Chapter 695

The air in San José hung thick and heavy, not just with the usual humidity, but with something else, something Mateo couldn't quite name. He stood outside the Mercado Central, the usual vibrant chaos of vendors and shoppers feeling muted, subdued.

Even the colors of the fruit and vegetables seemed less bright, the sounds of bartering less enthusiastic.

Mateo, eighteen and restless, was supposed to be meeting his friend Javier for a soda, but Javier was late. He checked his cellular device again, no messages. He kicked a loose stone on the pavement, frustration bubbling up.

It wasn't just Javier being late. It was everything. A sense of unease had been creeping through the city for weeks now, a prickling sensation on the skin, like before a storm, but this storm felt different, unnatural.

Whispers had started filtering through the community – strange animal behavior, livestock vanishing overnight, unsettling noises coming from the mountains after dark.

At first, they were just stories, dismissed as folklore or the product of overactive imaginations. But the stories persisted, grew more frequent, more disturbing.

Javier finally showed, his face ashen. "Mateo," he began, his voice low, "did you hear about old man Rodriguez's farm?"

Mateo frowned. "What happened?" Rodriguez owned a small dairy farm just outside of town.

"Something got into his barn last night. Tore it apart. Killed all his cows. Every single one." Javier's eyes were wide with a fear Mateo rarely saw in him. "Not just killed, Mateo. Mangled. Ripped to pieces. Rodriguez said it wasn't an animal. It was… wrong."

A chill snaked down Mateo's spine. "Wrong how?"

Javier shrugged, a shiver running through him despite the humid air. "He wouldn't say exactly. Just… wrong. Said the tracks weren't like anything he'd ever seen."

They went to a nearby soda stand and ordered drinks, the usual banter between them replaced by a heavy silence. Mateo kept glancing around, noticing how many other people seemed on edge, their conversations hushed, their eyes darting nervously.

"It's not just here," Javier murmured, stirring his soda with a straw. "My cousin in Cartago said things are weird there too. And he heard something on the news, from… Canada, I think. About attacks. Animals, mostly. But… bigger."

Mateo frowned. News from Canada felt distant, irrelevant to their lives in Costa Rica. But the growing unease in the air was undeniable.

He tried to dismiss it, tell himself it was just rumors, local gossip blown out of proportion. But Javier's fear, the hushed tones around them, the palpable tension—it was getting harder to ignore.

Days bled into weeks, and the whispers turned into shouts. News reports, once vague and hesitant, became stark and terrifying.

Animal attacks weren't isolated incidents anymore. They were a wave, spreading across continents. Descriptions emerged, horrifying and contradictory. Creatures seen running on four legs, then two, too large, too fast, too strong to be any known animal.

Mateo's father, usually a man of calm and reason, started locking the doors earlier, checking the windows twice before bed.

His mother, who always laughed at old wives' tales, began to pray more fervently. The change in his parents alone was enough to amplify Mateo's growing dread.

Then came the first reports of human attacks. Gruesome, savage, unlike anything they'd ever heard. Victims found torn apart, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. The authorities initially blamed wild dogs, then large cats, then… nothing. No explanation seemed to fit the escalating horror.

One evening, the local news broadcast images that made Mateo's blood run cold. Grainy footage, shaky and poorly lit, supposedly captured by a security camera in a rural area.

It showed a figure moving through the shadows, something tall and gaunt, moving with an unnatural fluidity. It was vaguely humanoid, but twisted, elongated, its limbs bending at impossible angles.

Its head was obscured by shadow, but the eyes… the eyes glowed with an eerie, predatory light.

The news anchor, his voice tight with barely contained panic, spoke of "unconfirmed reports" of similar creatures sighted in other countries. He used the word "monster" for the first time. Mateo's father switched off the television, his face pale. "This is… this is bad," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

That night, sleep eluded Mateo. He lay in bed, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of the night – the rustling of leaves, the distant bark of a dog, and something else, a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate in the very air around him. He pulled the thin blanket tighter, his heart pounding against his ribs.

The next day, the stories shifted again. No longer were these creatures just attacking farms and isolated homes. They were moving into towns, into cities.

Reports flooded in from across the globe – Paris, Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires – the same terrifying descriptions, the same impossible creatures. The world was gripped by a terror that defied logic, defied explanation.

Panic erupted in San José. The streets, once subdued, were now frantic. People hoarding food, desperately trying to leave the city, clogging the roads.

The authorities seemed helpless, overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis. Rumors flew, wilder and more unbelievable than ever.

Some spoke of demons, others of ancient curses, and a few, in hushed tones, whispered the old Navajo legends – skinwalkers.

Mateo, initially skeptical, found himself drawn to these whispers. Skinwalkers – shape-shifting creatures of Navajo lore, beings capable of transforming into animals, gaining unnatural speed and strength.

The descriptions, once dismissed as fantastical, now seemed horrifyingly plausible. The creature in the grainy video, the impossible tracks, the savage attacks… it all fit.

