Chapter 2: Desolate City

My morning typically begins with a quick breakfast before heading to the base. Upon arrival, I exchanged a few nods with the officers I knew, saluted the guard on duty, and went straight to my office. Then came the administrative work, meetings about logistics, operational planning, and all the other paperwork that came with rank.

Since my promotion to senior lieutenant following the war's conclusion, I've noticed a shift towards more mundane and less fulfilling days. However, the job comes with financial stability, affording me a car, a house without any loans, and overall a secure life where unforeseen circumstances hold little sway over my stability. 

At least, that's what I believed until a persistent ringing disrupted my thoughts. Initially startled, I brushed it off as a result of fatigue or something similar, and continued with my paperwork. Yet, the ringing persisted, growing louder until it drowned out all other sounds. It resembled the incessant chime of old-fashioned telephones, echoing relentlessly until someone picked up the call.

As the persistent ringing in my head finally subsides, a profound silence descends upon the surrounding, leaving me momentarily disoriented. Yet, just as I begin to regain composure, a strange sensation washes over me.

My senses began to fade, one by one, like flickering lights in a dimming room. First, the sense of touch slipped away, leaving me numb and disconnected from the world around me. Then, the sense of taste dissolved into nothingness. Next, the sounds of the world grew distant and muffled, as if I were listening through a thick fog. The scents of the world, once vivid and vibrant, became faint whispers, slipping away like fleeting memories. And finally, the world itself vanished from view, leaving me in a world full of sensory deprivation.

Then like all of these weird things never happened, all of my senses returned to me and everything returned to normal. Well, everything except the fact that I’m not in the base anymore and the fact that I have been transported to another world.

The first thing I notice in this unfamiliar place is a room filled with remnants of a life that once existed here. Scattered across the floor are remnants of a life abruptly interrupted, forgotten toys and tattered books which obviously belong to a family that once lived here.

As I look around, I see a broken picture frame above a drawer. As I glance around, my eyes fall upon a broken picture frame resting above a drawer. Despite the cracks, the image within remains clear. It shows a snapshot of a happy family. The father, in his 40s, stands proudly with his arm around his wife, a woman in her 30s beaming with affection. Beside them, a teenage daughter and young son exude joy.

The scene captured in the image would have been wholesome if the people in the picture were humans. If I have a word that describes them is as close as humanly possible but not one. Their physique resembles that of humans, albeit with round eyes and the absence of ears. The father stands with a remarkable physique, having bone spikes encircling his shoulders, forming a dome-like structure. Curiously, these bones extend downward, contrary to what might be expected. Similarly, the figure presumed to be the mother bears bone spikes resembling wings, protruding from her back in a downward direction. The children, mirroring their parents, exhibit the same bone spikes albeit smaller in size and located in the same positions.

“"This... this isn't right. Something's off about them. They look like us, but... different. What are they?” I couldn’t help but say this when I looked at this picture.

As I approach the broken window, I carefully lean past the jagged teeth of shattered glass, peering through the jagged shards of glass, a wave of dread washes over me.

The city stretches endlessly before me, but it is no longer alive.

Buildings that once stood proud now beneath their own ruin, their walls cracked open and their rooftops torn apart as if something massive had clawed through them. Streets that should have been filled with people lie buried beneath dust, rubble, and twisted metal. Some buildings are still standing, but even they look hollow, stripped of life.

Below, the streets are deserted.

No voices. No footsteps. No life.

Only the remains of a world that had been violently stopped.

For a long moment, I simply stand there, staring at the ruins, as the truth slowly settles in my chest.

Whatever happened here, it did not spare anyone.

I couldn’t help but mutter: “I… I shouldn’t be here. ”

My voice cracked as the words left my mouth, barely louder than a whisper. My hands trembled against the window frame, and no matter how hard I tried to steady my breathing, the ruined city below only made my chest tighten further. For a moment, all I could do was stare, hoping that if I blinked enough times, the nightmare in front of me would disappear.

Finding the world around me difficult to comprehend, I take a minute to relax my nerves and absorb all the knowledge around me. Although this situation is unprecedented in my entire life, being scared of the unknown won’t help me out of this situation.

But I failed.

No matter how many times I told myself that fear would not help me, my body refused to listen. My breathing stayed uneven, my hands trembled, and the silence outside the window pressed against my chest. This situation was unlike anything I had ever faced, and the more I tried to understand it, the more anxious I became.

Just when I was about to lose myself, the ringing sound returned but this time the call has been answered and I hear a mesmerizing feminine voice: “Welcome challenger Mikhail Volkova, survive as long as possible to return.”

Stunned and anticipating a more explanation, the voice disappeared, without feeling the need to continue nor said anything about the danger to come. Since the keyword is to survive then there must be some sort of danger that could kill me if given the chance. This apocalyptic setting is proof in itself.

