Golden

Issac stood behind the walls of the high rise building, watching as those creatures grew in number of every shape and size. Some even towered over the buildings with their long, pointy and, sometimes, numerous legs.

He stared at them trying to find some kind of opening to escape while dodging the boiling hot tar they left behind but there were just too many of them.

They look like those people in the malls whenever there is a sale. Issac thought to himself, frowning slightly.

A sudden scream drew his attention as well as the attention of all the creatures around him.

Issac gritted his teeth as the creatures made their way in the direction of the scream as it continued to grow even more frantic and pained.

He watched as the creatures moved, clearing a path for him to go through and booked it in the opposite direction as quickly as he could.

"Issac!" he heard someone shout and looked up to see the blurred figure of a woman waving at him from the window of a building.

Pausing, he changed his direction and ran into the building as quickly as he could as the creatures turned to him and began chasing as fast as their slow little bodies would allow them to go.

The doors opened and he jumped inside just in time for them to close it on the creatures.

No matter how destructive they are, they are not able to go through solids. In fact, it seems more like they completely avoid them. OR try their hardest to not run into the buildings.

"You good kid?" One man with a smoke hanging from the side of his lips asked, grinning at him.

His messy, partially slick back black hair and expensive suit did not fit this rundown building with nothing in it but broken pieces of furniture and rotting walls. He noticed a half torn logo on the man's shirt but ignored it.

"I am." Issac nodded, pushing himself up.

"Good that you are still alive. There are some new people here." The man laughed as Issac looked at the people all around the room.

Some looked as young as middle schoolers sobbing in the corner of the room while there are not many older people.

"Is there no defence yet?" He asked, turning to the man who shook his head sadly. "Nothing to do with this?"

"All that we could think of, we cannot even bring them here." He said sadly turning to the group of students huddled together. "I heard screams when I came here. I wanted to help but …"

"Rule number one," Issac said, taking the packet of expensive cigars from the man's pocket and popping on to his mouth.

The man grinned and pulled out a gold plated Zippo for him. "Do not go towards the direction of a scream."

Issac took one puff and continued, "Unless you wish to die."

"That is messed up in many ways." He said, putting the Zippo away, annoyed.

"Aren't you a gang boss?" Issac asked, blowing out a puff of smoke. "You should be used to things like this."

"At least in my line of work, I get to decide who I kill and who I don't." The man scrawled, the large cut along his lip to his neck pulsing slightly.

"I see." Issac nodded. You do not like not being in control. Got it.

"Why?!" One of the students shouted as the two, and everyone else, turned to them. "Why does this have to keep happening to me!?!"

"It is not just you!" One of the girls shouted at him. "We are here too!"

"Screw you!" The boy shouted at her. "You don't have the right to talk to me after what you did!"

"I only did what I did because of you!"

"Don't you dare turn this on me! It's not my fault you are such a whor-!"

"Enough!" the man beside Issac shouted, shaking the building. Everyone fell quiet immediately. "We are in danger of dying and this is what you are worried about? Deal with those problems afterwards!"

Everyone exchanged looks and fell silent once again, going back to falling silent once again.

"Uh. Excuse me? You two seem very calm about this situation so I will only assume that you know this." A woman in a torn sundress raised her hand. "Where are we? What is this? What are those creatures?"

"Basques," Issac said, staring at those creatures out the window as they bumped into one another and merged into one, bigger, creature.

"Negative emotions." Issac touched his wrist, remembering his first encounter with them. "Nasty creatures if you asked me but … they are a product of us humans."

"W-what do you mean?" One of the men stuttered. "Please explain properly!"

The man looked at Issac, a sly smile on his face, "Would you care to tell us? I did so last time."

"I don't know much about them either." He admitted, taking another puff of the smoke. "It was a good couple of years ago when I first experienced this. I was walking home from school and, suddenly, people around me disappeared.

"Everyone around me began to panic and call out to the person supposed to be beside them but nothing. No answer.

"The streets and the city became deadly quiet as I tried to walk to my house as quickly as I could. The only problem was that I knew nothing about these creatures and ... well ... I bumped into one of them.

"Without a second thought, it screeched and jumped into my body." He pulled up his shirt to reveal a closed up wound with scars extending all the way to his eye patch.

"All the voices in my head came up to the surface and magnified while I screamed and begged, the memories growing even stronger.

"Soon, the memories began to twist to the point that I could hardly tell the truth from the lie." He paused remembering the way his voice broke as he screamed in pain.

______________________

"Get out of my head. Please," he begged as tears streamed down his face and slowly began to lose consciousness.

Nothing happened, no one came and everything grew cold instantly.

"Kid. Hey kid! Snap out of it!"

He felt a hard slap on his cheek and sat up, gasping for breath as he looked around himself in panic.

"Where am I? Wha-"

"He's alive!" The woman in front of him shouted as a group of people ran to him immediately.

"Who are you? Wh-" he panicked and tire to stand up but his legs gave way and he fell over on his face.

"Are you ok?" The woman asked, looking at him with concern.

"Who are you? What is happening?" He asked, tears still streaming down his face. "What happened to everyone?"

_______________

"We don't know. Just be glad you are alive" The woman said with a bright smile on her face. "Come on, let's get you home."

Issac shook his head, remembering the look on his father's face when those people brought him home.

He changed ever since that day and the boy could not entirely understand why and he never got an answer but his fear of that man began that day.

Why am I even thinking about that now? He thought, frowning. I need to concentrate.

"These creatures are born of the negative emotions of the people of this city." He continued, looking at everyone in the room. "At first, they are merely thoughts but, accumulated over time, they will grow into those creatures.

"They will possess any human they see and drain all the negative emotions out of them, killing them in the end. This is a dimension different from our one, but it is connected, somehow.

"The only people that come here are those with negative emotions when the wave starts and also those that have been possessed before."

Issac took a puff of the smoke and turned to the man, "When I got attacked, I was not in the best emotions, as you could see. I am guessing you too?"

"You know it." The man laughed. "But to have to keep coming back here just because you survived their attack. Seems like this is the price to pay to be alive."

"But." one of the men shouted. "We would have heard something about this, wouldn't we? The public should have known about this."

Issac shook his head, snuffing out the smoke at the window stilt. "Bodies littered the street that day, too many bodies that there is no more place to bury all the bodies in.

"Though they didn't have to worry about this much." Issac shrugged. "The bodies disappeared entirely once the wave came again and brought us back."

"The public was kept in the dark about this because there were no bodies, they just ... disappeared." The man said, walking to the man. "Unless you experienced this, you would not have believed it, would you?"

"T-that means ... M-my son." The man fell to his knees sobbing. "My son is dead! He ... he is dead!"

Wailing filled the room as the man walked to Issac, tossing his smoke down on the creatures below.

"Filthy." he spat.

"Where is Haiti?" Issac asked, staring at the number of creatures increasing as the seconds passed by, seemingly from nowhere.

"Up." he pointed above the floor. "She and some others are still trying to collect as much data as they possibly can."

"I see," he said, still staring down when he saw something gold flash amongst the crowd of creatures.

"I want to do something more." The man said, punching the wall. "I would rather die than have to keep hiding like this."

"Are you trying to be a hero?" Issac said as his eyes widened when he noticed a child running away from the creatures. "No way."

"What?" the man looked out the window, spotting the child cornered by the creatures. "Is that a chil-"

Issac placed his hand on the man's shoulders, looking at him with a slightly crazed look in his eyes. "You wanted to do something about this, right?"

"... yes?"

"Good. Come with me."