Ruined City

C slowly regained consciousness; laying on his back and barely being able to move. A sharp pain flooded his abdomen and neck, and he assumed that his torso was numbed because of the hit. He felt several chunks of concrete weighing him down, adding much unneeded pain to his body. He laid in place for almost a minute, and heard only complete silence. He knew he was not dead, however, as the burning nerves in his body told him otherwise. C was able to move his arms slowly and push of the debris. He then finally mustered enough strength to move his neck, and observed the nearby area. C felt his stomach drop as he caught his first glimpse of his situation.

The entire city looked completely war-torn, with buildings nearly crumbling under their own weight and rubble blanketing the streets in the place of cars. The sky was covered with massive clouds of dust, which blocked the sun and created an artificial night. C closed his eyes, with the numbness in his torso slowly dissipating, feeling as if he had just been slashed with a knife. C looked up and saw a jacket on the floor several meters from him. 

He sat up and struggled to his feet, beginning the walk towards it. Each step he took renewed the sharp pain in his abdomen, making the three meter walk seem much longer than it actually was. Upon reaching the jacket, C reached inside its pockets and felt only a watch. He took it out and checked the time - 2:26 - although he was not sure if it was still functional. C put the watch back in the jacket, even with the owner being nowhere in sight. C looked at the pit. The second, quadrupedal creature was gone, but the first one was still there; limp and lifeless. C then heard something coming from the distance. It had loud, booming footsteps, which shook the earth under C. This prompted C to immediately hobbled into a building.

He heard the footsteps slowly become louder as the creature came closer to the building. C tried to breathe quietly, but he felt as if his heartbeats were loud enough to be heard from outside. The footsteps came closer, until C could hear them right next to the building. C froze; if it noticed him, he could not run due to his injuries. He had only one choice, and looked out of the door frame. It was the quadrupedal creature that fired at the crowd earlier, moving slowly past the building. C then glanced at a more frightening sight: three smaller, tripedal, creatures were following it, as if they formed an interspecific pack. C slid back into his hiding spot; if these smaller creatures saw him, then they could easily enter the building and dispose of him. The larger creature moved on, away from the building. He also heard the smaller creatures follow it, making headache-inducing scratching noises on the concrete as they walked. C waited for a couple seconds after the noises were reduced to nothing, and came out from his hiding spot. He then felt a growing worry, and immediately headed back to the office.

C stood at the front of the destroyed building, with its leftmost side completely collapsed and its front door blocked by the fallen upper floor. He looked around the area for a way in, and saw a window, adorned dubiously with broken glass. He peeked in, but saw no one inside. He thought momentarily about going inside, but pieced together that he was knocked out for a while with the nearly destroyed cityscape and the lack of any human activity apart from his own.

"Is anyone in there?" he shouted into the desolate rooms, hoping to get a response - though mainly he was worried about Fredrick.

After hearing no response, C decided to move on. The next location that he thought of checking was the police station, and started a trek towards the area. Along the way, C searched through the abandoned buildings, looking for either other survivors or first-aid supplies. He found nothing in the apartments and houses he searched, only finding knick knacks, furniture, and food sullied by concrete and wooded dust. 

After around half an hour, he reached a convenience store and peered into its interior. Inside, it seemed as if no one had touched it, even during the time C was knocked out. Other than the broken shelves and debris, most of the supplies were left untouched. C found this odd. In this situation, why would people refrain from taking anything, with even the food remaining untouched? C came to one conclusion: there was nobody left to steal it. The thought made C feel uneasy. What if he was the only one left? After looking through the snacks and medicine, C finally found some first-aid supplies in one of the rooms at the back. He patched himself up – mostly just wrapping his torso – and rested for a while. 

After a short period of time, C got up, and was relieved that the sharp pain was gone. He took some supplies, put them in a backpack he took from inside the store, and left towards the station. A brief walk later, and C passed the cafe that him and Fredrick stayed at a two days prior. He peered in, and noticed that it was relatively untouched. From this, C knew that the station was mere minutes away.