His grandmother, who lived in a small village in the mountains, had always told him stories of skinwalkers. He had dismissed them as old wives' tales, meant to scare children. Now, those stories echoed in his mind with a chilling resonance.

He remembered her words: "They are not just animals, Mateo. They are something… else. Something ancient and evil."

One afternoon, Javier arrived at Mateo's house, his face streaked with tears. "They got my family," he choked out, his voice thick with anguish. "My mother, my father, my sister… They attacked our house last night. Tore through the doors like paper. I… I hid. I heard them… screaming."

Mateo stared at him, horror gripping his heart. Javier, always so cheerful, so full of life, was broken. His eyes were hollow, his body trembling uncontrollably. This wasn't some distant threat anymore. It was here. It was real.

The city descended into chaos. Power outages became frequent, communication lines faltered, and the sounds of screams and gunfire echoed through the night. Society was crumbling. The thin veneer of civilization had shattered, revealing the primal fear lurking beneath.

Mateo's father, armed with a rusty machete and a desperate resolve, tried to organize their neighbors, forming a makeshift defense group.

They boarded up windows, barricaded doors, and huddled together in fear, waiting for the inevitable. His mother prayed constantly, clutching her rosary beads, her face etched with a terror Mateo had never seen.

One night, the growls came closer. They were no longer distant echoes in the mountains. They were in the streets outside their house, accompanied by the sickening sounds of tearing flesh and panicked screams. The barricades wouldn't hold. They were just delaying the inevitable.

Then, the attack came. A deafening crash as the front door splintered and burst open. Monstrous shapes poured into the house, too fast to see clearly, too horrific to comprehend.

Claws, teeth, eyes glowing in the darkness. Screams filled the air – his mother, his father, the neighbors. The smell of blood and something else, something acrid and foul, permeated the air.

Mateo, paralyzed by terror, could only watch as his world dissolved into a nightmare. He saw his father fall, hacked down by something impossibly strong and fast. He heard his mother's screams cut short, replaced by a sickening crunch. The neighbors, their faces contorted in terror, were torn apart like rag dolls.

He scrambled back, tripping over debris, desperate to escape. He stumbled into the kitchen, knocking over chairs, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He saw a window, small and high up, leading to the back alley. It was his only chance.

He climbed onto the counter, ignoring the burning pain in his lungs, and smashed the window with his fist, shards of glass scattering around him. He squeezed through the opening, tearing his skin, ignoring the pain.

He dropped to the ground, landing hard on the rough concrete, and ran. He ran blindly, desperately, away from the screams, away from the horror, into the night.

He ran until his legs burned, until his lungs screamed for air, until he collapsed in an alleyway, hidden amongst overflowing waste bins. He lay there, panting, his body shaking, his mind numb. The screams still echoed in his ears, the images of his family's butchered bodies burned into his brain.

He was alone. Everyone he knew, everyone he loved, was gone. Consumed by monsters. The world he knew was gone, replaced by a savage, brutal reality where nightmares roamed free.

As dawn approached, casting a pale, sickly light over the ravaged city, Mateo crawled out of the alleyway. He walked through streets littered with debris, with bodies, with the remnants of a shattered world.

The air was thick with the stench of death. Silence had fallen, an oppressive, terrifying silence, broken only by the distant howls, the triumphant cries of the creatures that now ruled the earth.

He reached the Mercado Central, the place where he was supposed to meet Javier, the place that now felt like a lifetime ago. It was deserted, destroyed, stalls overturned, merchandise scattered, stained with blood.

He saw a familiar bright splash of color amidst the devastation – a torn piece of fabric from Javier's favorite shirt, caught on a broken cart.

He picked it up, clutching it tightly in his hand, tears streaming down his face. Javier was gone too. Everyone was gone. He was the only one left.

He looked around at the desolate landscape, at the ruins of his city, at the dawn breaking over a world consumed by darkness. He was eighteen years old, and his life, his future, had been ripped away from him in a single night. There was nothing left for him here. Nothing but death and despair.

He closed his eyes, the image of his mother's face, her gentle smile, flashing in his mind. He remembered her stories, the old legends of his people, stories meant to warn, to protect. He had dismissed them, laughed them off as silly superstitions. Now, they were his reality.

He opened his eyes, his gaze hardening, a grim resolve settling within him. He wouldn't stay here and die. He wouldn't become another victim.

He would survive. He would find a way. Even if it meant wandering alone in this broken world, haunted by the ghosts of his past, he would live.

He would carry the memory of his family, of Javier, of everyone he had lost. He would live for them, even if there was nothing left to live for but survival itself. His life was no longer his own. It was a testament to their deaths, a solitary echo in the silence of a world devoured.

And that was his brutally sad and unique fate – to be the last one, the survivor, the one left to remember a world that was gone, forever haunted by the screams of the night that stole everything from him.