High in the sky.
Over a thousand meters high.
The last high-rise building.
And the last man on the ground.
His muscular figure was naked, and the scraps on his body like a tarp could not hide his tattooed body.
He had his last cigarette in his mouth, and in his hand, he held an old and worn transmitter.
Sunset rays of light illuminated his overgrown and blood-stained face. His eyes were already losing the last trace of life.
With ragged breathing, he watched the huge silhouettes, hidden in the shadows of the clouds, move in his direction through the ruined ruins of the city.
Slightly lowering his gaze, the man grinned briefly.
Hordes of zombies were slowly climbing to the top of the high-rise building.
With a trembling hand, he watched as the giant figures drew closer and closer, destroying absolutely everything in their path.
They were coming in his direction. Yes, they were coming for him. Probably the last native inhabitant of this planet.
Softly, he covered his eyes. His lips trembled slightly. His hair fluttered in the wind.
"Haa…"
The sound of footsteps shook the whole building. The screams of zombies climbing from all sides grew stronger and stronger.
"Apparently… it was time." Sighing wearily, he opened his eyes and the figures of the Colossians appeared before him. Just quietly watching him from a few hundred yards away.
But that was quite enough.
'Yes… that's quite enough…' Opening the transmitter, he looked at the red button.
"Fuck it…" Spitting out the cigarette butt, he pressed the red button.
*BUM*
There was a huge explosion within a few kilometers that wiped most of the city off the face of the earth.
[Congratulations, phase one is over!]
[Initiating auxiliary system wake-up!]
[You have destroyed a Titan of destruction: +1 Blocked…]
[You destroyed a Titan of Devastation: +1 Hidden…]
[You destroyed a Titan of Destruction: +1 Hidden …] [You destroyed a Titan of Destruction: +1 Hidden …]
[Confirm user's death.]
[To be used: 1x "???"]
A violent gust of wind. The howl of thousands of zombies. The agonizing rumblings of giants. A strange mechanized voice.
It was all gone in an instant.
Only darkness.
'This is the end.'
Cold and lonely darkness surrounded the tired body. Giving it a nice cool breeze and the smell of freshly brewed coffee.
'Wait… Coffee?'
"Dear customer, are you…"
'What? What's going on?! Why am I hearing these voices?! Is this a suicide hallucination?'
"Dear customer! Are you going to order anything? If not, please leave this…"
'Well… even though it's a hallucination, I'm still glad. Glad to be escorted to the afterlife by such a sweet voice…'
"Dear customer, wake up already!!!"
Tiredly opening his eyes, Gray looked at the pretty and concerned waitress.
After looking at her uniform, he immediately shifted his gaze to his hands.
"Young… Is it me…?" Looked at the table where his laptop lay, and then at his surroundings. Gray couldn't shake the feeling of confusion.
'Why am I alive? Or was this… was this all just a dream?' But when in the street, behind the storefront. A scruffy girl fell and began cursing her heels nonstop, it was like something clicked in Gray's head. All his doubts dissipated in an instant.
He ran outside, first helped the girl to get up, and then began to call his loved ones.
Unfortunately, the only person close to Gray was his older brother, Alex. Their parents died in a plane crash.
"Alex, damn you! Pick up the phone!" Unable to reach his older brother, he decided to call his girlfriend.
"Hello?"
"Hi, May. Is Alex home? If he is, can you call him right away, please?"
"Hi, Gray. Is something wrong?"
"Don't worry, it's nothing serious. Just put my brother on the phone, please."
"He's not home right now, he's gone to the bachelor party."
'Shit! I totally forgot!'
"Yeah? That's too bad. Do you happen to know where he's going?"
"No, didn't he tell you?"
"Not exactly…"
"Hmm?!"
"No, no! I just remembered where he is!" Remembering her temper, Gray didn't want to complicate his life…
"Mia, listen to me. If there's a red haze in the sky, lock the door, and don't let anyone in but Alex and me! Do you understand me?"
"I… I guess?"
"Fine, wait for us. As soon as I find my brother, we'll come back and have dinner together. I have a little present for you."
After hanging up, Mia looked at her phone strangely.
'Has he always been like this?'
Calling a cab, Gray tried his best to remember where his brother had gone.
That day. Because of the missed conference, Gray became very upset and went on a binge for several days.
It was during that interval that he couldn't remember a damn thing that had happened to him.
Then he just woke up in another city, in some private club where they only let him in by invitation.
'It was an interesting period…'
Melancholy, rummaging through his memories, he does manage to pull out a snippet from ten years ago.
Alex was at his rich friend's villa that day. It was there that they celebrated the coolest bachelor party Grey had ever seen.
But he, unfortunately, missed it all.
Calling a cab, Gray tried again to call his older brother. But all were unsuccessful. After leaving a couple of voicemails, he got into the back seat of the car.
"Can I go any faster? I'll pay extra if you can get me there in less than thirty minutes."
"Young man, this is… " The middle-aged driver looked at him strangely.
Grey pulled out the cash and handed it in advance. "For every five minutes you save, you get ten percent of the original amount."
The cab driver's eyes instantly lit up with peculiar lights.
Fifteen minutes later, they finally got out of the traffic. Here, Grey was powerless.
Heading toward the east side of town, the car suddenly began to shake violently.
The hum of the cars filled the street, completely overshadowing the panicked cries of passersby.
"Shit!" After cursing heavily right in the car, he looked out the window.
A dense, red fog was slowly descending from the sky.
'Here we go!'
"Turn around, we're going to the nearest kitchen store." At first, the driver didn't want to go anywhere because of the stopped cars on the road. But under Gray's entreaty, he did give in to the temptation of money.
'They won't be any use in an hour anyway… By the way, why did the fog come down so fast?!' He remembered that the beginning of the apocalypse was exactly in the middle of the day.
After a few minutes, visibility became zero. Driving on was impossible.
After giving some money to the driver, he set off on his own.
Passers-by fled to the nearest shelters, trying to hide from the unknown phenomenon.
And only Gray nonchalantly walked to the kitchen appliance store.
After a couple of turns, he found it after all.
Opening the front door, he saw a group of completely different people staring at him.
Ignoring their frightened stares, he walked over to the counter and looked at a slightly chubby woman in an apron with the company of their store.
"The biggest knife, please. And preferably two. As soon as possible!" Putting the cash on the table, he watched as the frightened owner hurriedly retrieved a pair of long knives from the back room.
As he saw her discard any unnecessary items, an interesting idea occurred to him. "Would you please leave those plastic cases and… do you have any rope? I'll pay for it."
With a dubious look at the busily dressed customer, she nodded lightly and walked away toward the storeroom.
At that moment two policemen burst into the store, holding the exhausted girl, with her troubled husband apparently standing beside her.
Gray looked at the girl's pale face, with shades of green on her face, and obviously bloodshot eyes. He frowned heavily upon seeing such a picture.
"Mistress! Hurry up and get the first aid kit over here, we have a casualty!" A man in a police uniform shouted toward the counter. His partner followed him, quickly glancing over the crowd, and decided to ask just in case.
"Is there a doctor among you?" He received only negative nods in response.
"Maybe someone knows how to provide first aid?" Still, there was no answer. There was only silence and incessant panicked shouting outside the store.
Ten minutes later, another man in a long overcoat and an umbrella in his hands arrived. He looked about fifty years old, and his posture was good. "Who is in charge here? May I stay here for a while? The traffic was paralyzed and visibility was zero, and I didn't want to have to walk every meter to get home."