"Ahhhhh!!"
The people around finally snapped out of their shock. Their collective screams pierced through the air, a raw chorus of terror, as they scattered like startled pigeons into every direction.
"What are you still sitting there for? Run!"
Voma spun on his heel, already moving, but his hand instinctively shot out. He grabbed the wrist of the girl who was sitting frozen on the ground, pulling her up with a sharp tug before dashing forward again.
The sudden yank seemed to jolt the girl's mind back from the abyss of fear. Her legs, trembling like those of a newborn fawn, found strength as she stumbled after Voma, her wide, terrified eyes locked on the abomination pursuing them from behind.
But just as the pounding in their chests began to steady into the rhythm of escape, the two of them realized there was something far worse waiting ahead. They didn't know when it had happened, but the streets had become infested with monsters of every imaginable kind.
Off to the left, a giant rabbit, its body towering over five meters, was pressing its massive paws into the walls of a two-story house, slowly crumbling the structure with sickening cracks. Blood stained its oversized teeth a vibrant crimson, as if it had just savored a bloody dessert.
On the right, a praying mantis loomed, its twin scythe-like forearms swinging in vicious arcs. Each slash carved through flesh and bone alike, sending showers of gore and strings of viscera spraying through the air. The scent of iron hung thick and heavy, almost tangible.
Voma's breath caught in his throat, but he didn't dare slow down. His feet pounded against the pavement, his path weaving in sharp turns. Whenever a monster blocked the way, he would immediately veer off, instinct guiding him toward any open path.
It was a desperate dance of survival, a labyrinth run through a nightmare.
They eventually dove into a narrow alleyway, slipping in just after passing the searing heat of a flaming monstrosity that was tearing through the streets, its charred skin flaking like embers into the air.
By now, Voma's lungs burned from the relentless sprint. The weight of death pressing against his back and the suffocating aura of fear clawed at his mind. His breaths came in ragged gasps.
"Wa… wait, wait a second."
The words came not from him, but from behind, a weak voice, almost trembling.
In a situation like this, hearing someone speak unexpectedly was enough to make one's heart lurch. Instinct told you to stay silent, to vanish from the predator's notice. A voice, even a soft one, could break that fragile illusion of safety.
Voma's head whipped around. It was the girl, the same one he had dragged from the ground moments ago. Her face was pale, sweat streaking down her cheeks.
"Huh?" Voma blinked, taken aback.
It was only now that he realized, he had been running so frantically that he had completely forgotten she was still with him. For long moment, for him she was just a shadow trailing in his wake.
"Where's your designated point?"
Seeing that the girl close to his own age, he shifted his tone, speaking less formally but still with urgency.
"That thing's requirement is to reach the designated location, right? Can you see where it's pointing?"
"Y… yes. It's… over that way." Her chest heaved with every breath, her words broken between gulps of air. She took a moment, visibly fighting to steady herself before she could answer properly.
Voma followed the direction she pointed. All he saw was a blank wall, featureless and unremarkable. But he understood immediately what she meant.
Because he could see it too.
It wasn't a physical sign, nor something visible to ordinary eyes. It was a marker burned into his perception, a location standing out against the world as though reality itself had highlighted it. Even if the view was blocked, the direction remained as clear in his mind as a compass needle unwavering toward north.
He had been heading there all along.
"That place… it's actually not far from my home."
The thought slipped into his mind, almost absurd in its normalcy given the chaos around them.
They were standing in a world that had transformed into a living nightmare, where buildings crumbled under the weight of colossal beasts, where predators walked on too many legs or none at all, where the very air trembled with the sound of distant roars.
Yet here he was, thinking about home.
It was the human instinct to cling to familiarity, to find even the faintest thread of normality in a world unraveling. In the middle of the apocalypse, a familiar street corner could feel like salvation.
But for Voma, the word "home" felt hollow at that moment. It was not the sanctuary of warmth and joy that one might long to return to after a long and exhausting day. Instead, it seemed like nothing more than a marked spot on a map, a place one simply passed through or visited, stripped of comfort, stripped of meaning.
"Five hundred meters in that direction, huh? Not too far from my designated location." Based on the relative positions of the two locations, Voma came to that conclusion, his tone calm but his mind already running through possibilities.
As he was deep in thought, a shadow that had been lurking silently behind him suddenly burst forward, moving with a ferocity that could tear flesh from bone.
Voma's instincts screamed at him. Without hesitation, he swung an arm backward in a sharp arc, deflecting the incoming strike aimed at his back. The impact sent a jolt through his arm, the sheer force of it telling him that whatever attacked him was no ordinary foe.
Both Voma and the girl with him recoiled at the same moment, retreating a few steps. Their eyes locked on the attacker with a shared expression of shock and dread, neither quite believing what they had just seen.
It was only upon closer inspection that the truth became clear. This was no wild beast, no deformed monster like the ones prowling outside.
It was a man.
Or rather, something that had once been a man. His eyes were void of pupils, nothing but lifeless orbs that reflected no light. His skin was pale, shrunken, and desiccated, stretched thin over his bones like a corpse pulled too early from its grave. Faint purple veins writhed beneath the surface, pulsing unnaturally as if carrying something other than blood.
His gait was staggering and uneven, his head tilting unnaturally with each step. Blood dripped steadily from his nose and eyes, painting his already terrifying visage into something straight out of a nightmare. Just one look was enough to confirm, this was not normal.
Though the figure was human in origin, his grotesque appearance immediately set both Voma and the girl on edge, their bodies tense and ready for anything.
"Are… are you alright?" The girl's voice trembled slightly, her words hesitant. Despite her fear, there was a flicker of concern in her eyes.
She never got an answer.
