Year 31 – Monsters Are Us (Jayden)
The sewer swallowed him whole. The fall was brief but Jayden still closed his eyes and braced for impact.
Jayden fell, shoulder hitting metal on the way down before landing feet first on the concrete below hard, air exploding from his lungs as his body buckled. Pain shot through his side where the beast’s claw raked his heel. Warm blood soaked into his shoe.
Above him, the werewolf-man roared, a sound that vibrated through the tunnel walls. Claws scraped the manhole rim, searching for me.
Jayden held his breath, pressed against the damp wall, every muscle locked.
Seconds passed. Then silence.
Jayden exhaled slowly. Gone?
No. The growl returned, fainter now, moving across the street above. Hunting.
Jayden’s chest burned with each breath and his ribs screamed. His heel throbbed, each pulse of blood louder than the beasts above.
Jayden forced himself to move, limping deeper into tunnels under the city. The stench of rot and mildew filled his nose. Water dripped from rusted pipes overhead, echoing like footsteps.
The world above was ending. Down here, it felt no better.
Static shimmered across his vision again—faint flickers of light in the dark. They clung to the damp walls, drifted along the water, swirled around his hands. Energy. Or whatever it was had broken the sky, bleeding into the world.
A scream echoed through the tunnel. Not human.
Jayden froze.
Shadows shifted at the edge of his vision. Something splashed in the water ahead, heavy and uneven.
Then Jayden saw it.
A man—or what had been a man—staggering forward. His body hunched, bones jutting at wrong angles, skin glowing with a faint, sickly green light. His jaw had split wider, teeth pushing out, eyes clouded with fury.
He screeched, a high-pitched, warbling sound that clawed at the walls.
“Nope,” Jayden whispered, backing up as the now creature lunged.
Jayden slammed his shoulder against the wall, pain flaring down his side, and ran through the sewers away from the creature, lungs burning. The monster’s claws scraped concrete yards from where his head once was. It was fast and close.
Jayden ran, limping hard, water splashing with each step. Jayden could hear more screeches echoing behind me—multiplying.
Not one. Not two. A chorus. There were more of these things down here.
Jayden’s foot caught on something submerged underneath dirty sewer water. Jayden, almost ripping his foot from whatever has stuck to him, went sprawling, palms skidding against rough concrete in the sewer water, pain now searing from his heels.
The screeches grew closer. JAyden felt he did not have much longer.
Jayden forced himself up, blood dripping into the water from his palms. His heels burned, ribs ached, vision fuzzy and filled with static.
“Not like this,” Jayden hissed through gritted teeth. “Not today.”
The tunnel split ahead—left into darkness, right into faint light.
Jayden didn’t think and ran for the light.
The tunnel opened to the end of a broken storm drain, a purplish light pulsing through the shattered concrete. Growls closing in.
Jayden stumbled out of the tunnel and fell from the storm drain to the ground, collapsing onto cracked pavement.
The city stretched before him. Or what was left of it.
Houses torn apart. Streets split with glowing veins of static. People screaming, fighting, changing. Some twisted into beasts mid-run. Others tore at each other with claws and teeth.
The sky bled red and green, streaked with translucent veins of energy. It looked alive.
And everywhere—the static.
It clung to people like a disease, seeping into them, twisting them.
The world appeared to be ending and transforming.
And Jayden was caught in the middle.
As Jayden’s eyes closed the only sound heard was a piercing high pitched ringing noise and the sound of screeches and growls slowly moving closer. Then silence besides the ringing.
Jayden opened his eyes and looked around to see everything frozen. A chill forced his head upward, a look of confusion appearing across Jayden’s face. In the sky something hovered radiating wisps of smoke.
Reaching out with wisplike arms the smoke seemed to whisper something but Jayden could not understand what it said. Jayden felt himself losing consciousness.
As Jayden’s eyes began to droop everything flashed from white to black while high pitched ringing screamed into the void.