Birth

Human used to be on top of the food chain.

Thousands and thousands of years ago, human made fire. And that was the dawn of civilization.

Fire made food tastier. Fire made warmth.

Fire created light.

Fire scared away the wild animals. Fire made lives easier for human.

In the darkness of the night, fire gave human the gift of hope, a better tomorrow. They were no longer afraid of the dark. They were always waiting for the sun to rise up over the hills. The discovery of fire created for human a mini sun. No need for waiting.

But that was not how human stood above everything else.

Using fire, human could make metal out of rocks and ores.

Fire created tools with metal.

Tools were used in agriculture, mining. The human used their new metal tools to plant trees, farms. They built better houses and stronger castles.

They created more food, and domesticated animals.

At one point, some human had too much food and resources. Greed arrived.

With the metal, human made weapons.

Cold, deadly weapons.

Spears, knives, swords, arrows,... As long as it helped, many forms of weapons were created.

The weapons helped human in hunting, and in killing.

As the enemies of the human went down one by one, the human went stronger by the day. Beasts started to seem easier. Lives started to be easier to kill, to hunt.

Countries and empires were established. Human spreaded throughout the whole world.

It seemed that the world was doing just fine, but a new type of tools created by the using the heat of fire and the metal was made.

The new tools gave them energy, with energy came automation.

That was the time of the science revolution.

Human made a giant leap from here. They started to make a huge impact on their Earth.

Researches, machineries, guns, medicine...

It was the time of wonders.

Monuments, space travel, rockets to the moon, machines on mars,...

The human grew stronger and better everyday. The total number of population in the world made a jump. In a few hundred of years, from hundred of millions people the number went to billion. Creeping closer to the 10 billion mark.

However, tragedy came.

The Earth could not hold 10 billion people. If the number kept on rising like that, sooner or later, everything would be destroyed. The planet itself was being consumed already.

So Gaia started a project.

A virus was planted somewhere on the planet.

By this point, thanks to all the development and the medicine they had made, the human had gone fearless.

They were arrogant and ignorance.

It was easy for the virus to infect the world. The defense was technically nothing.

Half of the world was killed.

But that was not all.

Mother Earth wanted to cleanse the world. So the virus infected the rest of the animals.

It killed many of them, but also created mutation in the end.

The world was no longer the same after that. Walls were built, flight became exceedingly difficult. The sky was not for human only anymore, and the earth was not a safe haven for all. They now have to live in confinement, they have to divide the world into clumps. Because The Old World is now completely different.

There is just one thing that many people are oblivious to. And that is the fact that they are no longer the dominant specie.

The animals they see in the zoos are mearly reproduction of genes created in the laboratories. They are docile, human-friendly because they are not wild animals. They are artificial, so their wild instinct was gone.

Out there, it is completely different than in the books and movies.

That world, that Old World, is coming for them.

_________________________________________________________________

Many days ago, a recon team found a mountain of dead bodies with a gigantic ugly creature on the top of the corpses.

Everything was in the state of decompositon. And the death of the creature was confirmed. Although the size of it was huge, thankfully it was dead. If not, it could have killed every single one with ease.

Initially, their purpose was to find out why the animals were suddenly gone and the reclaimation process was so easy. In the end, nothing was found except for the new creature and the death of many other animals.

The same issue happended every where in the world. It was thought that the creature probably went on a rampage before death, killing many in the process. Still, lots of information were missing.

In addition, there was a sighting of a human, or a new human in a certain country. It led to many speculation about the exact situation beyond The Walls. Many thought the human was lost, many thought the human was someone who successfully ran away from a city inside The Walls. Again, the conclusion was far off.

Two things were happening at the same time. Thus, The Human Council chose to focus on one.

That was the new creature.

Currently, far away from the amusement park, something sinister is forming.

In the theater, where the soldier first saw The Creature, maggots and flies have already gathered.

On the top of the death bodies, the stomach of The Creature starts moving. It has been a week since the recon team came here. The bodies have reached a certain stage which soften the skin and meat. One could tear off the flesh of these dead bodies with ease. If a human was here, they would have fainted just from the putrid smell. Not to mention the unlimited number of repulsive maggots.

Suddenly.

Squish. A small, delicate animal crawls out from the abdoment of The Creature.

It looks like a pig. A six-legged pig without eyes at the size of a hand. On its body are small lumps, the number of which can easily reach the thousand. The lumps almost cover the face of the small animal. Only because the lumps are not big that it features can be seen.

