The Cataclysm

A young man is hurrying to pack his supplies in a hidden bunker as his girlfriend has gone missing. She usually leaves early as dawn was the safest time to travel in this land to forage nearby but hasn’t returned in the allotted time. Usually, they go together but she must have woken before him and now he can’t find her. He hurriedly leaves the home he has had to inhabit for 6 years since ‘The Cataclysm’ that tore a hole in reality, allowing monsters and demons to roam his world, and venture into a hellish landscape to find his lost love.

As he travels the landscape, he thinks about how his parents were taken by demons 2 years ago and that he was alone for a time, until he had ventured to the nearby settlement he was heading toward now. As he comes upon the stream near their bunker, he finds a heart-shaped locket. It’s hers, and he begins to fear the worst as he places the necklace around his neck and continues the journey.

The settlement like many others littered across the landscape is a protected area from the demons, and he hoped he would find her there in the place where he first met her. He remembers her beautiful features, her big blue eyes, creamy white skin, and curly blonde hair, and how he instantly fell in love with her the moment he saw her. He had met her trading dog meat to her father in the shop where she worked and though her father didn’t exactly approve of them living outside the settlement, he didn’t stop them from being together either.

His memories are soon interrupted when the young man realises the forest is eerily silent. He can see the settlement nearby from the smoke coming from the chimneys but before he can make it to the settlement to see if she was there, he is set upon by a lone demon. Having the appearance of a zombie bear, the young man runs for the settlement. If he can make it in time, ‘The Guard’ will kill the bear and save his life. But the bear catches up to him and injures his leg. Lucky for him, hunters are in the forest, and they kill the bear before it can maul him to death.

When the lead hunter, an older man with scars on his face, asks why he is alone in the forest, he begs for information about his lost love, giving her description. The hunter tells the young man that a woman fitting her description was found this morning in the woods mauled and that’s why the hunters were out to kill the bear before anyone else came to harm.

Devastated that it might be Ehlena, he begs to see her body, but the hunter tells him that his wound needs to be tended or he could get an infection and die. Reluctantly, he allows the hunters to take him into the dreary settlement to their medic. As his wounds are being attended to, one of the other hunters returns to tell the young man that the body found this morning was burned so it wouldn’t rise again.

Devastated, he demands to leave, but the medic tells him he must rest and leave tomorrow. He then gives him a drug to put him to sleep and the young man drifts of into a fitful slumber.

He dreams of her and the times they spent in the bunker. The close calls with demons and even some deranged humans driven mad by the events of The Cataclysm, and how they had found love in the most desperate of times.

He is suddenly awoken by the hunter, telling him it was time to go if he wanted to make it home before full daylight. The hunter offers to go with him, but the young man refuses, telling him he had nothing to live for now anyway. He clasps the locket, collects his things, and limps home.

In the quiet of the dawn time, the forest is peaceful, an illusion of the horrors that lie within it. And the young man makes his way home, stopping by a stream to wash and collect water. He cries into the stream, not caring if anyone hears his cries of anguish, before collecting himself and making the short journey home.

As he reaches his bunker though, he spots a lone figure standing before the entrance that was hidden in the ground by years of overgrowth. Her features as familiar to him as the ones on his own face. It’s Ehlena!

He runs to her, as she see’s him and begins to run to him. They meet and wrap each other in a tight embrace, crying in relief at the others safe return. She kisses him all over his face making him laugh.

He pulls back long enough to know they must get inside before the dawn time is passed.

They hurry inside the bunker, locking themselves safely away before he turns to her and asks how she made it home safe.

She tells him about her journey into the forest and how she had to hide for hours in a tree because of this bear. She made it home but didn’t find him anywhere, so she waited all night and was determined to search for him at dawn. She also tells him she is sorry as she lost his locket in the forest when running from the bear.

Excited, he pulls the heart-shaped locket from around his neck and gives it to her. She cries with relief and clasps the locket to her heart before opening the locket to reveal the hidden message inside:

“I’ll Always Run To You, Andre.”

They embrace again, and in the quiet of their little bunker they say sweet things and make promises for a brighter future.

Outside the bunker in the forest nearby, the hunter is returning home. Unbeknownst to the young man, the hunter had followed him home to make sure he was safe and had seen the two young lovers reunited in joy.

With a smile on the older man’s face, he disappears into the forest.

The End