Shoba POV

Compelled by the extraordinary phenomenon unfolding, I retraced my steps, hurrying toward the source of the commotion. As I neared the anomaly, a sense of unease gripped me. It was undeniably real, not a figment of my imagination or a trick of light as I hoped to have believed. There right in front of me, was a dark fissure bisected a shimmering, oval-shaped bubble against the air. Standing close, the sounds of static and crackling filled my ears, reminiscent of firewood burning intensely.

"A portal? That's... it can't be," I whispered to myself, struggling to reconcile the scene with reality.

 Around me, faces mirrored my disbelief, each person cautiously circling the inexplicable apparition.

"Is this even possible?" murmured an old man clad in fishing attire, his voice tinged with awe and confusion. Beside him stood a younger man with olve skin, who daringly inched closer to the distortion. As he reached out, curiosity driving his movements, the older man reacted with alarm and swiftly batted the little hand away.

"Have you lost your mind, boy!" the older man exclaimed.

"Ouch... I just wanted to see if it was real," the younger man replied, rubbing his hand with a look as though he felt he was unfairly wronged.

Among the crowd, I recognized a familiar face, a woman who lived a few floors below in our building. She was known for her over-affection towards her ginger kitten, which she often held in a tight, loving embrace refusing to let it go. Although I imagine if the kitten could talk he'd demand to be unhanded by her tight bearish hug most of the time. True to her habit, she had brought the kitten along tonight, cradling it even amidst the chaos and uncertainty surrounding us.

"Mr. Fujiwara," the woman from my building called out anxiously to the astute man beside her. He was slender, with distinctive square horn-rimmed glasses.

"What is that?" she asked, her gaze fixed on the portal.

Mr. Fujiwara, always composed, adjusted his glasses and stroked his chin thoughtfully. "It seems to be a kind of rift, though such a thing seems beyond the realm of possibility," he spoke. I noticed a half-smoked cigarette tucked behind his ear, an unusual sight as he was seldom seen without one either in hand or mouth. The group began conversing with different possibilties. 

"Should we alert someone?"

"Yeah, but who?"

"Don't worry; I'm already calling the police..."

"Wait! Something's happening!"

All of our eyes were fixed on the floating portal before us. Within that dark crevice gaping at its center, I began to see something slowly emerging from the void. Something pale... a hand? Yes, it was a hand, followed by a sleeve. Someone's arm. The tense atmosphere around me was almost suffocating as we endured the stifled patience of waiting to see what would happen next.

I couldn't have guessed what might emerge closely after the hand, but I certainly wasn't expecting this.

Once the entire sleeve was halfway through, the rest of the arm suddenly shot out and landed on the ground. My eyes widened in horror as I could do nothing but helplessly stare at the severed arm, oozing thick carmine liquid from its joint. 

A cold silence fell upon us all. But then...

"GRAAAAAAH!"

"WHAT THE HELL! R-R-RUN!"

Chaos ensued as most of the crowd scattered away from the portal. Many of the elderly were nudged aside or fell over in the panic. I cast a stunned gaze at everyone. Only myself, Mr. Fujiwara, the man dressed in a fisherman's garb, and a few others took only a few steps back but we remained relatively close to the portal

I noticed a clear air of vigilance suddenly surrounding them. It seemed they were preparing themselves for whatever was poised to emerge next.

I felt an icy frost drifting against the side of my face. 

'Something...something else was here with us!' I could feel it, and then a rougue voice snarled into existence. Almost answering my chaotic thoughts

"Kukukuku...begin."

My eyes shot open. This time, I heard it clearly—a sinister voice cutting through the air, unmistakable and chilling.

'Wh-who...what is that?'

I frantically tossed my gaze towards the faces of those nearby. Judging by their pale expressions, they heard it too.

'Damn, damn, what the hell is going on tonight?'

I felt my fists clench tightly, my knuckles turning white. Fear gripped me, and I had no shame in admitting that truth.

Mr. Fujiwara was the first to speak.

"We need to... l-leave." The moment those words left his quivering lips, I heard a frightening sound directly behind me.

Wuwuwuwuwu

Almost instinctively, my body froze, as though a gun was pressed against my skull. I had never felt such a sensation in my entire life. Fear? This was something far beyond that. I knew any wrong move, even a misplaced breath, could mean death.

