Chapter 1

  Beast Within the Fire

  Nil

  A cold, shivering feeling of dread clung to my body before I awakened. It reminded me of what I become, a failure. However, I still got up to start an extra night shift. My name is Nil, and I’m seventeen years old. I lived in an apartment on the seventh floor and had a brother named Aubin who visited me every few days.

  My life had become a work cycle, with sleep being the only escape. Loneliness had always filled my soul, with only my brother Aubin coming every so often that could relieve such feelings. He was the main reason I could keep going.

  After leaving the sheets on my bed, I started my morning routine. First, I brush my teeth and then get dressed. The toothpaste filled my mouth with a nauseating, sour mint taste. I grabbed the rough fabric work uniform from my closet. It was always there when I needed it. The bitter earthy smell of my cup full of coffee filled my nostrils as I got ready to walk to my workpce. The soft snowfkes stuck to the window, so I returned to grab my coat as well. As I put my coat on, I looked outside one more time. It was yet another night, one that I had a shift on. The lights of small homes lit up the view, cars were driving, and people were walking. It was peaceful.

  But as I felt the floor shaking, something felt off. The lights flickered, and all the furniture shook along with the floor tiles. And before I knew it, a roar like that from a train went through the apartment, followed by a shockwave. Waves of heat enveloped my body like fire, and then the shockwave threw me through the walls like a rag-doll. After a while, my vision began to recover. I scrambled to get back up, only to breathe barely.

  My mind cleared more and more over time. I started looking at my surroundings. I pushed myself up from the floor, ignoring the loud piercing bre of the fire arm. All other noises drowned in the roar of fire. The moonlight was cloudy, with smoke making the room dim with a dark orange glow from where the window once was. Dust and debris repced furniture and walls.

  “What was that?” I half mumbled to myself. Suddenly, pieces of the building fall onto the floor, covering me.

  Before getting crushed, I managed to find a spot to have cover. My eyes grew wide with tears as the horrible smell of burning wood suddenly consumed my nostrils. I y there as I coughed from the smoke. I tried to cover my nose and mouth with my sleeve to be able to breathe, but there was just too much ash. Not being able to stand it anymore, I started finding a way out of the rubble. I pushed the debris out of the way, finally being out from under it.

  It seemed like days since I got back up from the floor, with everywhere in the room filling with dark bck smoke.

  “What?” confusion started to fill my endless thoughts, “Smoke?” I lowered myself down onto the floor so I could breathe better since the smoke rose. Once I was on the floor, I continued my escape. What made things worse was that my vision was starting to become more blurry, with my muscles weakening quickly after. I was starting to pass out.

  I pinched my arm violently to keep myself awake. I couldn’t let myself pass out. My arms and legs felt like rubber now, with them limping as I tried my best to escape from this fiery prison. The rubble was everywhere, now making it even harder to move. As I continued through the ruins of my room, I noticed various objects were still on fire. The dry paint of the walls oozed down to the floor. A desk I once used for work, now broken apart like toothpicks. And my closet leaked fire as if it were va. When I looked around, the door was leaking more and more smoke into the room. It was as if I was in hell’s kitchen, and that I was fresh meat on the devil's chopping block.

  “What happened?” I wondered. I struggled to make out my surroundings as my eyes adjusted to the dim, flickering light. The bck smoke thickened as I continued to crawl on the floor like a slug, barely even being able to move. The more I stayed in this room, the more a distaste of smoke filled my mouth. I needed to get out of this burning room of hell, with the sooner the better.

  Soon I got past the initial debris of my room. Even out of my room, my body would still sink into the rubble like mud with each step. The rubble felt like hands pulling me deeper. I had to push myself up, and for the rest of the time, I had to limp my way around. After knocking some debris down, I eventually found the exit door. I went to the door and banged. Rocks covered the entrance, making the effort useless, but I kept pushing the door with all I had left in me. After shoving my whole body into the door, it finally opened.

