When I was a child, I remember how the priests in the churches loved to describe the end of the world as the moment when hell would rise to earth, plunging everything into a suffocating and perpetual smell of dust and sulfur.
Unfortunately, I ended up discovering they were wrong.
The end of the world doesn't smell of gunpowder or sulfur. It smells of wet concrete, rancid meat, and the nauseating sweetness of coagulated blood.
["The end of the world reeks of failure…"] I murmur to no one in particular, partly an attempt to relieve my stress with irrational self-blame.
We had been trapped in the Puerto Dorado Central Police Station for three days. Ten days since the sky broke and hell decided that our city was a good place to open a new branch.
The "Main Station," as we called it, once a symbol of law and order on the Costa Verde, was now our only sanctuary. Its concrete walls, designed to withstand riots, now groaned under the siege of something that simply makes no sense to any sane person.
From my observation post on the second floor, with my cheek pressed against the cold metal of a filing cabinet barricade, I could see the square in front. Or what was left of it.
The statue of the city's founder had been torn down. In its place, there was a makeshift throne, made of destroyed patrol cars, furniture scraps, fabrics, and decomposing bodies.
And sitting on it, was that damn thing.
I'm not a big fan of fantasy novels, but if I had to bet, I'd say it's an orc or a giant… Or a disgusting combination of the two.
A mountain of greenish-gray muscle, with yellowish tusks protruding from a jaw that could crush steel.
Its armor, originally made of animal bones and hides.
Now included traffic signs and police shields. A mockery so flagrant and obvious, it's impossible not to clench your jaw.
At its feet, the horde swarmed. Goblins, perhaps? Hundreds of them. Small, many of them hunched over, with leathery, sallow-colored skin and eyes that shone with a feverish malice.
They moved like a tide, armed with rusted pipes, kitchen knives, and anything sharp they could have looted. Their laughter, a constant, high-pitched cackle, was the soundtrack to our extinction.
["Akito."]
The voice pulled me from my trance. It was Flora, my friend. Her face, normally expressionless, was a mask of soot and exhaustion.
["Is it that bad?"] —I asked with a bitter face. Flora wouldn't approach me during my shift if everything were under control…. Or at least under the control this new normal allows us.
["Do you have to make that face?"]
["What do you want me to do? You only come to me with bad news."]
Flora sits beside me amidst the sarcasm. Even this hard floor becomes more bearable with the warmth of a friend.
["Humph, maybe I just want to talk this time,"] – she says, offering me a cigarette.
["That bad, huh?"] – I complain, taking the cigarette. The scent of smoke spreads, and I can finally feel that I'm in the promised hell.
["The basement generator is failing. Jhonas says, best-case scenario, it'll last 7 days before something irreparable breaks. The medical ward… well, we have enough supplies, but without electricity, the equipment is useless."]
I nodded, closing my eyes to enjoy the burn in my throat.
["And the bad news?"] —I finally asked.
["…We're out of coffee."]
["…Now that's bad news."]
["The worst."]
[[Hahaha]]
Ahhh, damn it…
......…..
I finished my observation shift and went down to the first floor with Flora. The smell was worse here. The stench of fear was so thick you could almost chew it.
The few remaining officers, mixed with a handful of terrified civilians, kept watch behind the shattered windows and barricaded doors. Their faces were a canvas of despair.
........
I remember the first day.
The sick planet in the sky. The columns of light. And then, the monsters. At first, they were mutated local fauna. Rats the size of dogs, cats like panthers.
Chaotic. Yes.
Difficult. As hell.
But after a superhuman effort and almost 48 hours without a wink of sleep, we regained a relative control of the situation.
We, the police of Puerto Dorado, held the line. We established perimeters, evacuated civilians, coordinated with the army. For a moment, I thought we would win…
I was naive.
Midway through the second day, something began to change.
Some mutated animals resisted bullets, others were too fast… Finally, the things that appeared didn't even bother to pretend they belonged to this world.
And then, they arrived. The goblins and the orcs.
We don't know where they came from. Some swear they saw them emerge from one of the columns of light, but that no longer mattered.
They were a green tide that was not governed by animal logic, but by a cruel, organized intelligence.
And a goal… Conquest.
We fought. God knows we fought. In the streets, in the buildings, house by house. Chief Wiston led the charge, an old and furious lion.
Flora coordinated communications from the switchboard, her voice the only anchor of sanity in the midst of the chaos.
I directed the tactical units, trying to apply the logic of urban guerrilla warfare to an enemy that did not value its own lives.
But there were too many of them. For every ten goblins that fell, twenty more emerged from the shadows.
The orcs were living battering rams, tearing down barricades with unstoppable force. We fell back, a bloody and desperate retreat, until only one last bastion remained: the Station.
Where we are barely holding on thanks to the concrete walls, a perimeter of piled-up cars, and continuous fire, which, while not killing them directly, seems to be a convincing enough deterrent.
It's either that or… They're just playing with us…
...........
["I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU, YOU DAMN MORON."]
The thunderous shout of Chief Wiston forced me out of my thoughts.
