The End of the World has Come

Chapter 2 Shattered Steel

You have to keep moving. If you stop you will die.

The sound of the facility falling apart was really loud. It sounded like a big machine was dying. Creed made himself move forward his boots scraping against the concrete. Above him, a weird light was pulsing. It was a purple color and it made long strange shadows on the walls of Sub-Level 7.

Creed could see a countdown in the corner of his eye. It said he had 47 hours, 52 minutes and 11 seconds left.

The air was thick with smells. It smelled like ozone. Burned copper and something else that was really bad. Creed was wearing a suit that helped him breathe. The suit was made of a material called Void-Weave. It made the bad air clean so Creed could breathe it in. Without the suit, the bad air would have already hurt his lungs badly.

The suit could not fix his legs.

Creed's leg hurt a lot. It hurt because a big man named Kaelith had hit him with a warhammer. The system had fixed Creed's bone. It was not a good fix. The system just wanted to keep Creed alive not make him comfortable. His health was at 42 percent, which was not good.

The system sent Creed a message. It said he had a broken bone and that it was trying to fix it.. Creed already knew he was hurt. He could feel his bone hurting every time he put weight on his leg. He was using a stick to help him walk.

The bunker was falling apart. A big monster had broken through the wall above them which made the ground shake. Now the ceiling was falling. Big chunks of concrete were falling into the hole below.

Creed got to the stairs that went up to Sub-Level 6. The doors that used to block the way were gone. They had been eaten away by rust and the Entropy Plague.

Creed touched the doorframe. It felt like sand. When he pushed on it it broke into pieces that floated away.

Some people did not understand what was happening. When the system came to Earth some people thought it was a game. They thought they could just use magic and fight monsters.. Creed knew the truth. He knew that everything falls apart if you do not take care of it.

The system was not a game. It was a way for things to fall apart faster.. The people who thought they were strong would soon find out what happens when things break down.

Creed started to climb the stairs. It was hard because his leg hurt. The stairs were also very unstable. Some of the steps were broken, which made it hard to climb.

The air got worse as he climbed. It was thick and yellow like a fog. Creed's suit helped him breathe. He could not see very far. He had to use a light on his stick to see.

When he got to the top of the stairs Creed heard water.. It was not water. It was a liquid that was coming from the broken pipes. The liquid was eating away at the floor.

Creed did not want to go into the liquid. He knew it would hurt him badly. He looked up. Saw a catwalk that went across the room.. It was broken and rusty.

The system sent him a message. It said the liquid was very bad and would hurt him if he touched it.

Creed did not have magic like some people.. He had a special skill. He could fix things. He put his hand on the catwalk and closed his eyes. He used his skill to fix the catwalk.

The catwalk started to glow. The rust went away. The metal got stronger. Now the catwalk was safe to walk on.

Creed was happy. He started to walk across the catwalk. His boots made a noise, on the metal.

He thought about his skill. He wondered what he could fix with it. Could he fix a person? The thought made him feel scared. If people found out what he could do they would try to capture him. They would make him fix things for them all the time.

Creed did not want that to happen. He just wanted to survive.

Creed could never let them know what he was planning. Not until he was so strong that they could not even touch him. He needed to be the powerful one and he needed it before the forty-eight-hour countdown ended and the world changed forever.

He walked to the side of the bay and stepped off the metal walkway onto the concrete floor. The big doors that led to the levels were already open probably because of Vane's team when they first got to the bunker a week ago.

Creed walked through the opening holding his stick tightly. The lower level was like a graveyard. The yellow fog was not there it was replaced by blue lights that were blinking on and off. This was where Vane's team had set up their camp before they left Creed behind.. It was a complete mess.

The big room was full of the remains of a fight. Tents were torn to pieces. Boxes were broken open. Their contents were stolen or destroyed.. There were bodies of at least two dozen fighters on the floor.

These were not the ones. These were the ones that Vane had brought with him. They had been completely killed.

Creed walked slowly through the mess his face not showing any feelings. He recognized some of the faces. There was Jax, a guy who used to make fun of Creed. His body was badly hurt, crushed by something.. There was Elara, a girl who used to make fun of Creed too. She was pinned to the wall by a spike.

They had been attacked by the Abyssal Hounds. A big group of them judging by the marks on the walls and the broken remains of monster parts.

Vane had not just left Creed behind. When the monsters broke in Vane had left all his team behind taking the ones with him and leaving the others to die.

Creed did not feel sorry for them. In this world feeling sorry for someone could get you killed. These people had cheered when Vane was mean to Creed. They had laughed when Creed had to eat food. They had liked the ones and disliked the weak ones and now they were dead because their leader had decided they were not useful anymore.

For Creed, this place was not sad. It was a place where he could find things.