  Bursting through my door, I fell face-first onto the rubble. I weakly push myself back up, bumping into walls before regaining my bance. I went through the hallway and to the kitchen.

  I looked around to find almost everything in the apartment in fmes. I stopped myself for a moment. “Wait, there should have been some people to put out the fire by now. Where is everyone?” I realized that if people were able to rescue me, they would have been able to do it by now. As I continued through the rubble, I reminded myself that no one was coming to save me.

  The tiles of the floor were cracked and the furniture in this hallway was torn up, making it more difficult to move around. Now with the desire to escape the apartment complex, I started to search my way out, coughing from the smoke.

  After reaching the end of the hallway, I found a half-broken door to the stairs. I tried to open the door, but rubble covered the other side. Even when smming myself against the door, the door continued to not even budge. Seeing a window next to the door, I punched the gss near the door until my fists were bleeding. The window refused to shatter, no matter how hard I tried.

  I said to myself, “Even if I could break down the window, how am I supposed to get out of the stairs?“

  I started to freak out, not having a way out. “No, no, no, No!” While I sat on the floor weeping, “I can’t die like this!” an important memory of my grandma filled my mind.

  Instantly, I started stumbling back into my apartment. I went through the door and to a closet in the bedroom, not wasting any time. I hurried through each closet, searching through boxes as the fmes roared louder. After a while of searching, I looked in an old closet I thought was just for the boiler. The closet was behind the refrigerator, which was now on the floor in debris. Inside the closet I found a box, and inside the box were some shattered gss and old paintings. What stood out to me was an axe.

  The worn-down axe was decorated with pieces such as gss cups, jars, and pots. The axe was originally from my grandma, but she handed it down to me. A short rush of relief envelops me as I see the axe, knowing that I could break down the door. I hurriedly grabbed the axe and started breaking down the door. Even with the axe, my hands were covered in blood and numb, making it very difficult to break down the door. I tore down bits of the door with each strike until there was a big enough hole for me to. go through. I staggered through the doorway and went into the stairway. Now that I thought I was finally out of danger, I sighed, full of relief. But, as I became more aware, I realized that the stairway was starting to colpse.

  I stumbled down onto the stairway in a hurry, trying to find a way back outside. Pieces of walls crumbled with the sound of wood snapping in half and gss shattering. I was only able to get to the second floor before the stairway colpsed. Before I could do anything else, the floor beneath me also started to cave in, with floor tiles and everything falling from other floors. I ran through the hallway, looking for any escape before seeing a broken window. I took a deep breath. Without any more time, I ran as fast as I could, jumping out the window, and falling fifteen feet with a thud.

  I felt a sharp pain in my left arm, and it was the same one I nded on. I looked behind me to see the building colpsing before my eyes. When I tried to get back up, I felt so weak that I just colpsed. After a few minutes of lying on the ground, I struggled back up and continued to look for anyone as the fire danced everywhere in my vision. While all this was going on, I realized something. I wondered if my family was in danger.

  I asked myself, “I haven't seen my family anywhere. Could they be in danger, too?”

  I stumbled past the burning ashes and debris, with the injury of my arm making it hard to keep bance. The soles of my feet now felt numb, and so did my toes. It was hard not to gag as the distaste of smoke continued to make me sway for breath. No matter what happened, I kept walking. I approached the now worn-down town bell, and it was still recognizable. It stood out among the dry and barren nd. I continued past the bell and further through the ruined town. Every time I passed a ruined home, I would look around for anyone in need, but no one would be there.

  “Is anyone here?” I yelled out loud, getting no answer. After a while I gave up yelling out to people, there was no point.

  After stumbling from one ruined home to the next, I found something I recognized. It was an old stand shop. I looked at the old shop. It was the pce I used to go to with my dad. The feeling of loneliness hit me again and again as I remembered my father, and that I was alone in this wastend. There was only hope in my heart that they were safe. I continued to move through the scorched remnants of what was once recognized as my hometown, a terrible scent clinging to my clothes and seeping into my every breath, being my only company.

