Chasing Tomorrow

Chapter 1

PAST - 2040

It was the day everything changed. I was fourteen. Fourteen, with messy braids in my hair, worried only about schoolwork, friends, and whether the boy I had a crush on knew I existed. I was fourteen and had no idea the world could break so easily, so completely, until I saw it with my own eyes.

I still remember the sky that morning. It wasn't like the sky I used to know. There was something wrong, something eerie about the way the clouds twisted, blackened, as if they'd been swallowed whole by the sun. I remember standing in our kitchen, staring out the window, trying to make sense of the sudden dimming, the way shadows shifted as if they had a life of their own. Mom was chopping vegetables for dinner. Dad was fixing the sink, grumbling about a leak. It all felt so... ordinary. It feels absurd to think about that now. How could we have been so calm, so clueless, while the world was on the verge of crumbling?

I remember hearing the first scream.

It was a woman's voice from outside, sharp and full of terror, like nothing I'd ever heard before. I rushed to the window, thinking it was just a freak accident or someone panicking over a wild animal. But then there were more screams. Louder, closer, multiplying like the cracks in a fragile glass. And that's when I saw it.

Monsters. Real monsters. Creatures from nightmares, from the dark stories parents tell to scare their children into behaving. Except these weren't stories. They were real, right there in front of me, tearing through our quiet neighborhood like it was their playground. I saw one, its skin a sickly gray, like decaying flesh. Its eyes were black pits, hollow and endless, as if they'd swallowed every ounce of humanity. It moved with terrifying speed, limbs jerking in strange, unnatural ways as it grabbed someone—a man running down the street—and I watched as it... tore him apart. Like he was nothing. Like he wasn't even human.

My heart stopped. My legs froze. I couldn't breathe. My mind screamed at me to run, but I was paralyzed. A child watching the end of the world unfold outside her window.

Mom pulled me away. I didn't even hear her shouting my name, didn't realize she was dragging me until we were in the basement, the door slammed shut. The darkness down there was suffocating, but it was the only place we could hide. Dad rushed down, locking everything up, his hands shaking so badly that he dropped the flashlight twice. I couldn't speak, couldn't ask the hundreds of questions spinning in my mind because there were no answers, not then.

We stayed there for hours, maybe days. Time lost all meaning as the world screamed and bled outside. The ground shook, the air reeked of smoke and something far worse—burnt flesh, decay, fear. The monsters were everywhere. The news called them "Beasts," but that word didn't feel strong enough. They were more than just beasts. They were something born out of a nightmare too terrible to forget. They ripped through buildings, crushed cars like toys, and humans—humans were nothing to them. Just prey. They came in all shapes, too. Some looked like giant insects, their bodies bristling with armor and jagged legs. Others were grotesque parodies of animals, twisted, malformed. But the worst were the ones that looked... almost human. The ones with eyes that watched you, like they understood how much you were suffering. Like they enjoyed it.

We never stood a chance.

The world went dark after that. Power grids failed, the internet died, governments collapsed. Entire cities were wiped out in hours. And it wasn't just here—this happened everywhere. Every continent, every country. No one was safe. Humanity went from being the dominant species to nothing but survivors, scurrying like rats, hiding in the ruins of a world we once knew. I still can't believe how quickly everything fell apart. One minute, I was worried about math tests and my future. The next, I was wondering if I'd even live to see the next sunrise.

I never got to say goodbye to my friends. I don't know if they made it, and I don't think I ever will. The monsters took more than just our homes, our cities. They took people's lives, yes, but they also took something deeper—hope. I see it in the eyes of those around me now, those who survived. There's an emptiness, a hollowness that wasn't there before. We've lost more than we can count, and yet, somehow, the pain never fades. It lingers, a constant ache.

And sometimes I think, maybe it would've been better if we hadn't survived. Maybe it would've been better if the monsters had just... finished us all. At least then, we wouldn't have to keep running. We wouldn't have to keep remembering the world we used to have, the world that was taken from us in a heartbeat.

But no. I'm still here. We're still here. And that's the cruelest part of all. We're left to watch as the world falls apart, piece by piece. We're left to remember, even when there's nothing left worth remembering.