"Kukuku...you...boy...you can hear me?"

An icily raspy voice stroked the nape of my neck.

 Now, I was almost certain something was behind me. My first instinct was to signal the others, but as my eyes shakily shifted towards them, I saw only their heels and backs—they were running?

"You see? Kukukuku... Weaklings! Humans...they are all so...weak!" the sinister voice exclaimed.

The temperature plummeted, turning the air bone-chillingly cold. I heard my teeth softly clattering against one another. The air around me began to tremble. That same whirring sound I heard before the arrival of the portal resurfaced. 

This time, however, countless portals began forming all around.

"They say in the face of disaster, lesser beings tend to form coalitions to overcome the threat of extinction," the raspy and somewhat darkly poised voice said.

"Boy, I welcome you to the beginning of humankind's end... kuku-enjoy the nightmare."

From one portal, I noticed the tail of a convertible emerging; from another, the front tire of a motorcycle appeared. The top of a building slowly materialized through another. My eyes jumped from portal to portal, anguish strangling my fast-beating heart. I braced myself, almost certain of what was about to happen next. 

Time seemed to stand still, seconds stretching into agonizing minutes. The distant hoot of an owl echoed again. I lowered my eyelids, tightly scrunching them together and biting my lower lip, anticipating the moment when time would resume its flow.

Surely...I...I was still dreaming?

Shreeeeeee

Vrooooooom

Crash!

"N-n-noooooooo!"

"Ahhhhhhhhh-HELP!"

BOOOOOOM

"Arghh!"

The song of carnage and disaster shattered my once predictable and somewhat boring world. The screams of people around me were drowned out by the barrage of objects being ejected from the portal. A car pinned my neighbor against the wall, while the top of a building flattened a group trying to flee. The fisherman struggled to lift a heavy motorcycle off a young boy, whose legs were already broken, with blood splattered against the cold ground like some kind of fictional game. I turned to see the chubby woman who lived a few floors above me crouched in a corner, sobbing, her nightgown covered in blood and remains of her cat.

 Mr. Fujiwara's corpse hung from a lamppost, half of his body missing, with a lifeless glare against his eyes.

Even now, all I could think about was how long it would take to wake up from this nightmare. My brain had a peculiar way of processing information. The doctor who diagnosed me as a child once said I could notice every small detail, but that it wasn't a healthy way for the human brain to operate. I wasn't sure if I still believed this was all a dream, yet the scene before my eyes left me in a serene state I had never felt before. 

I felt, somewhat, at peace. Almost as though I expected something like this...to one day happen.

I might have remained there, idle and unmoving, had it not been for the middle-aged woman who suddenly ran towards me and grabbed my shirt forcefully

"HELP ME! Please, you have to help! My daughter... she's missing... HELP ME!"

 I finally feel what I should've been feeling moments ago. Seeing her dried tears and the mucus running down her nostrils. The disheveled hair along with those rattling fear-stricken eyes. She's drawn me by force back into reality. I can feel my body listening to me again. 

"Y-yes, let's... let's find her," I managed to reply without a second thought, though my voice lacked noticeable conviction I instinctively responded to her distress.

As we started to move, I glanced back, feeling the lingering cold presence of the sinister voice that had initiated this chaos still lurking. A heaviness trailed down my throat as I swallowed.

Together, the woman and I navigated the pandemonium, my senses overwhelmed by the scenes of tragedy around us. This night marked my first encounter with death, and it was mercilessly prolific. I suppressed the urge to be sick as we darted through the shadows of the apartment complex, the air filled with screams and the frantic rush of people escaping.

Ten agonizing minutes passed with no sign of her daughter. Rounding a corner, we came upon a dead end at a small open storage room for rubbish bins. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a small, still figure near one of the bins.

"Shea! Is that you, Shea?" The woman's voice cracked as she pushed past me. 

I instinctively grabbed her wrist, sensing something amiss. The figure remained motionless, eerily unaffected by our presence or noise.

'S-something's wrong.'

"Let me go! That's my Shea, I have to get to her!" she protested, wrenching her wrist free from my grasp. 

My hand fell to my side, a heavy sense of dread settling over me. She moved closer to the still figure, her voice filled with a mix of hope and fear.

