The lighthearted atmosphere of the supermarket checkout line didn't just vanish; it was obliterated. One moment, Sarah was playfully glaring at Nuhel for his stubborn generosity, and the next, the world seemed to tilt on its axis.
It started with the light. The bright, golden afternoon sun of Montreal was suddenly swallowed by a bruised, unnatural purple hue. It wasn't like a cloud passing over; it was as if someone had draped a heavy, dirty cloth over the sky.
A few miles away, in the heart of downtown Montreal, the afternoon traffic had reached its usual crawl. Drivers were honking, checking their watches, and glancing at their phones, unaware that their daily frustrations were about to become completely irrelevant.
Marc, a delivery driver in a mid-sized van, leaned out of his window to see what was causing the sudden darkness. He expected to see a storm front, but what he saw instead made his heart stop. High above the skyscrapers, the air itself seemed to be fraying. A jagged, obsidian-colored tear ripped through the space above the intersection, looking like a wound in the fabric of reality.
From that tear, a limb descended. It was pale, hairless, and covered in pulsing blue veins, ending in a clawed foot the size of a sedan. The foot slammed down onto the car directly in front of Marc's van, a silver compact. The metal didn't just bend; it disintegrated under the sheer weight and force. A split second later, a bestial cry—a sound so loud it vibrated in the marrow of Marc's bones—erupted from the rift.
Marc didn't wait to see the rest of the creature. He scrambled out of his van, his legs shaking so violently he nearly fell. All around him, other drivers were doing the same, abandoning their vehicles in a blind panic. As Marc turned to run, he looked up one last time. The sky wasn't just torn in one place anymore. Dozens, then hundreds of black fissures were opening across the horizon like a shattered mirror.
"We're doomed," Marc whispered, tears blurring his vision as he sprinted into an alleyway. "God help us, we're doomed."
At the same moment, on the other side of the city, the Saputo Stadium was roaring with the sounds of a local soccer match. The energy was high, the fans were cheering, and for a seven-year-old boy named Leo, it was the best day of his life. He sat on his father's shoulders, munching on a bag of popcorn.
"Daddy, look!" Leo chirped, tapping his father's head repeatedly. He pointed a sticky finger toward the center of the field, but his eyes were fixed on the sky above the stadium lights.
"Not now, Leo, the striker is about to—" David, his father, started to say, but he stopped when he noticed the sudden drop in temperature. He shivered, his breath hitching as he looked up. The stadium lights were still on, but they seemed dim against the swirling, oily darkness gathering above.
A single tear, smaller than the ones downtown but no less terrifying, snapped open directly over the center circle of the pitch. From it, a creature dropped like a stone. It landed with a wet thud on the grass, and for a heartbeat, the entire stadium went silent.
It looked like a cat, if a cat had been flayed and rebuilt with jagged bones and nightmare fuel. It was roughly the size of a lion, with pale, translucent skin stretched tight over a bony frame. Its mouth was a vertical slit filled with thousands of needle-like teeth, and its tail ended in a heavy, bulbous club covered in foot-long bone spikes.
The creature didn't hesitate. It lunged at the nearest player, a young man who had been frozen in confusion. The "Bony Cat" mauled him instantly, its teeth tearing through his jersey and flesh as if they were wet paper.
"Help him!" someone screamed from the stands. A group of players and officials rushed forward, driven by instinct to protect their teammate.
The creature didn't even turn around. Its tail whipped in a blur, and the bone spikes at the end launched outward like pressurized harpoons. The spikes whistled through the air, puncturing the chests, throats, and limbs of the approaching men. Blood sprayed across the green turf, turning it a sickening crimson.
David grabbed Leo, pulling him down from his shoulders and tucking the boy against his chest. He looked up at the sky, his eyes wide with horror as more of the bony shapes began to pour out of the expanding rifts like rain. The cheers of the stadium had turned into a symphony of screams.
Back at the supermarket where Nuhel and Sarah were standing, the disaster arrived with a literal bang.
They were just about to head toward the exit when the glass windows at the front of the store shattered inward. The sound was deafening, a high-pitched screech that felt like a physical blow to the head.
Outside, in the street, multiple tears were opening just feet above the pavement. People who had been walking their dogs or carrying their shopping bags were frozen in place, staring at the swirling voids.
