Multiple weeks after the atomic bomb was lunched in the abnormal forest, nothing happened, only silence filled the area. That lone silence was sometimes broken by the sound of wind and animals passing by through all the new vegetation that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Even though nothing important occurred during that small time, the world remained in a state of extreme panic. The reason was simple: a 17 year old boy, an entire police squad, and a full SWAT team had all disappeared inside what was once considered a 'small forest'. In only three days, that same 'small forest' had expanded by 187.2 square kilometres.
For the Prime Minister Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton De Wiart, it was a tragedy. That tragedy costed the lives of many fellow Canadians, it was one that many other world leaders clearly did not try to understand. Even though several countries had announced their private nationwide emergency alerts, very little to no real assistance was being provided.
Whenever Adrian asked other leaders for cooperation, they brushed him aside in a, very often weird laugh, telling him to wait before taking further action like the good leader he is. Adrian knew exactly that they were hesitating, they were far beyond scared to help him. Less than 24 hours earlier, they had all agreed like uncivilized monkeys to drop an atomic bomb on a forest they had no information about. Adrian still clearly remember the sole arguments throughout the entire meeting : "If we don't drop the bomb, we could quickly regret it later!" "We need to quickly take action before it becomes any worse!"
"Prime Minister!"
It was Adrian's secretary running towards him holding a cellphone. She had just returned from answering an unexpected phone call from Japan inside one of Adrian's office.
"Japan has agreed to cooperate by willingly to deploying their best unit from their military and intelligence forces."
Japan, it was the only country in this already ruined world that did not seem to be leaded by an old and dumb leader. Their forces understood the circumstances about the forest and the risks involved. Despite all the chaos erupting in the world, these brave men were ready to sacrifice themselves for their most trusted allies and for the sake of possibly saving the world.
Adrian's sadness quickly changed to a small form of relief as he heard this news. At least one nation was possibly willing to help uncover the cause of this madness.
The secretary quickly continued on seeing Adrain's relived face :
"However, Japan has one condition for their assistance."
Since those mens were most likely going to disappear or maybe even die, it only seemed fair and natural to give any conditions they needed. Still, Adrian had a small feeling that whatever they were asking for would not be as has simple has he hoped. Adrian had this opinion for one and obvious reason. Since the dangers of the mission and the number of conditions clearly didn't match at all what would normally be asked and given. Only with this, it was clear that it was a rather unusual request.
"What is their request?" he asked calmly.
The secretary's facial look then quickly changed from happiness to hesitation. With clear uneasiness, the secretary quietly stared at her tablet which most likely showed the request in question. After taking some time before answering, she finally tried to resume the request.
"They want to show the whole world what is happening inside the forest."
The whole world? How would that even be possible?
Seeing the very clear and funny confusion on Adrian's face, the secretary quickly continued her explanation.
"They want their soldiers to carry cameras that will broadcast a live video and audio feed. The feed they want to present needs to be live in every single country and region of the globe. They apparently want to show their superiority or whatever. In short, they want the entire world to be able to watch them 'destroying' the unknown problem."
After thinking about it for some small seconds, Adrian realized that it was not such a bad idea at all. Nobody truly knew what was inside the forest, however, there was also a serious risk. If there really was some kind of monster hiding within it, revealing that fact to the entire world could easily throw anyone into complete panic.
The decision clearly was far from perfect, but they needed help at any cost. Because that help might be the only way to solve the current mystery of the forest.
In the end, Adrian had no real choice but to accept their condition even though the backlash could be astronomical.
"Very well," Adrian finally answered while sighting. "Connect a channel when they arrive to the forest."
When Adrian looked at his secretary, he could see very vivid hesitation on her face.
"But sir, the unit is already inside the forest."
"I'm sorry?"
Adrian's expression had changed to complete disbelief has he stared at her. They had gone inside the forest even before their request had been approved by him? Did that meant that they were ready to go potentially kill themselves for them even if the request was not granted? This realization completely shook Adrian in a very positive way. Even though the request could have been refused, they would still go. Now, no matter the reason behind their total willingness to go in the forest might be, one request was the least he could do.
