Chapter 1: "The Fall Begins"

Jin Ren's head was buzzing. He couldn't focus on the lesson; the words seemed to float over his consciousness without meaning. The room around him felt distant, the monotonous drone of his history teacher blending into the hum of the fluorescent lights above. His fingers tapped nervously on the desk, his mind elsewhere, lost in the haze of a vague sense of dread.

There was something wrong. Something he couldn't name but felt deep within his gut. A primal instinct clawed at him, urging him to run, to escape before it was too late.

"A meteor shower's coming," he'd overheard in the hallway earlier. "Big one. They say it'll pass over the city in an hour."

He wasn't sure why, but the way the students spoke of it unsettled him. No one was worried. Everyone seemed too relaxed, like it was just another event to watch—another thing to distract them from the mind-numbing routine of daily life.

But Jin couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. Maybe it was the way the clouds were too still in the sky, or how the sun hung low in the distance, casting an unnatural orange glow over the city. He pressed his fingers to his temples. The air felt thick, heavy, like the atmosphere itself was waiting for something to happen.

---

"Jin?"

His name cut through his haze. He blinked rapidly, focusing on Yu Lin as she stared at him, her eyes sharp, but there was a flicker of unease there too.

She was the only one who seemed to understand him, who knew the restless feeling that gnawed at his soul. They had always been on the outskirts—two people who didn't belong in the world around them, two outsiders who found solace in each other's silence.

"Did you hear what they said about the meteor?" Yu Lin asked, her voice low, almost conspiratorial. "I've been reading about it. People say it's not a normal meteor shower... That something's off with it. You feel it too, don't you?"

Jin nodded, a knot forming in his stomach. "I feel it."

Yu Lin looked around the classroom, making sure no one else was listening. "I'm not going to stay here, Jin. Not if it's true. I've got plans. There's a place, outside the city. Safe. I know a way out."

Jin hesitated, his mind racing. She was always the one with the answers, the one who could see things he couldn't. But this… it felt too big to ignore. He wasn't sure he could follow her this time.

Before he could respond, the ground trembled. Just a slight shake at first, so faint that no one seemed to notice it—except for Jin. His heart skipped a beat. His breath hitched in his throat.

Then, the earthquake hit.

A violent jolt threw him forward, the desk slamming into his chest. Chairs and tables crashed to the floor, the windows shattering in a deafening explosion of glass. A scream rang out, but it was drowned by the sound of the building groaning as it shook, as if the very structure was alive and writhing in pain.

The lights flickered and went out.

For a moment, everything was chaos. People stumbled and shouted, desperately trying to flee the classroom. Jin's ears rang, and his vision blurred. But through the panic, one thing stood out clearly—the sky.

He could see through the broken window. A streak of fire cut across the sky, too bright, too fast. The meteor.

Then it exploded.

A second, larger explosion rocked the world as the meteor shattered into pieces, raining fire and debris down on the city. The ground cracked open, and the air seemed to burn. Jin's body tensed as he staggered to his feet, pulling Yu Lin toward the door, away from the smoke and rubble that choked the air.

"We have to get out," Yu Lin shouted, her face pale, her voice barely audible over the sound of the chaos. She was pulling at him now, urgency in her every movement.

But as they reached the exit, the door slammed open with a force that sent both of them stumbling backward. A figure stepped through the doorway. Or rather, a thing.

It was humanoid, but distorted. Its body was twisted, stretched in unnatural angles. Its skin was ashen gray, and its eyes—if they could even be called eyes—were pools of blackness, vacant and hungry. It opened its mouth, revealing jagged teeth that gleamed in the dim light.

Jin didn't think. He just reacted. He grabbed Yu Lin's wrist and dragged her past the creature, feeling his heart pound as terror threatened to consume him. But the creature didn't move toward them. It didn't chase. Instead, it raised its arms to the sky, letting out a screech so loud, so blood-curdling, that it rattled the bones in Jin's body.

Then, as if responding to the creature's call, more figures emerged from the shadows—more grotesque, more twisted than the last. They stumbled into the hall, their bodies contorted in impossible ways. Some were crawling on all fours, others dragging themselves along the floor. And the air was thick with the scent of decay.

The scream from earlier was drowned out by a new sound—the sound of a thousand voices, now nothing but howls of hunger.

---

"Jin, we need to go now!" Yu Lin's voice cut through his fog of panic. She tugged on his arm again, but this time Jin was frozen, his eyes fixed on the creatures. His mind screamed for him to move, but his body refused to listen.

And then it happened.

The first one lunged.

It wasn't fast, but the way it moved was wrong. There was no grace to it, just a grotesque, jerking motion that made Jin's stomach turn. Its teeth clamped down on the shoulder of a student who had been trying to flee, and with a sickening crunch, it tore the flesh away. The student's screams were cut off as the thing pulled him to the ground, devouring him in a frenzy.

Jin couldn't breathe. His vision blurred again as he pulled Yu Lin away, deeper into the hall. They needed to get out of the building. They needed to—

A sharp pain pierced his side.

He gasped, feeling warmth spreading across his body. Blood. His hand shot to his ribs, where something had struck him—something sharp, something jagged. His vision flickered, and he looked down to see what had attacked him.

A shard of bone had impaled his side. It wasn't natural. It was… wrong. The bone itself was sickly, jagged, and too thick, like the remnants of something that had been destroyed long ago.

His breath came in short gasps as he collapsed to his knees, his world spinning out of control.

"Jin! No!" Yu Lin's scream was barely audible over the chaos, but it cut through the fog in his mind. She knelt beside him, her hands shaking as she tried to stop the bleeding, but it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough.

As he looked up, the world around him seemed to slow. In the distance, through the blood and smoke, he saw something—someone—standing tall against the devastation.

A figure, cloaked in darkness.

It wasn't a human. Not anymore.

And Jin knew, with a sickening certainty, that this was just the beginnings