The growl tore through the silence.
Before I could breathe, it lunged.
SKRRAAA! The Demodog's claws scraped sparks against the pavement as it pounced. I didn't think—I dropped backward. My arms came up just in time.
CLANG!
It crashed into me, its weight like a bag of cement. But my padded forearms—wrapped in layers of stolen denim and duct tape—held. Barely. Claws tore fabric. Teeth gnashed inches from my face, petals of flesh snapping open like a blooming nightmare.
I screamed through my teeth and kicked.
THUMP!
It flew off me, landing hard against a pile of ash-covered trash bags. I didn't wait. I turned and bolted.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
My boots hit the fleshy concrete in rapid-fire beats. I cleared the fence at the edge of the backyard in a single vault, landing hard on the other side, pain shooting through my knees. The main road sprawled ahead, a twisted memory of the neighborhood I once saw from my window.
I ran.
To the right—CRASH!—a house door splintered open. Another Demodog.
To the left—SHLUK!—one crawled out from beneath a flipped sedan, eyes glinting like hot coals.
Behind me, I heard the first one give chase.
HHRRRRAAHHH!
And then—
EEEEEEEEEEEEEE! A high-pitched shriek sliced the air.
My body froze mid-stride, reflexes tugging my gaze skyward.
There it was.
A winged thing, leathery and black, hurtling from the churning red sky above. Its body curved like a malformed stingray, claws stretched like sickle-shaped fingers.
WHOOOSH!
I dove.
THUD! My body hit the pavement, gravel grinding into my knees and palms. My mask tore free from my face as wind and teeth passed an inch above me. The creature soared past, shrieking again as it twisted back around.
I gasped, tasting rot in the air. My lips burned.
From the ground, I looked up.
Oh... no.
Dozens now. The street behind me had come alive. Crawling. Slithering. Flapping.
Demodogs bounded over fences. Bats circled above, their wingbeats like wet towels slapped against walls. The screeching—so much screeching—was all around.
"This... This is too many," I whispered.
They'd multiplied. Tripled. Maybe more. The entire hive was coming. And I didn't need to guess why.
My legs trembled. My arms felt like glass.
I wasn't ready.
I couldn't be ready.
But it didn't matter.
A whimper tried to crawl out of my throat, but I swallowed it with a growl of my own. Teeth gritted. Fists clenched.
"Get up," I told myself. My voice was raw.
Nothing happened.
"GET. UP!" I shouted.
My muscles screamed as I rose. The blood pounded in my ears, my vision swaying with the effort. My body wanted to give in.
But I couldn't.
I wouldn't.
Not here.
Not yet.
Not like this.
The wind howled down the hollow street, carrying with it the cries of the monsters.
I turned to face them.
And I ran.
My lungs were on fire.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
Each breath scraped like sandpaper against my throat, but I kept going. One foot in front of the other. Left turn. Over the collapsed fence. Veer right at the twisted light pole. I knew the path home—every broken piece of it. I'd been mapping it in my head for three days.
Didn't matter.
My body was shutting down. My knees were weak and my arms were heavy, my vision doubling and tunneling. Still, I ran.
SCREEEEEEE-
A winged beast dove past me, missing by inches. The suction of its flight pulled my scarf loose entirely, baring my face to the world. My lips cracked in the foul air, my eyes burning.
Behind me, the chaos didn't slow. Thumpthumpthump, clawed feet in pursuit. SKRREE! Above. All around.
I could feel them—so many of them, close enough to pounce, yet they waited, as if to mock* me with every claw scrape and snarl.*
Then—
CHOMP!
Pain jolted up my right leg.
I screamed as something tore at my calf—padding shredded in a heartbeat.
I stumbled, twisted, and crashed onto my back, skidding across the cracked street. My shoulder hit something solid—a lamp post bent at an unnatural angle.
I blinked, trying to focus. My eyes swam.
Shapes.
Dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
Bats circling above like buzzards. Demodogs pacing like hungry wolves. A whole colony—and they had me surrounded.
A part of me stopped thinking. Just... stared.
'So this is it, huh...'
No backup. No escape. No miracle.
Only pain.
But then—
'What...'
I thought as a part of my mind clung to an image.
'What? Am I mocking myself now too?'
No, he knew this not to be the case. Rather, a part of him, a small boy in a cold facility deep inside him, was reminding him.
A face.
Not in the monsters. Not in the clouds. In my memory.
