"Oh my..."

As he came out of his truck, the man who had been riding it a few seconds ago landed brutally on the ground, his face strangely as pale as snow.

His vehicle was halted in the middle of the road, the wet and gleaming surface reflecting the truck's headlights in a blurry golden reflection. The man's shadow, now slightly ahead of the truck, concealed a grotesque and horrifying sight – that of a lifeless body, struck by the vehicle just a minute ago.

The body was that of an old man, twisted in an impossibly contorted position. His hands could easily touch his elbows, and despite his torso pointing to the sky, his head almost faced the ground.

Beneath the once-white jacket of the old man, a small river of blood was slowly forming. The blood seemed to creep towards the driver's feet, as if seeking retribution by trying to pull him down with the corpse.

Yet, the street remained eerily silent, even though it was far from empty.

Facing the scene from a small market, a young girl watched in horror as her mother desperately tried to shield her eyes. Nearby, her older brother couldn't contain his revulsion, vomiting at the gruesome sight. It was an understandable reaction.

"Why isn't anyone... Calling an ambulance?!"

Almost yelled a homeless woman who had been sitting in front of the market, her eyes wide with a mix of terror and craziness.

"What could they even do?!! Look at his head !"

Yelled back the driver, his voice filled with shock as he approached the lifeless body. Each step he took through the blood seemed to reverberate throughout the entire street, if not the entire city.

The silence of death was omnipresent.

Now standing in front of the body, the driver froze in place, unable to react at the close sight of the corpse.

It's not like accidents were rare in this city, it was in fact, pretty common. Yet, nobody here seemed to be used to accidents, all of them always thought that these kinds of stories only happened to others.

"I... He spawned out of nowhere..."

Already looking for excuses, the driver turned around to face the persons in front of the market. But he wasn't believing his own words himself.

Hiding with difficulty her disgust, the mother slowly composed the emergency number on her phone. Even though she was trying to act as calm as possible, she couldn't stop her hands from shaking.

"How strange... There's no connection...'

Even her voice was shaky now.

"Aaaah... What is... How in the w...-"

The driver's voice too was shaky now, but the reasons weren't the same.

°°°

Emanating from the body like a deadly poison, a thick, black smoke slowly unfurled, as if attempting to reach the sky. If not for the overwhelming volume emanating from the lifeless form, one might have mistaken it for the old man's departing soul.

But yet, no one replied nor reacted to the driver's panic. He wouldn't have heard it anyway, because right now, the driver was convulsing on the ground. Fighting for his life, the driver screamed one last time before finally feeling himself fading away.

Soon, the mother, daughter, brother and the homeless woman joined him in death.

The smoke, however, never stopped to emanate from the old man's body and now covered the whole street in its total blindness.

The lifeless body of those who saw the truck incident started to move again. As if they were possessed, they twisted in ways that weren't planned by the laws of nature.

The girl's mouth was indeed opening so widely that her jaw instantly unhooked, while her arms teared apart, trying to move like tentacles. Her feet twisted without regard for the limits of their bones, and large tumors, as big as watermelons, began to form all over her back beneath her skin.

Quickly, her body ceased to be entirely human. Her skin, once as white as snow, had turned as red as blood, now covered in a peculiar black fur.

"....-"

The silence was shattered by a deep and savage scream that appeared to emanate from her mouth, as her body rose from the ground, extending its contorted limbs toward the sky.

Soon, other screams joined hers. They were the result of what the smoke had created.

Dozens of terror-filled screams joined this horrific orchestra just after those of the monsters, screams whose crescendo laid in the agony of their final moments.

Even though the smoke stopped emanating from the old corpse, the inhuman screams kept multiplying all over the city, and soon, all over the vast territory of Archigrad.