gONE

--- Day Four since the awakening---

---TEST SUBJECT 00****---

5:00 A.M.

First, came the horns. They were deafening and overwhelmed me from above. It was so loud I could feel the sound pressing down on me. Someone was shouting something, but I couldn't make out what. The sky was blanketed in thick, red clouds.

Then, came the ground rifts. The ground started shaking as veins split along the landscape; being forced apart by huge spines of Earth shooting up from below. It took a moment for anyone to catch their footing, but that was too late for some. Cars were being tossed. A bus with the smiling faces of passengers plastered on the side was launched by one of the sudden protrusions. It flew overhead before landing on a group of homeless people who'd been driven out of a nearby alley from the acoustic reverberations from the horns and falling bricks of the collapsing buildings.

I was shocked and at a complete loss for what to do.

Chaos.

Destruction.

Someone grabbed my hand and pulled me across the street to a motorcycle. We had barely started rolling when holes bursts in the clouds overhead. Huge balls of blazing fire had begun raining down everywhere. They crashed, unheard over the horns and Earth, with devastating impact. There was no anticipating the rifts in the ground, but the person that had grabbed me could dodge the falling flames. They'll get us out of this. The thought was more a hope than belief. I clinched my eyes shut and gripped my wrists more firmly.

Then cut! I was transported to another site. In another place. This time, inside a house.

It began as a dark, smoggy night in the middle of winter, chills were running through the rooms of the house, like a ghost silently coming and silently going.

Then, suddenly, at 5:00 a.m.

In the distance, there was a faint booming sound like a drum being beaten. The horns came. Once again it was the same horns from the other place. The noise soon started to get louder and louder and louder until all that could be heard was the deafening noise. People from houses along the street ran out in pajamas onto the road, away from the destructions, and huddled together to witness a roaring fire devastating all the houses nearby.

I also ran out with them.

Out from the house and onto the road.

They had not noticed me, but I could see them. Hear them and feel the pains and shocks.

Then, after realization of the situation had hit them, the owners of the houses desperately attempted to remove valuable and sentimental items from the burning wreck, but all was in vain as the glaring fire obliterated their irreplaceable possessions and their homes. The incandescent flames suddenly erupted scattering fragmented glass and debris several yards away. The chillness of the stale, city air was devoured by the scorching blazes of the vicious element, which had just destroyed the lives of many victim families.

Still shocked, the neighbors tried assisting each other and tried to extinguish the fires, but the pyrotechnic flames kept on blazing.

Realizing that there was no end to this fire, and shaking of the grounds, the people quickly moved from one point to another, trying to escape the menacing flames that caused one of them to get a blister while avoiding the rifts in the ground that had caused the loss of five others. The infernal blaze and ground rifting set everyone on a rampage. No one could afford to stay back and help it stop from spreading. It was an impossible task.

I followed.

Not knowing where my destination was, or when this chaos would end, I followed the ones running in front of me.

Just then, I was once again transported.

This time to a school area.

The school clock was 5:00 a.m.

It was once again 5:00 a.m.

The calamity always began at 5:00 a.m.

First, came the horns. The loud horns. It always began with the horns.

Then, it was the beginning of the end.

This time it was going to be the school building before me.

The catastrophe of the school buildings began when huge balls of blazing fire struck its surfaces. Lethal flames started in different rooms and eventually, engulfed the whole school. Luckily there were no students in it at this time. But those near screamed out in pain and horror after waking up to the loud sound and witnessing blazing flames that had spread.

I was once again transported.

A different location

And then it began.

Again.

At 5:00 a.m.

This time I could see the tower of flames, thousands of feet tall, whirled across the country, torching cities and towns, turning rivers to steam, ripping across the ruins of heartland farms, and casting the ashes of seventy million human beings into a black sky.

From one place to another, I saw many buildings exploded all around.

Everywhere filled with disaster

Tragedies everywhere.

'Why is this happening?'

'When was this going to end?'

I wanted it to stop but I did not know how to stop it.

I only knew that it began at 5:00 a.m. but, I didn't know why.

Just then, an invisible wall of percussion blew me about fifteen feet away, landing me like a sack of wet sand, leaving me there terrified, barefoot, and covered in dust.

The rural landscape that had been scattered with farmhouses was unrecognizable. Flames and Earth where there had been buildings or trees or nothing at all. It looked like a rocky African savanna with heat dissipation and mirage effects all around us wherever flames and Earth weren't.

I looked up; my eyes were blurred and swollen from crying, but I saw someone walking away from me. The figure turned the corner and was gone.

"What was that?" I thought. But I paid it no attention. There was just too much destruction all around. I did not have time to pursue the suspicious-looking person. I had to find a way out of here. I needed some food, something to drink and a safe place to hide.

But knowing the dangerous situation I was in; I knew food and water had to wait. Hiding was the most important task.

To hide away from everything. All of the destruction. I had to escape it.

As I searched, I watched with dreadful fascination as the flames devoured both the living and the nonliving, and I realized that there, on a tiny scale, was the power of both creation and destruction; it could cook food, illuminate the darkness, melt iron and sear human flesh.

Horrified and terrified. I wanted to scream.

Everything gone.

Gone.

This was the beginning of the end.

The apocalypse.

.

.

.

I jolted awake.

I had awakened from a nightmare.

But it felt so real. The destruction felt so real. The pain I had felt in there felt so real. The loss of the many lives felt so real.

I opened my eyes and screamed.

The memory was like a knife cutting into me. Slicing deep into me with terror.

For seconds I did not know where I was, only that I was thirsty, hungry, and sore.

I was going to die, and I screamed until my breath was gone.

Then I had begun crying and couldn't stop. I tried to calm myself down, but I just kept shaking and sobbing.

The whole place was silent, filled only with my sobs as I pulled in air, half crying. How could it be so quiet?

Then some birds were singing.

How could birds be singing?

Slowly coming back to consciousness, temporarily blind, deaf and disoriented, I lifted my upper body and sat up. I tried to think of what I should do next. I felt sick, weak, tired, and feared lying out in the middle of the forest, in the open.

Dangerous creatures could easily spot me, and I could easily become a prey to hungry predators.

I must make shelter. I decided.

Seemed longer than eternity before I could begin to orientate myself and began to see, It would be a lot longer before the terribly loud ringing in my ears would begin to subside. Through the blur, my gaze came to rest on the place I had awakened previously. Where, I regained my conscious after the incident with the water stream. There was water and rocks. Water would be useful for when I get thirsty, after filtering, I could drink it. While the rocks would also be good for defense.

I went towards the bush with berries that I had found earlier. Those berries were sweet and helpful to my empty stomach. They were useful, for now.

My eyes wandered around the area the strange creature had laid. The place it had passed away.

The body of the strange creature that had tried to suffocate me, now, was gone.

Its body had disappeared.

I did not know where it went or if it was even real, but it disappeared a couple minutes after it passed away.

I might be alone for now, but I know that I will encounter other creatures like it or creatures even more dangerous like it soon.

I will not be alone for long.

I needed more than just berries. I had to make my body strong. I needed strength If I wanted to escape or survive this forest.

I needed protein.

After eating the berries and drinking water, I planned to find a source for protein.

I had heard the sounds of birds earlier and this was a forest so there was bound to be something that I could eat.

I grabbed many tree logs, and leaves in different shapes and sizes. I had to build a place to take shelter and then fire to stay warm. I also planned to use the fire for frying some of the proteins I catch.