The End of the World has Come

Chapter 3: Face Slapping Reality

The rain was not like water. It felt like someone was pouring hate over the place. It came down from the sky in grayish-green sheets. The smell was bad like sulfur and old rotten metal. When it hit the ground in the military courtyard it did not make a splashing sound. It hissed and a bad yellow fog came up from the ground. It was like a blanket that would not let go.

Creed just stood there still as can be, outside the big metal doors of the bunker. He let the bad rain fall over him. He watched as the rain hit his black armor. The water just slid off like it was nothing. The armor was protected by an energy field that kept the bad water from hurting it. Creed did not feel cold or hot. He just felt his heart beating. The air was going in and out of his lungs.

Fifty yards away the other three guys from the Vanguard team were having a bad time.

They were hiding behind a broken truck. The truck was falling apart. The rain was eating through the roof. It was dripping bad water all over them.

The worst thing was not the environment. The worst thing was the bad monster.

Creed looked at the monster with a thinking face. It was really big twelve feet tall. It was made from dead bodies and sharp broken metal. It had six jointed arms with sharp serrated blades on the end. Its head was a bunch of screaming, melted skulls with green eyes.

System Alert. Target scanned.

Creature Classification: Rot-Stalker.

Level: 22.

Threat Level: Extreme.

Description: A thing from another world made from old dead bodies. It likes places and can attack from far away. It is hard to hurt with magic.

Recommended Action: Stay away.

Creed just closed his eyes. Made the message go away. The system always said to stay away from things that were too strong.. The system did not know about Creed's special staff and dagger.

He did not run to help the guys. He just stood there. Watched them struggle.

The leader of the team a guy named Kaelen was yelling at his friends. He was really scared. He told them to get and make a shield wall.

Kaelen had a good shield, one that was supposed to be impossible to break. He turned it on. A blue light came out.. The bad rain was too strong. It made the light go crazy. Then it started to break.

Kaelen tried to hold it but it was no use. The rain was eating through the shield. It was starting to hurt his friends.

One of the guys a man named Silas tried to draw his sword. They were all rusty and broken. The other guy, a geomancer was crying on the ground. His clothes were torn. He was hurt.

The monster saw its chance. Got ready to attack.

It let out a loud grinding scream and swung one of its blades at Kaelen.

Kaelen's shield. He went flying backward. He crashed into the truck and got hurt.

The monster got ready to kill the guys.

This was the moment when the strong guys realized they were not as strong as they thought.

Creed started walking towards the monster.

He came out of the shadows and into the open. He did not. Yell. He just walked, calm and slow.

The monster saw him. Stopped its attack. It looked at Creed with its green eyes.

Kaelen looked up. Saw Creed. He thought Creed was a guy, from the Vanguard team come to save them.

He reached out his hand. Asked for help.

Then he saw Creed's face and knew who it was.

It was not a hero. It was the bait.

Creed did not look at Kaelen. He just kept his eyes on the monster.

He said that the other guy, Vane talked too much.. That Kaelen relied too much on things he did not understand.

The monster did not care about the humans. It just wanted to kill them.

It charged at Creed, its big blades swinging.

Creed got ready. He stood with his feet wide apart. Held his special staff.

He did not try to dodge or block. He just waited for the monster to get close.

Then he swung his staff.

He hit the monster's arm, right where the joint was.

The staff and the monster's arm collided.

There was no fight. The broken weapon did not even scratch the Rot-Stalker. Instead, the special marks on the metal flashed brightly releasing all the force Creed had stored up from breaking the steel pillar in the bunker.

The shockwave was terrible. A big ring of air exploded out from where Creed hit the Rot-Stalker. The rain around them disappeared for a second creating a space. The Rot-Stalker's right side was completely gone. Three of its arms were broken into tiny pieces and a big hole was torn in its body.

The force of the blow lifted the monster off the ground and threw it backward. It crashed into a military truck flipping it over and crushing Kaelen's legs under the metal.

Kaelen screamed in pain. Creed did not care. Creed stepped forward walking towards the struggling monster. He was not done yet. The Rot-Stalker was a creature that did not die easily. It needed to be taken from the inside.

The creature tried to get up on its remaining arms digging into the mud. Its wounds were not bleeding blood. A thick black liquid that hissed when it touched the air. The system's health bar above the beast's head was flashing red showing it was badly hurt.

The black liquid started to bubble and solidify trying to fix the broken bone and flesh.. Creed was not going to let that happen. He stuck his staff in the mud and drew a sharp black knife.

To Kaelen and the other scouts, the knife looked like a piece of darkness. It seemed to absorb all light and the air around it was distorted. The Rot-Stalker attacked Creed. He did not flinch. He stepped inside the creature's guard. Swung the knife across its neck.

