Anna was hiding in her apartment. It had been a little over two weeks since she moved into this apartment building. She lived on the sixth floor, the highest floor to her continuing misfortune and there was no elevator in this old building- but the rent was cheap, cheaper than most other places but still livable so it would have to do.
Anna came to New York City in the hopes of auditioning for Broadway, it had been her dream since being a little girl to be a showgirl who could sing and dance in the classics. She had moved here from Ohio, trying to make her dream come true after graduating from her creative arts college with what her professor termed 'above adequate acting skill' and she was supposed to be attending her first audition today.
It seemed unlikely however that with literal monsters rampaging around outside mixed with the hellish ambient screams from those unlucky enough to come across one elsewhere on the block, that the audition was still on. Her dreams were dashed on the rocks of life and there was no way people would even care about musicals when just trying to stay alive was hard.
Mr. Rajesh, her kind but strict older landlord, at least that was her first impression of him having only spoken twice had dropped by a few minutes earlier telling her that there was going to be a meeting.
'A meeting! People are dying and they're holding a meeting! They probably just want to get me out of the apartment so they can raid my supplies! TRUST NO ONE!'
Anna knew there was a group of survivors on her floor but she grew up in a prepper family, the first rule her parents made her remember was that when Shit-Hits-The-Fan people become animals and they'll fight and kill over food and supplies. Trust no one.
She took her parents advice to heart now that the Shit had hit and broken the fan itself. It was her only way of coping, so she didn't join the survivors. She hadn't let them in nor had she left the apartment- she had just been grocery shopping yesterday so her cupboards were well stocked for a few weeks on her own at least and she wasn't about to share any of it with a bunch of strangers, especially when her 'gift' was picking up their thoughts whenever they passed by her door.
Again, she was both cursed and blessed by Fate or Destiny or some other magical force, who knows anymore. Anna could hear the thoughts of people but only within a certain range and she wasn't able to hear them through certain materials, like the walls made of brick.
One specific person outside terrified her more than the rest, every time they passed the door she could almost taste and feel the intent to kill, to feed and breed, oozing through the door. She couldn't tell if it was even Human, she truly didn't want to accept that it even was a Human that was having such thoughts. So she refused to open the door to anyone, scared they might all be killers. She refused to leave, this was her sanctuary.
Across the city people were surviving however they could.
On the rooftop of the Hilbon Hotel a man had thrown lightning at a monstrous six-winged black bird with the face of a man, causing it to scream and dive into the building as its corpse twitched and sizzled. The man was exhausted and fell asleep standing up.
Inside of the Frump building a number of private guards and building security were reduced to fighting little green monsters with clubs and batons as they tried to hold the entrance of the building against the seemingly never ending reinforcements of the green mass.
At the premiere news media for the city, the New York Toast, they had completely barricaded themselves in with desks whilst four foot high dogs without flesh and covered in spikes rammed head first into the doors, every ram moving the makeshift barricade slightly as the journalists inside desperately pushed back.
Down by the river a woman was seemingly walking away from a crowd of what could only be called fish men as they bolted after her carrying spears however every step took her tens of feet making her zip forward out of their reach until eventually the Fishmen collapsed to the ground panting and shaking in rage.
In the subway at one of the stations there was a dog that had changed into a Kobold, it stood two and a half feet tall and resembled a golden retriever with digitigrade legs and a red collar, it was hiding in a ticket booth with the body of its former owner, now cold and rigid.
In the bay, a muscular man that had been out fishing when Judgement Day arrived was using a knife to fight against tentacles trying to cover and drag down his boat, his clothes tattered and ripped from hours of struggle against this mutant horde.
And in a little deli on the corner near Ethan's building, a man was on his back trying to fight off what he could only describe as a demon, with it's black skin, dead white eyes, patches of fluff and vicious claws attempting to take his life. He was taken by surprise and charged from the front, he had managed to grab the monster's hands but was now fighting for his life against the creature. The man began to feel odd, an uncomfortable feeling like the onset of motion sickness coupled with a tingling in his back, he would have noticed earlier had he not been preoccupied- it was only a span of some 30 seconds from feeling this way that the man died and the creature stood up now uninterested in its prey it started wandering. The corpse of the man twitched and morphed before standing up. The man's eyes weren't white, they were entirely black and unlike the gangly hunchback ghoul that was meandering through the store smashing things indiscriminately, this one was 'more.'
The creature could not think, not in the way we consider thinking as it did not have a sense of self, it only knew that it was more, better, fresher than the other and that there was a need, an instinct to find others and be One with them. It looked around before it walked outside with a grunt, the white eyed ghoul turned and followed, a seemingly ingrained instinct to obey.