Eek.

The Creature squeals. It is probably hungry. Thankfully, food has already been prepared for it by its parent.

*chomp*

The pig bites down to the soft, decomposed flesh of its mother. It gulps down with vigor. Since it is a new born, there is no teeth. The soft flesh was prepared just for this reason. From the inside of its mouth, tentacles come out and grab the skins and bones of everything that is around it.

At one point, the lumps open, and more tentacles come out from there, albeit smaller and weaker than the ones inside its mouth. They act as smaller hands, guiding the food source towards its mouth.

The scene is horrific. A disgusting, tentacle-covered creature, feasting on a mountain of rotten meat is truly not a sight to behold by anyone.

*Step*

The tentacles vibrate and the young creature looks up. It hears something. Or to be more exact, the tentacles felt something. Immediately, it stops feeding, buries itself down the mountain and stays completely still.

A new team of soldiers has arrived at the theater. The team has six people, so they can carry more items for their mission. This time, they brought gasoline and flamethrowers. They are intending to burn the whole place down, starting from the corpse mountain.

But first, they need to look for more clues regarding the mission. It is very difficult since everything in the room is already too much for research.

One person noticed that the top of the bodies looks slightly off. It seems as if something has eaten from the inside and crawled out of the body of the ugly thing. He reports it to the headquarter, and they took note of that.

But even if there is anything strange, they have the fire power to bring it down this time. At least that is what they are thinking.

With not much to do, they started pouring the gasoline onto the pile.

After that, the step back a little, and ready their flamethrowers.

"Fire!"

The captain says. Red and yellow flame quickly envelopes the bodies. The stench of burnt, decayed bodies lingers in the air. It was luckly that the soldiers brought some kind of protective gear just for this reason.

From the bottom of the mountain, the tentacles on The Creature's body vibrate. This time, it is a different frequency.

It is the increase in the temperature that it is feeling. And there is no signs of stopping.

The Creature gets desperate, so it slowly crawls out.

First, it extend one of its tentacle on the body to the edge of the mountain, only to feel extreme heat. It squeals because of the pain, but the corpses muffled its sound.

It tried a couple more times, in different angles, to which the same thing always happened.

There is no way for it to run, but to run straight ahead.

The Creature then retracts all of its tentacles, and plunges its 6 legs into the bodies.

Whoosh.

Like a hummind bird, it flew out from the dead bodies. It skins come into contact with the fire. The heat quickly burns its pink body.

EEEK.

Screaming in pain, it latches itself onto one soldier. The soldier instantly drops down his weapon and uses his hand to take it off of him.

But from the inside of its mouth, three sharp tentacles extend, and pierce into his body armor.

"Gaaah!"

The soldier screams in pain.

"Shoot it!"

The headquater calls for elimination of the creature along with the soldier.

Hearing that, even though regretable, the 5 other member of the team take out the guns, and started shooting.

The plan is correct when facing something unknown. But the creature is something else. If only they knew more about the creature, they would have won.

Standing too close together, the outer tentacles of the creature have detected the sudden movements of the soldiers thanks to vibration. In its mind, an image of people pointing objects at its direction was clear. It will not wait to be killed.

The tentacles on it body and mouth gather at one point on the poor soldier, and it launches itself to another location with incredible speed. Though gunshots were fired, nothing hit the target.

It latches on the ceiling, turns its body at another person, and moves again.

This time, it spins with the three tentacles coming from its mouth at the front, creating a drill-like move.

With its speed and the strength and sharpness of the appendages, the small creatures stabs the body of its target.

"AAAH!!"

The hot blood of the poor man gives the monster a sadistic bath as he goes limp. The smell and the taste of human make its whole body tremble and the tentacles vibrate with intense frequency. Its primary purpose was to run away, but now, it wants to taste more of that delicous human blood. Decayed flesh was good. But fresh is the best.

"Burn it! Don't use your gun."

The headquater orders. The remaining soldiers hold their flamethrower infront of their face, make a slight adjustment in angle and then fire, creating a wall of flame. It is good that they do it like that to protect each other, the problem is that the creature is too small, and the theater is too big.

Crawling on the floor, the creature once again spins its appedages, cuts through the legs of another victim.

One by one, they all fall.

Until none left.

The last image the headquater got was the three sharp tentacles coming from the mouth of the creature, drilling through the face of its prey.