Blood flowed like a river in a nightmare, and civilians who were aware of what was happening up in the sky started moving again. Their fear and terror that froze was overcome by the desire to survive.

  Thousands in the district ran as chunks, and bits of flesh and stone slammed and fell towards the upper floors of the buildings, then towards the humans below. Vehicles stopped on their tracks for some reason, and everything fell into a state of panic in mere minutes.

  "Noo, God damn it, work!!"

  "Quickly Drive!!"

  "What are you doing!? Give me the wheels!!"

  "Get out of the damn way!!"

  Voices were now akin to opera in a large theater, voices rang with desperation for their own, loved ones, friends, acquaintances. Dozens were trampled by tens, no, hundreds of feet, and a dozen more were left behind, whether they were children, adults, or the elderly.

  At the farthest location was a boy looking up at the sky, which was the direction of the hideous flying red-fleshed abominations. He backed away slowly, his breathing becoming ragged, and he felt terror as his gaze was met by something he couldn't see.

  Something gazed back at him, his eyes, face, limbs, and then the whole body froze.

  Kalan tried to look away, but he could not; he was stuck in space, now unable to feel his limbs, his chest, or breath, only his mind that was screaming in protest to its own body to look away or close its own eyes.

  'I.I..I have to look away.'

  He couldn't shed a tear, he couldn't shout for help. It was as if he were alone; seconds stretched into minutes for him, and a minute stretched more for a dozen minutes in his own perspective. His own senses were either playing tricks on him or someone was playing with him.

  His own mind was being worn down; he couldn't feel the sense of time anymore. He was about to collapse in mental exhaustion, as he was about to give up, when a hand suddenly covered his own eyes, and darkness washed over his own sight. He felt the coldness of the palm; it was smooth like a porcelain stone, and it kept his own mind tethered at the last possible moment.

  "#####, ########, ##"

  It was the voice of a woman; he couldn't tell who it was, it was too unfamiliar, and she spoke a tongue he didn't understand; it wasn't a language he knew. He recognizes what language foreigners use; however, this wasn't one of them.

  It was utterly different as he thought of the mysterious savior of his. He tried to listen to what language the woman used; however, he found something else. he noticed that all sounds were absolutely muffled, he couldn't hear the melody of the birds, the screeching tires of vehicles, the howl of the wind, or the large sirens that were notifying the civilians. The sounds of the city died.

  It was as if he'd been cast into the vacuum of space, yet he remained cruelly tethered by the crushing weight of the earth. The silence was absolute, a heavy shroud that pressed against his skin. Kalan tried to twitch his hand. The movement felt distant, a flickering signal sent to a limb that no longer recognized his command.

  When his fingers finally stirred, the sensation was sickeningly foreign—as if he were reaching through layers of freezing water to move heavy objects. He had spent so long adrift that he had lost all authority over his own flesh; his body was almost no longer his and was just like a cage of flesh.

  He forced his focus inward, a desperate act of command. It started as a flicker of will, a phantom spark struggling to traverse the long, dark tunnels of his nerves.

  He pushed the signal toward his fingertips first. It felt like trying to light a wet candle; his fingers twitched with a lethargic, mechanical resistance, as if they were made of wood rather than flesh. He had to map them one by one, manually re-registering the existence of his own skin.

  Then, he reached for his chest. He pushed the pulse of awareness deeper, past the collarbone, until he felt the heavy, rhythmic labor of his own heart. It was a terrifying sensation—he was not only hearing it but feeling it as a foreign, drumming weight against his ribs.

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  The cold hand still pressed against his eyes, but now, he could sense his own torso beneath the pressure of the air, anchoring him to the physical world. The signals crawled downward, fighting the gravity that wanted to keep him in that silent, void-like place.

  It was an excruciating recovery. Every inch of movement felt like he was dragging his body through thick, damp, and deep mud, reclaiming the map of his body piece by agonizing piece. And through it all, that woman's voice continued—that strange, rhythmic, foreign language.

  The final circuit closed; the maps of his nerves were fully redrawn. But just as he reclaimed the last of his authority, a second voice pierced the vacuum.

  It didn't arrive through his own ears. There was no indication in the air; it was a sudden, violent intrusion into his very consciousness—a jagged pulse of raw, cold dread that wasn't his. His mind scrambled to process the alien sensation, translating the frantic emotion into a language he could finally name.

  "Run, don't look back."

  The words didn't sound like speech; they felt like a command etched into the back of his eyes, then to his whole body.

  ***

  Kalan bolted, his spindly legs barely keeping pace with his panic. He was desperate to escape whatever had gazed at him from the skies. He lunged for air, his lungs burning as he continued his frantic sprint.

  'Who... who were those?'

  He couldn't stop to think. The only thing he could do was obey the raw, cold instinct pulsing through his veins, driving him forward into the streets. The feeling of fatigue over his own body still felt like foreign for some reason that he couldn't explain.

  Fragments of memory flickered; the ones who had stayed behind. A man and a woman. She had been tall, her skin like flawless porcelain skin with no defects, with black hair that spilled like a dark waterfall down her back. Her blue and black garments whipped and flattered in the wind; the kind of ornate attire found only in pallace halls or high-society dramas.

  His senses were screaming that he was right. The man had been smaller in stature than her, yet Kalan couldn't shake the memory of his presence. It felt as if some invisible force demanded he forget him; but he refused. He clung to the memory, fighting to keep it from slipping away.

  But no matter how hard he gripped the thought, the details dissolved. There was no face, no silhouette, not even the texture of his clothes. Only a haunting, lingering weight remained where a man should have been.

  As the streets were being closed due to the recent horrendous flying abominations, he could hear the heavy, rhythmic tread of marching boots echoing from the main thoroughfares. Civilians were fleeing in the same direction as him; he didn't have to look back to guess what they were running from.

  Loud sirens could be heard throughout the city. Many civilians ran toward the sound as vehicles swerved through the streets. Echoes of cries and frantic worries surrounded him, but he couldn't spare them a glance; he was searching for someone more important than his own life.

  Kalan slowed his pace as he reached a dilapidated apartment building. Though run-down, it was immense—a sprawling monolith that housed thousands of rooms and its own self-contained community of families. He sprinted toward the entrance, where everything had already dissolved into pure chaos.

  His eyes darted from left to right as he saw the tenants preparing for a frantic evacuation. Lines were piling up, making the elevators useless. Gritting his teeth, he chose the stairs. Although the stairwell was quite busy, it was wide enough to allow crowds to surge through—a design choice from a more violent era. This massive apartment was a relic that had outlived most of the buildings constructed after it.

  He reached the fourth floor and sprinted past the corridor's countless rooms until, finally, he saw it.

  [Room F4 R64]

  He skidded to a halt and hurried toward the door, knocking with a desperate urgency.

  'Hurry...'

  "Coming!!!"

  It was the voice of a little girl—a sound that always soothed his worries. It was a voice that helped him overcome anything, the only reason he could keep going.

  The door swung open and he sprang forward. The moment she appeared, he reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her into a tight hug. Kalan couldn’t help himself; after all, she was the only one he had left.He pulled back from the embrace and, with a raspy voice filled with urgency, spoke to her.

  "Get your important belongings, grab our phones and I'll get our money, supplies, don't ask questions yet, an alert with level2 is on active, we need to hurry to the nearby bunkers"

  "Yes b-b"

  "No buts, as I said don't ask me, bring your stuff with us, leave the portraits behind, we will come back here"

  As soon as he spoke those words, Another defeaning explosion rang in the sky at the center of the city, or princely at the center of it, was a flying abomination.