C walked across a familiar crosswalk, and headed down an empty sidewalk. He turned and walked near the station's entrance. Empty. He knocked on the door, and waited. After a few seconds of no response, C walked in cautiously. He looked around the rooms, and saw that there was truly no one in the building; he had expected at least a few people to be bunkered inside. C moved swiftly to the lockers, picking up a 1911 and three magazines on the way, and picked up a pouch and a holster. He looked around the locker rooms for a bit, before heading back out into the city. With absolutely no one around, C decided to find a way out of the city. Worst case scenario, he could survive off of gathering and hunting now that he had a firearm. First things first, he wanted to check his house.

Along the way to his house, C passed the park, and gazed momentarily at the tranquil aura provided by it. The atmosphere was interrupted by a massive shockwave, coming from near the center of the city, that seemingly shook the buildings around C. C, himself, was almost thrown onto his back from the blast. C got up, and regained his footing, despite his legs shaking as if he had been hit by a car. He looked to the right, where the explosion came from, and saw a pillar of smoke rise into the sky. The smoke was nearby, so C picked up his pace towards his house. A ringing tormented C, who believed that his ears might have been permanently damaged by the explosion, but soon dissipated once he neared his house.

To his surprise, C's house was left mostly untouched. His car, on the other hand, was heavily damaged; its window was smashed in, its wheels were all flattened with the exception of only the front left tire - which was completely absent - and the hood of the car was pressed inwards. C assumed that someone had tried to use it as cover from the attackers, as several large holes, which were too large to be bullet holes, were spotted on the nearby concrete. 

C went up to his front door, and realized that something was amiss. He opened it and saw that the undamaged exterior was an improper basis on the house's state: the entire roof had caved in, and anything left more than a foot from the outer wall had been completely buried. C then had to rethink of his plan on escaping the city, as his car was left devastated. He then decided to resort to stealing a car. "No one will be using them, anyways." C excused himself.

C looked through the cars on the nearby street. Of the ones that still had all of their vital components, none of them had keys in their interiors. The other cars that C saw were either crushed or partially melted. C did not think too much about how high the temperature must have been to melt sheer metal in such a way. C's search for a car took him back to the eastern hand of the city, where he took a short breather inside a clothes store. 

As C expected, none of the items in the store were touched. Only the windows to the store, which had shattered and spilled glass onto the first meter of the store's interior, had even been affected. C treaded cautiously over the glass, and sat atop the counter next to the register. He plucked the glass from his shoes, and decided to lay down for a while. While the long walk had tired him out, he was no where near comfortable enough to fall asleep, and simply laid on his back for about half an hour. C then got up and decided to keep on looking through the city. As he was about to leave the store, a bizarre noise coaxed him back inside. The noise was similar to a commercial plane flying overhead, except it was much smaller and faster. C played it safe, and waited for the noise to completely vanish before heading out again.

Once the coast was clear, C decided to investigate the nearby parking lot. He entered through the front, and, to his surprise, there were no cars in sight. He walked further into the lot, and saw that the entire structure had collapsed into itself above the first story, crushing any potential cars beyond the first level. C had no choice but to turn back. C went back outside and heard a familiar, noise; static. He walked up to a partially destroyed building, with a large chunk blown out of its top, and looked inside the window. There was a radio sticking out of the debris, which gave C an idea. 

C pulled the window open with  effort and crawled inside. He reached the radio, and tried to tune its frequency. After about a minute of changing the dial, he finally heard a voice. The voice was overlayed with loud static and was halfway through a line, with C roughly piecing together: "-river east of the urban center. If you are trying to reach the new base directly west from the area, please cross the river from bridges outside of the city. Military patrols will scout the area, but if you're caught alone by the invaders, you're a goner…"

The radio lost signal before C could hear anything else of importance. C thought to himself, "East of the urban center…" He crawled backwards out of the window and thought about the transmission. Even if he were to book it on foot right now, it may take hours to reach a bridge that can lead across the river, and, even then, he has a high chance of being caught if there were any more portals outside of the city. And considering that the military had set up a base right next to the city, that possibility is more likely than he would like it to be. He decided to put it on the back-burner of his mind, and once again continued his pursuit of a car.