["I'M GOING TO KILL YOU."]
He cursed as he threw his desk through the air.
["HIII!"]
The city's mayor shrieked in terror as he hid behind his bodyguards.
["Chief, stop!"]
["LET ME GO! I'M GOING TO KILL THIS MORON TODAY."]
["Hold him back!"]
My colleagues join in to subdue the chief, who is about to leap towards the mayor, regardless of the already drawn weapons of his burly bodyguards.
Even as big, trained men, it takes 5 of them to restrain the chief, an old ex-military man with more muscle in his right hand than an average human has in their entire body.
["I guess that's another failed negotiation."]
Flora comments casually, a manifest contempt in her eyes directed at Mayor Anibal Soto.
["Wiston, you dare attack a superior officer? I'll have you dismissed."]
["Dismissed from what, you moron? Don't you see the situation we're in? Hand over the armory keys once and for all, before I use your damn bones to scratch my ass."]
Although Anibal tried to remain brave, he can't help but tremble before the bloodshot eyes of a man who can definitely carry out his threat.
As for the reason for the fight, I don't even have to ask.
The main weapons depot in the station's basement.
A place with enough weaponry and ammunition to fully equip a battalion.
In addition to having larger caliber and specialized weapons.
["Open the damn depot already, while I'm still asking nicely."]
["I've told you a thousand times, the last approval request was denied. The orders are to wait for reinforcements. We can definitely hold this position; we just have to wait, according to orders."]
["It's been two days since our last contact. The situation has changed."]
["It doesn't matter if it's changed or not. You know perfectly well what Morgenstern is like. If I skip any procedure, my political career is over."]
["You son of a bitch, do you know how many lives those weapons could have saved if they had just been distributed to the population?"]
["That's just speculation. It's not like there weren't other armories in the city. Besides, even if we controlled the creatures, how were we going to control an armed population afterward? The chaos could have been worse. The higher-ups must have had a reason for not approving the distribution of the weaponry."]
A reason… yes, apparently, the safety of civilians was never a valid reason to use the weaponry stored in police stations.
Using them to suppress demonstrations like we did last month was undoubtedly a more compelling reason than the apocalypse.
["You…"]
It was when the chief seemed about to leap on the mayor.
["Captain."]
Jhonas's voice resonated, his face a mixture of fatigue and resignation.
["We're finished,"] —he said without mincing words as he dropped into a nearby chair—. ["7 days, not a minute more. If that machine exploding doesn't kill us, everything else will."]
Silence took over the place, tense, heavy.
As everyone understood that our last refuge had, with high probability, become our future tomb.
And then, a new sound. It wasn't from the room. It came from outside.
A roar. Deep, guttural, a sound that made the building itself vibrate. It wasn't the howl of wolves or the cackle of goblins. It was something else… Bigger.
The screams in the square ceased. Even the laughter of the goblins was choked off.
I ran to the observation post, the Commissioner hot on my heels. What we saw in the square froze our blood.
The orc warlord had been torn from his throne.
His bloody body, while he and his orc allies fought against something that was twice the size of even those 3-meter mastodons.
A colossus of concrete and twisted steel beams, torn from the foundations of the fallen buildings.
It had no head, only a single eye from a car headlight that glowed with a red, pulsing light. With each step, the ground trembled. The goblins, who seconds before were a tide of chaos, were now fleeing in panic. The golem lifted an arm that was a construction beam and swept the square, crushing dozens of them as if they were insects.
A war of monsters had broken out, and we had front-row seats.
........
["Ahhh…"]
I let out a tired sigh as I drop into the chair in front of the communications room desk.
My mind wanted to shut down, to give up. But my hands, traitors, moved on their own towards the equipment.
Towards the last and most foolish of hopes. Every time I tuned a frequency, a part of me prayed to find silence, because silence meant I could still pretend…. But this time...
["This is Costa Verde Main Police Station, requesting urgent reinforcements…"]
My mechanical voice echoed in the room as it had many other times since this began.
["This is Costa Verde Main Police Station, requesting urgent reinforcements…"]
Like the day before this one and the day after, I tuned one by one through the various transmission frequencies.
["This is Costa Verde Main Police Station, requesting urgent reinforcements…"]
Always the same message, always the same rehearsed words.
["This is Costa-Verde Main Police Station, requesting urgent reinforcements…"]
A tedious job that originally everyone took turns doing at various times of the day, in search of a ray of hope.
["This is Costa Verde Main Police Station, requesting urgent reinforcements…"]
But that now, only Flora and I maintain, even if it's just in the morning and at night.
["This is Sta—"]
But this time… at some point, my voice broke…
["—tion Main of the Police…"]
Fear? … Yes… but… Not of death…
["Costa Verde…"]
This is a much worse fear, a fear that torments every parent from the day they hold their child in their arms for the first time…
["Astrad… If you can hear this…"]
My voice, broken by sobs I couldn't contain, my wish, only one.
["I'm begging you… Take care of yourself… And… Take care of my daughter…"]
God, I'm begging you…
["Take care of Milia…"]
Don't let anything happen to my children.