God's Universe

The World Outside

The explosion had left the house trembling.

For several seconds, Logan, Liam, and Mary remained still, listening for another blast. Dust drifted from the ceiling, and a few small pieces of plaster lay scattered across the floor.

Logan slowly rose from the cushions, using the wall for support.

"Don't even think about running outside," Mary warned immediately.

"I'm not going outside." He glanced toward the broken entrance. "I just want to see if the explosion damaged anything else."

"You can barely walk."

"Then I'll walk slowly."

Mary gave him a disapproving look, but she didn't argue further. Instead, she followed him toward the hallway, with Liam close behind them.

The explosion hadn't caused any major new damage to their house, but the destruction from the earlier attack was bad enough. Their front entrance had been shattered, the living room was a mess, and a long crack stretched across one section of the wall. Several pieces of furniture had been damaged during Logan's fight with the Blood Hound Drauger.

The house was still standing.

For now, that was what mattered.

"We need to fix the entrance," Liam said, looking at the broken doorway. "If another monster comes in through there, we won't have anything to stop it."

"You're right." Logan examined the wreckage. "But we can't repair it properly without tools and materials. We need to work with what we have."

They began inspecting the house, checking the doors, windows, and walls. The back door remained intact, and the kitchen windows were undamaged. One of the living room windows had cracked, but the glass hadn't completely shattered.

The entrance was their biggest problem.

Logan looked at the broken wooden pieces scattered across the floor. Some were too damaged to be useful, but others could be reused. They also had a heavy table, several chairs, and a metal shelf that could serve as temporary barriers.

It wouldn't make the house secure against a determined beast, but it was better than leaving the entrance completely exposed.

"We'll move the heavy furniture in front of the doorway," Logan said. "Leave a small gap so we can look outside without showing ourselves. We can use the stronger wooden pieces to cover the lower part."

"And the windows?" Liam asked.

"We cover the ones facing the street. We don't want anyone—or anything—seeing movement inside."

Mary crossed her arms. "Anyone? You mean other people?"

"People can be dangerous, too." Logan paused. "We don't know what everyone else is doing right now. Some might be trying to survive. Others might panic. Until we know more, we shouldn't make ourselves an easy target."

Mary didn't look pleased with the idea, but she understood his point.

They had no idea how society would behave after what had happened. The news had shown frightened people, damaged buildings, and creatures attacking anything in their path. There was no guarantee that every surviving person would remain reasonable.

For now, keeping their shelter hidden was the safer choice.

Once they had moved the most useful furniture into place, Logan suggested checking the street from one of the upstairs windows.

Mary immediately objected.

"You're supposed to be resting."

"I've rested enough to walk around."

"That doesn't mean you're ready to do more."

"Mom, we can't stay here without knowing what's happening outside."

She looked as though she wanted to argue again, but Liam spoke before she could.

"I'll help him. We won't open the window, and we won't go outside."

Mary finally agreed, though she insisted that they return immediately if anything looked dangerous.

Logan and Liam climbed the stairs slowly. Logan had to pause halfway up, his legs trembling from the effort. He hated how weak he felt, but there was little he could do about it.

Cellular Healing had helped his injuries.

It hadn't restored his strength.

When they reached the upstairs room, Liam carefully approached the window overlooking the street. The curtains were already partly drawn, leaving only a narrow gap through which they could observe the outside.

What they saw made both brothers go silent.

The street they had known their entire lives was almost unrecognizable.

A car had crashed into a streetlight, its front end crushed. Another vehicle lay overturned near the pavement. Broken glass covered the road, and pieces of concrete had fallen from the walls of nearby buildings.

Smoke rose from several locations.

Farther down the street, a building had partially collapsed, leaving a section of its upper floor exposed. The air looked hazy, and the distant sounds of sirens were occasionally interrupted by something far more disturbing.

A roar.

Liam swallowed.

"Are those things still out there?"

Logan followed his gaze.

A creature moved between two abandoned cars. It was leaner than the Blood Hound Drauger, with long legs and a narrow body covered in dark, uneven plates. It sniffed the ground before suddenly darting toward a pile of debris.

Something moved beneath the wreckage.

The creature lunged.

Logan couldn't see what happened next. The debris blocked his view, but the brief, desperate cry that followed made his stomach tighten.

He pulled back from the window.

Liam did the same.

"Let's not watch that again," Logan muttered.

They waited several seconds before cautiously looking outside once more.

The creature had disappeared between the buildings.

But the street remained dangerous.

More movement caught Logan's attention. A large shape crossed an intersection in the distance, while something smaller scrambled across the roof of a parked car. He couldn't identify either creature clearly enough to know whether they were the same species as the beast they'd fought.

There were too many unknowns.

And the worst part was that the sky above the neighborhood was still marked by distant fractures.

Some were faint, almost like cracks in glass. Others glowed with an unnatural light.

Logan remembered the monsters falling from those openings.

