• Introductory paragraph:

    A lonely bird soars low above the ground over what used to be homes, roads and public buildings, as it searches for anything edible left behind by humans. Here and there, small groups of people, mostly of younger generations, gather around small fires in sorrow or fight over anything worth salvaging. After practically having cleared every corner of the little village, the tiny feathered animal flaps its wings at a steadily increasing rate to climb to a considerable height. The circle of light from the fully eclipsed sun makes its feathers appear like they shimmer, and it doesn’t realize that this spells out its doom as it passes over a little girl at the village‘s border. Not even making it past the first 30 feet of meadow outside of town, a giant crimson furred creature breaks through the ground below and devours it whole. The little girl stood turned to stone at the sight of the beast, unable to scream until it walked up to her so close that she could feel its breath. Having been startled by the high-pitch noise from the little being, the beast itself broke into a scream, and with a second big jump crashed back into the ground. When the village’s bravest men ventured down the hole, none would ever return to the surface and the settlement was deserted the very next day.

    Prologue:

    The warm morning sun rose over the small village, casting large shadows over the ground to match the ruins they originated from. A soft wind blew through the various bushes and grass patches that didn’t get covered under rubble, displaying the only sign of life that place had seen for hours. As if Mother Nature herself sensed the disturbance, the winds increased when a young man appeared at the edge of the deserted settlement. Everything about his appearance pointed towards the long journey behind him, from his weary brown eyes and the sand in his hair to the ripped jeans and weathered skin. The white shirt on his torso had its sleeves torn off and was covered in both mud and blood, while the black denim jacket he had bound around his waist had seen so much sand that it almost appeared to be stonewashed. As he slowly walked onto the cracked sidewalk of the village’s main street, he noticed the significant difference between damage in and around towns. While the roads and highways were mostly left intact, not counting the occasional crack, town roads and paths almost seemed to be torn apart by flying debris from surrounding buildings. Due to the force of impact, some parts were even dropped into the grounds by inches and in one particular case even a whole foot.

    After having prospected the entire village and finding the most suitable spot to set up camp, under a large snapped tree, the wanderer made his way to the outskirts on the other side of the ruins. While he was looking for a place to hide out his eye had fallen on a few large piles of ground in the very first meadow outside of town limits, and he thought it was worth investigating for anything worth salvaging. As he cautiously approached the large sand hill, he wondered if he’d find the large animal the strangers had talked about. Last night he had set up camp alongside a dirt road a few miles from this god forsaken place, when a party of refugees passed by in a hurry to go the other way. One of the men who guarded the rear, especially that of one young lady, had stopped to talk to him. The guard hastily introduced himself as Bruce, to which the stranger shook his hand and introduced himself as Wayne. From what the frightened man told him, there supposedly was a large unnatural being preying here and they had fled town after two of their strongest men had lost their lives to it. Wayne wasn’t one to believe in fables so easily, and assumed that Bruce’s friends just grabbed too big a bull by the horns. So now here he stood, at the edge of what one could easily call a small crater, and he scratched the back of his head. “That’s some cow, alright. But at least I know what could be so strong to fling around large pieces of debris so easily.” He mumbled arrogantly as he turned his back to the hole and made his way back to the camp.

    As night began to fall, Wayne stripped off some of the smaller branches of his hideout and, after removing the leaves for toilet paper, built a camp fire. When he was younger, about ten years old, he had stood in a department store with his eyes glued to a television where they said that fires kept wild animals away. And he built a small fire whenever he had to sleep outdoors from that moment on, an occasion that presented itself almost as many times as days would pass. He found that the only real downside to this was that the heat and light attracted more bloodsuckers, both human and insect, than he’d like. Mosquitoes especially bugged him when he had to camp near bodies of water, something he often had to do if he had run out of rations. Wayne was glad this wasn’t one of those nights, even though it struck him as odd since it was mid-summer. Then, as he took a bite out of the bread he traded one of his knives for, he realized how quiet this environment actually was. There weren’t any birds singing, or flying for that matter, and he didn’t spot or hear any vermin or bugs either. Just as his mind screamed “get the heck out of here!”, Wayne felt the ground tremble and heard something brutal roar in the distance. He jumped up to his feet, letting the bread fall into the flames of his fire as he pulled his second and last knife. “Sounds like the main course arrived.” He mumbled to himself and disappeared into the pitch black night.