The others stopped in their tracks.
"A Rift?"
Gabriel shook his head with a frown. 'I knew something was wrong.' He felt a shiver run down his spine.
"W–We need to head back, we... we can't continue." His voice was thin and cracked.
"Yeah." Eddy said with a pale face.
Cassandra wasn't left out. Her face was deathly pale. "We need to report this back to the elders." She muttered, biting her lip.
Staring at the others, she raised a brow. "What are you waiting for? Run!"
They weren't told twice as they ran back. Roughly traversing the area, they burst out from the dense foliage. The settlement was not far from sight.
Gabriel was having a harder time traversing the area while running. His clothes were slightly torn, and his body was covered with little cuts from the tree branches.
Finally, they made it through the metal gate, stopping to catch their breath.
Just when they let out a relieved sigh. The ground suddenly trembled.
"Oh no. No! No!" The blonde haired girl muttered, stopping in her tracks. Her gaze fixed on a strange shape that was slowly rising.
Before them, right at the centre of the settlement, the air rippled as a dark mass slowly formed. The sky rumbled as if acknowledging the presence of a terrifying force.
Gabriel soon stopped in his tracks as he noticed the air had gone chaotic, even affecting his senses and making him nausea.
By now, the growing mass had become bigger, forming a large hole filled with boundless darkness.
The dark hole was large, hovering just inches away from the ground and rising upwards above the buildings. The ground surrounding it was cracked as if all warmth of life had been siphoned away.
The settlement was in chaos. The appearance of the rift was enough to cause despair in the hearts of all. Even those who had managed to begin the path of ascension weren't left out.
The guards guiding the gates seemed to have seen the strange sight from their position and were already running into the city.
"Quick! Head to the others! Evacuation into the shelter must have begun." One of them shouted, jolting the frozen children into action.
"C–Come on! Let's hurry!" Cassandra managed to say, her voice trembling.
Taking hold of Gabriel's hand, she breathed deeply before running forward. The others were forced to follow after her.
They still had a chance to survive... only if they were quick enough. The rift won't open until after ten to fifteen minutes. Though they didn't know how true that information was.
Around the area, others were already out running towards the shelter as practised.
Gabriel and the other children coming from the gate were a little behind the crowd of people.
Soon, a chilling rattling sound echoed over the settlement. Then silence.
Even the once chaotic settlement was drenched in the unnerving silence.
Then they appeared, dark shapes, which spread around the surface of the rift from within. Their true form covered by darkness.
And then they could finally be seen by all. Hideous creature with terrifying shapes and sizes pouring out from the rift. Their malicious intent spread far and wide.
Their eyes were drawn to the scent of human soul, and in the blink of the eye, chaos ensued.
The humans increased their pace, trying to get to the shelter point as soon as possible. Others simply collapsed on their knees, unable to move, their fate already decided.
The ground trembled, and chunks of earth broke apart as they rushed forward.
They were fast. Nightmarishly fast.
The blonde-haired girl collapsed on the ground, frozen with fear. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stared at the approaching monsters.
"Come on! Move!" Cassandra shouted, meeting up with her.
"You've got to move," she muttered, shaking her roughly.
"D–Dammit!" Wiping the beads of sweat from her brow with shaky hands, she looked at her one last time, teeth gritted tightly and then continued forward.
"Dammit!" She cursed, struggling to hold back the tears threatening to spill.
With Gabriel's hands tightly held onto hers, they ran forward. Finally, it was within sight.
The underground shelter made for this purpose was a few metres away from them. The scene was chaotic, humans struggling to enter the opened hatch, creating a stampede.
"We're almost there," Cassandra said, turning to Gabriel though she couldn't hide the deep fear within her eyes. A few minutes back, they had witnessed the death of the blonde haired girl, viciously torn apart, her screams drowning in the snarls of the vicious monsters.
Before them, a group of ten individuals armed with weapons stood with grim faces ready to face the approaching horde. At the center was a man–the leader of the settlement, tightly grasping a large axe.
"We're saved," the thought barely registered in Gabriel's mind before he felt the world explode into a dazzling light.
Just as they were about to reach the safety barrier put in place, one of the creatures leapt forward swinging its palm.
Gabriel felt a force lift him from the ground, sending his body skyrocketing forward. Cassandra wasn't left out as they had been violently separated by the crushing force.
He felt his skin melt away just before he slammed into a distant building with a devastating impact.
Another body was seen flying forwards crashing into the barriers. It was one of the gate guards accompanying them.
He had attempted to protect the duo by jumping towards the trajectory of the attack only to end up dying a gruesome death. Body crushed with blood and viscera exploding over the area. What was left of his body was a terrible sight to behold.
The other guard tried to face the monster but was torn apart within seconds.
Buildings exploded, and debris rained down on the unfortunate ones. Screams and cries echoed over the area. The sky rained blood as bodies were torn apart.
The defenders weren't enough to face the onslaught of a horde of flesh frenzy monsters. Even the leader struggled to remain alive.
"Don't let them through. Hold the line!" Various magical abilities erupted brightening the dark sky.
In a far building which had been crushed, a figure slowly stirred.
"Ughh!"
"Where… am I?" A figure covered in debris thought in pain.
His head was covered in blood mixing with his messy red hair.
Trying to move his hands to press his banging head, he felt a jolting pain.
"Ughhh," he groaned, exhaling sharply.
Finally, he remembered what had happened. How he had been swatted away by one of the hideous monsters.
"How did I manage to survive that," he thought, gritting his teeth. He was in pain. His body was aching badly, and he was losing blood. If help didn't arrive soon, he would bleed to death–if the pain didn't kill him first.
"I don't want to die." The thought echoed loudly in his head as he struggled to remain conscious.