I'm home...
I hadn't said it to anyone, it was just words of relief.
My graduation is coming up very soon. But I don't know what to do after it. I have no purpose in life. Damn.
Taking off my shoes, I looked at myself in the mirror that hung by the entrance to my apartment.
A plain appearance. Black hair, dark eyes, an unremarkable face. At least that's how I saw it myself.
I sighed again, changed clothes, then went to the kitchen and made tea. When it was ready, I poured it into a cup and, taking my laptop, settled by the window.
The view I had was rather... nasty. Directly across from me, a few dozen meters away, there was another apartment block. A road ran between us, in the middle of the road were short dividing barriers where people could stand if they hadn't managed to cross. There weren't even any trees.So I sat like that until evening.
I made a living doing small orders — creating 3D objects and creatures.
And now I decided to continue one of my projects... Although I wouldn't finish it today...
Ffffffff.
Outside it suddenly grew dark and a sound passed through — something between an ordinary gust of wind and the inhalation of a living person.
I tore my eyes away from the laptop and stared at the window. I saw a black fog, through it I could barely make out the other buildings on the far side. I blinked, but when my eyes opened the fog hadn't gone. I set the laptop aside, rubbed my eyes, and looked out again.
The fog remained, but after a couple of seconds it seemed to strike the curb like a wave and then recede in the direction from which that wind-breath had come. I opened the window and looked that way.
A few hundred meters away, in the center of the main crossroads, a pit had appeared. The roads were about twelve meters wide. The pit took up that whole space.
Many people opened their windows too, curious about what had happened. Nothing happened for a few dozen seconds.
Then strange creatures began to pour out of the pit in all four directions.Even from that distance I could tell they weren't human.
I don't have a TV, but I have the internet. Taking my laptop, I tuned into the first channel. A pretty anchorwoman was talking about creatures crawling out of the pit
"...These creatures are not human..." — that was all that mattered to me in the stream of unnecessary words. Then the presenter vanished and the broadcast cut to live footage.
Reporters—whoever and whenever they'd come from—were already filming near the pit. They were on the road, a few hundred meters from it. The cameraman zoomed in and the monsters became visible.Goblins?
Dark-green creatures, slightly different sizes from one another. Some wore rags, others wore clothing that looked like terribly low-quality fantasy armor. All of them carried some kind of weapon, anything from clubs to daggers.
The cameraman focused on the person closest to the creatures. The man froze and just watched the goblins running toward him, they were already about ten meters away.
He was the closest to the pit, and the goblins reached him in a couple of seconds... killing him. One goblin plunged a dagger into him, another smashed his head with a club, a third slashed his arm. Another ten goblins surrounded him and turned the man into a chunk of meat.
The image on camera shook — the cameraman's hands were probably trembling...
But he kept filming. Maybe the small police detail nearby reassured him. There were two officers. Seeing the goblins kill a person, they drew their pistols and started shooting to kill.
Each goblin took a couple of rounds before falling. But there were dozens of goblins, then hundreds, then thousands.
People began to run. The two officers backed up, helping people who were stumbling. Because of that, they slowed down significantly while aiding ordinary people. A dozen goblins rushed at them and the officers pulled out their batons. The goblins, most of whom barely reached the policemen's waists, should have been beaten back, but they rushed in without fear of injury and killed the guardians of society in seconds.
My heart turned cold. I sprang to my feet and looked out the window again. But it was already too late. From my side those creatures had run far beyond, and even from the sixth-floor height I could clearly see that these were different from those I had just watched online.I stood in shock for a few seconds. Then I heard someone trying to break down the door.
What? The building door is iron — how could they open it so easily?... Although most likely someone had tried to come in and hadn't managed to close it behind them. I don't have time to ponder that now.
I searched for a weapon, grabbed a chair, broke it and took one of its legs, a long leg that was also part of the chair back.I also grabbed the biggest knife in the kitchen. I barely had time to do that when my door was broken down.
One of those goblins stood in the doorway.
He was different from his fellows, about two heads taller than the goblins seen in the broadcast. He wore a cracked leather helmet and a similarly poor leather chestpiece. In his hand he held not a dagger but a cleaver nearly half a meter long.
Changing my mind, I put down the big knife, grabbed the small one and threw it at the goblin.
Once I'd trained in knife-throwing — it was just a game — I learned quickly how to throw properly. Although throwing knives are different from kitchen knives and much better suited for throwing.
A miracle happened, the knife hit the monster in the throat. He grabbed it and pulled it out, then clamped at the wound with his hand. He staggered and fell from the door, still thrashing and trying to staunch the bleeding, meanwhile another creature stepped into the doorway.
Without even glancing at his companion, the first goblin turned, saw me, and started approaching.I grabbed another knife and threw it too. This time the goblin saw my throw and raised his weapon to block, and there was a sick metallic ring as my little knife hit the cleaver. My improvised throwing weapon flew off, and the goblin lowered the cleaver with a grin from ear to ear.
As his eyes peered over the cleaver, a knife flew into one of them.
The goblin screamed, grabbed the knife and held it, afraid to pull it out.
I tossed aside the chair leg, grabbed the long one, with a small knife in each hand. Spending a second on that, I lunged at him.
Seeing me still standing, the goblin roared foam-mouthed and lifted the cleaver over his head, then struck.
I couldn't even see the cleaver's blow, only that it rose, and the next instant I felt the impact.
For a second I stood in shock, looking at myself, I saw the goblin's cleaver had entered my left shoulder, angled down and right through the heart, lodged near my spine.
The pain never came. I couldn't move my left arm. My heart had already stopped beating, but I was still conscious. The goblin threw down the cleaver, thinking he had killed me.
For some reason there was no fear or pain. Not even hatred, it was a desire to make the goblin regret attacking me. To make him, in the afterlife, curse the day he decided to disturb my peaceful life.
He concentrated on the wound in his right eye and didn't notice that I was raising my right hand with the big knife. With my last strength, already falling, I thrust the knife into his other, intact eye.
Although these monsters were apparently much faster than I, he couldn't react to my blow — he saw it too late. My knife pierced the eye and reached the creature's brain.
Dropping his weapon, or rather no longer having the strength to control his body, I fell. Life quickly left my body. A few more seconds and I plunged into darkness, only managing to regret that I hadn't procured a gun by some means.