There was a man in the town. You could often see him at early hours before the down, when all the night drunkers are already sleeping in their burrovs and traffic lights are turned into "do what the hell you want" mode.

If you sit silently on one of the benches close to the town center, you could hear him from afar - that clanking sound he produces. People used to call him Asphwood - short from Asphalt Woodpecker, the name, local news gave him

What was his deal with the asphalt, you ask. Well, the cracks bothered him. He was always seen wearing some old brown jumpsuit; he had a leather belt with dozens of foot long metal U-shaped brackets tuged in around his waste. Each night he used to go to the streets in search of new cracks in asphalt, and, if  he find one, he would "stitch" it with brackets using his sledgehammer to drive them in. If someone would ask him, why he's doing it, he would throw, muffled by his beard: "Cracken!".

It was going on for years. People were forgeting about him and ocassionally remembering again. Media took a laugh of him, locals were making memes about Asphwood and the Cracken, posting selfies and videos of encounters with crazy old man on social media.

It all was joy and great fun... Untill Cracken came.

One morning, right in the center of the town, a noticable bulge appeared in the middle of the roadway. During the day it has grown into a quite massive hill all covered with cracks in the asphalt casing. Local news were making their reports, locals people have gathered around, discussing the event, but noone noticed that local birds and stray dogs went silent.

Suddenly, the whole hill shaked. Deafening roar rolled across the streets. Flakes of asphalt started to peal off of the body of colossal beast as it begun to rise from the ground. People were running in terror, the whole ground shaked and buildings were peppring streets with shattered glass. Everyone felt like it was the end of the world.

Few days later it became obvious that the beast can not leave the ground, as if something was holding it in. A crowd has gathered surrounding it, held at a distance by the fence sections, installed by the authorities around the "area of impact". Cracken's roars have become weaker, and the creature was no longer making attempts to free itself. 

There's hundrets of videos were made of what happened then. One figure walked though the wall of people towards the beast. A bearded man in a jumpsuit handling sledgehammer and meter long iron pole. He climbed ontop of the beast's head, positioned the pole and hammered it in under the rolls of Cracken's moans and convusions. Then the beast became silent and motionless. The man put the sledgehammer down and sat. He was looking at the sky for few minutes, then climbed down and walked away.

Examining the body of the Cracken showed that it had numerous tentacles attached to its head. They were spread around under the ground for hundreds of meters, some so close to the surface that cracks have apeared. The further investigation discovered the pattern in the layout of asphalt cracks. Like a rays, they all were positioned as if leading towards the mutual center - the head of the creature. All cracks within the pattern layout were "stitched" with metal braced effectively pinning the undelaying tentacles down.

Then the area was cleared. Tentacles were unearthed and the carcas of the creature was taken out fore a study. Apparently, the monster was slowly growing under the layer of soil, spreading his tentacles to absorb nutrients from large area, as it were tree roots. Then the time to hatch came.

The hole in the ground was filled, and the roadway was restored. Eventually everyone have forgotten abouy the incident.

And what happened to the Asphwood? Well, there were no crazy oldman hammering the ground since. But once, I guess, I saw him, when I was walking in the park with my family. He walked past us. With no beard, dressed like a regulr person he looked much younger... Mostly unrecognizable. But it was the slight glimpse of that fire in his eyes that made me sure.