And so, I wandered.
The once joyous, bustling streets of Tokyo lay silent, broken beneath a sky flickering with chaos an endless, desolate reminder of how hope can vanish in a heartbeat.
The air hung heavy, thick with dust and ash, choking the remnants of a life that felt more like a distant dream.
I knelt among the rubble, searching desperately for something anything a TV, a phone, a radio to understand what had happened, to find a thread of truth in this unraveling nightmare.
That's when the news hit me like a punch to the gut.
The screen flickered to life, crackling with static and urgency.
What I saw was worse than anything I'd ever imagined.
The reports spoke of horrors beyond comprehension cities swallowed in fire, people torn apart by creatures from nightmares, entire populations vanishing overnight.
It was like the rapture they warned about in stories, but twisted beyond salvation.
The industrial age, the comforts of civilization, shattered in moments.
Citizens burned alive in the streets. Families ripped from one another. Screams echoed live, raw and unfiltered, a chilling soundtrack to the world's collapse.
At that moment, I wondered if suicide would be mercy.
If the unbearable weight of this broken world was something only death could lift.
I stayed on my knees, the rough concrete digging into my skin, my heart pounding in the suffocating silence.
Questions tore at me why? Why did this happen?
What cruel force had shattered everything?
Why were people turning on each other, fighting like wild animals over scraps of a dying world?
My hands trembled as I wiped dirt and tears from my face.
But the wasteland stretched on the empty streets, the shattered glass, the skeletons of buildings and there was no going back.
No choice but to keep moving.
I forced myself to stand, each step heavy with grief.
The ruins whispered memories I desperately wanted to forget laughter echoing through sunlit rooms, the warmth of a family dinner, my mother's gentle smile as she called me home.
I saw my father's strong hands fixing a broken chair, my siblings' playful shouts filling the air.
Memories burned bright and sharp, stabbing through the numbness like shards of glass.
Tears spilled freely now, blurring the lines between past and present.
Maybe… maybe this was divine punishment.
A reckoning for humanity's sins.
Or maybe something darker was at play something beyond human understanding.
My breath hitched as I stared into the cracked sky, flickering with unnatural light.
Then, up ahead
I saw something I never thought possible.
A lone figure standing amidst the chaos just a mere human fighting monsters with powers beyond anything I'd ever imagined.
The creatures were terrifying twisted, monstrous, otherworldly but this person moved with a strength and skill that defied reason.
It was like watching a legend come alive.
My mind raced as recognition hit me like a thunderclap
It was one of my course mates from the institution I used to study at.
The same quiet, unassuming person I once shared classrooms with, now battling impossible horrors as if they were born to do it.
Fear gripped me like a vice.
I stumbled backward, my legs giving out beneath me.
I collapsed onto the cracked pavement, paralyzed by dread and disbelief.
What I was witnessing felt surreal something I'd only ever seen in anime, in stories meant to entertain or inspire not in the broken reality I was trapped in.
I wanted to look away, to run, to deny what my eyes screamed was true.
I saw him summon fire out of thin air flames swirling and dancing at his command, scorching everything in their path.
Heat radiated from his hands, lighting up the dark ruins like a blazing beacon.
I stared, breath caught in my throat, my mind a whirlwind of questions and disbelief.
Could I have power like that?
Could something inside me be waiting to awaken?
For a fleeting moment, hope flickered a fragile ember in the ruins of my despair.
But the roar of battle shattered that thought.
Monsters howled, claws scraping against cracked pavement.
I knew I had to move run before I was caught in the crossfire of this deadly fight.
Heart pounding, I forced myself to my feet, muscles trembling, and turned away from the blazing inferno.
As I glanced behind me, the scene froze me in place.
He wasn't fighting for glory or revenge he was fighting on pure, desperate impulse.
To protect the only surviving family member he had left his mother.
Around them, horror unfolded in unimaginable ways.
His younger sister's body lay twisted and broken, limbs torn off and scattered like shattered dolls. Her face was frozen in a silent scream, eyes wide and vacant staring into nothingness.
His father was crushed beneath a fallen beam, ribs shattered and protruding through mangled flesh. His chest caved inwards as if some monstrous grip had squeezed the life out of him.
His brother's body was ripped open, entrails spilling grotesquely onto the blood soaked ground. The feral beasts feasted without mercy, gnashing and tearing with a frenzy that blurred the line between man and monster.
His mother, battered and bleeding, clung desperately to life her clothes torn, skin scorched raw by fire. Her eyes flickered with exhaustion and pain as the mad fight raged around her.
My heart pounded fiercely in my chest.
Should I run?
Should I stay and try to help?
But what could I possibly do?
I was nothing.
A useless, broken man with no power, no strength just pain and fear.
What could someone like me offer against this nightmare?
He fought like a lunatic possessed.
Wild and unrelenting, fists and feet striking with brutal precision.
Flames erupted from his palms, searing the grotesque creatures as they closed in, but for every one he felled, two more took its place.
He screamed raw and primal a sound torn from the depths of agony and unyielding determination.
Blood dripped from his torn clothes, cuts and bruises marring his skin, but still he fought a lone tempest raging against the tide of death.