The Beast Rain might eventually stop, but that wouldn't make the world safe. The creatures already on Earth could continue roaming the streets, hunting anything they encountered.

Even if no more beasts fell from the sky, the ones already here were enough to turn the neighborhood into a death trap.

"Liam," Logan said quietly, "we need to assume this is going to last."

His brother looked at him. "How long?"

"I don't know."

"A few days?"

"Maybe."

"A week?"

"Maybe longer."

Liam stared through the narrow gap in the curtains.

Logan couldn't give him a comforting answer because he didn't have one. He couldn't even promise that help would arrive. The authorities might still be operating somewhere, but the damage appeared widespread, and the creatures had already disrupted everything they could see.

They returned downstairs without another word.

Mary was waiting in the living room.

"Well?"

Logan sat carefully on the sofa before answering. "The streets are full of beasts. There are damaged buildings everywhere, and we saw smoke rising from several places."

Mary's face tightened.

"Are people still alive out there?"

"I don't know. We didn't see anyone clearly."

She lowered herself into a chair.

For a while, nobody spoke.

Then Mary asked the question Logan had been expecting.

"Should we leave?"

Liam turned toward his brother.

Logan considered it seriously. If they could reach a secure location, staying there might be safer than remaining in a damaged house. But where would they go?

The nearest hospital might be overwhelmed or inaccessible. The main roads could be blocked. They had no reliable information about shelters, evacuation points, or safe zones.

And travelling through streets filled with unknown creatures while Logan was still recovering would put all three of them at risk.

"We shouldn't leave yet," he said.

Mary looked at him carefully. "You think this house is safer?"

"No. I think we know this house better than we know anything outside."

He gestured toward the barricaded entrance.

"We know which doors are intact, which windows we can watch from, and where our supplies are. Outside, we could run into a beast without any warning. We might not even have a chance to escape."

"What if one of them comes here?"

"Then we'll deal with it as best we can. But we're not going to walk into danger just because staying here makes us nervous."

Liam nodded slowly.

Mary looked from one son to the other. She clearly hated the idea of waiting, but she couldn't find a better alternative.

"All right," she said at last. "We stay for now. But if this place becomes too dangerous, we leave."

"Agreed," Logan replied.

It wasn't a perfect plan.

It was simply the best one they had.

Their next task was organizing everything they might need.

Mary took charge of the food and water. She checked the kitchen cabinets, refrigerator, and storage shelves, separating what could be eaten immediately from supplies that could last longer. They had rice, flour, lentils, canned food, cooking oil, and a few other essentials.

It looked like a decent amount until they began thinking about how long it might need to last.

"We need to stop wasting anything," Mary said. "No unnecessary cooking, no throwing food away, and we'll measure what we use."

Logan agreed.

Water was an even bigger concern. They had drinking water stored in bottles, but they couldn't assume the supply would remain reliable. If the water stopped flowing or became contaminated, they would need another source.

For the moment, Mary gathered every clean bottle and container they could use to store water.

Liam organized the medical supplies. Their first-aid box contained bandages, antiseptic, cotton, and a few basic medicines. He placed everything on a shelf where it would be easy to reach.

Logan focused on useful household objects.

Knives, scissors, rope, flashlights, batteries, lighters, and tools were gathered and sorted. He also collected several sturdy wooden pieces from the broken entrance.

Anything that could help them repair the house, prepare food, or defend themselves was worth keeping.

They weren't building a fortress.

They were trying to make a damaged home survivable.

By the time they finished, the living room looked more organized, though the destruction remained impossible to ignore.

Logan leaned against the wall, breathing carefully.

His body was already complaining about the work. His stomach hurt, his chest felt tight, and a dull ache throbbed through his arms.

He needed more rest.

But before he could sit down, a faint scraping sound came from outside.

All three of them froze.

The sound came again.

Something was moving near the front of the house.

Logan raised one hand, silently telling Liam and Mary not to speak. He approached the barricade as quietly as his weakened body allowed and peered through the narrow gap they had left between the furniture.

A dark shape passed the opening.

Then it stopped.

Logan held his breath.

Through the gap, he could see part of a creature's body. Its skin was rough and grey, and its long claws scraped against the pavement as it moved. It lowered its head toward the ground, sniffing slowly.

It was close enough that Logan could hear its breathing.

Behind him, Mary covered her mouth with one hand. Liam stood perfectly still.

The creature took another step.

Its head turned toward their house.

Logan slowly backed away from the gap.

He had no idea whether it had noticed them, but he wasn't willing to find out.

He motioned for Mary and Liam to move farther into the house. They followed him without making a sound.

The beast remained outside.

And for the first time, Logan understood a problem they hadn't considered while repairing the entrance.

Their barricades might keep a creature from entering easily.

But they couldn't stop it from noticing the house in the first place.

If the beast knew they were inside, how long would it take before it tried to get in?