Sterben within the Shadows

January 3rd, the fall of civilization, and the day I lost those whom I cared the most. My name is Edward Thorne, 18 years old, and I'm among the last beacons of hope to end this nightmare, now I know you are probably confused, how did this happen; well let me explain what happened 3 months ago...

Friday morning, the last day of school until thanksgiving break, as I struggled to get out of bed the sweet smell of pancakes hit my nose, "Mom must be making my favorites; blueberry pancakes". As I approached the dining room, I saw my annoying little brother, Matt, eating his pancakes. As I ate I received a text from my friend Jeremy who was making plans for the week and asked me to tag along. Before I could answer I heard my mother yelling at me to get into the car as we were going to be late for school. On the way to school traffic was everywhere from which I could hear nothing but car engines and my mom's yelling, that's when it started, screams, gunshots, and panic, people running their vehicles and crashing with each other. My mom ran over the sidewalks and drove as fast as she could to get away from the chaos, we had no choice but to head back home, that's when we saw it.

The image still lingers in my head, how something so plain looks so terrifying, it had no face or form it's almost as if it was liquid, but the worst part was that when it came in contact with people it changed them. We saw it how a man in his mid-twenties turned into a black hound-like creature and attacked multiple pedestrians, I was in shock and trying to process what I had just seen, as my mom headed home, we got a call from my dad's workplace, the hospital notifying that the building had just disappeared. " This must be a sick joke", my mother thought but with what we had witnessed we couldn't be sure, there was no time to get sensible, we had to get home to find my brother.

On the way home, we saw more of those creatures roaming and attacking people, I wanted to cry, think this was a nightmare and that soon my mother would wake me up for school, but that wasn't the case, because the next thing I remember is darkness. I woke up, on the side of the road near some trees, my body was screaming in pain and I couldn't move, from what I could tell it has been a couple of hours since we crashed, I tried calling for help but remembered what had happened, those creatures, "where are they". Then I remembered where's mom. I tried to turn to see the crashed site but she was nowhere to be seen, " that can't be, she wouldn't leave me here, right? She went to get help; she must be on her way back". I heard some crackling sound, most likely from the beat-up car, I thought, as I saw figure from afar coming towards the crash site, then I noticed the hanging heart shaped locket my dad gave my mother for their 18th anniversary, "mom?"

What appeared to come towards me was not my mom, I saw it, those gently eyes and warm smile of her were gone, I knew it she was gone, the only thing I could sense from whatever was in control of my mom was hunger. Black liquid started to pour out of every hole in her body, mouth, nose and ears we covered in black liquid then. "Wh-who are you", as she got closer, multiple gunshots were heard, some which hit what once was my mother.

It's been almost 3 months since I joined Umbra 1, one of the last 7 shelters in all of the planet. During the last 2 months, the creatures we named "opscurus", meaning unknown and dark, have taken over 97% of the entire human population, as a result remaining scientist and military force struggle day and night to identify what might kill these creatures. Around a couple of days, the Russian and Chinese bases contacted their latest findings on Opscurus, a beam like device that immobilizes the creatures was among them, it has additionally been found that there's been a correlation with tectonic plates movement and the concentration of creatures in a given area. It was found that a large concentration of the creatures is located in the coast of the gulf in Texas, roughly 6 hours from our location. This rose high alerts within our base and started to form a plan with our chief in command, general Will. The Chinese estimated that the concentration mass was moving rather slowly and had roughly 2 weeks before it reached our location.

We started to move and plan various alternatives, while we received the blueprints of the beams and began to mobilize in case, we failed to carry the plan on time. The remaining bases shared their location to us in case anything failed and required shelter. As far we were concerned the beams didn't kill the creatures but rather immobilized them while your typical gun would kill the host but slow it at most, resulting futile. The perk of this beam was that as long as it was activated the creatures would freeze instantly and be unable to move, whose purpose was to buy time until a permanent solution was found.

It's been a week since we last had contact with the Korean base, but in that time, we managed to make some changes to the beam which has shown the potential to kill them. Although the product is one of its kind and a prototype we are running out of time, we must strike now, especially with the information we got of one of the scouting team. There appear to be something they are protecting, a black sphere was surrounding the mass, was the last thing the scout team reported before losing contact. As I got ready to be deployed along with a group of twenty individuals, General Will along with some soldiers were running towards the communications room. As I approached the room, I saw nothing but expressions filled with fear.

The beacons on the radar that represented the last of hope of humanity started to fade. First was Korea now, Germany and UK are gone. We managed to contact the Russian and Mexican base but can't reach China. It was now or never, then just like that Russia and Mexico were gone. Only us remained.

It's been 2 hours since we lost contact with all the other bases, we are in an underground tunnel toward the mass of creatures. As we approached the location, we took a detour to avoid any possible detection from the enemy. As we approached the area, our eyes, couldn't believe it. The size of the creatures was enormous, they were probably hundreds of thousands. Our radios started to get interference when we heard the words that changed everything. " It's a trap commander Will, is one of them, he gave away the locations of each base including this one, oh god they are here!". That was the last thing we heard from HQ before we heard and explosion and we knew we were alone.

Now you are probably thinking that it's no happy ending well let's just say real life isn't like many fantasy stories, I write this as proof that I existed that we humans existed. I want to be with my family, my parents, brother and friends but I know that's not going to be possible as I lay defenseless spectating the massacre of the whole squadron, I'm taken to some dark place, an endless void.

Maybe I'm crazy, it's all a lie, to think humans actually existed.