"Well then, start the feed immediately!" Adrian quickly said in complete excitement.
"Yes sir!"
Since they needed to connect 26 cameras and monitor the vitals of 22 soldiers, it obviously took nearly an entire hour to set everything up. Aside from the wasted time, everything was ready for the departure deeper within the forest. The only delay didn't come from the unit themselves but from a few world leaders who still needed to arrive at the emergency meeting that would give them access to the live cameras and vital signals.
Once the Russian leader finally joined the meeting, the Japanese task force began moving deeper in the forest, completely unaware of the danger already surrounding them.
The heart rates of practically every of the soldiers remained steady and calm during the first 10 minutes, though one was beating slightly faster than the other member of the unit.
"Are you certain we aren't not going to die here?" Asked a new soldier to the task force chief.
"We just need to find the cause of the disappearances inside this forest," the commander replied confidently and calmly. "Then we go back home like nothing ever happened here."
"But... is there any chance we die here in the worst way possible?"
"I would guess so, yes."
"Shit, I don't want to die here and now! Im still only 23!"
People around the world intensely watched the feed in complete silence, gripped by total fear at this specific area. After all, it caused more than 145 countries to have a nation level alert. They all prayed in fear, it didn't matter what religion they were from, they were praying and hoping for a false alert, something, anything! Despite praying, they knew very well that something monstrous might suddenly appear on their screens at any given moment.
"Let's set up the camp here guys! Jikuy told us to remain in position for about 24 to 26 hours inside the forest and the it seems to be clear here."
Out of the new soldier's vision, some bushes and trees started to move, again and again. The scared unit member decided to quickly run to the chief to testify what he had almost certainly witnessed.
"Chief! I think I just saw something move in the forest."
The comment immediately made the task force leader flinch as if he also knew something was up, but wasn't certain yet.
"I know... I think I saw it too."
"What?"
As the chief realized he had spoken out loud in front of his already frighten soldier, the chief tried to casually brush it off.
"Oh, no, no, I just thought about something else, don't worry about anything I just said."
He had already noticed that the vegetation inside the dark forest was moving, not because of the wind, but because of something else. Obviously, he refused to accept any sort of horrible possibilities his imagination could give him and continued on.
"But don't worry." he quickly added. "You are probably just imagining things. Ask yourself, how could there be actual monsters here?"
Even as he tried him best to reassure the soldier, his very own heart, his very own being refused to calm down. As his beat increased at a rather alarming speed, the world leaders suddenly noticed the spike in the chief's heartbeat.
"Task force chief, this is Jikuy. Is there something wrong in your area? Why is your heartbeat above 150? Did you see something in the woods?"
The call from Jikuy through his walkie talkie quickly woke him up from his nightmares. That's right, he needed to calm down. There was still a faint chance that the reason for the moving life was because of the wind, and not some made up monster.
"Negative friend, I just... remembered an argument I made with my wife recently."
It was extremely clear that this was a lie. The chief was almost completely certain that he had seen something moving among the trees, but, he had not truly seen the thing in flesh. One thing was clear however, something else was present in those cursed woods, and it was certainly not human or they would have most likely already noticed it.
There was also 4 additional cameras on their every-type field truck. This was meant to see everything that was happening outside from the interior.
The truck itself holds a lot of highly classified technology, because of that, every unit member needed to take off their cameras and alert the chief before entering the truck. If they didn't do that to the letter, they could probably get executed or imprisoned with a life sentence when they would go back home.
To catch everything that was happening outside the truck from the inside, the 4 cameras had been placed on each side of the vehicle. To strengthen the security, two members of the task force stood on top of it, watching for any ambushes from the sky.
After countless hours passed without any visible movement, people around the world watching the broadcast started to calm down, maybe there was nothing in the forest after all.
Eventually, one of the soldiers became impatient and asked the chief a question that viewers could barely hear.