Feeling scared and naked, literally, I search around the house for anything to cover myself. The room of itself carries a sense of modernity not far from what earth has. From the looks of it I’d say that the building and technologies present in the house are similar to earth 90s. 

After searching the house thoroughly, I found clothes that seemed to belong to the father. They fit me poorly, with strange holes torn into the fabric where his bone spikes must have once passed through. The clothes were old and worn, marked with faded gray and pink stains that made it clear time had not been kind to them. All in all, it’s much better than staying naked.

I also came across a jacket, worn and faded, but still useful enough to take with me. Beside it, I found a weathered backpack. It looked old, but sturdy, and in a place like this, even something that small felt like a blessing. Whatever waited for me outside, I knew I would need every advantage I could get.

However, my joy wanes as I uncover a water bottle. Half-empty and tainted with a sickly yellow hue. Although reluctant I take it with me fully realizing that If I drank this shit the least thing I would get is diarrhea.

Still frightened but knowing that staying here would do me no good, I moved on in my search for other apartments in the same building. After some time, I uncovered some canned food although the content is a mystery to me, the way the can is designed makes it undoubtedly something used to be eaten in desperate situations by the bone race or whatever they call themselves. 

It might seem hard to calculate time in this foreign land, it’s not. I can easily calculate the time since there is one sun just like earth and seeing its trajectory it also seems to be heading west but nothing is certain yet.

“It would seem that it’s around 2 PM, so I have plenty of time to go outside and then return here.”

Subconsciously, I have taken this building as my base since I searched it and found no danger. Stepping out into the desolate expanse, a chilling realization grips me: I am as defenseless as a naked soul in a snowstorm. Other than obstacles due to ruined buildings on the ground that could offer cover, nothing seems useful.

For a while, I stood there in silence, staring at the things I had gathered as if they were supposed to give me an answer. A jacket, a backpack, a few worn-out clothes. None of it felt like enough. Not against this apocalyptic city. Not against a world I didn’t understand. But staying inside would not save me either. Fear could warn me, but if I let it control me, then I was already dead.

Then I do the most irrational thing in this situation and that is keep going forward as if nothing will happen. Telling myself there is no other way to gather intel then risking it. Besides, I just couldn’t stay inside the building all of the time. I need a safe way to thrive in this god forsaken world. I have lived through a war for god’s sake and I’m an officer. How can I stay and cower inside a building when I can fin…

Just when I’m trying to motivate myself, I saw a sight that I will never forget in my entire life. Before me, amidst the desolation, stands a grim tableau of horror: human figures crucified upon inverted crosses. 

Their faces, frozen in eternal agony. Some wear expressions of resignation, their faces softened by the passage of time, while others stare with wide-eyed terror, their gaze piercing into the depths of my soul.

Among the crucified figures, some bear marks of ravaging crows, their bodies maimed and mutilated. Flesh torn apart, leaving gaping wounds where once limbs had been, the stench of decay hangs heavy in the air.

Empty eye sockets gaze blindly into the abyss. With each passing moment, the horror of their fate becomes more palpable.

The dried blood staining the wood spoke of a brutality I could never understand, but could no longer deny. Whatever had happened here, it was not random. It was a punishment. A warning. A declaration that mercy had no place in this forsaken world.

The crucified bodies hung in silence, their torn flesh left as a feast for the crows that gathered around them. I stood there, trapped between horror and disbelief, unable to look away. Their twisted forms felt like more than corpses. They looked like the remains of something human, something once proud and alive, now broken beneath the weight of a fate too cruel to resist.

And in their silence, I could almost hear screams that were no longer there.

It was not only their deaths that terrified me, but what they represented. A world where even the strongest could be reduced to meat and memory. A world where survival did not mean victory, only postponing the moment the darkness finally reached you.

I stared at them for too long.

The dried blood, the torn flesh, the crows picking at what was left of them,it all began to blur together until I could no longer tell where the bodies ended and the nightmare began. My stomach twisted, but nothing came out. My breath grew sharp and uneven, each inhale scraping against my throat.

I wanted to look away.

I couldn’t.

A sound escaped my mouth, something between a laugh and a sob, weak and broken. My thoughts scattered in every direction, crashing into one another without meaning. This wasn’t war. This wasn't an execution. This was something beyond cruelty, something so vile that my mind refused to accept it as real.

“No… no, no, no…”

The words slipped out again and again, but they did nothing to steady me. But the more I looked, the more I felt something inside me cracking.

They were people.

They had names. Voices. Families. Fears.

And now they were nothing but warnings nailed to wood.

My knees weakened beneath me, and the world tilted. For a moment, I felt like I was falling without moving, sinking into a darkness that had no bottom. The silence around me became deafening, filled with screams that were not there, screams my own mind created because the bodies could no longer make them.

Even when I closed my eyes, I still saw the crows.