"My darling, it's me... your mummy's here. Come to me, Shea, please—"

As she reached out towards the figure, a cold realization dawned on me, sending shivers down my spine. The situation was far more perilous than it seemed, and I braced myself for what might come next.

*Splishhhh!*

 A shocking burst of crimson erupted into the air, and my heart almost stopped for a moment.

 The woman's lifeless form crumpled to the ground, her head gruesomely rolled off her neck and landed against the cold ground. Numb with shock, my legs gave way, and I found myself sitting on the cold, hard ground, struggling to comprehend the horrific sight.

I was transfixed by the terror unfolding before me. The figure I had mistaken for a child was morphing into a monstrous entity. 

The best way I could describe it, was a mass of obsidian slime, expanding and contorting into a towering, nightmarish form. Standing at least nine feet tall, I could hardly breathe upon watching this  grotesque mass of oozing, bubbling flesh, with a myriad of eyes and mouths that writhed and pulsed across its surface.

 It was like a creature from ancient myths, an abomination defying the laws of nature and morality.

Overcome with terror and revulsion, I forced myself to turn and flee. My legs carried me as fast as they could, the wind cutting sharply against my face. Panting for breath, I ran, propelled by the fear of the unspeakable horror that seemed to be pursuing me. Stopping was not an option; it meant certain death.

As I dashed through the maelstrom of destruction, I desperately tried to block out the nightmarish scenes around me. The landscape was a scene of despair—lifeless bodies of all ages scattered amidst the wreckage, buildings engulfed in flames, and cars grotesquely embedded in the sides of skyscrapers. It was as though I had plunged into a living nightmare, a realm of despair with no apparent escape.

"Wh-what is happening?" I gasped, my voice barely audible over the chaos and shortness of my breath as I fled down the streets

Exhaustion began to gnaw at my body, and my gaze dropped to my feet, which moved with diminishing energy. Suddenly, I came to a staggering halt. Bent over, gasping for breath, tears expectantly started to stream down my face as I unleashed a scream of anguish into the night sky. Overwhelmed, I retched, the stress and horror proving too much to contain. 

After several moments, I mustered the strength to lift my head, I wiped my mouth and tried to fester a small amount of clarity,

'my head...my head hurts so much...'

My mind was clouded with confusion and fear. I felt a distress like no other hanging onto my thoughts. Not even my illness had ever left me in such a mental state.

The streets of Tokyo lay before me, transformed into a scene of apocalyptic destruction. The city, usually so vibrant and alive, now resembled a canvas of the apocalypse, its once-beautiful night sky obscured by the sinister glow of fires.

"M-madness..." I stammer with deep anguish washed over my dried lips.

The golden embers rising into the air were like twisted flowers blooming in a garden of despair.

Buildings, once symbols of architectural marvels, were now shattered by the inexplicable arrival of monstrous entities. A colossal wing from an airplane had cleaved through a towering skyscraper, reducing it to rubble. Cars were no more than twisted metal and broken glass, scattered like discarded toys. The roads, once bustling with life, were now ravaged, pitted with craters, and littered with debris.

The streets, once avenues of commerce and community, had become rivers of chaos, with water spilling from broken mains. The electric crackle of exposed wires added a sinister air to the scene, and fallen telephone poles lay strewn about, silent witnesses to the catastrophe that had befallen the city.

And then it dawned upon me, that this was something long overdue, a grim reminder of the fragility of our world and the terrifying power of forces beyond our understanding which lay in wait.

A sudden pang of fear jolted me at the thought of my mother. The faces of the women closest to my heart flashed before me, igniting a deep, primal fear. My body trembled uncontrollably as if plunged into freezing waters, every nerve ending screaming in terror. Without a second thought, I turned and dashed down the shadowed streets, the ominous, twilight sky a silent observer of my desperate flight.

The night had transformed into an endless fall into the darkest depths of my worst nightmares. 

The moon, once a symbol of tranquility, now loomed over me with an almost demonic presence, its cold, distant light watching me run, adding to the overwhelming sense of dread.

 Every step I took was a race against an unseen, malevolent force, an escape for survival from a reality that had turned monstrously against us all.

'Mother...Ringo...please be safe.'