"Can I … not long… without…"
The chief's only answer was with a slight nod of his head. After that, the task force member handed him something before climbing in the truck.
At that very moment, the American leader began suddenly shouting at Adrian from within the conference room.
"What are you doing??? Switch to the camera of the guy inside the damn truck!"
"Unfortunately, we cannot do that," replied calmly Adrian as if he waited for a question like this.
"Are you seriously refusing my demand, boy?"
"You may have noticed that the soldier handed something to the chief before entering the truck, yes?"
"Yes of course, and what about it?" Replied the rude leader in clear anger.
"He handed over his camera to his unit chief. Whatever is inside that truck is highly confidential, it is not something the entire world should see and especially not something the likes of you should see."
"You dare say that I shouldn't se-"
A loud alert suddenly echoed through the conference room. That alone immediately shut down the provocations from the arrogant leader.
It was a vital from a soldier, more specifically the soldier who had just entered the truck without his camera. His heart rate had spiked like a madman from 95 to 178.
"Jikuy! Ask the task force chief to check on the problem immediately!"
"Yes, sir, just give me a small moment, there seems to be some interference in the forest."
Out inside the woods, every soldier were standing still like a frozen stick with their weapons, ready to fire the second something moved. They waited and waited but nothing happened like they thought. These men expected something to leap out of a bush or a tree at any moment but in the end, nothing came.
The only thing that came was only a crushing silence and an overwhelming sense of pressure that could be felt from every soldier's heart. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, a scream bursted from inside the Japanese truck. The scream itself was not a scream of pain, the scream reassembled more like a scream of pure terror.
Even though every member of the task force had already accepted the possibility of dying for this mission, none of them were actually ready to die in this place, not like this, not in this shitty situation.
The chief hesitated to enter the truck for a moment. He feared that what he might find inside could be the lifeless body of his comrade. That alone would confirm the fact that this forest was the home of a dangerous being.
But before he could even make a decision, the soldier suddenly bursted out of the truck and ran straight toward the chief in total fear and distress.
"Chief!"
As the trembling soldier came before him, the chief prepared for the worst before he even spoke.
"For Susanoo's sake, what happened?" The chief asked in an ominous voice.
"They're everywhere!"
"…I beg your pardon?"
"Come see for yourself!"
At that precise moment, the chief no longer cared about the confidentiality of the technology inside the truck. At this point, he only cared about staying alive.
In his haste, he forgot to remove his camera before following the soldier to the vehicle. Under normal circumstances, that mistake could have earned him a full life sentence once the mission ended. But that alone would count if he survived long enough to face it.
When he stepped inside the truck, the soldier pointed directly at the special radar the unit had. Normally, a radar detects movement from other forms of technology. This one however, had been designed for years to detect movement from any living organism. Every time something moved, a small circle would flash on the screen.
"So, how many circles did you see?"
"…I don't know."
The chief frowned. He didn't know? How??? All he had to do was count. Even a first grader could do that.
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"Look for yourself."
When the chief finally and carefully looked at the radar, he froze.
It was beyond impossible to distinguish any circles at all. The entire screen was flashing nonstop. Did that meant that the entire forest was alive? Did that meant that they were surrounded?
Without him knowing, the entire world could currently see what the chief was seeing. Many people didn't even understand what the machine was. The only thing they knew, was that the machine blinking wildly without stopping in front of them was most likely something important.
The chief began to tremble in fear as he knew what this most likely meant. He quickly grabbed his walkie talkie and tried to report the situation to Jikuy.
But before he could say a single word, a loud metallic sound echoed from the roof of the truck. As the chief quietly looked up in disbelief, he paused and then looked back at his comrade standing right next to him.
What was happening up there, why were the two soldiers on the roof making so much noise? If they kept that up, they would most surely attract whatever was out there.
He needed to make them stop at any cost or death was the only thing that awaited them. The chief rushed outside as fast as he could and began shouting at the 2 soldiers.
"Stop making noise, you dumbasses!"
But, as if the soldier ignored him, the sound continued on, which only made the chief angrier.