  My heart sank with everything I saw. Houses, pygrounds, the school, everything now being piles of rubble in a wastend. I stepped on a certain piece of ground that felt different. There was a hole in the ground. Seeing it then, I remembered that this was the field I used to py in. I remember when I would py with my brother and sister in this field. We used to py tag as we were done with school for the day and had to wait for Mom and Dad to finish work. I saw only sorrow from those memories, remembering that they had been burned away into the hellish soil.

  Out of the noise of fire, I heard a familiar voice. The voice was soothing but scared me. The voice said, “Brother, are you alright?” I stopped, my heart started beating faster than before. I remembered that voice, and just hearing it made my body tremble.

  Tears filled my eyes as I looked back to see two men in the distance. I recognized them instantly. They were family. The first man was my brother. He was a year older than me. His face was hollow, with eye bags and bloodshot eyes. My brother had bandages over his leg and had a shotgun strapped around his back. He also had a leather coat on with jeans that had several rips in them. The other man I also recognized was our uncle. He had an eye patch and way more bandages than my brother. He looked much worse off than us, with only a shirt and torn pants.

  My uncle winced in pain with each step he took, with his gasps following after.

  “Aubin!?” I ran towards them, nearly following over, “What’s going on!?”

  “We don’t know.” It didn’t matter to me anymore. Relief filled me as I reunited with them.

  Our uncle said, “What matters is that we're alive, so we need to find supplies.” My brother pointed in a direction. “We should go this way.”

  “Sure, we haven’t checked that way.” Our Uncle stumbled as he walked and reached out a hand to me. “My leg still hurts from a part of a building falling on me. Please help me walk.” I helped my uncle walk as my brother took the lead, looking for supplies and shelter.

  We walked past destroyed buildings and rubble of homes. We were all silent. After some walking, we found the path to the town hall. We took the path and continued to it. The closer we got to the town hall, the more rubble began to pile up, with the town hall being the center of all these ruins. A rge sign on the town hall was burnt and pieces of it were falling apart. The frames of the building were torn apart, with the roof in the area being open. The door was barely holding on, with only one hinge left. When I tried to open the door, it fell onto the floor, ripping off its hinge and breaking into pieces.

  After the door fell, we went inside and all agreed to set camp there without a single word needed. Inside it was less destroyed, enough to make a camp. The walls were still intact, with a yer of soot covering them. We had a roof over our heads, that’s enough for me. Now that we were inside the town hall, I sat down and thought about what to do in this situation. We couldn’t st that long in here. Whatever we did, we would have to do it quickly. I thought of maybe looking for other survivors, or maybe finding a pce with water. That was the most important thing right now. I started to grow more tired with each second, and my mouth was dry too. I couldn’t think straight. I needed water right now.

  My thirst made it hard to hear Aubin asking Uncle Jalen, “What do we do now?”

  I saw Uncle Jalen looking down at me as I winced in pain. Our uncle’s voice was cold and serious. “We will go find supplies. That’s our priority. We really can’t be here for long, so let’s take what we can.”

  We walked through a hallway in the town hall that goes to the cafeteria. We thought that the cafeteria was the most likely pce for supplies. I was still dizzy from my thirst, and Aubin had to help me stay on track. After exploring for a while, we eventually found our way to the cafeteria. We ended up finding a bottle of water. I quickly drank it, giving half of it to Aubin and Jalen.

  Now that my thirst was gone, I was able to think again. “So where were you two when… you know.”

  My Uncle’s expression grows more grim than it already was. He rubbed his forehead, with his voice being a low tone. “We were in the basement when everything was like this, and when your brother and I went back upstairs, we found all of our coworkers were gone.”

  Uncle Jalen’s voice trembled the more he spoke. He paused and looked up to the ceiling as if he was reliving the moment. “What’s terrifying is we went in there for only like ten minutes looking for the materials they needed. There was a rge rumbling that seemed to shake the entire building.”

