The Heart Locket and the Tired Man

The sky is blanketed by ashen clouds, leaving the empty New York illuminated by the still functioning streetlamps. In a single apartment of a random apartment building, twelve floors above the ground, is a man lying on his bed, watching his ceiling through the darkness. He hopes silently to be able to sleep soon and leave this world behind for a few hours. His eyelids even began to droop when-

"No sleeping, you need to get us out of here you dolt!" A loud voice echoes its way through the apartment, making the man jump.

"I thought I told you to shut it already!" The man yells back at the source of the voice; a heart shaped locket hanging on the room's doorknob.

"I won't shut it until you get us out of here!"

"Well that's not happening."

"Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" The man ruffles his own hair, mumbling some undue vulgarities as the locket continues on asking the same question again and again.

"Cause I can't even open the door, for one."

"You haven't even tried beyond a single shoulder slam, it could still be possible."

"And what would we find if we did leave?"

"More food?! Potentially people?! You can't just assume everyone is gone because the streets are empty. Sure, yeah, the internet and power is out, but that doesn't necessarily mean the worst!"

"Your owner isn't out there you dumb locket. She's probably gone too, taken during that blinding white spell. Gah, why did I steal you again?" The man knows why, but this locket has only earned a coy attitude from him in the most positive of scenarios.

"And it just decided to leave you behind? Don't you think that's a bit unlikely? What are you, a star in the shape of a human or something? Come on, if you're still here at least someone else must be. Let's go find them. It's better than being alone, right?"

"Trust me, I already have more than enough company as it is. In fact I'd be plenty happy if that company remembered lockets can't talk."

"Fine, jerk, let's just spend the rest of our lives sleeping then."

"I'm...really talking to a locket. Surely I'm dreaming already."

"You said that two days ago, you know?"

"I've been asleep for two days? That must be unhealthy. Haha…" Both the man and the locket go silent, until the world lets out a soft shake. "Another one?! No no no, I'm not getting taken too! Stay away monsterous white!" The man stands up, yelling idiotic things, waiting for the white light that had taken the rest of the humans just days before to take him...but nothing like that happens. "Eh?" Curious, the man looks out the window, and feels his blood run cold. Reaching through the blanket of ashen clouds is a magnificent sized arm. The hand connected to that arm takes hold of a skyscraper and begins pulling itself through the clouds. A gigantic, slick black humanoid figure, with a creamy white hole where its face should be. A pair of giant wings are attached to it's back, and a long whip-like tail tops off the monstrosity cake.

Gravity, at once appearing to be opposite for the creature, finally corrects itself as the creature gently turns itself right side up and lands on the ground like a feather. The man is stunned into a terrified silence. The creature is faced away from him, looking over the empty world, appearing to be searching for something.

"What the…" The man tries to form words, but nothing comes out. He just watches the creature as it makes its way about, looking over the empty buildings.

"Ah…"

"Ah?" The man turns to the locket. "Do...you know what that thing is?"

"It's a Devourer."

"A...what?"

"A devourer. They only come to dimensions devoid of life, to eat them. But...you're alive, so why would one be here?"

"What the hell kind of locket are you?" The man can't find a topic to focus on. Too much, this is all just too much.

"I'm…" The locket clams up.

"You're what?!"

"Sir...it's looking at us." The locket says. The sentence makes the man's back straighten. He peeks over his shoulder and finds the creature has turned around, standing absolutely still. The white hole for a face it had is changing color, changing to a vibrant red.

"Sir…"

"..."

"Sir, I think you need to get this door open."

The creature starts walking, setting the man's panic into overdrive. He takes the doorknob in his hand and, with a deep breath, slams his shoulder into the door. A slam, and nothing.

"Sir…"

Slam. Nothing.

"Sir."

Slam. The door is beginning to give.

"Sir, please please please please-"

Slam. The door feels close to opening. One more, just one more.

Slam. The door breaks off the hinges and the man falls over. His hand removes the locket from the doorknob while his eyes look about in a panicked rush. The darkness is stronger in the hallway, the only light coming from a window at the end of the hall. He turns to look behind him and finds the monster's red hole of a face looking at him through the room's window. He doesn't spend much time staring at that face, bolting down the hall and toward the stairwell. No way the elevator is gonna work if the power hasn't been working for everything else.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, visualizing the staircase in his mind. He reaches to his right and finds the railway protecting climbers from falling to their deaths. "Twelve steps per set, twelve steps per set…" he begins his descent, keeping that phrase in mind. One set, two sets, three sets, four sets, he descends each set with caution, making sure not to slip despite his panic. It's on the eighth set that the building begins to shake. Hard.

"Sir, you can make it, just keep going!" The locket yells at him, giving him enough assurance to keep going, faster than before. Multiple times he almost falls, saved by the hand rail, and descends each set faster than the last. The shaking keeps going, however, and grows only more worrying with every passing second. How long till this whole building collapses? He has to force his panicked mind to focus on his feet before he ends up freezing from fright.

After probably the fastest descent of his life, he reaches the bottom of the stairwell and the exit doorway to the lobby. He ends up having to bash his way through this door as well, but he manages. His feet touch the cold tile of the lobby floor as he makes out the glass doors in the lobby's darkness. Still, the shaking disorients him, now stronger than ever, and he can hardly manage to push himself to the doors, slamming through into the outside world.

The being, as expected, is shaking the building, slowly crushing it with its strength. The man takes a deep breath to fill his hungry lungs as he runs. He runs aimlessly at first, but his mind picks up on some perceived safety from a spot unlike all others. The hole in the clouds through which the being came shined natural light down on the world. Not the artificial light of the many, similar streetlamps

He sprints towards it, praying it would bring him safety. He smiles with glee as his body reaches the light, and he falls to his knees, his body too tired to keep going. His face moves to look up, through the hole, and...he sees a woman, on her knees, just as tired, looking back at him.

On the same road, right above his head. The locket is the only one to speak, looking up at the woman from the man's hand.

"Owner?"