"You idiots, shinde iki nasai!"
After a small battle of screams, the noise stopped.
A small moment later, two rocks were suddenly trowed from the roof of the truck and struck the chief on the front of the head.
"What the hell is wrong with you two?!"
Annoyed, he bent down to try and grab the rocks, ready to throw them back up at the soldiers.
But before picking them up, he froze. These were not rocks, they were heads and more specifically, they were the severed heads of the two soldiers who had been guarding the roof.
Everyone watching the stream, the soldiers in the forest, the world leaders in the conference room, and even the chief himself froze as the horrifying realization sank inside their minds.
2 of the 22 soldiers were dead, yet no one had heard a single scream.
The chief slowly faced up to see the top of the truck, but, there were no more sounds whatsoever that could alert him of any living presences. Wait a minute, if soldiers could die without any sound, who could say that the other unit members were also alive? As he realized this, the chief quickly and quietly turned his head and looked around him.
In the darkness of the forest, he could see hundreds of thousands of small white circles within the bushes. It was almost as if they were staring back at him.
His breathing swiftly became heavy as he quickly began counting the soldiers around him.
"2… 4… 6… 8… 10… 12… 14… 15… guys… weren't we 22? Why are we 15?"
The remaining soldiers hurriedly looked around them as they also realized the current situation they were in. Five more of them had vanished just like that without any sound nor screams.
And then, out of nowhere, it started. Phantoms started to burst out from their hiding spots and lunged at the soldiers standing alongside the outer edges of the group.
The chief quickly looked around in total terror and ran as fast as he could, abandoning the others behind him. As he rushed toward the truck, hoping to escape as fast as he could, he quickly understood that it was completely meaningless. When he reached the entrance of the truck, he stopped dead in his track, It was already too late. Phantoms were already inside the truck, tearing apart and devouring whatever remained of the soldier who had entered earlier before him.
Before the chief even had time to react to this nightmare, a phantom suddenly leaped at him. By complete and sheer luck, the creature landed directly on his rifle which stood on his chest since the first second that he entered the forest.
Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger
"What the fuck is happening, why is this happening?"
The gunshot echoed through the forest.
The phantom collapsed instantly, its body falling limp at the chief's feet.
Without even stopping to look at it, the chief kept running.
His lungs burned and his legs trembled, but terror pushed him forward. As he ran, he glanced back over his shoulder.
That was when he saw it.
In the distance, towering above the other phantoms stood a creature that could only be described as their king.
It was nearly six and a half meters tall. A massive sword rested in its hand, large enough to cleave a truck in half. A thick scarf was wrapped around its mouth, yet it failed to hide the monstrous rows of jagged teeth stretching beneath it.
The chief's camera was still attached to his uniform. Which meant the entire world saw it too.
Millions... no billions of people watched the nightmare unfold in real time.
As the chief continued running, the forest suddenly grew darker. Not like nightfall. Like a shadow spreading across reality itself.
Everything around him began to change. Trees, ground, even the air itself seemed to dissolve into shifting darkness. The world lost its depth, becoming something flat and unnatural.
Then the ground beneath him moved. Shadowy hands suddenly burst out from the darkness below.
Shadow phantoms clawed upward from the ground itself, grabbing at the chief's legs and arms, trying to drag him down into the black ground.
Trying to pull him into the shadows.
Desperate, the chief pulled out his gun and fired again and again.
The shots rang through the darkened forest.
But this time, the bullets passed straight through the shadow phantoms as if they were nothing more than mist. At best, the impact slowed them for barely half a second.
Still, that half second was enough. He tore himself free from their grasp and continued running.
But the moment he took another step, something emerged from the darkness. A gigantic sword suddenly burst upward from the ground.
Before the chief could even react, the blade pierced straight through his torso. The impact lifted him slightly off the ground before leaving him hanging there, impaled.
His life ended instantly.
The camera on his uniform continued broadcasting for a few more seconds, capturing the lifeless body suspended on the blade before the feed finally went still.
