Author : Canis Mortuus

His dusted eyes ached while opening. Heavy clouds hung over the unfamiliar, monotonous grey wasteland which was surrounding him. He had no idea how he got there and couldn’t even recall his own name…

The dusty grey desert stretched flat as far as eye could see. Here and there some concrete ruins protruded from the dust like broken fangs. The wind blew incessantly, whistling on rusted metal bars and carrying clouds of grey dust.

He found an old pouch lying next to him. Hidden inside was a metal cylinder with a single red button and two bright yellow labels. He wiped off the dust and read:

“EMP-2 ELECTROMAGNETIC GRENADE”

The second label, on the other side of the cylinder proclaimed: „Warning! Possible brain damage. Use only as a last resort.”

He put the cylinder back into the pouch, grabbed it and turned around the nearest wall. What he saw made him fall back into the dust, terrified.

In front of him lay a horrific creature – a nightmarish parody of a rat or monkey of some type. It was bald and skinny, grey as the dust in which it was dwelling. Its elongated body was completed by abnormally long and thin tail, resembling an umbilical cord. Its four sinewy paws were armed with long, black claws. The miniature head looked nearly human if not for the long snout with many triangular teeth. From within the sunken eye sockets two dark eyes were staring at him. The creature was dead.

He stood up slowly. There were more corpses of similar creatures everywhere around. Suddenly he heard something in the whistling wind. Something like hoarse voice screaming. Above distant concrete wreckage he saw another rat-like creature staring at him with cold hatred. It whistled another howl and jumped closer…

He was fleeing blindly, hearing the patter of many clawed paws just behind him. The creatures were communicating in some sort of grating language of growls and croaks. They were almost upon him.

Rushing forward, he fell into shallow, oblong cavity. There were remnants of walls still protruding from its edges. When he got up from the dust, he was already ambushed. The creatures were staring at him, coming closer one by one. The boldest of them sprung like a shot with its claws outstretched. Dodging aside he felt a wrench followed by a sharp pain in his left shoulder. He grabbed the pouch, took the cylinder out and placed it in front of him. Hesitatingly he pressed the button. It started blinking red and a high pitched sound grew from within the device. Suddenly the sound went quiet and the air around him vibrated. He fell into darkness…

His dusted eyes ached while opening. Heavy clouds hung over the unfamiliar, monotonous grey wasteland which was surrounding him. He had no idea how he got there and couldn’t even recall his own name…