  I continued to ask him, my voice filled with anxiety, “Then what happened?”

  “I burst through the door, only to be met with rubble in every direction. Everywhere was smoke, with us barely being able to see a few feet past us. Aubin grabbed my hand, and he led me through the destruction. I had to climb over boulders and broken walls. Every step I took could have been our st, with barbed wire and gss everywhere. A piece of the ceiling broke off and came straight for us. I managed to get Aubin out of the way, but it managed to fall on me.” My Uncle’s face started to sweat to a noticeable degree, and it seemed like he was holding back tears.

  “We need to find out what happened before-” We stopped moving in concern that our uncle wailed in pain. I held my uncle up before he could fall over.

  My Uncle said, “You two go. I’ll go back to camp and rest, so I won’t slow you two down.” My Uncle grabbed a rge stick on the floor and started walking about to the camp we made. I wasn’t going to let him go, though he was wincing in pain. What would he be able to do without us?

  I went to stop him but my brother nodded at me and I let him go, “He will be fine, and we are in a hurry.” I watched as my uncle stumbled into a wall before continuing until I couldn’t see him.

  We continued to walk through the hallway, looking at lots of the paintings and decorations on the walls that were burnt and destroyed. We got to another part of the town hall we hadn’t been to and started searching. I stepped into the first room, and it was an office. In the middle office was a heavy wooden desk, torn and burned to its very core. One of the desk’s legs was gone, and it was barely standing up. The chair next to it was flipped upside down, with the seat being torn off. I walked up to the desk, dusting off the ash it collected. When looking over, there was also a little bookcase hidden behind. Some of its shelves were torn off, and it looked like a craftsman's worst nightmare. I approached the shelf, briefly looking over before going back to the desk. Every time I moved drawers on the desk, a loud piercing screech followed. After searching the desk, I went to the bookcase again. I took anything that looked important, there were only empty bottles and books.

  I continued to the next room. The room I walked into looked like a living room, with what remained of a couch. I took the ripped cushions off, looking in the cracks. A broken table y in the middle of the room, so I checked if anyone had anything under there, sadly there was nothing. What was weird was that everywhere I looked, drawers were scattered on the floor. I picked some of the drawers, some were torn and ripped in half, but all had nothing in them. I went through all the destroyed furniture and anything I could find. I picked up the couch and moved it over to see if anything was under the couch. Then I looked through the drawers and under the table. I was still empty-handed, and I started to feel bummed down. After a few searches, I ended up coming across a new room.

  It was a bedroom, with a picture frame in some rubble. When I took it out of the dust and debris, I saw that it was my grandma. Warmth filled me, and then I worried. My grandma lived here, but where could she be? I hoped that she was okay, and maybe she was able to evacuate. Maybe if we were able to find supplies, we could have enough time to find her. She still had to be here somewhere. I pced the picture in my pocket and continued through the other rooms. After the picture, no matter how much I searched, I kept finding nothing, and it was frustrating. My brother said he didn’t have much luck either. Offices, bedrooms, every room ruined in shambles. The remains of families only made me worry about my own. At this rate, we will be searching for hours for nothing. We eventually got to the end of the collection of rooms. At the end, there was a hallway leading in two different directions so that we could look for more rooms.

  “I’ll go this way.” My brother pointed to one of the hallways, and it looked to have a rge closet end. I nodded and went down another way to the hallway.

  The other room was the office of the mayor. I remember this being the mayor’s office from that one time recently. The mayor asked me about the bills that I have been struggling with and offered to help out. He was a pretty nice guy. I looked around the room for anything, but at the end of my eye, I saw something. I gnced over, only to be met with shock and fear. My heart raced, and I stumbled backward. The palms of my hands drew sweat and my bones shivered down to the core of my soul. A skeleton on the floor in the office appeared in my vision. When I looked closer, it had a suit on. It was the suit the mayor put on.