A massive, bat-like creature, its wingspan wide enough to span the entire two-lane road, emerged from the largest tear. It let out another screech, the sonic vibration so powerful that it sent ripples through the puddles on the ground and caused several people's ears to bleed instantly.
A gas tanker driver, barreling down the street at a speed far too high for a residential area, saw the bat-creature hovering in his path. In a moment of pure, unadulterated terror, he slammed on his brakes and jerked the steering wheel to the left.
The heavy truck jackknifed, the trailer sliding sideways with a screech of tortured metal. It slammed into a row of parked cars and then plowed directly into the brick corner of a residential building adjacent to the supermarket.
The explosion was instantaneous.
Booooooom!
A wall of orange flame and black smoke billowed upward, the shockwave shattering every remaining window for blocks. The building the truck had hit—a three-story apartment complex—groaned as its structural supports gave way. Half of the building collapsed into a mountain of rubble and dust.
The supermarket didn't escape the blast. The section closest to the street, where the pharmacy and the entrance were located, buckled. The roof caved in with a roar of falling concrete and twisted steel.
Inside, Nuhel felt the ground heave. His wheelchair was nearly tossed over by the shockwave, but Sarah lunged forward, grabbing the handles and bracing herself against a sturdy metal shelf. Dust choked the air, turning the store into a grey, hazy tomb.
"Nuhel! Are you okay?" Sarah coughed, her voice trembling. She was covered in a fine layer of white plaster dust, but she seemed unhurt.
Nuhel didn't answer immediately. His ears were ringing so loudly he could barely hear her. He looked toward the front of the store. Where the entrance had been, there was now only fire and debris. Through the holes in the wall, he could see the shapes of things moving in the smoke—things that didn't belong in Montreal.
Screams echoed from the back of the store, followed by the sound of something heavy dragging itself across the floor.
Suddenly, the world went quiet in a way that felt artificial. The sounds of the fire and the screams seemed to fade into the background as a high-pitched ding resonated inside Nuhel's mind. It was a clean, digital sound, completely out of place in the chaos.
In front of his eyes, a translucent blue screen flickered into existence.
[Initiating System Integration...]
[Humanity Grade: E-Rank (Endangered)]
[Planetary Status: Apocalypse Phase 1 - The Descent]
Nuhel blinked, wondering if the explosion had finally broken his brain. He looked at Sarah. She was staring into the empty air in front of her, her face pale, her hands trembling. She was seeing it too.
[Notice: All humans under the age of 40 are being granted the 'Awakened' status.]
[Generating Class, Talent, and Basic Skill based on Soul Resonance and Physical History...]
Nuhel felt a sudden, searing heat in the center of his chest. It felt like a hot coal had been pressed against his heart, the heat spreading rapidly through his veins, down his arms, and stopping abruptly at his waist.
"Sarah," he wheezed, his lungs burning from the dust. "What is this?"
"I don't know," she whispered, her eyes darting across her own invisible screen. "It says... it says I'm a Medic. It says I have a talent called 'Vibrant Life' and it's rank is "
Nuhel looked back at his own screen. The text was scrolling rapidly now, settling into a final display that made his heart sink.
[Name: Nuhel]
[Class: Hoarder (F-Rank)]
[Talent: Universal Repository (Rank: Unique)]
[Skill: Siphoner]
[Class Description: The Hoarder is a utility-based class specializing in the storage and transport of items. You have been granted a Sub-Dimensional Vault with infinite weight capacity.]
A Hoarder? Nuhel thought, a bitter laugh bubbling up in his throat. Even in the apocalypse, he was just a guy meant to sit still and hold things. He looked down at his useless legs, then back at the fire burning at the front of the store.
Outside, a shadow blocked the light from the flames. A Graveling—one of the spindly, grey creatures from the rifts—stepped through the ruined wall. It tilted its eyeless head, its vertical mouth twitching as it picked up the scent of the two humans huddled among the shelves.
It let out a low, clicking hiss and crouched, preparing to spring.
Nuhel gripped the armrests of his wheelchair, his knuckles white. He had no weapons. He couldn't run. He was a 'Hoarder' with no strength and no legs.
But as the creature leaped, the blue screen in front of Nuhel's eyes flashed a bright, warning red.
[Alert: Hostile entity detected. Your story begins now.]