1 Chapter 1
"Where am I?"
Amidst a sea of aqua blue, 8 billion human bodies gently sway with the current of the ocean.
"Who am I?"
My eyelids are sealed tightly, indicating my deep slumber. Yet I still faintly feel the mellow lights surrounding me, the faint shadows and warmth from above me… next to me… below me… It was like we were all fetuses, brothers and sisters waiting patiently within our mother's womb, sheltered and nurtured with love.
"That's right. I'm John."
An extremely common name. In fact, one of the most common names on Earth.
A bright ray of light, in contrast to John's surroundings, landed somewhere on the back of his head.
"Am I facing downwards?" John thought inwardly as he sensed a patch of warmth confronting him, cozy like the toasty morning sunlight.
Dreamy shards of memories began rising from the depths of his brain, matching and connecting gradually as if invisible hands were completing a puzzle.
The joy washing over when two pieces matched reminded him of being a child— carefree and happy, just a tiny ball of innocence and purity.
However, an abrupt pain exploded within John's head and the puzzles that were close to completing were shattered back into individual pieces. It felt like a mean punch to his abdomen. He grimaced, reacting to the intense pain.
He tried to suppress it but to no avail as the agonizing pain amplified at an exponential rate. It now felt like a grinder abrasively peeling off his brain.
He heard faint and desperate cries, screams and wails occurring ubiquitously. But he could not do anything about it as he was too, a victim.
He imagined the peaceful blue sea turning blood red, permeating violence while agonized people thrashed about to endure the unrelenting pain.
But in a flash, everything suddenly stopped.
That's when it all came back.
Not his life, not his family, but one specific segment of his memory.
The pain was still lingering. Yet, it was as if the immense pain was too insignificant for him to acknowledge. All that John could focus on was the screen before him. An enormous screen, secured into a tall metallic structure.
He wasn't the only one watching. He could distinctly remember the crowds of people he was tightly crammed in.
The compression. The mood. The smell.
The sheer number was a forest while he was just a crumbling piece of leaf, even a little thrust could permanently damage him.
Fortunately, all was good.
Everyone remained stationary and organized as thousands of hopeful eyes glued onto the screen. John noticed an infant cradled in her mother's arms, some sort of unknown liquid smeared on one side of her chubby cheek. Even she was quietly staring at the screen, her young soul influenced by the solemn atmosphere.
John turned his attention back onto the contents of the screen.
He would have believed that he was watching an expensive action movie if it weren't for the tiny red word, 'Live', hidden discreetly in the left corner of the screen.
There were two men.
No.
One man and one monster. They were battling one another high up in the sky, shockwaves dissipating the clouds within their radius.
As the battle progressed, the sickening monster seemed to have the upper hand. Its deranged body was veiled in the mixture of crimson-red blood of his human opponent and green, viscous blood that seemed to be his own.
One of its bulging eyeballs was dangling by a thread, a dagger filling up the empty, hollow eye socket. His anatomy was human-like, but his figure was not. The monster did not have a complete body of flesh, some parts of his flesh were empty or dry.
It possessed heads, arms and legs like a human, but was built like an unforgettable nightmare. Sharp, malformed bones poked out from his greasy spine, exposed to the air. Its menacing fangs could tear through any material John had ever come across in his life. And most noticeably, several deformed arms and human heads that were growing grotesquely out of its body were too, assaulting the man.
The skulls etched across the monster's body had soulless eyes and a rancid maw, blurting out yellowish ooze that would scorch its opponent's shining armour.
John gasped in disbelief. How inhumane! A human like him was now an abomination!
The golden armour on the man no longer had its shine as the monster's thick, veiny arms chipped them off piece by piece.
The man was wielding a greatsword, blood-stained and losing a limb. Whilst defending himself, he chanted something under his breath as a fiery, piercing gleam escaped his weapon. With a wild slash, the blade entered the monster's flesh.
With the sword entering the monster's body, the man roared at the top of his lungs. The sword, set ablaze, slashed deeper into the rotting flesh of the monster with ease while the monster threw a barrage of punches at the man, creating more dents into his armour.
John sensed the intensity around him, thousands of people holding their breaths as hope pervaded the air.
The flame imbued sword finally reached the monster's spine. It struck, creating a force so powerful that the broadcast trembled as if on the verge of breaking.
On the corner of the screen, John noticed that there was an uneven broken fissure engraved onto the live broadcast, taking away a quarter of the broadcasted fight. The broadcast lens has cracked under the sheer force of the potent aftershock.
But it did not affect anyone's experience for long as the live broadcast crew soon switched to a different, undamaged camera angle.
Zooming onto the two figures, John realized something bizarre. His eyes could not even lock onto the monster's barrage of punches. They were too fast for him to perceive!
Despite so, the armoured man, who clearly has a trail of coughed up blood trickling miserably down the corner of his mouth, was still painfully enduring those lethal furies of punches. His bruised hand gripped tightly onto the handle of his sword.
Flicking his wrist with all his might, the spine of the monster cracked open where the sword touched.
John sensed more hope arise, tinging the air. They did not belong to the people around him, instead, they emanated from many areas far away.
The flame imbued sword crept closer to the center of the monster's spine as the man's armour finally reached its limit. Destroyed and shattered, it allowed the revolting monster to land a direct hit on the man, who immediately heaved out a puddle of dark blood upon impact.
Although facing near death, the de-armoured man did not budge as he intentionally directed the cough of blood towards the flame on his sword while a burst of flame spurted from his determined eyes.
Like adding fuel to fire, the sword emitted a blinding light as the fiery flame on the sword danced its way around the surface of the sword. With a sudden burst of speed, the sword had finally slashed halfway into the monster's spine!
It was like a hero's story we all read in fairytales, except more brutal. The armoured hero would slay the monster and humanity will be saved.
But as if the universe was playing a trick on mankind, everything fell apart in the very next second.
A razor-sharp, bloody shard of unknown material exited the monster's lungs between the narrow gaps of rotting flesh. In the blink of an eye, the speeding object penetrated the man's throat, flying out from the other end.
The accumulation of hope in the atmosphere withered away as if a cold shower of water had splashed across every observer's face.
What… How?
John watched in despair as the man's grip loosened. The blinding light in his sword faded away, falling straight down and tinkling onto the cold, hard, scorched earth.
As the camera panned away, John could now see what was beneath.
An endless army of zombie-like monsters plagued the earth like disgusting parasites. The grounds were scorched and damaged by weapons and explosions of mass destruction. Humanity's infrastructure was severely demolished and no trace of mankind was in sight, as if all were consumed by these horrendous monsters.
A blood tear slid down the man's eyes as the fatigue and hate in his eyes vanished into blankness. Soon, his entire head detached from his body, falling lifelessly onto the earth below him as a group of human-like creatures greedily formed a mountain over the body, devouring every trace of the man's existence.
John's vision blurred.
His vision was drowned in vengeful red.
"Kill the monsters!" He roared painfully at the top of his lungs. The stifling stress placed on his throat stung but he did not care.
"Kill the monsters!"
Few more sorrow-filled yet furious voices emanated from the crowd. Following the voices, the atmosphere that used to be hopeful now turned vengeful.
The last thing John saw was himself running. Running towards the things he abhorred.
Diving into a battlefield of bloodthirsty monsters, the segment ended.
John woke up.
