"Please, Evacuate."
"All citizens within the Lincoln County Region. Please Evacuate."
"A gas leak has been spotted."
"Please evacuate the premises at once."
"Please—"
The automated voice abruptly ceased as the radio tower broadcasting the message was obliterated. All seventeen workers inside, who had been aiding civilians, slaughtered. Their bodies hung amidst the wreckage, blood splattered across the walls.
A little girl ran.
Her mother screamed behind her, "Don't look back." For the first time in her life, she obeyed. She kept running, her small feet tapping on the waterlogged ground as she exited the train station.
It was dark, but she saw light and heard voices. At last, she could escape and call for help to save her mother—
However,
That dream was extinguished.
Her hands reached out, but would never reach. Her little legs tried running faster, but no distance was covered. She looked down and her body had been torn to shreds, all her limbs scattered across the ground. She screamed. Yet it merely came out as a muffle from within the belly of the beast.
The creature stuck its tongue out, gathering up her limbs before looking toward the entrance of the train station. It had no thoughts or ideas, it was merely driven by the instinct of feeding and when it heard the voices of humans above. A smile appeared on its face.
"Mom, what did I tell you about fighting the nanny, she's merely trying to make our lives better." A woman said, holding her phone with her ear and shoulder as she coursed through her bag.
"That harpy is going to take your husband, Alice. I'm telling you now, don't cry when it eventually happens."
"Sure, mom. Whatever you—"
Alice fell to the ground, blood oozing from her head as she collapsed, above her, death itself. Chomping on her remains.
Panic ensued.
Everyone began running, they hadn't heard the broadcast earlier and the ones that had seen the posts on social media merely thought they were out of the blast zone, some even took it as a joke, but now? Nobody was laughing.
The streets were filled with screams, drivers honking their cars as they tried to escape through the pedestrian-filled roads. They honked and honked until the beast grabbed a car, the man within looking down the gullet of the giant monster as he was swallowed whole.
"This just in, there's a massive gas leak in Lincoln County. Everyone in the area should evacuate, this is not a drill. Please for your sake, leave the premises, drive, run. Tell your loved ones, get out of there!" A woman's voice rang out from a TV showcase.
The curse flew into the air, its mouth opening to release several orbs onto the surface. Each orb exploded with the force of a large bomb, demolishing buildings indiscriminately.
A boy ran through a building alongside his sister, he glanced back and all he could see was a crater. The crater filled to the brim with blood, the monster's personal hot tub.
Though he kept running, he had left something behind—his little brother, who had let go of his hand in a rush down the street. He knew that returning would likely be a death sentence, but what kind of older brother would abandon his sibling to die?
The creature let out a piercing scream, tendrils erupting from its body and impaling those who fled, like needles piercing through fabric.
"Theodore, why did you stop?" The little girl asked, a bulb bursting above her as power lines were destroyed.
"Keep moving, follow the crowd. I'm going to find Daniel," Theodore said, crouching down to her eye level. "Trust me, okay? I'll bring Daniel back, and then we'll find Mom and Dad."
"Okay," She replied, continuing to run as he urged her forward.
"Now, Theo. It's time to do something incredibly foolish," Theodore said, a tear trickling down his cheek. He glanced back.
He leaped through a window, crashing onto the pavement face-first. As he rose, he realized he had stumbled over the lower half of a man. He covered his mouth, suppressing the urge to vomit, then stood and ran.
His siblings meant everything to him, especially since their parents had died in a plane crash. He had been lying to them ever since, unable to bring himself to tell them the truth.
But now, just like his parents. He would have to leave his sibling behind. He jumped over a crater, screaming out his brother's name as people ran past him, one of them tried to pull him alongside, but he refused.
Again he screamed out his brother's name.
And again.
And again.
...
His brother was probably dead already, in the stomach of the curse, it was infuriating, fighting an opponent of that magnitude. No amount of training would help in fighting it, yet... for some reason, he couldn't accept that his brother was dead.
He started running.
He didn't know why he did, was it because of hope that his brother was somehow alive in the monster, or was it because of anger? Was he planning on actually fighting the curse?
He seized a baseball bat lying on the ground and charged toward the large white creature in the middle of the street, as it devoured civilians.
He screamed incoherently as he approached, trying to strike the creature with the bat. Suddenly, he felt a warm liquid trickling down his legs.
Looking down, he saw that his stomach had been impaled by a needle-like extension of the creature's body. He coughed up blood as the needle lifted him, bringing him closer to the creature's horrifying face.
It had no eyes or features, just a wide mouth filled with thousands of teeth extending almost to its stomach. The screams of people faded into oblivion as his vision darkened and his strength ebbed. This was death's embrace.
Yet, as the creature opened its mouth to swallow him, he heard something—a sound that sparked a fuse within him he didn't know he had.
"Theodore, help me!"
He knew that voice, he tried responding but blood had filled his throat, he looked around, tears streaming down his face as he anxiously searched and suddenly he saw it. It was his brother, within the stomach of the beast.
