Kai sank onto the couch, tossing the remote aside with a sigh of resignation. The buttered popcorn, still warm in the paper bag, stubbornly clung to its artificial aroma. On the television screen, a meteorologist with an overly bright smile and an impeccably blue suit pointed to a state map, dotted with suns and wind arrows. "Clear skies for the rest of the week, folks," he said, his voice as placid and empty as the forecast.
Seventeen and living a life that felt like a loop of normalcy, Kai couldn't find anything to excite him. The television, with its endless channels of documentaries, reality shows, and repetitive news broadcasts, was a mirror of his own existence. He had the money to subscribe to every streaming app in the world, the result of working hard over the summer to pay his share of the rent, but it seemed like an unnecessary expense. He always ended up on the same thing: the news, a corner of life that felt so predictable it was almost comforting.
He was about to change the channel when the meteorologist touched his earpiece. The smile fell from his face like a mask, revealing an expression of confusion. "Excuse me," he said, his voice no longer so assured. "I'm receiving reports of extremely low visibility. A fog... but not a normal fog."
Kai paused, his thumb inches from the channel-change button. He squinted, not because of the sun, which was long gone, but because of a strange glow that was growing on the screen, as if the television studio were being invaded by a thick smoke. The meteorologist rose from his seat, looking around, and his voice became higher. "What's happening?! Where did all this fog come from?!"
A voiceover, from some speaker in the studio, cut through the meteorologist's words, spilling from the TV speakers: "We are receiving reports from all over the world. The phenomenon appears to be global. It's spreading everywhere. We have no information about its origin."
Kai frowned. He got up from the couch, leaving the popcorn forgotten. He glanced out the window, just out of curiosity, out of the need to confirm he wasn't watching a movie. Beside the apartment building, fourteen floors up, he could usually see the downtown skyline. But now, there was only a white wall. A wall of fog so dense it was impossible to see beyond the glass.
"What the—?"
The meteorologist's shout made him turn back to the screen. "WHAT THE HELL?! WHAT IS THAT?!"
The weather map vanished, replaced by a grainy, shaky video feed. It was a cellphone recording. Muffled screams and the roar of the ocean could be heard. The camera moved frantically, pointing towards the coastline.
And then, he saw it.
In the distance, a dark, gigantic shape rose from the sea. It was something so large it seemed impossible. The camera zoomed in, and the figure began to take shape. It wasn't a creature; it was an abomination. Seven colossal tentacles, a dark purple and black, writhed in the air like gigantic serpents. At the center of them all was a single eye, a milky white, the size of a bus. At the tip of one of the tentacles, a toothed maw that shouldn't exist opened, and from it came a roar that made the television screen vibrate. A roar that joined a hum, a deep, constant sound that Kai suddenly realized had been there all along.
He was perplexed. He couldn't process what he was seeing. It was as if his brain were collapsing.
Then, a door slammed from the adjacent bedroom. A slam that didn't come from an invisible force, but from a hand.
His sister, Lisa, her blonde hair disheveled and wearing a sports t-shirt, burst from her room, her cellphone clutched in her hand. The girl, popular and competitive, who joined every club and excelled at everything she tried, had a pale face and a look of panic Kai had never seen on her before. On her phone screen, the same video played.
"Did you see that, Kai?! What is that?!" she screamed, her voice barely sounding like her own.
"I don't know," Kai replied, his voice hoarse. "Is... is it real?"
He wasn't sure what he felt. Panic, disbelief, the sensation that the world was breaking apart. The only thing he did, almost instinctively, was grab his sister's hand.
"We have to get out of here."
He didn't know where to go, only that the apartment, their supposed sanctuary, was no longer safe. They ran down the hallway, their footsteps echoing in the silence of the apartment. The elevator, with its flickering lights, seemed like the only way out. They pressed the button for the first floor, and in the cabin, the silence filled with their ragged breaths. Lisa, her hand trembling in Kai's, couldn't stop looking at her phone screen, as if by staring at the horror she could understand it.
"Do you think it's a joke?" she whispered. Her voice, normally confident and sure, was now that of a frightened child.
"I don't know. But... we have to leave."
The elevator doors creaked open on the ground floor. The building lobby, usually bustling with doormen and waiting residents, was deserted. The air conditioning had stopped working, and a strange heat filled everything. In the background, the glass doors swung open and closed with the wind, revealing the fog.
They stepped out of the building, and the fog hit them like a wave of cold water. The hum Kai had heard on TV was now a chorus, a sound that reached into your bones and made your skull vibrate.
Outside, the scene was chaos. Hundreds of people were in the street, some crying, others screaming at the sky, and many just stood still, staring at the fog like salt statues.
"Kai!" a familiar voice broke through the din.
It was Leo, a friend who lived in the same building, running towards them with his cellphone in his hand. "Did you guys see that?! What the hell was that?!"
Kai nodded, speechless. Leo looked at Lisa, then back at Kai, his eyes wide with panic. "What could it be? A prank? Tell me it's a prank!"
"I wish it was," Kai whispered, his hands sweating. Lisa, with a flicker of determination that didn't fit the moment, looked at him. "Kai, call Mom and Dad. Maybe they..."
Kai nodded and pulled his phone from his pocket, his hand trembling. He dialed his mother's number, but the call wouldn't go through. The phone emitted an error tone. He tried again and again, his heart pounding, but nothing.
A stranger, a man with a sweaty face and a three-day beard, approached them, showing his own phone. "No signal. Nobody has any communication. We're alone."
Suddenly, the ground shook. The hum cut out for a second, replaced by a sharp, bloodcurdling scream of horror. Kai, Lisa, and Leo spun around.
And they saw it.
It wasn't the monster from the ocean. It was different, but just as terrifying. A creature at least sixty meters tall, with a humanoid shape that walked on four limbs. Its skin, a sickly pale white, clung to its bones, revealing a skeletal and grotesque structure. Its head was tiny, barely a meter in size on a body that large, making it look like a deformity, a cruel mockery of the human form.
People screamed, some running aimlessly. But Leo and Lisa were petrified. Their eyes couldn't process the image of that being. The paralysis of shock had gripped them.
But not Kai. Volleyball had trained him to react under pressure. With a shout he didn't recognize as his own, he grabbed Lisa's hand and shoved Leo's shoulder. "Run! Run, now!"
The creature didn't look at them. It just kept walking, its body swaying with each step, like a giant puppet. It lifted one of its front limbs and brought it down with a earth-shattering thud. Several people in its path vanished beneath the sole of its foot. There were no more screams, just an abrupt silence.
Lisa screamed, a cry of pure terror, as Kai pulled her along. Leo, as if jolted back to reality, ran without looking back. Kai, holding his sister's hand, dragged her through the panicked crowd, his only thought to survive.