“Thank goodness. I can’t count how many times I escaped death by now,” Drake said, relieved. He was afraid his luck would run out. He had to hold on to it until they reached safety.
“Yeah, me too” Steve agreed, “How did you know they would fight and not eat you together?”
“I didn’t. It was a feeling based on some observations. They don’t communicate with each other, and I’ve never seen them work together before. Also, they don’t seem to have any intelligence. They’re just focused on eating humans for some reason, and nothing else. To take their precious food… they wouldn’t just settle for a small portion or scraps.”
“Then we could have really died. That’s crazy!”
“I couldn’t think of anything else, so we would have died anyway.”
Steve paused. “You could have just left me there to die when the ant was chasing me, but you didn’t. You came and saved me, taking the ant and risking your life. Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” Drake said modestly. “The grasshopper would have chased me anyways, so at worst, I would have died rather than both of us.” One person dying was better than two in Drake’s mind. Not many people would think in such a rational way, though. Drake wanted to at least save Steve as a resolution for not protecting Billie.
There was some light in the sky, signaling dawn had arrived. The two could make out the warm glow of the sun in the distance, at the horizon. It comforted them from the unusually chilly morning air. Knowing the direction of sunrise meant they knew the direction of Cyll; they were both East. But they didn’t need it anymore. They could hear noise from that direction, signaling a large population. They were at Cyll at last.
The two walked towards the source of the commotion. Something was wrong. Eventually, the trees made way for roads and buildings. They had reached an opening surrounded by buildings. The horrific sight before them made them stop dead in their tracks. Their hope instantly plummeted.
Terrorizing the city were giant black animals, the same ones that Drake had seen countless times the night before. These monsters were destroying the city and eating humans. They were scooping up people by the handfuls. They shoved these handfuls into their mouths and swallowed them whole so that they could get another one in. The humans tried to run away, but they couldn’t go anywhere; there was nowhere safe. The mutants were everywhere.
There were some differences in the terrifying scenes Drake had seen at Beil and those here: Most of the creatures here seemed to have once been rodents, before they morphed into these abominations. Further, these ones were much larger, presumably due to the sheer quantity of humans they were eating. There were literal Godzillas: Lizards reaching 5 to 10 storeys tall! The mutants were hurriedly eating their meals, as if they didn’t get as much as possible, others would take the precious food. On the other hand, quite literally, were the humans, who were like ants scattering away in panic when they are attacked or disturbed. The roles of humans and animals were ironically reversed.
In the middle of all the panic and chaos were Drake and Steve. Drake stood there for a full minute, trying to understand what was going on. A chill went sown his spine. His one hope, Cyll, was taken over. How did this happen? How did the creatures reach here? Why were there so many?
“Come on,” Steve seemed to understand quickly. He urged Drake to move. “Let’s look at the situation.”
A stunned Drake moved to follow Steve. Was there any possibility for safety here? The woods seemed like a safer place to be. Maybe they should turn back and hide in the corn farm and await rescue.
The two followed groups of people who were headed somewhere. They reached a plaza, where around a hundred people were gathered around a helicopter. Soldiers were fighting off mutants from getting there, but not very successfully. They had no knowledge of the enemy they were fighting against, and their weapons weren’t effective for use against the enemy. They would do better to distract and lead the creatures elsewhere, but that place would have to have a decent number of humans as well. There was no way to trap the things. Killing them was almost impossible as bullets wouldn’t get deep enough into their bodies, and they prioritized eating over even surviving fatal wounds. Drake noticed that the creatures seemed to be regenerating slowly every time they ate, on top of growing. The only way it seemed possible to defeat them was to use more powerful weapons, which would be dangerous to use in an area full of civilians. Then again, they would probably die anyway. The higher-ups should have thought of this by now, meaning the soldiers didn’t have large weapons at their Cyll base.
Around the helicopter, everyone was fighting for a seat on it. The soldiers didn’t know how to choose people to get on it. Who were they to measure the value of each human life?
“Looks like there’s no way to escape the city besides on foot. We should leave,” Steve accepted defeat.
Drake followed him out of the plaza to where there seemed to be fewer people, his mind slowly catching up. This whole time, Drake thought that the creatures had come from the meteorite. He had wondered how they had gotten so far from the crash site, back when he encountered the toad, the spider, and the ant and the grasshopper. It hadn’t come to him that they could be unrelated. That these creatures were all once normal Earth animals which had somehow all mutated into monsters at once. How and why did this happen? Where did this happen? Is the whole country in this state? The whole world?! No, none of those questions mattered to Drake right now. His mind was focused on survival. The important question was: What could he do now? Steve was wondering the same. Everyone in the city was.
Drake stopped moving. He had spent the whole night trying to reach here. It had all his hopes riding on it. But to throw him and his hard work away—it was unacceptable to him. He had worked hard to survive till now, but the circumstances had changed. The “safety” he was hoping for did not exist. What was the point of surviving now? Just to live a little longer in this apocalyptic world? It seemed pointless and weak to live a miserable life hiding and scavenging. So then why not fight till his dying breath? He would rather take down some mutants and fight than resign to his death.
“Steve, I don’t know what you plan to do, but I can’t just give up. I want to fight. I’ll do whatever I can to give some payback to those things before dying. I made a promise to myself earlier, that I would kill all of them,” Drake looked at Steve, “I want to try to keep it.”
“Huh? Wait, are you leaving me?” Steve asked. Drake nodded. “We can find somewhere safe and survive together…”
Drake shook his head “In the woods? And live in fear, eating corn for who knows how long?” It was clear that no one would rescue them. The monsters were probably not just in Cyll and Beil. “Look at the soldiers fighting. We can help them with our knowledge of these things. Now is the best time to fight. I don’t want to regret it later.”
Steve was surprised by Drake’s fighting spirit, but was unsure about practically running to his death.
“You don’t have to come with me. Thanks for sticking with me during the journey.” Drake turned and headed back towards the plaza.
On his way, he heard a sound above him. He looked up just in time to see that a mutant had climbed onto the tall building beside him, and was peering down at him. As it did so, a part of the building crumbled under stress due to its weight. A few cement chunks were now falling towards Drake. In the time it took for him to realize that, they were right above him. He knew he couldn't move in time to evade them all. Even so, his body instinctively pushed the ground and tried to move his head away from the projectiles, and let the body take the brunt of the attack. The maneuver failed. Drake instinctively closed his eyes, not that it would help, as a hard chunk of cement fell on his head. That was the last thing he saw before he fell onto the ground, unconscious…
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