The man suddenly let out a guttural scream, the kind that seemed to claw its way up from deep in the chest, as though something were lodged in his throat. Without warning, he lunged forward, not toward the girl who had spoken, but straight at Voma.
His fingers curled inward, five sharp nails forming a claw-like shape, and he swiped at Voma with an unnerving precision.
It was a strange attack posture, almost animalistic yet disturbingly calculated. Voma reacted instantly, raising his arm to push the man's strike away. But the force behind that claw was monstrous. Even with his parry, the strike did not fully deflect, the momentum carrying it forward.
The claw's path only shifted slightly, sparing Voma from a direct slash across the center of his face. Still, the attack grazed his cheek, leaving behind a long, stinging tear in his skin.
"Such terrifying strength! If I hadn't altered the angle of his strike, that blow would have torn my face apart."
Warm blood began to drip from the fresh wound, trailing down the side of Voma's face. The man's nostrils flared, his head twitching as though catching a scent. His breathing quickened, and then his eyes, those pale, pupil-less orbs, became laced with thin, red threads like veins bursting beneath the surface.
He roared again, this time with even greater savagery, and launched into another attack. His movements were faster now, almost frenzied, and each strike came with the intent to kill.
Voma gritted his teeth, deflecting and dodging where he could, slipping in counters when openings presented themselves. A well-placed punch drove into the man's ribcage with such force that the skin tore open, splattering dark blood across the ground. There was even the sickening sound of bone snapping, brittle and crisp like a cracker breaking in half.
But the man didn't so much as flinch. It was as if pain no longer existed for him, as though his body was nothing more than a weapon moved by a will that cared nothing for injury.
With a sudden, jerking motion, he lashed out again. This time, his clawed hand found its mark.
Voma had raised his arm in defense, but the five sharpened nails tore through flesh like knives, carving deep furrows into his forearm. Blood gushed out in thick streams, the wounds stinging with an almost unnatural heat.
"Arrrhhhh!!!"
The pain ripped a cry from his throat, but Voma refused to falter. In that moment, he understood, this wasn't just a man. This was something else entirely, something caught between life and death, a being whose body had been stripped of humanity and filled with nothing but hunger and rage.
A searing pain shot through Voma's nerves, burning like molten iron poured straight into his spine. His throat involuntarily tore open in a scream, the sound raw and ragged. The agony was so sudden, so violent, that his stance faltered. Without meaning to, he dropped his guard, leaving a fatal opening.
But the madman before him was not the kind of predator who knew how to exploit such a flaw with precision. Even so, his sudden lunge forward was dangerous enough to spell death.
"Die…!" The enemy's killing intent was so palpable that it clawed at Voma's instincts. His survival drive roared awake, shoving the pain deep into some dark corner of his mind. His thoughts snapped into clarity, the fog of agony burning away. In that single heartbeat, his muscles tensed as he prepared to raise his guard again.
But he was too late.
The man's sharpened, claw-like fingers had already reached his chest. One fraction of a second more, and they would pierce straight through his heart.
CLANG!!
A deafening metallic crack split the air. Out of nowhere, the girl standing beside Voma had seized an iron pipe. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips pressed into a tight line as she swung it with all her strength, striking the attacker squarely on the skull.
The man's claws wavered off-course, grazing Voma's chest before sinking deep into the flesh of his left shoulder instead.
For a brief, surreal moment, Voma simply stood there,frozen. The brink of death still lingered in his bones. His mouth hung open, his body trembled violently, and his mind felt like it was drowning in a cold sea of terror.
But his instincts were not so easily silenced. Like a beast cornered and enraged, his jaw snapped shut, teeth grinding until they creaked. The wide-eyed look of shock and fear in his gaze hardened into something sharp, predatory, and furious.
With a shoutless burst of violence, Voma unleashed all his strength into a single kick. His foot slammed into the man's body, sending him hurtling backward into a pile of rotting garbage several meters away.
The girl, startled by the sudden motion, stumbled back in fright. Her footing slipped, and she let out a short scream as she fell to the ground.
But Voma didn't have the luxury of checking on her. His eyes stayed locked on the man. He charged forward, determined not to give his enemy a single breath to recover. His foot lashed out again, striking hard to keep him pinned down.
Yes, pinned down, because impossibly, the man had tried to stand. His ribs on the left side had been shattered. His right lung and kidney were likely ruptured, flooding his insides with blood. And yet, he was still trying to rise.
Voma would not allow it. Not now, not ever. His kicks came again and again, relentless and brutal, each one slamming down like the swing of an executioner's blade.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl struggling to her feet, her whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm. She collapsed twice, hitting the ground with painful thuds, but on her third try, she managed to rise. Her lips pressed together, and she broke into a run toward them, the iron pipe still clutched in her hands.
She joined in without hesitation. Every swing of the pipe cracked against the man's body with vicious force, the sound sharp and wet. Crimson splattered through the air, staining her pristine white dress and her delicate hands.
The two of them kept striking, kept crushing down, until the man's body finally stopped moving altogether.
Only then did the girl's strength fail her. She collapsed, her knees hitting the ground, her breath ragged and uneven. She gasped for air as though the world itself had run out of oxygen. Voma wasn't in much better shape, he dropped to the ground as well, greedily sucking in air as though it might vanish at any moment.
"Hic… hic… Why… why did everything… have to turn out like this… Oaaa!!"
Her voice broke, the first sob tearing through her chest like a ripped seam. Then the flood came. She wept without restraint, tears pouring down her face in endless streams, her cries echoing off the walls of the narrow, shadow-cloaked alley.
And so they stayed there, two figures slumped in the darkness, the stench of blood and rot thick in the air. One cried until her voice was hoarse. The other sat in silence, the ache in his body nearly drowned by the deeper, sharper ache in his soul. Beside them, the corpse of their enemy lay still, its crimson pooling into the cracked pavement.