Thomas POV

I had been on the road for about four hours now, approaching Tokyo. The journey was smooth and relatively quiet, providing ample time for reflection. I planned to surprise my family after a lengthy absence, feeling a mix of excitement and guilt. There was so much to say, so many moments missed, and things to mend, particularly my marriage. The thought of Ren's reaction upon my arrival was the most daunting. And yet...

How had I ended up in this hellish nightmare instead?

My tires screeched violently as I narrowly avoided another piece of fallen debris on the road. The rain battered down mercilessly, turning the dark gravel into shimmering sheets. As I neared the downtown area, suddenly, the landscape took a noticeable turn for the worse.

The entire place was covered with dismembered bodies, broken-down cars, and giant slabs of metal staked into the hard gravel like butter. I imagined they were somehow torn away from some high-rise building. I was convinced a catastrophe unlike one the world had ever felt before had finally befallen us. Somehow I felt anger more than anything else.

'I warned them! Damn It I warned them this would happen!" I slammed my fist against the steering wheel in anger.

This wasn't the Tokyo I had left behind four years ago.

This was…hell.

Vroooooooom! Skrrr

The deafening roar of my engine echoed through the desolation, a dreadful sound of chaos that underscored the nightmare unfolding around me. The world had transformed into a nightmare I had only dreamt about in the darkness pits of my dreams, where destruction painted the once-familiar landscape in crimson and fire. Each screech of my tires was a discordant note in the dissonant melody of my city's demise. 

In the ghostly glow of shattered streetlights, the reality of the scene unraveled. Dismembered bodies lay strewn across the asphalt, mere remnants of lives now extinguished flashed before my shaken eyes. I could barely keep my eyes straight, bearing witness to the violent convulsions of a city in agony.

 As my vehicle navigated this surreal landscape, the truth settled like a heavy fog: 

Tokyo...had fallen...

'No-pe-perhaps the entire world was now in this state.'

Gently lifting my foot off the pedal, I let my car crawl along the deserted road. The sky above was choked with thick smog, the tallest buildings hidden behind black smoke and the rumble of distant fires. The roads were ravaged, and people were either fleeing or falling—no middle ground. Amid the screams and chaos, I saw people looting, stealing, and fighting, revealing humanity's darker side despite the terror gripping the world. Near a bus stop, a mother shielded her two young children, a long kitchen knife in her hand, ready to defend against attackers.

The despair in her eyes mirrored the possible fate of my own family, filling me with dread. My heart racing, I slammed my foot on the pedal.

"Ringo… Shoba! Please be safe… I'm on my way."

After a harrowing journey marked by narrow escapes and surreal encounters, I arrived at the familiar streets that was once my home. But now the world had transformed into a dystopian landscape. Along the way, I encountered something extraordinary and bizarre. Lurking in the shadows were blueish-skinned entities, their alien presence as baffling as it was a marvel.

Aliens? Or perhaps something else.

The realization dawned on me amidst my racing thoughts. This chaos and those creatures... it couldn't be a coincidence, not with what I knew.

'This... No, they couldn’t have. Did they succeed in removing the veil? Ren, what have you done?'

In different circumstances, curiosity might have drawn me to investigate these extraterrestrial beings, possibly even assisting the government in understanding how to neutralize them. However, the urgency of my family's safety overshadowed such thoughts. I pressed down harder on the accelerator, speeding through the surrounding destruction.

As I navigated the familiar yet altered street, a group of panicked survivors spotted my car. They ran towards me, their voices muffled but desperate as they pounded against my windows, pleading for salvation. The urgency of my mission, coupled with the overwhelming sense of helplessness forced me to make a heart-wrenching decision. I couldn't afford to stop, not even to offer sanctuary to those in dire need. With a heavy heart, I pressed the accelerator, my car roaring forward leaving behind the outstretched hands and faces etched with despair. The haunting echoes of their pleas lingered in my ears until I was far-far away.

'I'm sorry...truly I am...' I bitterly cried biting my lip so hard it bled.

At this point, I could barely think. Ren...my beloved wife. Was all of this carnage down to the handy work of those fellows? I didn't want to believe it. I couldn't believe it. 

Thunder clapped aggressively against the twilight air above me, sending quaking tremors through the land below. I barely managed to steer clear of any impending disasters on the roads. But finally, I had arrived. 

After parking my car, my heart found a moment of solace in the peace of having made it here in one piece. But then, my gaze trailed up the familiar stairwell leading to my eerily undisturbed apartment complex. The silence surrounding the place filled me with more unease than hope. Not for the last time that night, I wished internally for everyone to be okay.

I mustered the courage to finally open the door. A slight, unnatural pause took hold of me as I cast my gaze around the once peaceful neighborhood, which housed the many faces of friends and companions, almost like a close-knit community. Some might even call it a family. The buildings across from me were half-torn from the top down to the middle. All I saw was rubble and faint remnants of human life. Signposts were lodged into the sides of cars. 

And rather than the faces of my nenighbours greeting me, I saw the face of chaos grimly smiling instead. The troubling understanding that this was perhaps merely the beginning of the calamity weighed heavily on me. I tried to keep my thoughts centered on the truth, but the undertones of those 'people's' work were hard to ignore, especially knowing the secrets I had.

"Damn it, Shoba! Please be alive."

Tearing my dreary gaze away from the neighborhood, I race up the apartment stairs, scaling identical floors until I finally reach the seventh floor, just up ahead a red door catches my eager gaze... my home. Sentiments hold no place during such a time, especially when I see the half-opened door creaking lazily with the slightest breeze faintly brushing it open. Without a second thought, I rush inside.

"RINGO!!!! SH-SHOBA!!! WHERE ARE YOU?" I scream a blood-curdling sound that irritates my throat.

Silence responds, leaving my heart in a lurch.

 Through the halls, I move, broken shards crackle beneath my soles. My eyes tremble when I turn the corner into the living area and witness the devastation of my home.

 'E-everything is destroyed? Shit!

Panic sets in as I search for any signs of life.

'Maybe they evacuated in time. Yes! They might've escaped along with the rest of the people when things turned bad.'

I fill my thoughts with that newfound resolve, placing my hands in my pockets and taking out my smartphone. My fingers are sweaty, and I can't shake away the trembling sensation, but I eventually manage to dial Shoba's number.

Anxiety washes through me as I eagerly wait for a response on the other end. Instead, I hear my stomach churn the moment a familiar ringing sound chimes from somewhere deeper into the apartment. 

'Sh-sh-shoba's phone?'

My entire body stiffens as my blood turns cold. I trace the continuous chiming sounds, ringing in a soft rhythm, coming from back toward the dark hall. 

Eventually, I find myself standing in front of Ringo's bedroom door. A splattered handprint of blood stares grimly at me.

My jittering palm falls against the door fearfully. Gently applying enough pressure, I push the door aside. What my eyes discover awaiting me almost breaks the last thread of sanity I held dear tonight.

A foreign tremor courses through every inch of my body. All the composure I had mustered shatters layer by layer in mere moments. My mouth quivers with inaudible sounds; as a stream of tears genlty falls down the sides of my face