The current situation

Hector leaned on the wall, He was panting hard and a dried corpse was lying beside him. It was the most creepy encounter he ever had. The undead's skin was shriveled like dry earth with dried blood painting its body. The Dark look on the undead's eyes and its creepy aura made Hector doubt whether the undead was a cursed soul of the dead or a different being altogether, who possessed the lifeless bodies.

Whatever it may be, he didn't have answers for it.

He surveyed the room, the room was littered with glass and wooden pieces of furniture. There was one body laid on the broken brown sofa. It had a huge wooden nail stuck on its head.

Hector had come in stealthily and dealt with the undead in one swift blow to its head. But he didn't know there was another in the same room and hence it ended up in a dangerous battle.

The sun was dimming and soon night would cover the city, he had to return to their meeting point before midnight.

Since they didn't know the exact situation, they split up to dig up information in this mayhem.

Each went in one direction to get the image of the current situation. And if Hector had to say what he felt about the situation was ' Strange'.

He Knew by now that giant monstrosities have been wreaking havoc in the city. But what truly felt disturbing was that there were not many people he could see.

Several things were happening around that can cause widespread panic, but Hector saw none in this outermost settlement of the city.

He would occasionally see one or two clueless people running across the street or hiding in the safety of their homes. But most people were not there. it looked like they had vanished, a population of nearly 5000 populated this neighborhood but now probably not more than 500 were there in this region.

Hector got up after a short break and took the liberty to ON the tv which had many cracks running through it.

He switched through many channels but most of them had stopped airing. Only one or two International channels were still running. A tired-looking face of a beautiful reporter appeared on the screen.

"Currently UAN is facing a lot of problems, The origin and cause of the towering tree are unknown and our scientists are working hard to figure out what is happening. The disturbances occurring are being taken care of by the military to the best of their ability. The government has advised the citizens to stay at home and not venture out unless it's absolutely necessary..."

The news went on, but it was too vague and didn't show what was happening. It was trying to put false hope for its citizens. He knew that situation was too dire than what they showed on tv. But he got to know that the phenomenon was not limited to this city alone but the entire world.

The government was still working as for now. But he didn't know what will happen in the future. The government may collapse or may endure it. The structure of the United Asian Nations (UAN) was firm yet flexible.

Hector switched off the tv and got out of the Apartment room. There was no sound in the hallway except the loud echo of his footsteps.

He soon made his way to their rendezvous point. Where Both Virgil and Wayne we're already there.

Virgil wore a plain white shirt which was now stained with blood. He looked lost in his thoughts and didn't notice his arrival.

" Welcome back, did you find anything? " Wayne greeted him.

" Yeah, kind of, what about you"

Wayne had gone towards the center of the city. The closer one's house was to the center, the rent and price of the land increased. So it could be said that people living near the edge of cities were poor. The people living there were low-wage workers who barely earned their living.

Wayne explained what he saw. Unlike what Hector had encountered, Wayne saw a Mass of people desperately trying to fend off the undead. There were fights for food and occasionally people died and more people joined like moths jumping into fiery flames.

Normal life had been completely destroyed in less than a day and was getting worse and worse as time passed.

"It's like an Apocalypse has struck" Vergil commented who joined in the conversation in the middle.

Vergil had gone in search of resources than for information. He encountered pretty much the same with the exception that he had seen some people using magical abilities like throwing fire out of their hands.

" It was like seeing an avatar using fire bending" Virgil commented.

" It may be related to the trial... Assuming that you heard the voice too" Hector said. Not much surprised by the revelation, The undead alone had pretty much broken his boundary of what's real.

And he actually had pretty much guessed it the moment he heard that voice.

But Wayne was in the line of What? Are you serious?? You're not kidding, right? kind.

Then Hector narrated his discovery. That large portion of people missing from the city edge districts. And how the undead were more prominent there.

"That place was giving me creeps, it was like I was walking in a ghost city!!" Hector said while recalling his experiences.

" This all can't be happening so suddenly, there must have been some signs before" Virgil exclaimed.

" Like the spiders we encountered yesterday, I think they are monsters that came from somewhere and were not created in a lab," Hector said.

" How can you say that it came from somewhere else and not due to some mutation or virus??" Wayne questioned.

" I don't think any virus or mutation can create something like the undead" Hector shuddered thinking about those abdominal creatures.

" If that's true, where are the monsters coming from and how the dead...are not dead!" Wayne asked the one question that had been bugging him since the time he thought of the theory that the undead and giant creatures were aliens or creatures of other dimensions.

From where indeed...They probably wouldn't know the answers for a long time.