After the Rifts opened, all kinds of monsters poured onto Earth. These fantastical creatures seemed born from nightmares; some were feral and lone hunters, while others were organized and strategic.
The world's swift collapse was unsettling. Survivors developed numerous unconfirmed theories, as the Rifts remained mysterious even after a hundred days. In contrast, rational thinkers considered it an invasion.
It was very organized; it surgically hit every power on Earth and crippled it in a matter of seconds. Even in places the monoliths didn't appear next to, they were swarmed so quickly and overwhelmingly. The White House, the Pentagon, Langley, and Fort Meade were the first to fall in the US, with the White House being hit by an off-season frost storm. In Russia, the Kremlin was burnt by Dragons, and in the UK, Downing Street was overrun and a massacre ensued.
The world was being dismantled piece by piece in the early hours of the first day, a cataclysm that led to the fall of the world's efforts for defense.
Theorists were proven correct when the initial power-awakened humans formed organized groups, assumed leadership roles, and subsequently confirmed their suspicions by capturing Gobzkin Scouts.
——————————
≪ Gobzkin Scouts ≫
[ Monster, Invader ]
Part of The Gobzkin Horde, the green-skinned savages that terrorize, pillage, and kill just for the fun of it. Scouts are dangerous in groups but cowardly, and if one of them escapes, they will definitely come back with reinforcements.
——————————
The first thing to do when capturing a Gobzkin was to try and find information. Interrogation seemed unlikely as the other party was a savage monster. However, there were patterns of speech in his screeching and shouting, as if calling for help and cursing.
Despite that, the creature had to be killed so paramedics and doctors could dissect it.
Green skin, green physiology, green blood even. It was a completely different strain of biology and evolution. With the little lab tools available, unusual microbes were discovered in Gobzkin tissues, which heat can neutralize. Given sufficient time and resources, these Gobzkin, even if carrying pathogens or viruses, do not currently appear to pose a threat to human physiology.
Those who wanted to hunt and eat them for the lack of food were now more convinced to do so, but every aspect of the Gobzkin was disgusting, so those who did were the most desperate, and still no records of any illness were shown on them.
Conversely, zombies posed a greater threat to human health.
——————————
≪ Host Blighter ≫
[ Dark Host, Invader ]
A survivor's body controlled by a host parasite. The survivor is deceased, but the parasite has assumed its bodily functions, making it appear alive with a heartbeat and blood flow. The parasite seeks to spread its spores, consume living organisms, and gradually evolve into larger forms, with the Blighter representing its initial phase.
——————————
While most people still called them zombies, they were anything but. The human body was alive, but the brain was hijacked like in sci-fi zombie fictions. The hijacker was a tape-like parasite that grows only inside a living body, but once it gets extracted and exposed in its true leafy shape, it dies.
Those things were aliens that couldn't live on Earth, and they were using humans as spacesuits until they adapted and evolved. If anything, these things were more menacing than the man-eating Gobzkins, and they needed to be eradicated before more were seen of them.
The Dark Hosts spread through blood contact, so anyone injured had to avoid them. Breathing the air nearby was also ill-advised. The most effective way to eliminate them and their infectious spores was through incineration, using classic Molotov cocktails.
For now, these were the most dangerous immediate threat to mankind. Aside from them, there were other monsters that acted solitary. Large snakes, large wolves, and even giant bugs were some of the most common strays.
Then come the big ones, the threats that absolutely decimated the world. The creatures that no human could deal with yet.
First, there were the Jotnar, or Frost Giants: titanic figures of varying sizes who appeared with off-season frost storms, their shadowy forms visible at the storm's center. Wherever they go, humans would freeze to death, armored vehicles would stop, buildings would topple, and humans would be taken like loot, disappearing in the storm.
The Jotnar mysteriously appeared in eastern Arabia, freezing the Gulf to cross into Asia and leaving cities like Dubai and Manama utterly ruined. They also appeared in the US and Northern Europe.
The other major threat was the Dragons. Similar to, but the opposite of, the Jotnar, they were wreathed in flames, and they were twice as aggressive and engulfed the world in a single night, declaring their intent to sow destruction.
The Dragons caused the largest casualties on the first day of the invasion, but they seem to have gathered and consolidated themselves in Northern Europe, causing great massacres in Russia, Ukraine, and Denmark as they carved out their desired territory.
This is what the most knowledgeable person about the monsters and the invasion knows. His name was Anthony Hendrick, a bioengineering professor from BIT ( Brighthaven Institute of Technology). And he was pondering over the things he now knows.
He was one of the lucky ones in this apocalypse, since he was always a solitary man with no family and little to no friends. What he had, however, was his students, who are now suffering in this world of monsters.
He is responsible for over 60 of them now. When the world went to shit, he was the only sane voice they could listen to, and they were all good kids whom he respected. He lost some of them in those abominable three months, but their group was lucky in many things so far.
What they were unlucky about, sadly, is that they couldn't get out of Brighthaven city and join the survivors. Their group, after all, was too big, especially after they were joined by so many survivors they couldn't refuse. Now, they are over 200.
Keeping that number in check fell upon the shoulders of Professor Anthony and his students. The youthful boys and girls were talented in many things, and some of them were brilliant strategists even. The survival situation renewed the professor's hope every time he sees his students working together as units.
But the thing that weighed on his mind was survival, and surely they all shared his feeling. Resources were running low, and no rescue was in sight. Luckily, the large group of survivors could make it to an old factory building with thick stone walls and iron gates that fended off many monster attacks so far.
Meanwhile, the professor organized scavenging squads of ten survivors that would roam the nearby areas, armed with weapons, and they would do looting and maneuver to keep the monsters at bay from their hideout.
Three months into the apocalypse, and it was enough for his students to be experts at field tactics. He asked the students with medical experience to limit their movement outside the shelter until they secure more ground and get to clear the nearby streets in order to expand. If they act strategically, they could finally end the stage of surviving and work into the stage of thriving.
Too many plans, too many things to do.
And the knowledge he acquired when he dissected the monsters needed volumes to record.
But the most fantastical thing of all was the appearance of the Runes. Some of his students, who came into contact with certain patterns, started imagining words floating in the air, and they kept calling it System Windows, Character Sheets, and other geek terminology. It couldn't be that those students were hallucinating at the same time, so he took their words at face value, since they were four of his best students.
This all happened when they acquired weapons and tools from the monsters they killed. Not just any monsters, but ones with authority and intelligence over others. This meant that the Runes are the weapon of the enemy as well.
If the situation was ideal, he would put more people on studying these runes, but right now, the power these runes give can make his group survive. He would seek to know more first, but even he had to throw caution out of the window at times of great need.
Most importantly, these Runes proved that there is a conscious mind orchestrating the monster invasion. This suggests a potentially otherworldly evil, with the Runes System acting as either a counterforce or a neutral entity.
Professor Hendrick rested his back against his chair in this abode up at the manager's office in this old factory. A lot of research paper and monster samples laid around him, and he was near his limits from all the work. He is no longer young; four hours of sleep every day for the past hundred days were starting to take their toll.
He could only now lay his head and rest if he wanted, but before he could even do so, fate sent him an encounter he never accounted for.
His door knocked, and he heard news that made him jump off his chair.
There are visitors…
Not survivors!
Visitors!
Not human visitors!
People from outside this world.