The Game Changer

Mina stood on a mound of rubble looking towards the overgrown structures strangled with vines and algae. She stared off in the direction of the refraction of light that caught her eye. She must inspect. With no sun visible …. a reflection, of what? what could it be, and why?

Scourging and foraging through mountains of debris, rubble and overgrown buildings was a daily occurrence for her, she was alone, and it was dead quiet, silent in fact, it was an unresting creepy kind of silence.

Earth had stepped into a new dark era, old earth safe earth, gone forever. The sun now a hazy glow through a thick atmosphere. there had been many changes to this world, quite terrifying and unknown.

Cern. Industries at the height of earths technological civilisation created a rip in the fabric of our reality twisting all dimensions fusing them into one distorted timeline. It created a reality that no one expected - not in their darkest nightmares, thrusting upon earth a doosy of doomsday. Electrical storms, earthquakes, tidal waves and finally to top it off, the rips by-product created a black hole, letting inconceivable demons and other worldly creatures through. These creatures never been seen by the naked eye, invisible killers, no one knew what hit them … There was a thing called the internet, computers went down…

There were all kinds of new life on earth now, just not familiar to the earth we once knew.

Life was lonely, there were people, just not that many. All surviving like Mina, hoping to see the next day. Mina was 7 when she last saw her parents alive, most were taken by the night creatures killed quickly and gruesomely. Being constantly vigilant was the only way to survive, “you must have eyes in the back of your head” Mina’s father would say.

The rip was created many cycles ago, how many she did not know, time was irrelevant. Staying alive was a moment-to-moment gig, and till now she had done ok on her own.

The light grew thin, how long did she have before the blackness kicked in? Mina found an old winding pocket watch a couple of cycles ago. She called the seconds clicks, not knowing what the actual time was, she went by counting clicks, and counting kept her sane. About 1000 clicks was the amount of time she had to get back to the safety of her vault before the blackness fell upon her. She had just expanded her foraging territory and was a little further away from her vault this time.

The Blackness is what we call night, not just darkness, but, a pitch-black blackness, with no moon, no stars, no lights, nothing except the glows of terrifying creatures’ eyes.

If you saw glowing eyes that’s when the real fear kicked in, it was pretty much too late - These glowing eyed creatures made sounds to lift the skin off your body they were shrill like screams, death sounds as they flew closer … This was a brave new world and the people that had survived, lived in fear of being the next dark creatures’ meal.

Humans the hunted, their prey. There’s no rational understanding of these creatures, and they didn’t have a name, they have night vision, could fly and could smell us out. Be it worse if you had a cut or were bleeding the dark creatures would immediately find you, like a feeding frenzy, ripping you apart in all directions, then feed off you till there’s nothing left except a few flesh stripped bones. They have all the advantage and no remorse These creatures have hunted us, nearly to the brink of extinction. Not knowing what you’re fighting is like a blind man giving you directions and to tell the truth, I’m not sure what’s scarier knowing what your killer looks like or not.

She slid down the rubble, jumped over a pile of rusted cars and there, there it was. Mina stood over what appeared to be a skeletons hand grasping something metal, protruding out from under a buckled car and rubble, …. She reached down and picked up what seemed to be a very dirty, tarnished heart shaped locket.

The fine gold chain the locket was attached to was broken. Rubbing it between her fingers she felt engravings on both sides. The front had an ornamental pattern with a lock in the middle, on the other side there was an inscription of some sort, it wrote … …. “Just breathe, you’ve got this” …. Mina’s brow frowned in inquisition. She tried prying it open with her nails, it was locked. The light was diminishing rapidly, without wasting another click she took off with great haste.

Mina had left it longer than was comfortable to see, her heart started to pump harder thinking of if she didn’t make it. Mina was a fast runner and nimble on her feet, she had to make it.

As she skipped and jumped over the shadows, she was going way to fast, she tripped, ripped her leg on what felt like wire…… shit, she was bleeding. She grabbed her leg and started to feel around for where she was, the blackness had set in. Mina blindly felt around, there was a shop door, it was locked, then it came …. the shrills, the creatures could smell her, they were coming for her, and she knew it.

She felt a window on the door panel, what could she find quickly, panic setting in. Feeling around in the rubble at her feet, ahh, a broken brick! with that she smashed the window pushed through the door practically flying under the table across the room, not knowing what else to do nowhere else to go she pulled her legs up to her chest and held her breath. She was still holding the heart shaped locket in her hand and the shrills were getting louder and closer, her hearted pounded so hard she could feel it moving her whole body, she had perspiration dripping down her brow into her eyes, she shuddered at every screech, then it happened they came crashing through the door ripping at the walls and smashing through the windows and doorway clawing their way towards her, encroaching closer, Mina trembled, her hands clasped together over her mouth keeping herself as still and as quiet as possible, the table flew upwards and with that sudden shock, Mina screamed…. in that moment a blinding light lit up the room, that seemed to come from her mouth.

The creatures shrilled again but it was different this time, the light threw them backwards, there was three of them. Mina for the first time saw the creatures that were about to rip her apart, the blinding light seemed to burn them, they flew out of the room instantly off into the blackness. As she took notice of the shop that she had broken into, a hat shop in fact, realised that one had been thrown back and speared to the wall, smoke coming of the spurs of the wings and out of its eyes, seeing the creature up close and personal was terrifying.

Mina knew about the animals that once thrived on this planet before, as her father would find her books on animals. It looked like a bat, a grotesque giant bloodsucking bat with razor teeth and wings the span of car, it was still alive and twitching. Her mind was racing still in shock of it all, she thought about five thoughts at once, how much time would she have till they returned, the locket she looked at it in her hand, it was open… what the...? The locket was still beaming light… she then looked at her leg, the blood trailing from her thigh to shin, and where exactly was she? she needed to get back to the vault now.

Looking back at the overgrown demon bat, Mina shuddered at the thought of how close she came, she kicked the broken parts of the table out of her way, then headed out the door and backtracked to where she fallen off her path. She could see she was just around the corner from where she lived and on the opposite corner from that, was her bank of safety.

She limped up the stairs pushed herself through the revolving door wedging it locked behind her, then through the big bank’s main doors. Mina shuffled her way to the back of the building went up some stairs down along hallway and opened the vault door. She locked herself in, lit some candles and closed the heart shaped locket and placed it down next to her bed. She must clean and bandage her leg before it got septic, she sat down and ripped her pants back to evaluate her wound, then poured some water into a bowl heated it up on a three-candle burner, and bathed her wound with warm salt water, as she did this her mind rehashing what had just happened, she was still slightly trembling and rightly so.

How could the light reflect off the heart shaped locket without any light to reflect, and by taking the risk to find the locket, she almost lost her life but without the locket she most surely would of. Although if she had not delayed finding the locket, she would not have been in that position in the first place. This was a total game changer, Mina realised she now had a defence. She had no idea where this heart shaped locket had come from and was it even from this world, perhaps it was meant to be found by her. All these questions swimming around in her head, she was exhausted. …

Mina thought about the words engraved on the locket, she fell back and closed her eyes as she drifted off, then suddenly it came to her, her eyes opened wide, and whispered to herself

The breath, was the key……