At A World's End: Mason East

Chapter 3

My eyes opened, and my consciousness was flooded by a wretched stench go through my nose. I had to swallow my vomit before I let it loose into my mask. I felt different then when I had went to sleep last night.
When I crawled into the Cactdie, I was upright. Standing in its shell while I slept. Now... now I was laying down. Horizontally. And that smell...
I pushed at the greasy and mushy inside of the plant, and my hand crawled out of the slit I cut into it. The rest of my body followed with it, but the smell almost made me pass out.
I gagged, and quickly unclipped my mask so that I could vomit freely to the side. Taking off my mask was the last thing I should have done. The smell was no longer filtered, and became ten times worse. I held my breath and clipped my mask back on.
The place I found myself in was not the place I went to sleep at. The sky was was crowed with clouds, stained red. Like bloody cotton. And from those clouds, actual blood rained from the sky. The thick red liquid ran down the lenses of my sunglasses. I had to wipe then with my thumb to see again.
     I wish I hadn't.
     In front of me rose a huge wall. Made of metal, and concrete, it was stained red as well. The wall curved inwards like it was creating a dome, but didn't finish, for the inside was open.
     The huge, bold letters were covered in blood, but I managed to read it aloud to myself.
     "Help inside... Apocalypt-Inc." This was my home. Drenched in blood.
     I pulled myself out of the ground, letting the rain flood the inside of the Cactdie. Looking back at it, it looked as if I crawled out of my own grave.
     After a while of walking around the outskirts of the wall, I found a cave in. The entire wall, from the ground to the few hundred feet it rose to the sky, was crumbled to bits. When I looked beyond it, only my will to stand kept me off the ground.
     My city. My home. It was destroyed.
     The towers, the buildings, the cafes, the shops, the trees, the homes... all burning to the ground. The blood rain piled up in puddles around the thousands of bodies that littered the ground.
     I stumbled through. Stepping carefully over the bodies of my people. The people I had sworn to protect.
     I walked through the streets until I made it to the Central. The large statue that stood proud was missing. Instead, stood a pole that threw a flag through the air.
     "War is Coming." I read it to myself.
     It was then that I heard a loud howl. I looked to my right to see a huge beast. Bigger than a horse, and had a mane like a lion, as did its six legs. It's face represented a wolf, while it's tail swung swiftly behind it with a luminescent orb at the tip. Tiger-like stripes ran across the top of its back and down its tail. It's muscle was strict, and carved. Easily seen through its fur. The blood made its gray fur black. A shadow in the thick rain.
     It stood in the middle of the street. Bodies between its legs and around him. My attention was drawn away when another walked out into the open from inside the building to the right. Another came from the left alleyway. Then two others rose from the edge of a roof. I backed up, almost tripping over a body. They snarled as they leaped into action.
     Adrenaline surged through my body. But it wasn't to my arms then to my guns. No. It was to my legs.
     I bolted, leaping over the bodies. I slipped and stumble, but fear didn't let me stop. I wiped my face, getting the blood out of my vision. I could hear their snarls closing in on me.
     I came closer to the gap in the wall I had arrived in, but my legs were giving out. I've pushed myself to run faster than the monsters, but they were running on my side now. They looked at me with their bloodlust eyes. They licked their lips as they inched closer.
     "NO!" I cried as I pushed myself harder. I could see the hole I arrived in, just outside the wall. I leaped over rocks, and debris of the wall, throwing some at the pack that followed me.
     "No..." I whispered. "No!" I came closer to the hole. Closer, and closer. I slid on the ground and crawled in through the lips of the Cactdie inside. Clawing my way in as the wolves' snouts broke through as well.
     I shouted as I fell forwards, light blinding me as I hit the ground. "NO!" I shouted as I pulled free my pistol and shot out to where I had fallen from.
     When my vision cleared and my breathing slowed, nothing was in front of me except for a gutted Cactdie that was slowly falling to the side with a few new bullet holes.
     Adrenaline jerked my body up, forcing me to stand. I looked down at my body, completely dry. No blood. I looked around and found the desert I had been in before. The abusive sun hot and blistering like normal, and not a blood red cloud in sight.
     "Again." I claw at my chest with my left hand as my right clipped my gun back on. "Five nights in a row."
     I gathered my things, and threw sheet over the Cactdie. I cut it off of its roots, and tide the sheet at the bottom. Tying a rope around it, I tugged it close behind as I continue down my path.
     Another day. Another risk.