Dawn of the 13th Era

Red Zone(1)

The captain pulled out a satellite phone.

"All of you move to the village on the mountain, all we have to do is scout for information on what is going on up there and return immediately Understood?"

The other officers were puzzled at the sudden command but stood up and followed after the captain immediately.

"We aren't really going rat hunting now are we?" One of them said jokingly.

"You all stay here and wait for us to return, understood?" The captain ignored the confused officers and said to the confused villagers.

"Please can you help me save my mother, she's stuck up there please" a girl begged while sobbing.

The captain looked at her then said "we'll try our best, but no promises."

Then they all rushed in the direction of the village. The captain dialed a number on the satellite phone and after a few beeps a voice came across.

"Captain Alastar, is anything wrong in sector 6?"

"For now it's unsure, but a rat Swarm is invading the outskirts each as bit is an adult cat, I'm heading over with division 6 to investigate for clues about what is going on but I advice marking the Silvermist mountains as a yellow zone for now according to our research over the past few days." He said while moving towards the village with the team.

"A team will be sent over to you soon, just scout the outskirts for more information and lay low till the team arrives." The voice said then he dropped the call.

The members of the team pulled out flashlights while raising their guns, moving along the pathway up the mountains.

"I think we should go back" one of them whispered.

"Why? We should at least take a look before going back right? We've been stationed here for long and nothing happened for years!" Another said silently.

"No, this place..... It looks way too different, everything looks weird. The forests are way too silent. There could be only two reasons behind this." He whispered silently.

"Michael, you've been here for way longer than me, do you have any idea of what's going on?" The captain asked while they were walking over.

"There can only be two reasons behind this, either there's a strong animal or a group of them on the mountains killing the others, or there's a disease killing them or both." Michael said.

"It'll most likely be the second one, the plague spreading over the globe is also affecting animals and even plants, a lot of them are dying out." Another said.

"About four percent of the population dying out doesn't mean the animals in the mountains here would die out to this point." Michael replied.

"Who knows, it could be more focused here....."

"Shhhh--------" Alaster said with his finger on his lips while signaling to them to move closer.

They were halfway to the village when the bushes on both sides started shuffling rapidly.

"Something's coming, fall back" Alaster said while moving back slowly when suddenly the tapping and srapping sounds became rapid and in an instant.

"Ahhh------" one of the 8 members of the team was suddenly pulled away and when the others could react to look at what it was, they couldn't even catch a glance if it.

"Fire!!!! And run over to the village" Alaster shouted while loading off bullets in the direction of the black shadow. The others fired without any aim in sight while moving towards the village with pounding hearts.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, we should have left long ago!" One of them screamed while shooting rapidly.

There was no confirmation the village was safe either, it was more like they were walking towards a dead end. But that wasn't the issue, the issue was the shadow behind them, they didn't know what exactly it was but it was as big as an amored van and the speed was off the charts they could barely keep an eye on it. To top it off, all the bullets were doing was to keep it at bay it didn't seem to inflict any significant wound on it.

"Just run towards the village and we'll hide till the team from the special force arrives." Alaster said while urging them to run over.

Looking up ahead, the rest of the team froze in shock looking at the village ablaze in flames and screams ringing out everywhere.

"What on Earth..... Just keep running it's almost here!" Alaster screamed, the few seconds they were in shock was enough for the black shadow to catch up to them and rip one of the team off again leaving only six left alive.

They blazing fire lighted up the dark night and looking behind them, what faced them was a wolf on four legs, big as an amored van with sharp claws and pitch black eyes.

"What do we do!!" The man laughing off the rat invasion idea was now panting and sweating bucks looking around frantically with seemingly no hope of survival in sight.

"Set up a defence line here and take rounds firing at the wolf, we'll hold out here till reinforcements arrive. Alaster said while loading rounds on the wolf.

"What on Earth is that beast and what if the reinforcements don't arrive? What will happen to us?" One of them asked in panic.

"There's no choice just shoot!!" Alaster said preparing to face his death there fighting for hope of something that seemed non-existent when suddenly the wolf let out a huge howl screaming while shaking all over and fell to the ground.

"What just happened??" One of them asked while Alaster looked ahead and saw 3 men standing there while looking at them.

"Reinforcements have arrived, pack up and leave immediately!!" Before Alaster could finish his words, three of them already scrambled towards towards the town.

Alaster couldn't care less about them and instead looked at the three men standing while looking at the burning village.

"Thanks for saving us." He said with a salute and the three left also followed suit.

"No, we're not done here, something's in there, it's watching us." One of them with glasses on his face, blonde hair and blue eyes said while staring deep into the mountains with a smile on his face.