Almost as if to spite him, the beast clenched its maw just as he reached out to grab his brother, crushing him into a mist of blood that the creature quickly swallowed.
He screamed out again, a raw and anguished cry.
"I'll KILL YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!"
An empty threat to a being of such size and magnitude. It tossed him down its throat, and in that moment, Theodore Roosevelt's story came to an abrupt end.
People continued to flee, unwilling to slow down as the beast consumed those behind them. It was the darkest day for many, yet even amidst the chaos, the sun finally rose.
"Fucking hell," A man muttered, dropping his cigar to the ground as he stood in the middle of the road, the frantic crowd swirling around him.
"That's a Class A curse, Sir. Are you sure you can handle it alone? I can request backup with an estimated arrival time of five minutes," His companion said, holding a tablet in her hand.
"In five minutes, the entire city is going to be reduced to ash." The man sighed, stretching his arms as the sheathed sword on his waist shook. "Plus, Cassie. Do you really think I can't take that thing down by myself?"
"It's not about that, Colt. It's just that... losing you would be detrimental to our cause, and honestly, it would put my head on the chopping block," Cassandra revealed. Colt laughed, stomping out his cigar.
"Alright then, set a timer for two minutes. Watch me beat my own record."
"Okay."
3.
2.
1.
In a flash of light and a gust of wind, Colt was gone from her side, launching himself toward the curse. Hovering above it, he smiled as he unsheathed his sword, sending several slashes of purple light at the creature. It swiftly evaded the attacks.
"C'mon, don't be like that. I just want to dance," Colt grinned as he landed, dashing toward the curse with his blade, severing one of its legs in an instant, bringing it to the ground.
The beast screamed as it fell, its face hitting the dirt. Terror took over; it didn't want to be near Colt. Its legs quivered, its fight-or-flight response triggered.
Colt walked toward the fallen creature, his eyes darkening as a purple ooze enveloped his arm like a gauntlet. He grabbed the curse by its skin and punched it so hard a chunk of it exploded into pieces.
The curse was blown back into a building, bringing down an entire skyscraper as it settled within the rubble. Slowly, Colt walked toward it, lighting another cigar. "A minute to spare for a Class-A isn't bad. I'm definitely asking the boss for a raise."
Colt unsheathed his blade once more, ready to decapitate the curse and terminate any chance of future reincarnation cycles.
But as he brought his blade to the creature's neck, he made the mistake of cornering a terrified beast. The creature rose from the rubble, its form turning pitch black as tendrils erupted from its body and burrowed into the ground.
"What's it doing, Cass?"
"Its energy levels are off the charts... It's trying to kill itself!" Cassandra responded. Colt turned his attention to the beast.
"Wanna go out with a bang, huh?" Colt laughed, swinging his sword backward as dark blood splattered on the pavement.
The beast's eyes began to bulge, its blood boiling. It realized it couldn't win against Colt, so it resorted to its last option: self-destruction. As long as it wasn't murdered by his blade, it could reincarnate, but it intended to take many lives with it in the process.
The impending explosion would be akin to a nuke, capable of destroying the entirety of Delaware, starting with Lincoln City and its population of two hundred thousand.
As the climax approached, the curse saw bright lights in its eyes, signaling a new beginning attached to a new host, where it could feed as it pleased.
"I'm not dead yet, bastard," A voice muttered from within the beast, but the curse heard it directly in its mind, a connection it hadn't initiated.
"You think I'll let you get away with killing so many people? Killing my brother!"
The curse's self destruction was halted, an act it hadn't started. It tried taking control over its body once more but it was impossible.
"This ends here!"
Curses were shrouded in mystery, and much remained unknown about them. Invisible to the human eye, they would eventually bond with a host, creating a parasitic relationship as they took over completely.
Now, just as with the initial bond, a second one began, linking the beast to another host. But this time, it wasn't parasitic—it was symbiotic.
The beast crashed to the ground, causing Colt to halt his advance. Walking toward it with his blade raised, he aimed to end its life.
But he paused as a boy burst forth from the curse's corpse, his clothes torn and bloody, his limbs shattered and torn off. Colt couldn't believe it.
While it was possible for humans to resist curses in their early stages, before becoming fully parasitic, there had been no documented cases of a host overtaking a curse after its complete formation.
Colt smiled shrewdly, holding his blade to the boy's neck as he noticed his injuries slowly healing. "Do you want to live?"
"What?" Theodore asked, bewildered. How was he alive? Where was he?
"I won't ask again, nor will I explain further. Do you want to live?" Colt's voice was resolute.
Theodore was at a loss for words, but he sensed that something had changed. Little did he know, that from this day onward, his life would be transformed from a mundane existence into an endless battle with the unknown. Slowly, he looked up at Colt and moved his lips.
"Yes... I want to live."
Colt smiled, sheathing his blade and extending his hand. "Alright then, welcome to Siege, kid."