My name is Ark.
Your average boy who wear slipping glasses over a round face, thick black hair curling at the edges. Clothes stretched tight when moved—slow, steady, unhurried.
I adjusted my glasses for the third time this morning.
They kept sliding down my nose.I hadn't slept. Again. The frames were slightly cracked on the right side—taped once, lazily, and forgotten.
I walked alone, bag slung over one shoulder, earbuds in, music off. Sometimes I just wore them so people wouldn't talk to me.
The city was half-awake. The sky hung low, blank and pale. Cars passed in half-hearted waves. A few students ahead of me were laughing about something—too loud, too early.
I didn't bother catching up.
I wasn't late. I just didn't feel like arriving.
School was the same as always. A blur of desks, screens, and hollow conversations. Teachers reading from lessons no one cared about. Students pretending not to care even harder.
I sat near the window.
I liked the window.
Not for the view—there wasn't much—but because it gave me an excuse not to look at anything else.
I watched the clouds instead. They didn't move.
Not even a little.
At lunch, I sat on the rooftop.
No one else was there. It was technically off-limits, but the lock had been broken since last year and no one had bothered to fix it.
I opened my lunchbox, stared at the plain sandwich, then stared past it.
Below, the city moved like clockwork. Too clean. Too smooth.
Something about today felt… stalled. Like time itself was holding its breath.
My watch wasn't broken, but the second hand ticked just a little slower.
I leaned back against the concrete wall, pulling my hood up against the breeze.
And that's when I noticed them.
The birds.
They were everywhere—lined along the fence, perched on railings, clustered on rooftops nearby.
Watching.
Not cawing. Not flapping. Just staring. All of them. At the sky.
I slowly looked up.
The clouds didn't move. The air was still. And somewhere, faint but deep, I thought I heard a sound—like metal groaning under pressure.
I blinked.
Then the bell rang, and everything was normal again.
School ended like any other day.
I walked home with my hood up, hands in pockets, bag slung lazily over one shoulder. My glasses slid down the bridge of my nose. I didn't bother fixing them this time.
The streets were quiet, but not unusually so. The sky had that dull orange-gray tint, half dusk, half smog.
A car passed. A kid shouted in the distance. The vending machine on 8th street still had the "B2" light blinking like it was alive.
Normal.
I yawned.
Just tired. That's all.
I passed a lamppost with pigeons lined along the top. Five of them.
I glanced once, kept walking. Then stopped, frowned, and looked again.
Nine pigeons now.
I hadn't seen them land. They were just... there. Sitting completely still. Not preening, not moving. All facing the same direction.
That was weird.
But birds were weird sometimes.
I kept walking.
As I crossed the next street, I noticed a dog behind a fence. Medium-sized. Mutt-looking.
It sat upright, head tilted back, mouth open slightly.
Not barking.
Just... staring upward.
I passed the house and didn't look back.
The further I walked, the quieter things got.
No honks. No music from shop windows. Even the wind seemed to hesitate.
I turned the corner that usually smelled like grilled meat from a skewer stall. Today, nothing.
No stall.
No people.
Just still air and rows of parked cars.
Then came the sound.
A deep, distant hum. Mechanical. Too low to be thunder.
I looked up, squinting.
Jets.
Three of them, streaking across the sky—fast, sharp, too low for comfort. The kind that made the ground shake a second after they passed.
That… wasn't normal.
I wasn't an expert, but jets didn't fly over the city like that unless something was really wrong.
Then I saw it.
Birds.
Not a few.
Hundreds. Black shapes moving in unison, spiraling above like a living storm.
The lead jet swerved hard and fired.
A missile cut through the air with a high-pitched whine and hit the center of the swarm.
Feathers exploded outward—but the swarm didn't scatter.
It pulsed.
Then reformed.
Then dove.
I stepped backward without realizing it.
The second jet tried to climb.
Didn't make it.
Birds slammed into the wings, tearing something loose.
The jet spun.
One flash of orange behind a building.
Then the street shuddered with a distant-BOOM*
People were running now. Some just stood, staring at the sky like they couldn't understand what they were seeing.
I turned—and that's when I saw the rats.
They poured from storm drains, gutters, sidewalk cracks. Dozens. Hundreds. Maybe more.
They didn't scatter. They moved together. Climbing light poles. Trash bins. Cars.
Climbing up.
Toward the sky.
I stumbled back until my hand hit the brick wall behind me.
My breathing turned shallow. My glasses slipped again.
This wasn't some attack. This wasn't a natural disaster.
Something was happening.
Something big.
Something wrong.
My legs moved on their own.
I turned and ran.
My lungs burned. My heart felt like it was about to burst through my ribs. But I kept going.
I had to get home.
Had to see if my family was okay.
If something was happening to the city, if this was the end of the world or whatever it looked like—they needed me. Or maybe I just needed them.