He started to search the bodies. He was not looking for food or medicine. Vane would have taken all the things before he left. Creed was looking for things that the strong ones did not want.

He found a shield near Jax's body. It was not useful so he threw it away.

He found a dagger near Elara's body. The blade was broken,. The handle was still good. It was what Creed needed.

He sat down on the floor holding the dagger in his hand. He needed a weapon, something that he could use when his stick was not useful.

He checked his system. He had enough energy to fix the dagger. He gripped the handle. Put his other hand on the broken blade.

The system started to fix the dagger making it stronger and better. The blade started to glow. It became a special weapon that could cut through anything.

Creed was happy. He had a weapon and it was very powerful.

He stood up. He was a little dizzy.. He was okay. He looked at the blade. It was like a piece of black glass.

He walked over to a metal pillar and drew the blade across it. The pillar started to break. Creed was amazed. He had cut through a metal pillar with ease.

He put the blade away. Started to walk. He needed to get out of the bunker it was not safe. The world outside was. The bunker could be crushed at any moment.

He walked through the corridors avoiding the lights and making no noise. He was alone. He trusted no one. If he met someone he would not hesitate to defend himself.

He reached the ramp that led to the surface and the doors were open. He saw the sky. It was not blue anymore. It was purple and red with holes, in it. The rain was. It was toxic.

Creed started to walk up the ramp ready to face whatever was outside.

Creed stopped at the bottom of the ramp tightening his grip on his staff. The surface outside was going to be really bad. The Entropy Rot would be extremely strong there and the Abyssal monsters would be roaming free under the chaotic sky.

He took a breath of the clean oxygen flowing through his carapace and started to walk up the ramp. As he reached the halfway point the silence of the bunker was suddenly broken. It was not the roar of a monster. It was not the sound of the facility collapsing. It was a scream. A loud desperate scream of terror that echoed down the ramp cutting through the sound of the toxic rain.

Creed stopped, his eyes narrowing his hand going to the hilt of his dagger. Please God please get it off me. The voice was a man's. It was cracking with panic. Then there was the sound of flesh being torn and a wet gurgling gasp.

Creed did not rush to help. He slipped into the shadows along the edge of the ramp moving quietly toward the blast doors. His instinct to survive was stronger than any feelings of morality he had before the apocalypse. He needed to know what was happening before he did anything. He needed to know what was hunting. Who was being hunted.

He reached the threshold of the blast doors pressing his back against the concrete and slowly looking around the rusted metal frame. The surface of the Dead Zone was a ruined wasteland of broken skyscrapers and jagged craters covered in heavy acidic rain. The toxic rain hit the ground releasing clouds of steam.

Fifty yards from the bunker entrance three people were hiding behind a destroyed military vehicle. Creed's eyes immediately went to the symbol on the shoulder plate of the person. A silver sword piercing a shield. The emblem of the Vanguard Guild.

It was a scout team. The same people who worked under Vane. The same people who had locked Creed in the sub-levels to die. There were originally four of them. One was pinned to the ground by a creature that made the Abyssal Hounds look harmless.

It was a Rot-Stalker. A big emaciated monster made of corpses fused with jagged metal rebar. It had six jointed limbs with razor-sharp bone scythes and its head was a mix of screaming skulls.

The Stalker had one of its scythes in the chest of the scout slowly dragging the screaming man closer to its mouth. The remaining three Vanguard scouts were panicking, backing away their gear had failed them.

Form up one of them yelled, an armored man with a big tower shield and a glowing broadsword. He raised his shield using his energy to create a barrier.. The moment the shield appeared in the toxic air the acidic rain struck it. The Entropy Plague did not just hurt things; it also hurt magical constructs.

The scout leader's shield started to flicker turning from blue to green. The metal of his shield began to hiss and pop dissolving into rust. My sword one of the scouts screamed, a rogue with twin enchanted blades. The rain was eating through the enchantments. The runes on his weapons died, the steel turning brittle and brown.

The Rot-Stalker dropped the scout turning its skulls toward the remaining three. It let out a loud metallic shriek that vibrated the rainwater and prepared to jump.

The scouts were paralyzed with fear. Their gear was breaking. Their magic was failing. The apocalypse they thought they controlled was finally showing them its horrific face.

From the shadows of the bunker entrance, Creed watched them struggle. He watched their confidence shatter under the weight of a broken world. He did not feel any pity. He felt the thrill of vindication.

He took out his dagger and stepped out from, behind the blast doors into the toxic rain. The corrosive water bounced off his Void-Weave carapace to penetrate the armor.

The scouts were about to die, slaughtered by a monster they could not hurt with their rotting weapons. Creed smiled, an expression that did not reach his eyes. He was not going to save them. He was going to show them what a handyman could do.

Let's see how long you last Creed whispered into the storm stepping forward into the light.