Smiling. Cold. Watching.
The Doctor.
The one who tossed me through the gate. The one who never looked at me like I was human.
He grinned when he threw me away.
And in that moment—
Something cracked.
Oh yeah...
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms.
"I can't die," I whispered, shaking. "Not yet."
Not before I made him regret everything. Not before I enacted justice.
My breath hitched.
"You think I'm just some failed experiment…"
I laughed—a bitter, broken sound.
"But I'm still here. Still breathing. And I've seen what's behind your lies."
My rage boiled over. My lips curled.
"You hear me?! I'm not DONE!"
The creatures stirred. As if they felt the heat rising off me.
Good.
My hands raised slowly—fingers trembling not from fear, but fury.
My body screamed in protest. But I didn't listen.
For once—I let go.
No more control. No more calculating. No more counting heartbeats and breathing patterns.
For once in my life, I didn't stop myself, instead, letting myself go...mad.
Just pure, white-hot madness.
And in that space between moments—
I screamed. Not with my throat.
With my mind.
And the world answered.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The sound came from everywhere. A ripple. A shockwave. It blew through the streets like a tidal wave, almost bursting my ear drums.
I saw debris lift. Creatures fly. Buildings crack.
Then—
Black.
No pain. No fear. No weight.
Just silence.
And somewhere inside it, I smiled.
Because now they knew:
I wasn't just another number.
I was Zero.
And I was still here.
Darkness didn't fade.
It was ripped away.
Light stabbed into my eyes, even if it was the dim, decaying twilight of this place. I winced, my lashes caked with soot, my face pressed into cold, cracked pavement. Every breath came shallow, trembling.
Drip.
Something warm slid past my lip. I raised a hand and wiped my nose.
Blood.
I blinked up at a sky that crackled like a broken television. Red lightning danced between veins of cloud. Everything smelled like static and smoke.
Hhhk- I coughed, dragging myself to my knees. My body screamed. It felt like I'd been hit by a truck.
And then I looked around—
"What the hell..."
I woke in the middle of a crate, blood of suspicious color discoloring the area around me with chunks of miscellaneous meat.
My eyes naturally looked down, seeing this crater, only to find it didn't only circle me and that it stretched forward, the chaos it caused to the buildings and streets evident until it reached "there".
Where there once was a hive—a twisted clump of bone, tendril, and filth—there was now nothing.
No. Not nothing.
A crater, larger than mind.
It stretched at least fifty meters wide, blasted deep into the street. Asphalt was shattered, foundations torn up. Debris was still settling, drifting down like snow.
I stumbled forward, boots crunching over broken stone and warped metal. My ears rang. The crater's edge was scorched black. Smoke curled upward in ghostly plumes.
And at the very center—
There was a house.
It shouldn't have been there.
It couldn't have been there.
A perfectly ordinary suburban home. Beige siding. Slanted roof. One shutter was hanging off. It was the kind of house I'd seen a thousand times through the lab windows.
"Was this… under it?" I mumbled. "No way it survived."
But it had. The hive must have grown over it. Cocooned it. Whatever I did—whatever I became in that moment—it had been enough to obliterate the infestation and expose what lay beneath.
BOOM.
The memory flashed behind my eyes. The way the world had shattered. The heat. The power.
My knees gave way.
I collapsed onto the edge of the crater, breathing hard.
"Did I do that...?"
The question felt absurd. But the evidence was all around me. There was no one else here. No explosion from above. No military strike.
Just me.
And the raw, smoldering wreckage of my rage.
I touched my face again. My fingers came back red.
"I need to move."
I forced myself to my feet. Every muscle cried. My spine popped. My balance swayed, but I held firm.
The sky crackled. Another flash of red bolted through the clouds.
It felt angry.
I looked up.
And for a second—just a second—I swore I saw the clouds shifting. Spiraling. A storm forming above where I stood.
I wasn't sure if the Upside Down had weather.
But I was starting to think it had moods.
Something had changed. The air was heavier. Like the entire realm was holding its breath.
I wasn't going to stick around to find out what it was waiting for.
I took one last look at the exposed house. I didn't have time to explore it. Not now. Whatever that blast was, it must've drawn attention from everything in this place.
But I remembered its shape.
Every shingle. Every window. Burned it into my mind.
I'd come back.
Later.
If there was a later.
I turned, clenched my fists, and trodden back to the closest thing to a home I've ever had.