It has been 23 years since the world was raided by extraterrestrial creatures. Once a vibrant and colourful civilization, akin to any other normal world, it is now just a dark, clouded-skied derelict.
Half of the population being wiped away in a few weeks, the outbreak of a new disease. The Lead Syndrome was a deadly illness that made its debut right after the arrival of the Ròkks. It was believed that the disease was caused by nuclear and radioactive reactions from the crash of their vessel. The symptoms of the disease included seizures, difficult breathing, epistaxis, paleness, and weakness, often culminating in death.
One would think there's no story as tragic as this. But there is.
∞
A beam of light caught Levi's attention. Crouched next to the remains of a door post, he was gripping his legs tightly. He couldn't even cry properly; his head hurt, and he had just started to nosebleed.
The light seemed to be coming from deep under all the rubble. The rubble of what was once his home. Everything was burned down and nature didn't hesitate to take over. A few wooden and metal tools were left in all the mouldy ash and vines that were sprawled on the ground as the moonlight beamed from the roofless debris.
Levi forced himself up, wiping away a few hanging tears, and moved toward the blue light at the far end of the ruins. The light grew brighter as he came closer, almost too bright for his sick eyes to handle, but he went on.
"What's this?" He heard himself ask as he quickly set apart the top junks covering the light. He stopped when he was able to get a good view of what sourced the light. It was like a box, he saw. But not a normal box.
Levi picked it up and the light intensity reduced. He studied the weird object, it was blue and had weird carvings on it like it was heavily secured. Perhaps it's a little safebox, he thought. He searched for a horizontal platform he could place it on.
He spotted a metal table, still intact but scarred with burns. He remembered that table; he and his father had stopped eating their breakfast at it when his mother died of the same illness. He had been six when she passed. Levi closed his eyes in pain and wiped away a gush of blood from beneath his nose.
He dropped the little box and studied it more carefully. It was black and blue, resembling some tech product. He noticed an oval etching to one side of the box and, out of instinct, placed his bloody thumb on it.
Surprisingly, the box opened. Levi gasped as he dropped the box, revealing a little creature that looked like a microchip, but with wires serving as legs, crawling out. "What the hell is that?" Levi whispered.
Levi watched in astonishment as the little tech creature danced and moved around on the table. Intrigued, he reached forward with his index finger to touch it. "What are you?" He asked. The little creature climbed his finger and onto the back of his palm. Levi chuckled and petted it with his other hand.
What's this sort of a thing doing here? He thought as the creature scrambled from his arms and to his shoulders. "Aren't you adorable?" Levi remarked looking at it over his shoulder. "What else do you have in that box of yours? Let's check it out." Levi reached for the box, but before he could grasp it, he felt an excruciating pain at the back of his neck.
"Ahh!" He shouted and slapped his neck in response but the pain didn't stop. "Ahh- Ahhhhhhhh!!!! Get off! Get of- ahh!" The goddamn thing was burrowing into his body! He screamed so loudly in pain as he tried ripping off the skin of his neck. "Fuck!" He felt blood start to drip out of his neck. He lost his balance and crashed to the floor, scrambling like a fish. He kept screaming in pain under the moonlight, desperately trying to grab the walls or anything else for balance.
Suddenly, he stopped screaming, and in its place came muffled sounds as if he was convulsing. He dropped back to the ground; his fingers crooked, veins popping out, blood gushed from his mouth, his eyes now rolled back to show only the whites.
---
"You must've heard that right?" One officer asked another. They were patrol officers of the Mayskeep and some surrounding communities.
"I heard nothing," the second officer replied.
"Leave it to Bob to always be a chicken. We head for the sound," a third officer chipped in leading the way.
"Oh! So I'm the chickenin' one?! The one who suggests against going after a sound of someone screaming in this creepy vine area at 7pm?" The second officer protested, trying to rally his cause.
"Come on man... It always gets boring on duty every night. Might as well experience something adventurous," the first officer said to him. "You may not know... If it's a lost girl, we might have some fun with her." He gave a wink and a devilish smile before going after the third officer. "Keep up Bob!"
---
The officers switched on their torchlights as they moved into the shade. There, they saw Levi's sack bag and his torn clothes on the ground.
"Holy shit!" exclaimed the third officer, aiming his torchlight at a pool of blood. "What the hell is going on here?"
They continued to shine their torchlights around the ruins. "Let's get out of here; there's nothing here," the second officer cautioned.
"Hold on," the First Officer said, moving closer to a corner of the precinct. He aimed the torchlight as he approached, "What the hell is that?" He could see a pale figure in a blue and black cybernetic suit; it looked as if the person was dead.
"Hey! Let's get the hell out of here now!" The second officer cautioned once more now with fear.
"Alright," the First Officer said, succumbing to the situation and trying to back away as quietly as he could. He dropped his torchlight when he saw the figure's eyes open.
At the blink of an eye, his throat was grabbed, and he was lifted four feet off the ground. The other officers immediately opened fire, but it was to no avail; this thing seemed bulletproof.
They watched first hand as their colleague's head was torn apart from his body, splattering his blood on both walls of the shade. "Ru- Ru- R- Run," the second officer managed to say.
Their efforts were in vain, as this entity was a hundred times faster than them. The third officer lived to see his comrade obliterated into thin air; he dropped to the ground as the moonlight revealed the true appearance of this formidable force.
"Please.. please.... I have a son, please."