| Twilight of the Apocalypse | |||||||
| Chapter 8: Visions of the Apocalypse | |||||||
| Central City 14, New Eutora - 15 June 2016, 0120 hours | |||||||
| Danny Tan's eyes were burning from exhuastion. His vision swam. His mind was a | |||||||
| total blank as he sat by the table beside his bed. His hands flipped the pages of | |||||||
| the textbook he was holding. | |||||||
| Mathematics was boring. The numbers seemed to move on their own, floating | |||||||
| around him like annoying insects. Danny shut his eyes for a moment, then opened | |||||||
| them wide. He was about to nod off when a shadow darted across the room. The | |||||||
| window was closed, so it wasn't a bird or animal that entered his room. | |||||||
| His mind was playing tricks on him, that was all. But as he looked more intently | |||||||
| at the unmoving shadow in a dim corner of the room, he began to notice details. | |||||||
| The shadow had what resembled a perfectly round ball atop an elongated cylinder. | |||||||
| It looked like someone's head. Below the neck, all detail vanished as the shadow | |||||||
| blended into the black cardboard box in the corner. | |||||||
| Someone was in his room! No, his mind argued. It was just his imagination | |||||||
| running wild. Was it? He could not be sure. | |||||||
| He wouldn't let that shadow intimidate him anymore. Just go to sleep, his mind | |||||||
| coaxed. | |||||||
| "Yes…sleep," Danny sighed as his head touched the warm, fluffy pillow on the | |||||||
| bed. | |||||||
| He jerked awake when out of the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow glide | |||||||
| slowly across the room. Danny gasped. | |||||||
| A slit appeared on one side of the head, and it continued to grow until it was so | |||||||
| wide, Danny thought that he could fit his clenched fist inside. | |||||||
| Danny chuckled to himself. What a lame joke, he thought. His brother, Wayne | |||||||
| must have entered the room not too long ago while he was dozing off while | |||||||
| studying. Wayne must have hidden in that corner, waiting for the opportunity | |||||||
| to frighten him. Danny yawned. He couldn't be more bothered with his brother. | |||||||
| "Quit it, Wayne. I'm tired…" Danny muttered as he drifted off to sleep. | |||||||
| Strange dreams plagued his mind that night while he was asleep. In one, | |||||||
| Danny found himself on a vast, snow-covered landscape. All around him stood | |||||||
| the wrecked remnants of skyscrapers and tall buildings alike. Smaller buildings | |||||||
| were all reduced to rubble and metal chunks scattered over the place. | |||||||
| Two buildings in the distance caught his attention. They were hundreds of | |||||||
| metres tall, the massive structures towering over him. They were tilted to one | |||||||
| side, almost on the verge of collapse. | |||||||
| Snow covered these constructs, and were melting under the heat from the | |||||||
| sun. But the sun could not be seen. The sky was a purplish-black, devoid | |||||||
| of birds and other flying animals. Only thin rays of sunlight penetrated through | |||||||
| the dense cover of clouds and enveloped the buildings with a warm, unsettling | |||||||
| radiance. | |||||||
| Where was he? Danny wondered. He could no longer tell the difference between | |||||||
| dream and reality. This world, he realized, looked too real… | |||||||
| He felt his feet sink into the snow. It was bitter cold. Then, he realized why. He | |||||||
| was clad only in a white shirt and shorts. His feet were bare. But the cold was | |||||||
| not the only thing he noticed. Surrounding him on all sides were small mounds, | |||||||
| some higher than others. Danny was standing atop one. | |||||||
| He kicked the snow aside and peered into the hole he had just made. A silent | |||||||
| scream escaped his cracked, dry lips as he caught a glimpse of what he was | |||||||
| searching for. | |||||||
| It was unexpected. He stumbled back and landed heavily on the snow. | |||||||
| He had seen it! How cold and lifeless it looked. | |||||||
| A thunderous crack of thunder overhead. A hail of snow began to fall. His | |||||||
| hands struck something beneath the snow. Danny dug, and continued | |||||||
| to dig. Finally, he unearthed what looked like a- | |||||||
| No! It couldn't be! Not that many! His mind screamed. | |||||||
| But, he forced himself to look. Just one glance. | |||||||
| A wave of nausea swept through his body as he saw the decayed head and | |||||||
| decomposed body poking through the mud under the snow. Danny took a step back. | |||||||
| With unsteady movements, he scrambled away from the horrendous scene. The red, | |||||||
| bloodshot eye still burned an image in his mind. He imaged the corpse trailing | |||||||
| after him, and he stopped. He was about to lose his sanity any moment now. | |||||||
| Surveying the landscape around him, Danny screamed. What he saw made him | |||||||
| scream like never before, and his throat burned with the intensity of a raging | |||||||
| inferno. Yellowed and sometimes black hands were protruding from the rugged | |||||||
| ground in a thousand places. | |||||||
| Legs too, were sticking out of the snow. They were all decomposed and bloody. | |||||||
| A flash of lightning blinded him for a second and he fell to the ground, whimpering. | |||||||
| His fingers dug into the snow and the mud. He wanted to hide, to stop himself | |||||||
| from seeing all these unimaginable horrors. His fingers bled, his nails were torn, | |||||||
| but he continued. | |||||||
| Blood soaked into the ground and his hands became numb. He could no | |||||||
| longer feel his fingers moving. With the shriek of an insane man, he tore | |||||||
| a huge chunk of soil from the ground, and screamed. | |||||||
| An infant's dead, blank eyes stared back at him. Those orbs bore into his | |||||||
| soul, stripping him of his sanity. The rest of the petite body was black, including | |||||||
| the head. Its lips were curled into an evil grin. | |||||||
| Suddenly, the snow seemed to vanish around him. All that remained was a sea | |||||||
| of corpses that stretched as far as the eye could see. All had lifeless stares in | |||||||
| their eyes. | |||||||
| Danny looked down. He was no longer standing on mud, or snow. Now, his feet | |||||||
| sank into frozen bodies and squashed guts. Blood, dried blood covered everything. | |||||||
| "Ahhhhh!" Danny screamed, his eyes wide open now. An intense, paralysing pain | |||||||
| was tearing him apart. His head throbbed and his whole body hurt. He was relieved | |||||||
| in spite of the pain. He had finally awoken from the nightmare he had tried so hard | |||||||
| to escape from. He was in his bedroom once more, and not that snow-blasted | |||||||
| wasteland. | |||||||
| The pain struck him again, so excruciating as if his head, skull and brain were | |||||||
| being crushed. | |||||||
| "Help me…" Danny gasped, his features twisted in torment. | |||||||
| He brought a finger to the top of his head and touched it. When he looked at | |||||||
| the finger again, it was covered in a thick layer of drying blood. | |||||||
| No…How did this happen? It must be another nightmare, he reasoned. But, he knew | |||||||
| it was not. He felt real pain, unlike in dreams where pain could not be experienced | |||||||
| with such an intensity. He looked down, and lifted the bottom of his shirt up. His skin | |||||||
| seemed to be darkening. He touched it. It was hardening too. Fear, true fear, built | |||||||
| up in him, threatening to erupt in a spine-chilling scream. | |||||||
| He scratched at the skin, and a yellowish-green pus trickled down his belly. The | |||||||
| pain became unbearable, so much suffering was he under that he lay in bed, unmoving. | |||||||
| Danny knew he was dying, but he knew not the reason why, or how… | |||||||
