A Smidge of His Past

"What's this?" Artemis opened his eyes and felt a tingling pain down his lower spine. He found himself in a tight space that surrounded his body and felt the air around him slowly dwindle.

"Shit, I am gonna suffocate!" He thought. He scanned his tight space for any tools or thing he can use to bust whatever he was in open. He came across a small cylinder that had a little button that flashed continuously. He tried lowering his body to grab it with his arms but the space was too cramped, he tried once more but to no avail.

The air around him was dwindling at a faster rate and he could feel the temperature rise by the minute. He didn't understand what was happening outside. He then felt his body slightly jolt forward and then back, he was being tossed around in his small compartment before a last but powerful jolt knocked him unconscious.

He awoke a few minutes later, his body mostly numb but he could feel his hands. The small compartment now had tiny little holes all around it, light shined through the holes. The temperature was back to normal and he felt heavier than usual. He gave himself a breather for two minutes before finally trying again to open the compartment.

The tool he saw was destroyed, he could feel the shattered remains of what he thought was the only thing out of this cramped space around the sole of his right bare foot.

"Shit,"

The compartment suddenly started rolling to the left, once again he was tossed and rolled around as the compartment rolled to the right in what could be described as the dizziest moment of his life. The compartment abruptly stopped and again he was jolted forward.

He then heard a loud explosion that rocked him.

"Where the fuck am I?" He had a vague idea of where he was but he didn't want to come so soon to a conclusion, he needed to get out of the cramped compartment or else whatever is happening outside may kill him before he knew it.

Suddenly, a sharp black tentacle pierced the hull in front of him, startling Artemis. The black tentacle slowly retracted before piercing another hole in the compartment, barely missing his right chest area by a few inches.

A powerful screeching noise then sounded before the compartment was torn open by the tentacles. What he saw that day would linger in the back of his mind till the day he would forget everything. A black and hideous creature lingered in the distance, ten long tentacles protruded from all over its body. It had no visible eyes and hundreds of sharp teeth on its mouth but judging by the direction which the tentacles were pointing at, it was staring at Artemis.

Without a second thought, Artemis decided to book it. He pulled himself up by grabbing the sharp edges of the torn metal wall. Both of his hands were cut and bled but his body did not have time to process the pain. No, he needed to get away from that creature. Fear took hold of him and fear would be his most driving factor for survival, just like any other human.

He felt his legs but only enough to feel the ground beneath his feet. He was dashing through a dust storm, he could barely see what was up ahead. He ran across piles of rubble, be it demolished cars or burning buildings. He found himself in-between a freeway full of tightly packed vehicles, he stopped for a quick rest since he was running for a few minutes tops.

He turned around to see if the creature followed him, he couldn't see it, to be frank, he could not see anything beyond a few metres. The dust storm was getting stronger and stronger and he knew if he stayed longer in this place, he would be chocked by the cloud of dust.

He started running again, this time he followed the wreck of cars through the freeway and again he only saw destruction. He also ran by a destroyed tank, it was a prewar M-200 Tank used by the human military back then.

"Wait a second," He thought as he ran.

"Where the fuck is this?"

"Why does everything make absolutely no sense but familiar?"

"Wasn't I sitting back at the Hub?"

"Wait,"

As he was lost in thought, he was slapped by a piece of metal. He fell to the ground and felt the pain all throughout. He wanted to scream but doing so would likely attract further unwanted attention from whatever was haunting this nightmarish hellscape.

"This..."

He finally realized.

"This was Earth,"

He finally remembered a small smudge of his past but he would soon regret what he'd remember.

The dust storm began to settle until the area around him became mostly visible, contrary to his initial assumption, he wasn't inside a city, no, he was on the outskirts of one!

There he was, running across a literal graveyard of what was human civilization back on Earth. He stopped for a second to contemplate what was happening, this was too much for him to handle. After a decade of emotionless and cold thinking, a decade of lacking a good portion of his humanity, he was finally experiencing what he was missing.

He panted and scanned the landscape, it was utter death and chaos, he did not really pay attention to the wreckage and cars but when he leaned forward to one, he saw them. Burned bodies of humans, the car he leaned on to was the worse he could've found.

An entire family was inside, what he could assume to be the parents were sitting on the front seat, their skin burned and eyes still visible, looking into the distance. The burnt bodies of three young children were piled up among the back seats, they must have hugged each other before their eventual demise.

"No,"

He pushed himself away and tried to forget what he saw but how can he forget his own memories that were slowly coming back to haunt him? He continued his journey down the freeway before finally collapsing due to exhaustion.

His body was again numb but... he was no longer. He felt sadness, a depression slowly crept in his heart before he finally began to shed a single tear. The tear fell down his cheeks before meeting the hard pavement beneath.

He stayed motionless against the pavement as the dust began to cover him. The wind has died down and the clouds finally came into view. The sun shined with its searing heat that day, but he was unprepared of what he was about to witness.

There was a small cube just to his left, it was a small black cube; mainly used by civilians whenever disaster would strike, it was a portable device designed to receive government messages through encrypted channels. It suddenly sprang back to life, displaying half of a hologram.

It was damaged too severely to show the full content of the message displayed. Since it was activating, it meant that there was still a government. Artemis moved his head to try and make out the message from the hologram.

[EVACA-... HAS BE-... SUS-... DED...

...LAUNCH O-... NUC-...

...MAY GOD BLE-... ALL]

"What?" The words escaped his mouth, suddenly...

A bright flash of light appeared in the distance, luckily the leftover dust in-front of him negated the negative effects it would have given him if he stared directly at the light. It was no ordinary light, with brightness more powerful than the sun to the Earth, there was only one thing.

A nuclear explosion.

Prewar humanity still had nuclear weaponry but coupled with a millennium of advancement and technological prowess, these weapons were now more powerful than ever.

In that minute, in that hour, in that day, in that month and in that year, humanity lost the war.

15,000 nuclear weapons were launched and subsequently activated in what could only be described as a last-ditch effort to wipe out their enemy who has so far destroyed earth.

In the years that would soon follow, earth would be sent into darkness, where the surface will no longer taste the yellow light of the sun. Earth is hereby plunged into an extinction, where life would cease to exist and humanity wiped from the face of the Earth.

"So, this is how it happened,"

"But how did I wake inside a building?"

He had more questions that answers but at least he now had a wider idea of what transpired, though it was short and downright confusing, witnessing the destruction yet again was an eye-opener to him.

But before the nuclear explosion reached him, he heard a growl.

It was the same black alien-like abomination from before.

It slowly crept towards Artemis, its tentacles were both its legs and its arms. It pierced through the ground and shoved the rubble away from its path before it finally reached Artemis within the reach of its tentacles.

"Gah! Come at me you bastard! I will find you and your kind and I will slaughter every single one of you!"

The creature screeched before Artemie finally awoke from his nightmare.

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"Huh?" He opened his eyes. He was back inside his room, within the hub. He scanned his room to see if it was a dream or not, he then found his two Elite Androids beside him, tilting their heads.

Artemis sighed. He no longer felt much emotion and his humanity once again removed from his person. But there was a new addition. He felt the urge for vengeance.

"If you still exist, if you still creep in this universe, I will find you, I will find your kind, I will slaughter you, I will kill you all, even if your out of this universe,"