Now that I am old; with a pile of bodies on my back, I came to hate only one thing.

The word hero.

But for you to understand why, you need to hear my story. A story that started in the day that was supposed to be the happiest of a man’s life.

“She has your eyes.” Vanessa, my bride told me as she smiled at our newborn daughter.

Her smile was so beautiful that day, that I felt like the boy who had fallen in love with the shy girl who was always smiling at the most trivial of things. “Here, say hi to Daddy.”

With all the care in the world, I took our daughter in my arms. Even while still covered in blood, she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen, with the smile of her mother and my shining green eyes, full of curiosity. I considered myself a cold man, but it was impossible to not cry at that moment.

"She is very healthy -" the doctor started to say while patting me on the shoulders, only to be interrupted by a sudden tremor.

Holding my daughter against my chest with only one hand, as strong as I was able to without hurting her, I managed to avoid a fall by holding the window, which allowed me to see the world outside.

A massive purple sphere was floating in the sky, sending wave after wave of some myst-like energy toward the city. As it hit the ground, portals emerged out of nowhere, from where all manner of monsters came through.

"Fuck." That was all I was able to say before a raw shot of adrenaline drew my focus on my bride and crying daughter.

"Honey," Vanessa said, but I ignored her. He had just undergone a cesarean and was in no way able to escape the apocalypse without my help.

The doctor looked at the window, screamed, and turned, but I held him by the shirt. "Where can I get a wheelchair?"

He shoved my arm and ran.

Having no time to curse him, I ran toward my wife. "Try to calm her down, I will look for a wheelchair and we will get out of here."

She held me by the arm, her eyes wide with fear. "You are pale and cold, what did you see?"

"Nothing."

Her hold got stronger. "Be careful."

"I will," I said, forcing a smile. I didn't have the confidence to get us out of there, at least not without a weapon and they were unfortunately forbidden in my country. But I would at least die trying.

Sprinting toward the corridor, I shoved open door after door while avoiding the commotion of people desperate to either escape or understand what was happening. A tall and muscular man shoved a nurse on the ground, cursed at her, and shoved anyone in his way.

He reached the elevator, and as soon as the door opened a small green creature jumped at him. Both fell on the ground, where the creature, which looked like a deformed old man, stabbed the man to death with a crude knife.

And for some reason, in a corridor full of targets, the creature's attention was drawn to me. Its glowing red eyes stared at me, which made me feel an odd shiver that crawled from the bottom of my spine toward my neck.

I froze.

The creature dashed toward me. Leaving a trail of blood and some white mucus that came out from its mouth as it jumped from wall to wall.

My body didn't respond. It felt like there was some form of disconnection between what I wanted and what I could do.

"Honey?."

Vanessa's voice came from somewhere behind me. It startled me, but somehow, her voice broke whatever was holding me in place and I managed to jump to the side a few seconds before the creature fell right where I was. As I hit the wall with my back, I spot a fire extinguisher to my right.

The creature turned its head toward me and jumped again.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher and shoved it into the creature’s head. The sound of the skull cracking echoed over the people’s screams. The creature dropped dead on the floor, with blood and goo flowing off the wound.

Congratulations Aron!

You have killed Bob the goblin.

You got 5 lesser card shards!

Warning: Your system is locked.

You lost your shards.

“What the hell?!” I shouted, taken by surprise by the sudden bluish game-like prompt that was floating in front of me. Monsters were one thing, but floating screens only made the situation way more confusing. Did the world become a game?

“Honney!” Vanessa shouted, bringing me back to reality. She was leaning against a wall, with her cloth stained by blood. I rushed toward her, seconds before she lost her strength, and almost dropped our daughter on the floor. Somehow, I managed to grab the two.

“You should have stayed in your room.”

She rested a hand over my face and kissed me. “I was worried.”

“Don’t look at me like it’s a goodbye.”

“I’m not feeling alright.” her voice was fainter now, and I could feel her blood passing through my shirt and pants, reaching my skin. “Sometimes, you have to choose who to save.”

“No.”

“Please, I will only drag you two down.” She kissed the forehead of our daughter, who was still crying. “You two have to survive.”

Her eyes closed, as she slowly lost the rest of her strength and started to fall on the floor. With my eyes full of tears, I was about to reach for her, when something exploded not so far from where we were, shaking the building again. The lights went out, and a siren echoed all over the place, scaring my little baby.

My daughter cried with all the strength she had and I knew that as much as I didn’t want to admit it, Vanessa was right.

A painful scream came out from the direction of the stairs, on the other side of where I was. Knowing that escaping the building meant fighting monsters, I went and took Bob’s knife for myself.

I kind of half expected to be surprised by a new prompt, only to be let down.

It was then that a hand came out from the stairs, a man dragged himself halfway out of the stair, and looked at me, only to be pushed back by some form of tentacle. A spray of blood came out from the stair, with enough force to put any trash horror movie into the shame.

Fighting whatever was coming from the stairs with a crude knife didn’t seem the best of the options, so I run and crossed the elevator. That area of the hospital was like a giant square, which meant there would be at least another stair and another elevator on the other side of it.

While running, I had a few seconds to decide if I would go for the elevator or the stairs. The elevator could be faster but could become a cage if something attacked from outside it. The stairs, on the other hand, would at least allow me to escape to higher floors, becoming a safer bet.

Yet, it was jammed.

Cursing my own luck, I turned in the direction of the elevator, only now noticing it was going up. I felt a sudden chill in the air, like a premonition that something wrong was about to happen.

There was only one floor separating me from whoever was coming up.

I briefly considered hiding inside one of the rooms, but the cry of my baby would reveal our position in a matter of seconds. So I held her closer to me and positioned myself for a last stand if it came to that.

Then the elevator arrived and the door opened.

It was empty.

My legs almost failed me as the adrenaline from the tension left my body. “We are sa-”

Some sort of thick dark shadow came out from the elevator, so fast I didn’t have time to react. I only felt a burst of pain and fell to my knees. It took me a moment to process all that had happened.

My daughter was not in my arms.

I had a hole in the left side of my body.

Somehow I managed to turn, only to find a portal behind me. The screams of my daughter were still echoing from inside it, so I raised my hands to see If I could do something. It was vain hope, I knew it, but I still did it.

‘No.” I muttered, coughing some blood.

Then the tip of my finger reached the portal, touching it. The energy that filled it surged through my body, pushing me inside it and into a vortex of images and different sceneries.

I saw lands burning from a dragon’s breath.

I saw the dead walking the earth.

Horrors that minutes ago were just distant fairy tales.

And her.

She was in the middle of some ceremonial room, with people that looked like a grimdark masochist version of the KKK. That image sent a shiver trough my spine, and I tried to grab the image, but they were too fast, and I ended up touching another one, which sucked me in again.

I fell with my back against something harder. There was a cracking noise, followed by me stopping feeling anything below my chest. I fell again, burying my face in wet mud. It was raining, and I discovered I couldn’t move my legs.

Panicked took control of my mind. My daughter was in the middle of a ritual of some sort, probably being sacrificed, while I was stuck in the mud of some unknown place.

Finally, all the damage I had received and the blood loss hit me, making my vision blurry while I felt the last of my strength leaving me.

Clenching my fists, I saw my bride’s image inside my head and hit the ground with the bottom of my fist.

That would not be the day I die, I keep repeating over and over inside my head while doing my best to crawl away from wherever I was.

It was dark; my vision was a blurry mess, and the rain was thick, which made it almost impossible for me to see anything. Until a lightning bolt struck the ground closer to where I was, and through its light, I managed to see the brief shadow of a man looking at me.

And the world faded into oblivion as I passed out.