NOVEL WEB Chapter 6 - The End Approaches
Earth. June. 2022. CE.
Tesilim snapped out of his shock-fueled trance and erupted into motion, heading rapidly towards the roof’s exit, hastily opening it, and bolting down the stairs. He guessed the shockwave would be upon him in less than a minute, meaning he needed to find a more survivable spot beside the roof.
As he bolted down the stairs, he remembered that the emergency stairs he was currently on also led further down than the ground floor. Hopefully, they led him to a basement where he could take refuge.
He quickly descended to the second floor and soon reached the main floor. From there, he kept running down as the sounds of destruction got closer.
As he neared the end of the stairs, he saw a door blocking his path and, without hesitation, slammed into it with all his gathered momentum. The door slammed open, and he continued past, only to smash against a wall. The wall halted his progress, allowing him to quickly take in the small maintenance closet he now found himself in.
Tesilim stood there with his back to the wall. He could feel his heart beating rapidly as if it was trying to leap out from his chest. His breaths also came in ragged gasps as his body caught up with his reckless dash through the stairs. Meanwhile, his adrenaline only climbed higher and higher as he felt the ground shake.
His terror also grew as he heard the cracking of trees and the sounds of blaring car alarms.
He could only imagine the destruction taking place outside as buildings were ripped from the ground or completely toppled over. Then, as he stood frozen in mortified shock, the ground shook again, and he felt the building above collapse. By instinct, he reacted and slammed the closet door shut. Soon after closing the door, he felt the tremble through the ground as the stairs caved in. Then, with a last shutter, and as his closet filled with dust, the sounds of ruin ended just as fast as they had begun.
Seeing he was still alive, Tesilim slowly dropped to the ground, using the wall as support. His heart slowly calmed, and he came down from the adrenaline rush. However, it was too much. First, the aberration had quite literally mentally assaulted him. Then the warlock had transformed, and he had come face to face with a devil. An actual Devil!
Finally, he had almost died by the destruction of what he could only assume was the godly aberration breaching Earth’s barrier.
So he sat there and curled up into a ball for an hour, slowly processing the mental trauma and danger he had just experienced.
After some time, Tesilim also realized what the shockwave truly meant and spent another hour trying to fully accept and work through the confirmation of reality he had just witnessed.
He knew the Earth had a barrier that could protect it from many things like random flying rogue planets. However, something he had not believed when told by the Earth’s Alliances soldiers was that the barrier could be broken. After all, if the barrier could stop a planet, what could break it?
Well, it wasn’t just a simple matter of breaking it; it had to be weakened first. This had been accomplished a while back when all of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe had been wiped out and replaced by a shattered space that mixed time and space however it wished. He had seen the videos of soldiers going in from Northern Europe and then finding themselves inside, fighting dinosaurs, only to exit halfway down Africa.
That destruction of essentially half a continent had been the Eldritch God weakening the barrier, and now it was finishing the job. Now, it was only a matter of time before the entity made its way through Earth and ate some supposed crystal at its center, finishing the job it had started long before Tesilim was born.
After spending a few hours in lonely seclusion, Tesilim decided it was time to leave the dark closet. After all, he did not want to spend the last few hours of his life stuck in a dark hole. So he got up and went to open the door, only to be greeted by the large chunks of debris from the collapsed building.
Luckily, the debris had left significant gaps that Tesilim could slowly but surely squeeze through.
It took him around another hour or so to make his way through the dangerous maze of cement chunks. This delay was mainly caused by some areas being smushed together and Tesilim having to be careful when melting through the rock with blasts from his rifle.
Eventually, however, he did make his way up to the surface, where a scene of pure destruction greeted him.
The entire town had been leveled. It was as if a category five hurricane had passed through, except much worse. Whole brick and cement-reinforced buildings were toppled, while less sturdy architecture was utterly gone. There were also trees everywhere, though they were all in different states of destruction. Some were completely whole, while others were cracked and scattered. Tesilim could also see cars and other appliances strewn about the town. All of this was also not even mentioning other minor things that could be found in houses and offices, such as books, computers, printers, and toilet paper. There were also more prominent things, like entire roofs or walls at odd angles.
Shocked by the destruction, Tesilim stood amidst everything for some time, taking it all in. When he finally shook off his shock, he began scavenging for any valuable supplies he could get. After all, he wanted to spend his last few hours on Earth indulging himself.
After about an hour of hunting for supplies, Tesilim headed off into the forest to a nearby creek he passed on his way to the town.
He set up an incredibly nice camp there with some relatively clean pillows and bed sheets he had found. He also set up to prepare a feast with some proper cooking pots. Finally, he heated some water using a bucket he found and properly cleaned himself.
After an hour of setting up his camp and cooking, Tesilim found himself lying on a soft mound of pillows and blankets while eating some delicious canned goods.
Finally, with a full belly, he began reading an interesting book he had spotted earlier and waited for the end of the world.