Chapter 13
Cold, dawn light seeped into the mall, revealing faces etched with exhaustion and fear. People stirred on their makeshift beds, stiff limbs groaning.
Some hadn't slept at all, eyes red-rimmed and haunted by the night's unearthly shrieks and the haunting, whale-like mourn. Others had managed only fitful dozes, jolted awake by phantom sounds.
Elias pushed himself up, his muscles protesting. He'd snatched a few hours of troubled sleep, enough to feel a brittle alertness. Instinctively, he pulled out his phone.
No signal. No messages. The silence from his mother was a cold stone in his stomach. He scanned the huddled groups, searching for Arnold.
He found his boss near a shuttered clothing store, deep in a low-voiced discussion with several grim-faced employees. The sharp scent of anxiety radiated from the huddle.
"Hey, boss," Elias called, his voice raspy. Arnold turned, his face drawn, with dark circles under his eyes.
He seemed preoccupied, weighed down by the night's terrors and the unknown source of the colossal bellowing.
"Morning, Elias," Arnold said, his voice tight. "Good timing. We're heading to the rooftop. We need eyes on what happened last night. You're coming."
His tone says no argument, but Elias was already nodding. He needed to see, to understand the scale of the nightmare.
"Come on," Arnold gestured, already moving towards the maintenance stairs.
Elias fell in step, noticing a few other co-workers joining silently – Martin among them, looking paler than usual. The scrape of their footsteps echoed in the quiet mall.
"Were you guys able to sleep last night?" Martin whispered as they climbed the cold metal stairs.
"Not really," another worker mumbled, rubbing his gritty eyes. "It was a nightmare…"
"Yeah," a third voice chimed in, hushed. "Just remembering what happened yesterday… those bodies… gave me nightmares. I couldn't shake it off."
"I know, right?" Martin agreed, his usual bravado absent.
Elias remained quiet. The horrific scenes had disturbed him deeply. But a strange, unsettling counterpoint hummed beneath the fear.
Years immersed in horror and apocalyptic fiction – the movies, the games, the comics plastering his room – had forged a twisted familiarity.
A part of him, buried deep, felt a thrill: This is it. The real thing. Just like the stories.
Yet, the memory of the dog-monster's claws, the screams, the sulfur stench – that horror was immediate and chilling.
He pictured himself caught and dragged into their base… and the thrill vanished, replaced by icy dread.
They pushed open the heavy rooftop access door.
They moved cautiously to the low walls.
What lay below stole their breath.
Multiple colossal spiky domes all over the city now bore a devastating wound.
A massive section near its base looked ripped open, twisted rocks and shattered rock spewing outwards as if something immense had forced its way out.
The cityscape they knew was obliterated. Skyscrapers lay in ruins.
Thick, greasy columns of black smoke coiled into the sky from countless points, painting a picture of widespread fire and destruction. Blocks of houses and shops were flattened into rubble.
Abandoned cars littered the fractured streets like broken toys, some crushed, others burned-out husks.
And then they saw it.
In the distance, amidst the smoke and ruin, stood a figure of impossible scale. Easily as tall as the ruined buildings around it, it was a giant of black skin, hairless black flesh, its texture like hardened tar.
Its posture was distinctly simian – hunched shoulders, massive arms ending in brutal, knuckled fists that rested on the ground.
But where a head should have been, there was only smooth, featureless darkness merging with its trunk.
It stood utterly still, a silent, headless monolith radiating pure menace. The sheer wrongness of it sent a wave of primal terror crashing over the rooftop watchers.
The streets below were a charnel house. Bodies – human and the twisted forms of the dog-monsters – lay scattered like gruesome confetti.
Dark stains soaked the broken pavement. It looked like a desperate, final stand had been fought and lost against the new horror. Ruin stretched as far as the eye could see.
Elias felt his knees weaken. Martin retched violently behind him. Arnold simply stared, his face bloodless, a low moan escaping his lips. "Ugh."
The coppery smell of distant blood and the acrid bite of smoke filled their nostrils, confirming the unspeakable horror below. This wasn't just a disaster.
This was the true, horrifying dawn of the apocalypse.