Hatchetfield.

The Lords in Black call us

The front door to Lakeside Mall had been barricaded some hours ago, and since then, Paul had been trying to find a viable means of escaping the people inside. At this point, the only accurate referral to them was "angry mob", something right out of an old book. They had banded together, but it wouldn't be long before they started turning on each other.

When this first started, someone took control of the loudspeaker system. Since then, there had been a near constant ringing in Paul's ears, and nothing he normally did to combat that was working. Nobody could identify the voice, but he had learned to fear it. It knew about him, and that could never mean good things.

Someone ran past him, cutting off his train of thought. He'd barged Paul's shoulder on the way, forcing them both to turn and stop in their tracks. The man's eyes were wide with madness; neon green, like so many others before him. He snarled. "You. Bastard. Take another step and I slit your fucking throat." He brandished a knife he'd clearly stolen from a homeware store, turning the handle in his hand. The tip was already stained red, and when Paul looked closer, he saw that the same was true of the sleeve of his shirt.

Okay.

Okay, so he'd killed before. And he would kill again.

The neon green shone, making the man's face look infinitely paler. If he was able to produce a coherent thought, Paul would've sworn that he almost looked dead. There was a certain washed out look about him, and his hair was long since plastered to his head in a flat tangle of curls. In a way, Paul was just waiting for the active decay to begin, or to watch the man rot right in front of him.

Without thinking, he took a half step back, just to distance himself. The man arched out his hand and sent the knife blade through the air, stopping inches away from Paul's neck.

In the moment, everything froze. Time itself seemed to slow. Paul was aware of everything going on around him. One of the voices took control, suddenly drowning out the rest.

"Time isn't up. Not for you. Get outta his way, and take that knife from behind!"

He ducked. The man with the knife swung, and sliced the open air right where his throat would've been. While he tried to work out how someone could be that quick to react, Paul tried to follow the instructions of the voice. Something started to glow in his eyes that he'd never see. He felt different. Powerful.

He swerved to one side and grabbed his assailant's wrist, bending it back without a second thought. This strength wasn't his, but god was he glad he had it. The man let out a howl of pain, and Paul grabbed the knife from his hand before straightening up and facing him head on.

The man saw the glow. Paul's once blue eyes were now tinged in a golden hue that, at the right angle, was accented with a sickeningly bright yellow.

Those eyes were the last thing he saw before Paul drove the kitchen knife straight through his heart.

There was no hesitation. Whatever was controlling that knife was not enitrely Paul Matthews, but Paul wouldn't say he regretted the choice to act fast.

Within a moment, the glow in his eyes faded out, and he was thrust back into reality. That reality was, of course, the bloody knife he was holding in his hand, and the corpse sitting just in front of his feet, still a writhing, convulsing, half-alive mess.

His eyes widened when he realised what he'd done, and without giving it much of a second thought, he started running. Past the body, through one of the empty stores, and out through the delivery exit that he was surprised wasn't boarded up. He ditched the knife by jamming it deep into a wall, and immediately noted the feeling of nausea that flooded over him.

As he heaved, trying to rid himself of this dizzying sense of sickness that welled up in his chest, Paul collapsed to his knees in the middle of the street. This was not a good place for his body to be shutting down, but he couldn't force himself to move any more. Nothing was working, no matter how hard he tried to pull himself together, it was like he was physically bolted to the ground.

Paul Matthews. The knowing light at the end of the tunnel.

He knows who he is. He knows what he has to do to earn his right to live. He is the survivor.

The survivor. That's what the voice over the mall's loudspeakers had said. That's what it called him. He had never considered himself a survivor before, and still didn't now, when the forces of hell and earth were both against him in the same horrifying chorus.