  I continued to panic, yelling at the skeleton. “What happened to him!?” My breath was still heavy from the terrifying sight. I was still terrified of what happened to him. I looked around, trying to find some reason it was there. There were cw marks wedged into the walls, there were also burnt remains of books everywhere. So much was going on, but I had to lead. None of this made any sense.

  Whatever happened to this man, it was instant and had no way of escaping. Though what could have been, what caused all of this? There had to be something I didn’t know about here, but it didn’t matter now. As I started to regain my sense of surroundings, I stepped back up. Fear enveloped my body, and still, I tried to ignore the skeleton. Deciding that it was best to take my mind away from the skeleton, I got back to trying to find supplies. I looked to my left and saw an old bottle of water. A broken gss top made the liquid leak out and contained in a green stained gss. I grabbed the old bottle, nearly dropped it, and ran out of the office as fast as I could. I kept bumping into walls while I fled. Since I was running so fast, I didn't realize all the tiny rocks in front of me, and I fell face-first onto the rough floor littered with rocks. The impact sucked the air out of my lungs, forcing me to stop in my tracks. My axe had fallen on the floor. As I went to grab my axe, a sharp burning pain hit my hand, and I quickly lunged back in pain. On the back, the axe had a weird symbol on it that I hadn’t seen before. The symbol was a glowing blue and very hot to the touch.

  I wondered to myself if it could be a trademark symbol or something. I also wonder if this was the thing that burnt my hand. “Why is it hot?”

  I oversaw the symbol for right now as my brother behind me said, “Did you find anything?”

  “No, but look, there’s this-” My brother stops me and points to the closet he had shown me, “I found supplies in there. Let’s go back and tell Uncle Jalen quickly.” I nodded, and we went back through the hallway to find our uncle. While we walked back to camp, Aubin showed me what he found. A watch, some water bottles, and a few bags of carrots and potatoes. We could manage with this. Maybe things were finally turning for us.

  When we got back to the camp we set up, our uncle was waiting patiently standing against the wall.

  “You guys are back already?” “Yes, we found a room filled with supplies we could use.” My brother sounded proud and led the way. What was odd to me at the time was that there were cw marks on the walls, and they were the same ones from the mayor's office. I was almost sure I hadn’t seen them before, but I shrugged it off, as it wasn’t important right now.

  We continued through the hallway and I continued to think about what caused this fire. Was it by accident? How could this have happened by accident? Our town had no enemies with other towns or countries, so it couldn’t have been that. It couldn’t have been a bomb, the fire would’ve been out by now. It couldn’t have been by nature either, lightning fire and things like this never get this out of hand. People would have handled the fire if it had been by accident by now, let alone there wouldn't have been any deaths. It’s like I’m at a complete dead end with the mystery and I only know what it can’t be. What's even more weird is there’s no ash buildup, so it is still brand new. And based on what my uncle and brother said, they didn’t even realize what happened.

  All of this confusion was getting to my head at this point. What could have made this fire so quickly? At this point, I was hungry, thirsty, and tired. How the fire got this big was less of a priority to me, for right now I’ve gotta figure out this food problem first.

  I continued to be frustrated until our uncle said, “You seemed puzzled, anything wrong?” His cheerful voice, different from his grim one, comforted me but also startled me.

  “Uh, nothing.” However, I said that I still wondered about how this all happened. I decided to ask my uncle to clear my mind. “I do have one question.”

  “Hm?” “How could this pce be destroyed so quickly?” My uncle looked puzzled. “Maybe it could have been a weapon.” My uncle expins further, “Perhaps it was like a weapon made from fire.”

  I haven’t thought of such an idea, though how could anything use fire to attack? What concerned me, even more, was how cheerful and intelligent my uncle sounded. It may sound rude but, my uncle never really had a vocabury. I mean, it could be just a coincidence, but I was getting more suspicious.

  My uncle was always grumpy and sad, so this change in emotion is very weird. The only time I’ve seen him happy was a few years ago. He was with his wife, though she passed away a year ago. I get why he couldn’t see the world brightly like he used to. That’s why him being happy was almost scary to me. It might be him just going crazy because our home is gone, but I don’t know.

