The world didn't end with thunder.
It began with silence.
Chris Vale packed up slower than anyone else. The lecture hall emptied in a shuffle of sneakers and murmured complaints, but he sat until everyone left. He wasn't avoiding anyone just pacing himself, pretending he didn't notice how strange the air had felt all day. Outside, sunlight was soft and yellow, bleeding over the rows of oaks that lined the campus. The wind had died completely. Even the birds were quiet.
He checked his phone:
4:12 p.m.
No messages. Shocker
His classmate Liza waved as she passed by. "You coming to the mixer tonight?"
Chris forced a half-smile. "Nah. I've got homework."
"Homework? It's syllabus week."
"Yeah, already turning away. "Exactly."
The drive home took twenty minutes. He lived just off campus in a narrow studio apartment bedroom situated above a nail salon. It's cheap, loud, and close enough that he could hear the train every hour on the dot.
The streets were normal. Too normal. The kind of calm that felt rehearsed.
He parked, grumbling about finding something to eat while climbing the stairs, tossed his backpack onto the couch after he finally got inside. The studio smelled like coffee and detergent the only two scents he could still stand from his barracks days. Turning on the tv in the process as if some unknown ritual to help soothe himself with background noise.
"…authorities are investigating reports of simultaneous power surges across multiple states"
He muted it immediately. He couldn't stand the news anymore. Everything felt like a countdown that never reached zero, or an agenda that had lost touch with reality.
Instead, he cooked. Simple stuff: rice, eggs, leftovers. The rhythm of the stove soothed him. Crack, stir, scrape. That was life now. the small things you could still control.
While sitting down to eat, the lights flickered. Not just once, not just twice, it was everything but nice, left in uncomfortable silence and darkness that all try to avoid unconsciously.
He waited.
A few minutes later ,Nothing!
Nothing!
Nothing!
Nothing!
Chris anxiety started to peak, he hates silence, the urge for a distraction, for anything, the hair on his arms stood up. As soon as he was about to stand up the power came back on.
By eight, the city outside had gone dark in patches. With lights constantly flickering off and on. The skyline glowed unevenly, like someone dimmed reality by hand with muted shades of red and pink. He stepped onto the small balcony with a cheap beer, the night air heavy and still.
People were laughing nonetheless thought, with sirens wailing, and dogs having barking contests. Such was the sounds of the city. As if everything was okay again. Chris began to watch the clouds hoping to help soothe his anxiety by watching the puffy bastards drift away into the sunset except they weren't drifting.
They were spinning!
At first, it was subtle, a slow spiral that only stood out because everything else was frozen. The stars warped at the edges. The sky looked like it was being pulled inward.
A low hum rattled the glass door. His studio began trembling as if to the beginning of an earthquake.
As he went back inside to hide under the table the TV lit up with an announcement.
Emergency Broadcast System.
He paused mid crouch watching the tv screen looking for anything to help him.
A message glitched halfway through:
"…unknown atmospheric disturbance detected please indoor shelter…"
Static bled from the speaker, but the voice that came after wasn't human.It wasn't even sound. It was meaning directly in his mind.
"The gate opens where faith bleeds."
The lights went out. Then everything began to vibrated even worse. The walls, the air, for lack of better terms to Chris his whole reality. He fell on the floor by the sudden wave of nausea hit, vision fracturing into color and shapes that didn't belong that his mind kept trying to reject to keep his sanity!
Outside, lightning flashed tearing through the sky like it fabric, with the roar of thunder following, like an unholy war cry!
Then came the auditable screams.
Chris rushed to the window. The streets were alive with movement. People staggering, some falling, others… changing. A man ran into the street clutching his face his skin cracked like glass, light seeping out.
Another dropped to his knees, praying. The air shimmered, and something with wings of bone answered. Chris's throat closed. He backed away, all of his instincts roaring at him to move, survive, think later.
The ground shook. The city lights blinked out in waves. Just before darkness swallowed everything, he saw it rising over the horizon a column of black flames, stretching miles into the clouds, pulsing like an heartbeat.