, Emun. Mother is right here."
She plunged into the forest with the others, seeking refuge from the pandemonium.
The woods swallowed the light, a premature, ominous twilight.
In the choking darkness, fear coalesced into huddles of people. They could still see the dreadful shapes even from this distance; the sanctuary was a lie.
"Mother, what's happening? Why are they so scared?" Emun's voice was a pinprick of innocence.
Before his mother could answer, a man stepped forward, his face contorted by panic and rage. "Didn't you see people torn apart? What kind of stupid question is that?" He hadn't even registered he was shouting at a child.
"Silence!" Mother's sharp yell echoed, and she pulled Emun away.
In that moment of distraction, the things—the Screams, as they would later be called—closed in. The massacre began again.
Bodies ripped in two. A symphony of terror.
This time, Emun saw it. He froze, a statue of horror, until his mother snatched him up and started running again.
A claw-like hand lashed out, seizing her. She threw Emun with all her might. He tumbled down the embankment, coming to rest against the trunk of a tree.
He saw her face—her final, tortured gaze—as she screamed, "Run, Emun! Run! Don't look at me! Run!"
Paralyzed by terror yet driven by the instinct to save her, the boy started back. He was a child, but not a coward.
Before he could reach her, the angry man from before appeared, grasping Emun and sprinting away.
His mother saw the man take her son, and a fleeting moment of relief crossed her face just as the creature claimed her. "Scream," she whispered with her last breath.
Emun's fear finally overwhelmed him, and he fainted.
The man spotted a fissure near the mountainside and leaped into it, clutching the unconscious boy, escaping the Screams. He, too, now called them that.
As they slid into the black maw of the earth, the darkness deepened.
They reached the bottom.
It was no cave, but the source of the horrors. The man saw the unmistakable tracks of the creatures pressed into the mud.
Terror clawed at him, yet the will to survive was stronger. He still held the fainted boy, though he couldn't recall why he'd saved him.
He moved silently, cautiously, wary of discovery by the Screams.
A slight shift in a stone, and a hidden opening appeared in the wall. He plunged into the cavern, seeking escape.