'Fuck me... What happened?' Sera thought as she regained consciousness.
She lay on the ground motionless, with rubble and burning pieces of debris scattered around.
The constant ringing in her ear attempted to drive her insane, while blurred vision adjusted to the surrounding smoke.
She tried moving, but it only caused the immense pain spreading across her body to flare. While trying to hold on to consciousness, her training kicked in and she began checking herself for injuries.
At school, every child received basic survival and medical training. For most, it was useless, but on occasions like this, it was invaluable knowledge.
Sera glanced over her body. Other than a few scrapes, bruises and a couple of small burn marks, she looked okay... Even though she felt like shit...
'What happened?' she asked herself once again.
She tried shaking her head to jumpstart her foggy mind, but a moment later regret filled her heart as burning agony assaulted her skull.
With deep breaths, she stayed motionless, letting the wave of anguish pass by.
'I definitely have a concussion... Well, that sucked...' She thought as the pain reached manageable levels.
Slowly, she sat up and glanced around, and began coughing from the heavy smoke. With quick, experienced moves, she stripped off the dusty, scorched jacket she wore and pressed it close to her mouth.
Her eyes teared up, yet she finally laid eyes upon her immediate surroundings, at the broken pieces of concrete and metal. The small stone fragments mixed with glass shards, and as soon as Sera placed her palms down, blood began trickling from fresh cuts.
She didn't give up, though. Pain continued flaring in her mind, yet she only pressed her limits further. She pushed herself off the ground and stood on shaky legs.
After coughing a few more times, she straightened her body, and finally gazed upon the destruction... It was horrific...
The entire street was in flames, maybe even the whole city! All around her, the road was covered in debris from destroyed buildings, but even the ones still standing were only moments away from crumbling...
And the dead... there were so many... Just lying on the street, motionless... broken corpses with broken limbs, crushed chests and heads... Blood covered everything, like a veil of death and horror...
Sera took one shaky step as her body trembled with fear. Taking deep breaths, she somehow kept herself from vomiting.
"How... What... Why..." She asked, but no answer came.
She began walking without direction as her hearing gradually came back. Her vision swam, like a drunkard's, and she couldn't walk more than a few steps without leaning against some rubble.
Suddenly, a loud voice startled Sera, and she soon glanced down at the watch on her hand in shock.
Every citizen born after the Apocalypse received the exact watch Sera had. It gave the user many applications, starting from communication between people to checking archives of information and even commercial usage, like watching shows on its holo-screen.
Right now it screamed a looping message...
"Alert Citizen! Class 4 Realm Gate Opening detected in the vicinity! Immediately leave the premises! The closest Evolved have been alerted and are already inbound! Seek shelter immediately!"
'Fuck, a Class 4 Gate?! This doesn't make any fucking sense! This stupid watch should warn everyone about a Gate Opening hours or even days beforehand.'
Sera just couldn't understand how the alert system could fail so spectacularly.
"...Alert Citizen..."
The watch continued the looping message, but Sera touched the alert on the holo-screen to turn it off, then checked where exactly the Gate opened.
It wasn't too close thankfully, and she had a clear line to get home. Below their house, they had a basement that could withstand thorough disasters like Gate Openings. She could wait in safety until the Evolved take care of this mess.
However, she was currently a few blocks away, and she was certain that reaching her house wouldn't be so simple. There were probably multiple monsters just waiting to feast on her flesh.
She, as a regular human, couldn't fight against such beasts without a firearm. Even a 1st Tier Tainted could kill and eat her with ease.
Luckily, the Academy taught basic fighting techniques and taught students how to survive in case of a Gate Opening. But a permanent haze rested on her mind, making it much harder to remember anything.
Through all the blurriness in her mind, she decided to continue moving and adapt to whatever danger presented itself.
Sera's steps came slowly and shakily. She nearly fell a few times, while at other times she had to stop and catch her breath. Minutes passed with the slow progress, but eventually she regained her ability to walk straight and even jog.
In her hurry, she prayed in silence so the Evolved would take down every threat and save the citizens from death.
For the most part, regular citizens such as Sera treated Evolved like their saviors. The guardian angels of humanity, and sometimes... their gods!
They fought against monsters, which was admirable, but while Evolved receive all the praise, the regular people wielding railguns to fight monsters usually get ignored.
The Evolved gained their name because they can literally Evolve by killing monsters. The Evolved turn into Ascended, then Transcended and afterward Stellar. Whatever is above Stellar, Sera didn't know. It was classified for some unknown reason.
Sera's jog turned into something akin to running and falling as the sound of monsters reached her ear from behind. They were already feasting on the corpses...
While running, she heard a loud bang. Sera instantly ducked behind an upturned car as she noticed a large shape move through its broken window.
The beast looked similar to a big, grotesque, hairless dog the size of a small truck and tar colored skin. The dog had 2 heads and six legs with 5 talons on each. Its barbed tail swung from side-to-side, as it sniffed the air, searching for prey.
Sera typed on her watch's holo-screen and brought up the scanner function.
A message soon appeared on the screen: 'Scanning in progress...'
'Come on! Hurry up, you stupid watch!' Sera thought, her blood boiling with anxiety.
'Scanning complete... Classification: Rotten of the 2nd Tier... Name: Feral Hellhound... Suggestion: Avoid at all cost!'
'Well, that's just fucking awesome!'
As she was thinking of a different route to take, suddenly the Hellhound sniffed the air again, and glanced up at the sky. It growled once, but soon ran away whimpering.
'Huh? Why did it run away?'
The air became colder as Sera glanced around in confusion. All the noise and sound of approaching monsters disappeared. The atmosphere felt quite tranquil despite the destruction.
Sera's eyes moved towards the sky, right where the Hellhound was staring at... Her blood froze immediately...