  My uncle said proudly, “Maybe it could have been a monster, one of great power.” “You think?” “Yes, it could have been a monster that used a magnificent weapon of fire to destroy the town.”

  Suddenly, my brother stopped me, and he clutched my arm. Something was wrong, I started to realize too. My uncle had never acted like this. He was always grumpy. This is unnatural, whatever is happening to my uncle. We stopped right in front of the closet with all the supplies. I didn’t go inside, and I knew there was something wrong with our uncle. Something about him. We knew we couldn’t trust him. My uncle continued to walk gracefully and proceeded to pick up some supplies. It was unnerving to see my uncle acting like this. It’s almost as if he didn’t care about what was happening around him, as if he didn’t realize the disaster we were in. My brother was grabbing something from his bag. It was the shotgun. Uncle Jalen started heading back to us, without a care in the world. From hearing the loading of the gun to seeing the uncanny smile on my uncle's face, the cold feeling of knowing what was to come was the only thing I could think of. “Now that we’ve got this stuff, we should go back home and-” Then I heard it, the piercing crack of the shotgun, and then a thud. Uncle Jalen had fallen to the floor. I couldn’t even muster the strength to see my uncle, as he was already gone.

  In a shaken voice, I heard my brother say, “We need to go.”

  Suddenly I jumped back as I saw a rge hand appear. It crawled out from the hallway and into the room. The hand was fleshy and skinny, with bone exposed. My mind went bnk, leaving only the question of what the thing was. I stood there, more still than a statue. I watched as it grabbed our uncle and crawled away, back deeper into the building. We never saw him again.

  My brother grabbed me. “LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” We started running through the hallway, bumping into walls along the way. Once we were back at camp, the hand appeared again but did not attack us. Whatever it was doing, we weren’t its biggest interest. I watched as it grabbed the food we found. It was going to run off with our food.

  My brother shot the hand with the shotgun, then the hand fled. It slivered back the way it came from, not leaving a trace of its existence. My brother slowed down to look at the rounds. “I only have two rounds left, so we need to use them wisely.” I agreed we needed to get out of this building now. We grabbed some of the food and ran, trying to be as hasty as possible.

  We left the building, going back to the building in hopes of finding an escape. I focused on a few rocks in the blurry distance, and they had the same symbol as my axe, but a little brighter and there seemed to be no fire where the rocks were. We didn’t have any other direction, so it was promising. Maybe the symbol is leading me somewhere.

  I started to get excited that the symbol could be leading me to an exit. At this point, I was just looking for anything to escape this fire. “Brother, let's go in that direction!” I kept running. “It looks promising!” We continued running towards the 3 rocks, hoping to find a way out of the fire.

  As we ran to the rocks, I saw more and more debris. Beds, windows, doors, and pictures were all in the mess of the ruins of this vilge. When we got to the 3 rocks, I was still in the fire, to my confusion.

  “What?” I started to worry and panic, as I thought we would be out of the fire by now. How long does this fire go for? “I thought-”

  Aubin cut me off, as he wasn’t going to slow down. “Let’s keep going.” I nodded and kept going.

  Even with my brother’s words, I started to get more worried as I thought there was no fire from here. My pace increased with each step from where I started, and I still was desperately trying to find a way out.

  Now, in a frenzy, I ran faster and faster. Suddenly, a spot on the ground caught onto my leg, forcing me to trip and crash into gss and debris. Ash covered my face and body, making it difficult to see. I struggled back up, not ready to give up yet. Now annoyed, I got ready to go faster, but then saw people in the distance.

  I couldn’t make out fully who it was from here, but in the distance, they looked like people. As I drew closer in case they needed help, hope filled my heart once more. Maybe these people were going to rescue us, or they were survivors who knew what. was going on. When my vision returned, I realized what it was. My veins turned to ice, my body froze quickly after. It was as if my body could not take in what I saw. They were my parents.