Either way, I had to make it.
I turned corners, darted through alleyways. The streets were still too empty. The silence behind the chaos made everything worse.
Then I heard it.
A roar.
Low. Deep. Close.
My steps faltered.
I was near the zoo.
And then I saw it.
Beyond the broken gates stood a massive gorilla. Dark fur. Muscles like steel cables. Its eyes locked onto something—no, someone.
Children.
A group of them, maybe a school trip or something. They were running, screaming. One kid fell.
The gorilla turned.
Time stretched thin.
I stood there, frozen.
What the hell is that thing doing out here?
I should go. I should run. I should get home. That's all I needed to do. Just get home.
But that kid—
He wasn't moving. Just sat there, too scared to get up.
The gorilla raised one massive arm.
I moved.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just ran.
"Get up!" I shouted.
The kid didn't hear me. Or maybe he couldn't.
I threw myself at the gorilla.
Not smart.
Not brave.
Just desperate.
My shoulder slammed into its side.
It barely flinched.
But the hit knocked its swing wide—its fists crashed into the pavement, inches from the kid.
The kid scrambled away.
But I couldn't anymore.
The gorilla stared straight into my soul.
The roar was so loud I felt it in my chest.
Both of the gorilla's arms lifted into the air.
Then they came down.
I tried to move, but my body didn't react fast enough.
The fists slammed into my shoulder.
The ground cracked beneath me.
Something inside me broke.
The pain was so sharp and sudden I couldn't even scream at first. Just airless gasping. My left shoulder felt like it had exploded—bones, nerves, everything. I couldn't move that arm at all.
I lay there, stunned, shaking.
And then it charged again.
Its huge body rammed into me, throwing me across the pavement.
I hit the ground hard and skidded near the zoo gate.
Everything hurt. My ribs felt cracked. My shoulder was on fire.
I tried to lift my head.
The gorilla was already there.It grabbed my arm and bit down.
Its teeth sank deep.
Then came the sound—bones snapping. My bones.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
The pain was so loud I couldn't even hear myself screaming. It burned through my arm and into my chest. I thrashed, but it didn't let go. My arm twisted in its mouth like it wasn't even attached to me anymore.
My fingers brushed my face.
My glasses.
Still on. I grabbed them.
The frame cracked in my grip. The glass cut into my hand. I didn't care.
I shoved the broken lenses straight into its eye.
One stab. Then another.
The gorilla shrieked and jerked away, shaking its head violently. Blood poured down its face. It stumbled back, blind now, smashing into cages and fences.
I rolled over and forced myself onto my stomach.
Every breath burned. My arms were useless. My body was shaking.
But I couldn't stop.
A piece of the metal gate was nearby. Bent. Sharp.
I crawled to it and gripped it with my barely working hand.
The gorilla was still screaming, swinging at the air.
I stood up, legs weak, swaying. And then I ran at it.
I jumped onto its back and drove the metal bar down into its shoulder.
It screamed and tried to throw me off.
I stabbed again.
Blood sprayed. The metal slipped in my grip, but I held on.
I stabbed again.
And again.
The gorilla thrashed wildly. It slammed into the fence, into the wall.
My body hit against its back, but I didn't let go.
I kept stabbing.
Until the pain faded.
Until the noise became distant.
Until all I could feel was the pounding of my heart, and the hot blood on my hands.
But all of the sudden,the gorilla finally stopped moving.
Its legs gave out, and its huge body collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud. Blood pooled beneath it, dark and steaming.
I fell with it.
Hit the pavement hard, landing on my side. The metal bar slipped from my hands.
I couldn't move.Couldn't think.
Everything hurt—my arms, my chest, my ribs. Even blinking felt like a chore.
Warm blood soaked through my clothes. Some of it mine. Some not.
My vision blurred. The world tilted sideways.
The sky looked wrong.
Then.... footsteps?.
Soft. Calm. Too calm for this scene.
A pair of boots stepped into view. Clean, black, polished.
I blinked. Tried to lift my head, but my body didn't respond.
A voice followed. Cold, flat, like it didn't belong here.
"You're one of the productive ones."
What?
A shadow crouched next to me.
I saw a hand—a gloved one—holding something.
A small, glowing green crystal.
It pulsed slowly. Almost like it was breathing.
"Wh...o ar...e..-"I wanted to ask but my strength have completely ran out.
"If you don't want to die," the voice said, "absorb this."
The crystal was pressed into my hand. I couldn't even close my fingers around it.
But the moment it touched my skin, I felt something.
A warmth.
No—more than that.
It wasn't like heat. It was like… pressure. A low hum under my skin. A presence curling through my veins, reaching somewhere deep.
Then—
Darkness slowly took over my view.
The crystal pulsed one last time.
And the world slowly disappeared.
I blacked out.