The black-eyed Fungan stood in the street, flashes of memories from the man he was previously flashing in his mind, not his own memories though. It was similar to watching a movie from someone else's perspective and he felt nothing for them other than a desire to Be One with the prey in the memories. It understood by matching the surroundings to the memories that the man went in and out of the building across the street, it did not understand that the man lived there or that the man had left his home to grab some food for his family from the deli before someone else did but the Fungan expected more prey there and in the buildings around it, so it picked up speed with a destination now in mind and bolted to the closed door with a shriek. The call was heard and several white eyed Funghouls came bounding to the Fungan's position and threw themselves wholly into the doors, the doors held or they would have until a beast Funghoul obeyed the call.
The Funghoul in question was clearly some sort of Griffin before it had been infected as a corpse, it had the head of an eagle, the mane of a lion and four large tattered wings the difference however between this Griffin and a normal one was that this one had black eyes instead of gold ones, black fur instead of creamy-yellow and had red spikes jutting out over the body. It also had a noticeable gash in it's side from which organs were spilling out and dangling freely from.
The Funghoul Griffin threw itself into the door and broke right through, the crash had scared some children upstairs and there were muffled screams. All of the Infected heard the screams and began to frenzy, frantically clawing their way into the building and smashing everything in the way, including each other. The Griffin was unable to navigate the stairs and ended up becoming a barricade that the other Funghouls and one Fungan climbed over tearing more wounds into the body as they did so.
Rushing with all haste up the stairs, Funghouls first with the Fungan matching their pace from behind they heard crying from one of the doors and tore at it, breaking their way in.
Her dad had left for the Deli ten minutes ago and hadn't been back yet, Sienna was worried and told her dad not to go but he said he could handle it, they hadn't seen anything from their window in a while and now was the safest it seemed to go.
She was only ten, her dad made the rules and she couldn't convince him even when she was crying and saying she didn't want to be left alone. He told her to stop being so dramatic and that he'd see her in twenty minutes tops, it's only across the street, he said.
She watched him go and saw him enter the Deli, she waited and watched for ten minutes and he still hadn't come out. Then she saw the Thing.
It was wearing her dad's clothes but the skin was black, with splotches of mottled brown and gray, it had small red spikes sticking out of its clothes in places and the eyes were all black like a demon.
Sienna held both hands over her mouth as tears fell, the monster was looking around but its eyes were staring at her building, unblinking. A few moments and it bolted forward with a scream that scared Sienna witless.
'It's coming for me! It saw me! Oh no! Daddy's gone and the monsters are coming!'
From her vantage point she saw more of Them coming from different directions, one at first, then two, then three.
She fell to the floor crying, her hands holding the window sill and began to hyperventilate as terror overtook her with only thought going through her mind.
'I'm going to die!'
She heard a huge crash as the building door was smashed inwards and screamed.
She clasped her hands over her mouth and tried to stifle herself but it was too late and she knew it.
The sounds of claws ripping into wood and wheezy screams of the creatures echoed up the building and through her door and Sienna's mind broke.
She began to wail and weep and could do nothing else, a young girl overcome by terror, panic had already accepted her end.
They had reached her in less than twenty seconds since hearing her scream and were now at her door, smashing against it with a rain of fists and claws, the door didn't hold and she saw their hungry faces and broken demonic bodies through the holes in the door. The door gave way with a barely audible crack and Sienna watched the miniature horde rush towards her, with their claws outstretched, reaching.
The screams echoed louder than before, screams of agony as the monsters literally tore her apart without reason or rhyme. It was barbaric and brutal, a primal type of violence only capable of being done by animals and mindless beasts, she survived for almost a minute before her screams ended.
The Fungan had stood and watched the Funghouls tear the girl apart and unbeknownst to itself, had shed a single bloody-black tear that trailed itself along identically coloured skin.
The Fungan turned away with a clicking from its mouth and the Funghouls all rushed out of the apartment, smashing their way into other apartments throughout the entire building looking for more.
When the Funghouls had exited the apartment, the corpse of Sienna, what was left of it, half a torso, a disfigured face and one arm twitched, the eyes turned white and the body underwent transformation.
Sienna was now One.
Her instinct driven vessel flipped over and began to drag itself with its one arm out of the apartment to join the others in the Spread.
Hey. I don't know where you have been or what you have been doing. But wanted to say incase your one of the people who needs to see it: I'm enjoying the story and look forward to more.
@DeathSolstice your welcome!
And I just want to say I'm not pushing you to release more, just wanted to check in with you.