For a second nothing happened. Then the monster's head fell off. Its body collapsed. The creature was dead. The system announced that the Rot-Stalker was defeated and Creed gained experience and leveled up.

Creed stood over the monster's body, his breathing steady. He wiped the liquid off his face and put away his knife and staff. He had just killed a monster in two moves. A monster that should have killed him easily.

The silence after the fight was complete except for the sound of the rain. Creed turned his back on the monster's body. Walked towards the ruined truck. Kaelen was pinned under the metal his legs crushed and his face pale with pain.

Creed looked down at Kaelen, who was once a proud man. Now he looked pathetic relying on a system that was breaking down. Kaelen asked Creed how he did it. Creed said he fixed a pipe and a knife. He learned to make his power instead of relying on the system.

Kaelen begged Creed to save him and take him back to the zone. Silas, the rogue grabbed Creed's boot. Creed, asked him to fix their gear and heal them.. Creed felt disgust towards these men. They were once so proud. Now they were begging for help.

Creed lifted Silas off the ground with one hand. Told him that he did not have the right to bargain with him. He said the system they worshipped was failing and their safe zone was a tomb. Creed threw Silas into the mud. Told Kaelen that he was the only one standing and their gear was useless.

Creed tapped Kaelen's armor and it fell apart leaving him exposed to the toxic rain. Kaelen screamed in pain. Creed said he was not his handyman anymore. He was not going to kill them but let the environment finish the job.

Creed ordered them to take off their rings and give him all their valuable items. The scouts did not. They gave Creed everything they had. Creed was in control now. They were, at his mercy.

Silas struggled to remove a silver ring from his shaking finger and threw it at Creed's feet. He then emptied a pouch spilling some monster cores and a half-full vial of healing liquid onto the ground. The crying geomancer did the same giving up some mana crystals and an old compass.

Kaelen, crying hard as acid burned his chest managed to take off a gold ring from his thumb and tossed it to Creed.

Take it Kaelen cried. Take everything. Just get me out from under this truck. Please. I will give you anything you want.

Creed, ignoring Kaelen's pleas and picked up the things they gave him. He cleaned the mud off the silver rings. Put them in a special pouch on his belt. The monster cores and crystals went in too. This was what Creed needed to start fixing things and building a place. He had just taken a lot of things from the elites.

He stood up fixing his waterproof hood. The wind was getting stronger blowing through the buildings around the yard. The toxic cloud was swirling fast getting thicker and harder to see through.

He looked at Kaelen one time. Kaelen's skin was burned from the chemicals. He would not last long especially since he was stuck under the truck.

Pull me out Kaelen whispered, his voice very weak.

No Creed said.. I want you to do something for me. If someone finds you before you die tell Vane that his swords will break. Tell him his safe places will fall. Tell him the world is falling apart. I am the only one who can fix it.. When he is standing in the ruins, bleeding tell him the handyman is coming for him.

Creed did not wait for Kaelen to say anything. He turned his back on the dying scouts. Started walking away heading to the big hole in the ground.

Wait Silas screamed from the mud his voice cracking with fear. You cannot leave us. The rain. The monsters. You cannot just leave us here.

Creed did not stop. He did not look back. He just kept walking his boots splashing in the puddles until the thick yellow cloud hid him completely leaving the three scouts in the dark.

As Creed walked further into the wasteland things started to change. The sound of the rain was replaced by a loud groaning noise that seemed to come from the earth.

He. Looked up at the sky.

The purple clouds were pulled apart showing a tear that went from one side of the sky to the other. Through the tear Creed could see the void of space with strange shapes and glowing eyes that should not exist.

The gravity got stronger making the broken buildings lean and groan.

A computer voice spoke in his head, loud and clear.

GLOBAL SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT.

The world is falling apart.

The safe zone walls have broken.

The toxic cloud is getting worse.

Millions of people are without shelter.

Creed's eyes got narrower behind his mask. The capital walls had fallen. Vane and the other powerful people had lost their home. They were now in the wasteland exposed to the dangers they had ignored.

The computer voice spoke again saying something that made Creed's blood run cold.

There is one place left in the area.

It is in Sector Seven in a bunker.

All survivors are being sent there.

Creed's heart was racing. Sector Seven was where he was. The bunker was the place he had just fixed. He had made it safe. Now everyone was heading there. Thousands of people including Vane and the others who had betrayed him were coming to take his shelter.

Creed held his staff tightly his fingers turning white.

They thought they could throw him away when he was useless. Now they were coming to take what he had built.

Let them come Creed said to himself a smile on his face. Let them all come.

He turned around thinking about what he needed to do. He had only a day to make the bunker a strong fortress. He needed to set traps and make the doors stronger. He needed to get ready, for Vane.

The time of being alone was over. It was time to build a home.

He started running his boots tearing through the mud racing to get to the bunker before the apocalypse.