Chapter 2: Chaos

'Leon's Point of view '

I slowly opened my eyes, taking in my surroundings with much effort as the images before me were blurry. I was lying on the floor, my head throbbing with pain. As I struggled to sit up, I realized that I was still in the lab, but something felt off. The first thing I noticed was the pungent smell of blood in the air.

I waited for a few minutes for my sight to return fully before attempting to stand. As I did, the throbbing in my head worsened, but soon subsided after a minute or so. I made my way to the hallway and the sight that befell me was nauseating.

"What the hell is happening here?" I asked myself as the state I was in was one beyond the level of confusion.

The hallway was deserted, except for a few bodies scattered here and there. Some were students, while others were teachers or staff members. I felt a wave of nausea wash over me as I took in the carnage. The bodies were twisted and contorted, their faces frozen in expressions of terror and pain.

I puked a couple of times as I walked past the sea of bodies.

As I progressed, my eyes scanned the hallway for any sign of Ann, but she was nowhere to be found. I called out her name severally, but there was no answer. The silence was deafening, and I felt a growing sense of unease.

As I looked around, I noticed that the walls were cracked and damaged, and the windows were shattered. The floor was littered with debris, and I had to navigate through the wreckage to move around.

"What the hell's going on?" I asked myself another question, as there was no other person to ask.

I saw broken chairs, shattered desks, and a mangled lockers. It was as if a tornado had swept through the hallway. The sight before me made me wonder how other parts of school looked like.

I approached my class, half hoping to see another living soul to explain what had happened. Not much later, I wish I hadn't.

Most of my classmates' bodies were torn apart and shattered across the room, almost beyond the point of recognition. I spent about half an hour going round to check if there was anyone who had survived by chance, but to my dismay, that wasn't the case.

I had thirty classmates. The corpses before me numbered twenty six, meaning that it was either the last four were alive or had died somewhere else. As if just noticing the gravity of the situation I was in, I felt a wave of despair wash over me and I puked once again.

I stumbled forward, my heart racing with fear. I didn't know what was happening, or where Ann was. I just knew that I had to find her, and get out of there.

"Ann. Ann, where are you?" I called out to her many times. The silence that responded to my cries made me sick. I hoped to see someone, anyone at all.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of gunshots coming from outside. I rushed to the window and looked out, my heart racing with fear and anticipation. What I saw made my blood run cold.

A group of police officers were shooting at something, but it wasn't a person. It didn't look like something or someone of human origin. It was black and looked like a dog, the only exceptions were it had eight eyes, was bigger than a human and it stood upright.

 It was an alien for sure, its body unlike anything I had ever seen before. It's tall imposing physique towering like an impending disaster.

The bullets seemed to have no effect on the alien, and it began to kill the police officers one by one, it's paws ripping their torso from their lower limbs and their heads from their necks. I watched in horror as the alien dispatched the officers with ease, its movements swift and deadly.

When only one officer was left, I knew I had to get out of there. I turned to run, but as I did, I noticed something strange. Something which was really obvious but because of the carnage I hadn't noticed it.

The test subject, the strange device I had been studying, was attached to my wrist. I tried to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. It was as if it had bonded with me, become a part of me.

I was so shocked that I forgot about the danger outside and continued staring at the crimson tech on my wrist. But as I stood there, frozen in terror, I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. I looked out the window once again. To my horror, the alien was coming for me.

I tried to run, but my legs felt like lead. I was paralyzed with fear, unable to move or escape. The alien loomed over me, its eyes fixed on me with an unblinking stare.

As I looked into its eyes, I felt a sense of deep, primal fear. The alien's eyes seemed to bore into my soul, and I felt like I was being stripped bare, exposed to its merciless gaze.

I tried to scream, but my voice was frozen in my throat. I was trapped, unable to move or escape. The alien's gaze seemed to hold me in place, pinning me to the spot like a signboard.

I felt a sense of utter helplessness, a feeling that I was completely at the mercy of this monstrous creature. I was a tiny, insignificant speck, a mere mortal in the face of an unstoppable force.

I suddenly felt a sharp pain in gut, which was later followed by excruciating pain which circulated my body as I crashed into a wall.

'What just happened?' I asked myself as I landed with a thud.

One moment I was staring danger in the eye and the next second I was here, coughing out blood.

It took me a few seconds to realize that the alien had punched me and that was what sent me flying. The attack alone was faster than my eyes could follow. I tried to sit upright, which was hard as I suspected that I had a few broken ribs. I coughed out blood once more as I wondered how I was still alive.

I tried to stand up and run as fast as my legs could carry. Or at least I imagined that it would go that way, but it didn't. As soon as I was on my feet again I felt a tremendously terrifying aura directly behind me.

Afraid to look back, as if I was scared I'd turn to a pillar of salt I stood there, scared and unable to move. Another second later my world was spinning so fast I couldn't make anything out of it.

I crashed once more into another building. I heard a few cracks alongside the thud as I fell. The cracks indicated that I had a few more broken bones. At this point I was too numb to even react to the pain I felt at my lower back where the alien had landed the second hit.

Blood flowed uncontrollably from my mouth and nose. I even saw a tooth or two flow along with it. The image before me was getting blurrier by the second, but one thing I could definitely make out was the monster standing right in front of me.

It looked at me pitifully as if trying to see if I still had the resolve to try anything amusing before landing the final blow. I closed my eyes waiting for the infinite darkness to arrive.

As I waited, different thoughts popped into my head.

'Is this the end for me?' I asked myself.

'Guess my life was pretty short after all.' I said to myself as the fear began to drive me mad.

'What did I do to deserve this? What did humanity do to deserve this? Why do I have to die like this?' I continued ranting mentally. 'I don't wanna die. I'm scared. I wanna live, wanna grow, wanna explore, wanna get married and have kids too.'

I stopped thinking about thoughts like those cause they would never help me in this situation, and instead I continued waiting for the afterlife.

Just then, I saw what looked like an sms message, the only strange thing was that I seemed to see it in my head. It had an unknown sender and the message it said seemed weird.

It read..."Do you wanna survive?"

"Of course I want to survive....I wanna live."

"I can help you....if you'd want me to." The message read, changing as if to converse with me.

"I want you to help me." I said, half afraid that the messages I'd seen so far was just a product of my imagination and fear.

"For me to help you you'll have to give me a portion of your blood. Will you?" The next message read.

"Yes." I replied, without thinking of the implications it'd have on my future.

"Then it's done." The next and last message read.

As soon as I read the message, I started to feel dizzy as I felt my consciousness leave me. Maybe the messages were really products of my imagination.

"Maybe this feeling of dizziness is of me crossing over." I said aloud to myself as I gave into the drowsiness.