Far away, inside the emergency conference room, the world leaders stared at the screens in complete silence.
No one spoke, no one moved.
The Japan leader looked at the camera feed and the flatline on the chief's vital monitor, completely speechless.
22 elite soldiers, trained for the most dangerous missions imaginable, had been exterminated in mere minutes.
Then the Korean leader slowly broke the silence.
"The whole world just witnessed what we did… didn't they?"
Adrian did not respond immediately.
Not because he was hesitating.
But because he knew that whatever he said next would not change anything. There were no reassuring words left, no strategy that could undo what the entire world had just witnessed.
When he finally spoke, his voice carried a quiet desperation.
"Did they? Or did they not?"
He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of the other leaders.
"In any case… this is clearly the end of the world, isn't it?"
No one answered. They did not need to.
Every person in that room already understood the truth. No matter where they hid, no matter how powerful their countries were, people like them, ordinary humans could never survive the creatures they had just seen on those screens.
The silence was finally broken when the doors suddenly opened. A man rushed into the room, breathing heavily.
"Sir!"
Everyone turned toward him.
"Tectonic plates all around the world… they're moving."
He swallowed before finishing his report.
"They're moving on their own."
"..."
"I beg... your pardon?" Adrian said slowly.
"The tectonic plates around the—"
Adrian immediately raised his hand to cut him off.
"Yes, I heard that part," he said, disbelief written across his face. "But I didn't hear how."
"Ah… yes, sir." The man quickly gathered himself. "The tectonic plates are moving in a way that suggests that the Earth's map will be reforming itself."
The room fell silent again.
"…What?"
Several of the leaders exchanged uneasy glances. Adrian stared at the man, trying to process what he had just heard.
"But how?" he demanded. "Is it natural or artificial? Give me more information."
"At the moment, we believe it is natural."
The man hesitated for a moment before adding something else.
"…Just like the crack."
Adrian's expression hardened.
"…What crack?"
The man swallowed nervously under the weight of every leader's gaze in the room.
"Didn't you all come here to talk about that?" the man asked nervously.
Before anyone else could answer, the American leader slammed his hand against the table.
"Can you get out if you can't even explain things properly?!" he shouted in anger.
"I'm terribly sorry, sir!" the man stammered. "Just give me one second. I'll show you right away."
He hurried across the room towards the large windows. With shaking hands, he grabbed the blinds and pulled them open.
The room was suddenly filled with pale daylight.
Then everyone saw it.
High in the sky, stretching across the heavens, was a gigantic crack. It looked as if the sky itself had been fractured like broken glass. The tear spread across the clouds, glowing faintly as though something behind it was pushing to break through.
But it had not fully shattered yet.
The leaders stared upward in stunned silence.
"…What is this?" Adrian finally asked.
The man standing by the window swallowed.
"We honestly have no idea, sir."
His voice trembled as he continued.
"It has never happened or recorded in our human history."
The European leader, who had remained silent since arriving, finally spoke. His voice was calm, but the tension behind it was impossible to miss.
He had many questions.
Questions no one in the room seemed capable of answering.
"When will this new 'map' be completed?" he asked.
The man hesitated.
"I… I don't kn—"
"When will these things be stopped?" the European leader interrupted.
"I don—"
"When will we be able to return to our countries?"
The man opened his mouth again. But this time, no sound came out.
He simply stood there, unable to answer a single one of those questions because the truth was painfully obvious to everyone in the room.
No one knew.
Of course, no one in that room knew what would happen next. At that moment, even praying felt meaningless.
But the answers to the European leader's questions did exist.
The new map of the world would be completed in less than a month. During that time, the phantoms would eventually realize that they were no longer bound to their forests. Once that happens, they would begin hunting freely across the world.
Humanity would collapse in less than 2 month and a half. By the end of it, less than 0.1% of the global population would still be alive.
But this is not the story of how a random world was destroyed. This is the story of how people managed to survive in that hell.
Of course, even if one group managed to survive…That does not mean everyone in that group lived long enough to tell the tale.
Doesn't it?