The rain fell red like blood.
Elias opened his eyes, his whole body heavy as if buried alive. The cold seeped through his skin from the muddy ground beneath him. Around him stretched a dead forest — trees dried and twisted, leaves turned to ash, and a sky black without moon or stars.
He couldn't remember how he got here.
The last thing he recalled… was the blinding light of a truck, the screech of brakes — then darkness.
A gust of wind swept by, carrying the stench of rot. Elias pushed himself up, his limbs trembling.
Bodies. Dozens of them, scattered across the mud. Most were already decomposing.
But some… were still moving.
From the pile nearest to him, a head snapped up. The face was mangled, one eye missing, its mouth torn open to the cheekbone. It made a low, wet growl and began crawling toward him.
Elias stumbled back, hands flailing until they gripped a rusted iron bar half-buried in the sludge.
No one told him how to fight.
No system. No skills. No glowing numbers.
Only the raw terror of a man who did not want to die.
He swung. The first strike missed. The second cracked against the creature's skull.
It didn't fall. It lunged.
Claws scraped his shoulder, tearing flesh, and pain exploded across his body.
Elias screamed, drove the bar forward again — this time, through the thing's head.
It shuddered, twitched, then went still.
For a long moment, Elias just breathed.
Hard. Ragged. His stomach twisted, bile rising in his throat.
He almost vomited, but he didn't.
Something deep inside him whispered — Don't stop. Kill it. Make sure.
So he drove the bar down again. And again. Until the twitching stopped for good.
Then silence. Only the rain, falling thick and red.
He fell back onto the cold mud, staring up at the black sky.
No angel came to save him.
No voice said, "Congratulations, you survived."
Only emptiness — and far away, the echo of more growls, growing closer.
In the next flash of lightning, Elias saw them — shadows moving among the trees.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
His hands were shaking, but he tightened his grip on the iron bar.
"No one's coming," he muttered.
"Then I'll save myself."
And he ran — through the rain of blood, toward the only direction where the growls sounded farther away.