060. Ruins of the strong, 1

(Zeslinry)

Weeks flew by.

I was settling in a nearby abandoned village, scavenging what was abandoned on the roads.

I didn't enter the ruins of the port town as it was now covered with toxic fumes, and really entirely dissolved into a swamp. Few structures protruded out of it.

I followed different roads, heading north.

The world was now silent, and not only because it was winter.

I ended up at a military base, turned into wrecks like everything else. Everything that could somehow blow up had exploded. Every building was wrecked. Vehicles were in random situation, either okay or destroyed as well. Corpses were melting, leaving clothes and weapons behind. Even the bones were turning into jelly, and dissolving later.

I was already accustomed to that.

What I wasn't accustomed to yet, was facing what monsters truly could be, and meeting new people in this kind of context.

And that day, on that field of ruins, I faced one of these new challenges.

At first, I thought it was an optical illusion, my eyes playing tricks on me. I thought I was looking at a dinosaur just there, eating the bones of the dead.

It was not a mistake.

The monsters trying to come to life on the dawn when the end came, they were without shape, colours, nor lifespan. They were grotesque and often collapsing under their own weight before they could walk.

But now I faced what they could become.

The monster was a beast standing on its two leg and its long tail, like a kangaroo.

But it was harbouring dinosaur or at least avian features.

Its arms were wings folded against its body.

As it saw me, it shrieked, spitting goo toward me, now showing me weird wings wider than a truck in span.

A weird dragon was suddenly threatening me and I could feel my legs trembling.

What the hell happened to the world was now drilling into my head to destroy there what sanity was left.

This was hell on Earth.

~

The beast jumped down from a pile of wrecks to come at me. I ran.

I picked up a rifle on the ground where many soldiers died, as they were scattered there among clothes without a care.

I tried to shoot but the weapon wasn't loaded.

I picked up another. It would be my last chance. The beast was not running fast, but getting closer certainly.

I shot, and my ears began to rang. It worked.

A few bullets brought the beast down in a great ruckus.

It was easier than I feared it would be, given its big size. I got carefully closer.

I saw its tall body beginning to melt already. It was mostly made of liquids.

Its skeleton was a weird sculpture with random patterns and tiny details, and was already soft like jelly.

It was maybe too young, or incomplete somehow.

One way or another, it had been too frail and was now collapsing.

The puddles of fluids coming of the body sank into the ground or slithered away like viscous snakes.

I found pieces of animals inside, as the bones shattered. They were coagulated chicken bones, egg shells, and other scraps even including pebbles and dirt.

Lots of chicken leftovers actually.

It might have been a chicken, or its demonic reincarnation of some sort.

Some sort of demon born from what we had left behind...

The head looked like a dinosaur to me as it melted.

One of my feet was in a puddle at that time.

I didn't realise right away my mistake.

~

As a sharp pain was going through my foot, I was lucky enough to find an old truck that was not exploded, and a mobile infirmary at that. I entered that small field hospital in a rush.

I don't know what is the logical explanation that made this truck avoid destruction at the time everything happened. Whatever it is, I didn't care about it right then. The pain was becoming unbearable.

I removed my shoe and realised my foot had begun melting from below. There was a hole in the sole. My foot had grown into a putrid grotesque thing.

I recognised the liquid flesh from the monster, now crawling around my toes and inside my skin turned transparent.

I managed to overcome the terror and pain in my heart, like a spike.

I grabbed a cable and tied my leg below the knee tight enough to bleed. Then I grabbed the bone saw and just mindlessly attacked my leg just below that.

I screamed, but then bit on my collar, and kept working blind as my eyes turned unresponsive.

The pain wasn't that bad after a while. I just kept my arms moving until I felt the saw hit the table below.

I did some things afterward. I stopped the bleeding, cauterised the wound partially, and wrapped it.

It was a blur, and I passed out after one hour of auto-pilot, unable to think things through.

~

I eventually woke up, alive.

I woke up in the same place.

I noticed that my severed foot was gone. It had been taken away by the new forces of nature...

Given what I would be facing from now on, one leg was a fair price to pay, for the lesson I just learnt there...

I would think of it that way later on, but of course at the time all I could be was horrified, terrified, and focused on staying alive if only for another day.

I would eventually.

~

After tending to my wound, I returned to scavenging that old base. A few other things were left fairly unharmed.

Amongst which were a working generator and a spotlight. I used this light at night to lit up one side of the camp, whilst I hid in the medical truck on the other end.

I was wondering which would come first, attracted by the artificial light.

Men or monsters?

It turned out after a few weeks of recovery to be neither.

~