Chapter 2 : Awakening

  He kept running.

  The streets reeked of smoke and echoed with phantom screams. Flames licked the horizon, a jagged orange line against the bruised sky, yet all that consumed him was the image of that small apartment on the third floor of a quiet lane. Each stride sent jolts of fire up his legs, his lungs raw with effort, but he didn’t stop.

  Would it have been different if I’d helped?

  The thought clawed at him, a relentless echo. That woman. Her daughter. Dead. And he, a witness paralyzed by fear. Could he have saved them? Should he have?

  His foot snagged.

  CLANG.

  He tumbled, the impact jarring his bones as he skidded across the rough asphalt. A searing pain shot up his arm.

  "Dammit," he hissed, pushing himself up to see what had felled him.

  Steel.

  One of them. A knight. Rust had bloomed across its black armor like a morbid garden, the air around it thick with the cloying stench of rot, mingled with the metallic tang of old blood and something ancient, something profoundly wrong. His heart hammered against his ribs as he scrambled back, ready to bolt again… but the knight remained still, a fallen effigy of terror.

  It was already dead.

  He stared, breath catching in his throat. The image of the woman, the child – their broken limbs, their vacant eyes – surged back, a fresh wave of helplessness crashing over him, instantly boiling into a white-hot rage.

  Snarling, he shoved the knight’s corpse. It rolled with a disturbing lightness, the rusted joints groaning in protest. As the body turned, a wave of putrid, wet rot assaulted his nostrils.

  The helmet clanged on the road, revealing a skull barely clinging to remnants of decaying flesh. Empty sockets stared up at the indifferent sky.

  And embedded deep in the side of the helm, a kitchen knife. Small, ordinary, its blade driven cleanly through the rusted metal.

  Of all things, he thought, the irony a bitter taste on his tongue. A kitchen knife.

  Barely any blood marred the scene. What little remained was black and viscous, thick with the same foul, ancient decay.

  A faint, rhythmic thumping drew his attention – not hostile, but heavy, like something soft and sodden slapping against a wall.

  He turned towards the sound and saw a man slumped against a crumbling brick wall.

  The stranger wore a stained kitchen apron, his shirt a canvas of dark, wet red. A short, jagged cleaver was buried deep in his side. No armor. Just bare feet resting in a pool of his own blood, his face pale and still.

  This man had done what he hadn’t. He had fought back.

  He knelt beside him, the rough stone cold beneath his knees, and gently closed the man’s vacant eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured, the words a hollow whisper in the desolate street.

  He gripped the hilt of the cleaver, the rough metal slick beneath his fingers. He hesitated, a tremor running through his hand.

  Then he pulled.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  The blade slid free with a wet squelch, a sickening sound that echoed the emptiness in his gut. He intended to leave it, to let it rest beside the fallen man.

  But then—

  Screams.

  Distant, yet undeniably real. Still happening.

  He looked down at the cleaver, its edge glinting dully in the fading light, then back at the silent figure against the wall. One last time.

  And kept moving.

  He ran, the city a blur of smoke and shadow around him. Pain had become a dull throb in his legs, his lungs screaming for air, but the burning need to reach his family eclipsed everything.

  His building loomed ahead, a fragile beacon in the surrounding chaos. He turned the corner—and froze.

  The staircase leading up to the apartment was a gruesome tableau, drenched in thick, wet blood.

  It painted the concrete steps in broad, horrifying strokes. Smeared handprints, dark drag marks leading upwards.

  His grip tightened on the cleaver, the metal digging into his palm.

  Fear was a distant whisper now, overshadowed by something colder, something resolute.

  He surged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, his boots slipping on the slick crimson surface. The metallic tang of blood filled his nostrils, mingling with the pervasive rot.

  Near the entrance, two figures fought with desperate ferocity – makeshift spears clutched in their hands, fending off a pair of rusted knights. The spears were crude extensions of desperation: kitchen knives duct-taped to splintered mop handles, broomsticks wielded with trembling force.

  Against the odds, it was working.

  Two other knights lay sprawled nearby, motionless heaps of rusted metal and bone. The defenders had erected a flimsy barricade of overturned chairs, broken shelves, and tables, a fragile bulwark against the encroaching horror.

  The man with the duct-taped knife moved with a grim focus, his eyes darting between the approaching knight and the precarious barrier. He angled his thrusts, aiming for the vulnerable gaps in the rusted armor, using an overturned table as a shield. His breath came in ragged gasps, his face streaked with sweat and grime.

  The other defender screamed with each wild thrust of his broomstick, his movements fueled more by terror than precision.

  The overhead lights buzzed with a frantic energy, a discordant hum that underscored the wet clash of makeshift weapons against rusted metal and desperate, ragged breaths.

  None of them had noticed him, a silent figure emerging from the blood-soaked stairwell.

  Not the knights, their movements driven by a relentless, unnatural purpose. Not the defenders, their gazes fixed on the immediate threat.

  He had a choice. A fleeting moment. A desperate chance.

  A raw, visceral rage surged through him, eclipsing his fear.

  That woman’s vacant stare.

  The child’s small, broken body.

  His family. Cathy’s warm smile. Rick’s steady hand on his shoulder. Jane’s playful jab.

  He couldn’t let this continue.

  He flipped his grip on the cleaver, the cold metal a sudden extension of his will, the dull edge now pointed backward. He lunged forward with a guttural cry.

  “RAAHHH!”

  He drove the cleaver straight into the exposed neck joint of the nearest knight.

  CLANK.

  A screech of protesting metal, followed by a sickening snap. The knight’s head lolled to the side, then came completely loose, clattering onto the blood-soaked floor.

  The headless body collapsed, its rusted armor echoing dully. But the cleaver was wedged tight. He couldn’t pull it free.

  He looked up—

  Too late.

  The second knight was already upon him, a rusted mace whistling through the air in a deadly arc.

  He saw it coming, a brutal end rushing towards him.

  His body tensed, bracing for the inevitable.

  This is it.

  A fleeting image flashed through his mind: his mother’s smile that morning, a simple gesture of love before he’d stepped out into a world that no longer existed.

  But then—

  SPLUTCH.

  The makeshift spear, wielded by the focused defender, slammed through the knight’s helmet, piercing the rusted metal and finding purchase between the glowing red eyes.

  The knight’s body spasmed, a final, jerky twitch, before collapsing in a heap.

  Conner stumbled backward, breath stolen, his vision blurring.

  The man who had thrown the spear grunted, yanking it free from the knight’s head with a sickening twist. Dark, foul-smelling blood sprayed across the landing.

  The world swam before Conner’s eyes.

  But something else cut through the haze.

  A dull flicker of light, like a dying ember, caught his attention to his right.

  A shape materialized in the air, rigid and flat, glowing faintly with an unnatural luminescence. It hung suspended, a broken screen refusing to shut off, its edges jagged and shifting with an ethereal hum. A deep, unnatural shade clung to it, as if the very light fought against an encroaching darkness.

  At the top—

  CONNER REED

  Stark. Plain. No greeting. Just black text against a glowing void.

  Below it, scattered symbols twisted in distorted code, flickering in and out like glimpses of something forbidden.

  He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

  He just stared, chest heaving, as the otherworldly glow painted his face in strange hues.

  “Good,” the man with the spear said, his voice rough with exertion. “You can see it too, can’t you?”

  A pause hung in the blood-soaked air.

  “I thought I was the only one going crazy.”

  Conner couldn't said anything.

  He just kept staring at his own name, glowing with an impossible light in that impossible window.