Kaboom, Kaboom, Kaboom
Abdirahman, filled with confusion and panic, ran as fast as he possibly could. Rubble and corpses filled his path. Screams and screeches filled his ears, occasional cries of pain blending with intermittent chewing that echoed everywhere.
The rhythmic bombardment of flames pulsed in sync with his erratic heartbeat—an uplifting cadence of death.
"Get the fuck outta my way," came a curse and a shove to the ground from a tanned, middle-aged man. The language was previously unknown and unrecognizable, yet it was now oddly understood.
Along with this understanding came a gut-wrenching fear. Abdirahman attempted to crawl backward, ignoring the scrapes and bleeding on his palms. He barely felt them anyway.
The only sensation his mind could process was fear: fear of the creature closing in on him.
Abdirahman's pupils dilated, his blood suddenly ran cold. Everything—from the orchestra of screams to the rain of fire—slowed down. Abdirahman had never felt time pass so distinctly: every millisecond felt like a minute, every second an eternity.
The maw of the creature closed in on his head. A rancid smell of burnt rot escaped its throat.
But just as the creature was about to snap its jaws shut—
Boom!
A fireball slammed onto its back, causing it to arch in pain and let out a bloodcurdling screech before collapsing. Its entire body came crashing down on Abdirahman beneath it.
Crack
Ahhhhhhh
A muffled sound of breaking bones and a loud yet suppressed scream came from beneath the charred creature.
Abdirahman's pupils suddenly dilated as his pain morphed into panic. He struggled to gasp for air, only to be rewarded with a mouthful of fur.
No, no, no, not again. I can't die like this. Why? Why? Abdirahman's thoughts spiraled out of control.
The distant booms and screeches became nothing more than fleeting echoes.
No
No
No…
Abdirahman's struggles slowed to a stop as his heart gradually came to rest.
Half a day later, after the chaos had ended, lingering smoke and small embers clung to the sky, reluctant to move on.
Bodies of both man and beast alike lay scattered across the rubble, lifeless.
Maggots, flies, ravens, and locusts scoured the streets to sate their hunger.
The sounds of chewing and ripping flesh mixed with the faint crackle of flames and the slight breeze, generating a grisly background noise capable of unsettling even the hardest hearts.
Bzzt, Bzzt
A lone locust flew around haphazardly, not yet full, trying to savor this rare feast. Suddenly, it felt a faint calling from somewhere in the distance.
Curious, the locust flew over and landed on a giant rat—the source of the calling.
Gently nibbling on the open, charred wound on the rat's back, it took a few bites before spreading its wings and flying away.
Yet as the locust lifted into the air, the calling grew stronger.
It peered downward, spotting a hand extending from beneath the beast.
The moment its gaze landed on the hand, a deathly desire—unlike anything it had ever experienced—overwhelmed its mind.
As if hypnotized, the locust slowly made its way down, landing on the hand.
The instant it touched the skin, a suction acted upon it, crushing its body under immense pressure and turning it into paste. Then, a strange heat liquefied the pulp, causing it to seep inside the pores of the hand.
Ba…dump
A slow, lone, and muffled heartbeat escaped from under the rat, the sound stretching into the distance.
All the locusts who heard the heartbeat suddenly froze. Then, as if high on adrenaline, they all zoomed toward the source. Spotting the rat below, they did not hesitate and swarmed toward the corpse, devouring its flesh and drinking its blood, leaving only bones behind. Through the gaps in the bones, the locusts saw a crushed body beneath.
That body radiated an irresistible attraction.
With hunger and desire, the locusts dove toward the body. As they consumed it, a strange brown mist enveloped the swarm, like a cloud of dust blocking out all light.
Slowly, the mist began to disperse, revealing a naked body devoid of injuries—yet covered in cracks, as if it were glass about to shatter into countless pieces.
The swarm of locusts had vanished completely, and even the rat's bones, previously untouched, were gone without a trace.
The entire town fell into an eerie silence.
This silence stretched on for ten minutes before it was finally broken by—
Ba-dump
A faint heartbeat escaped the naked body.
The heart beat in a steady rhythm; its chest rose and fell calmly and peacefully.
Abdirahman's eyelashes flickered as he slowly opened his eyes. His unfocused gaze rested on the ashen sky.
His thoughts were in disarray, fragments of memory drifting in and out:
Memories of him playing with his food… No, his friends. Memories of him flying through a forest with hundreds—thousands—of his own kind. Memories of him eating…himself…
And memories of hunger. Food. Hunger.
Hungry.
"I…"
A hoarse voice, more like the buzzing of thousands of wings, escaped Abdirahman's mouth.
"…am…"
His body suddenly gained countless more cracks, threatening to break apart at any moment. Then a random gust of wind blew against him.
Boom
His body shattered into thousands of locusts, a cluster of brown and black hovering briefly before exploding in every direction.
"…Hungry!"