The final days of the year had always carried an air of celebration. Families filled the streets with laughter, neighbors decorated their homes with lanterns and lights, and the air carried the warmth of unity. Children played freely in snow-dusted alleyways, their shouts of joy echoing across rooftops. For many, it was a season of hope.
But beneath the surface, the planet seemed restless.
The winds grew harsher that winter. Tides pulled further than they should have. Animals fled their habitats, behaving in ways no one could explain. Farmers whispered of crops rotting overnight, while fishermen claimed the sea no longer answered their nets. Still, the people clung to their joy, blind to the warning in nature's rebellion.
On the night the year was meant to end, crowds gathered in city squares. Markets overflowed with food and drink. Children clutched sparklers, counting the seconds with wide-eyed excitement. Couples held hands beneath starlight. The clock neared midnight.
And then—everything changed.
The first disaster struck without warning.
A quake split the earth beneath the celebrations, sending shockwaves through the streets. Stone pavements cracked like fragile glass. Buildings groaned, walls crumbling as people screamed and fled. The joyous countdown dissolved into chaos.
"Run!" a man shouted, pulling his daughter from a collapsing archway.
"Where do we go?" someone cried.
"The ground—it's splitting!" another voice wailed as fires erupted from shattered lanterns.
Within minutes, the peaceful city became a graveyard. Waves rose like titans at the coasts, swallowing ports and towns in a single sweep. Storms spiraled in the skies, lightning tearing across the heavens like the wrath of angry gods. Mountains rumbled, spewing ash into the night.
And when the clock struck midnight—silence fell.
The quakes stopped. The storms hushed. Even the cries of the survivors faltered as a deafening stillness blanketed the land. For a heartbeat, it felt as though the planet itself was holding its breath.
Then came the towers.
From the ground, vast structures erupted—dark monoliths that dwarfed everything around them. They tore upward with violent force, crushing homes, forests, entire districts beneath their impossible weight. Black stone spires that reached toward the sky, their surfaces etched with symbols that glowed faintly, like veins of molten fire.
People screamed, scattering in terror.
"Stay away from it! Stay—" The rest of her words were silenced as a chunk of debris fell, ending her plea.
The towers continued to rise across the horizon, dozens—hundreds—of them, spread across the world. Anything near them was obliterated. Families were separated. Children lost their parents in the chaos. Thousands were buried alive beneath the relentless upheaval.
And then, as suddenly as it began, the rumbling stopped.
A door formed at the base of the nearest tower.
It opened with a sound like grinding stone, and from the abyssal darkness within, something emerged.
The creature.
It was not human. It was not beast. Its body was a silhouette of shifting blackness, as if made from the void itself. The faint glow of fire and lightning reflected off its frame, revealing a form that towered over the ruined city. Its eyes were worse than its body—pools of endless darkness, within which floated white orbs like moons hanging in an eternal night.
Those who met its gaze felt themselves unravel. Some dropped to their knees. Others screamed and clawed at their faces, as though to tear out the memory of what they had seen.
And then, it spoke.
The voice was not sound, but thought—forced into the minds of every survivor. Cold, absolute, and undeniable.
"The time given to your species has ended. Now it's time to show progress."
Men and women collapsed to the ground, clutching their heads. Children cried, unable to understand why their skulls burned with words they could not escape. Fear spread like wildfire.
The creature raised its shadowed hand. Fingers stretched unnaturally long, blotting out the faint light of stars.
"It's time for your presents."
The world convulsed.
A wave surged outward from the tower, unseen but overwhelming. People screamed as their bodies convulsed, as fire burned through their veins, as something deep within them cracked open.
Some collapsed, lifeless. Others gasped, eyes glowing faintly with new power. A farmer, trembling on his knees, suddenly felt his hand ignite with flame. A mother, shielding her child, conjured a shimmering barrier of light without understanding how. A young boy's scream echoed as sharp blades of wind erupted around him, cutting into the ruins.
Whispers spread among the chaos:
"What's happening to us?"
"My body—it's changing…"
"I feel… stronger."
They didn't know it yet, but they had awakened. They had become hunters.
The creature retreated back into the tower, the door closing behind it with finality.
But the nightmare was not over.
Cracks split the skies above, glowing with an unnatural brilliance. From the fractures in space, colors bled through—violet, crimson, cyan—shimmering like a twisted aurora. A vast portal tore open, spilling light that was both beautiful and terrifying.
And then the creatures came.
Orcs with twisted tusks and iron skin thundered out, roaring as they crushed survivors beneath their axes. Dragons, vast and merciless, circled the skies, their roars shaking the very ground. Goblins, slimes, wyverns, hydras—monsters of myth made flesh—spilled forth in endless waves. From the forests, giant spiders skittered. Snakes the size of towers slithered through broken streets. Even beasts of the planet twisted and mutated—wolves with too many eyes, birds with jagged steel-like feathers, cattle transformed into raging monstrosities.
The world that had once been filled with peace and laughter was now drowned in screams and blood.
And yet… amidst the terror, amidst the fire and ruin, a single cry rang out—a cry not of death, but of life.
A child was born that night.
He was named Hope.
And though no one yet understood the weight of that name, in time, all would know: he was destined to be the last light in a world swallowed by darkness.