Ed was hiding in his dimly lit room with the others, desperately scrambling for tactics and methods that could keep them all alive for another day. He found these useful methods, surprisingly, in his own comic books, which consisted of monsters, aliens, and evil entities. Reading them used to be just a hobby, when Ed wanted to get away from the boring and judgmental world he took part in. Now, they were his only chance of survival.

When everything was normal, as Eddy thought up ways to con kids of their cash, as Double D occupied with himself with the wonders of science, Ed subconsciously prepared himself for the impending apocalypse by immersing himself into his comic books, thumbing through pages full of graphic and downright stomach-turning storytelling. Everyone around him didn't understand, and didn't try to. Everyone immediately thought that reading them was nothing more than a waste of time, that they were books only good for rotting away one's brain cells. Even Ed knew-or thought- this as well. But they were so, so wrong.

The entire catastrophe commenced on a snowy, bitterly cold morning. Every kid in the cul-de-sac dressed in multiple layers and bundled themselves with heavy jackets, knit hats, scarves, sweaters, two layers of socks, and boots. Ed was with Rolf, playing with chickens and voluntarily helping Rolf with the yard work before it was time to go to school. "Okay little chickens" Ed said, "it's time to go into your cages before Rolf gets mad. But don't worry friends, I'll be back to play once school is over! Then I can feed you pieces of buttered toast with –"

"Ed-boy!" Rolf yelled. "Do not pester with Rolf's fouls!" Rolf's scolding was followed by the appearance of a 7 and a half foot tall slender, crimson red reptile-like humanoid, with scales around its entire body, curved spikes poking from its forearms and backbone, yellow eyes, and razor sharp teeth. Even though Rolf was the tallest kid in the cul-de-sac and standing over six feet, this creature easily made him look like a dwarf. The creature also had a radiating body temperature that could be felt meters away. Ed, shocked by the sudden emergence, yelled in horror.

Rolf felt the air go blazing hot and turned around just in time to catch the foreign creature swipe for his head. Rolf ducked, and lost his knit hat in narrowly missing the blow that could have very well been fatal. The knit hat lay on the snow, sporting holes and rips from the creature's clawed hands.

"Run Ed-boy! Run for your no-good life!" Rolf hysterically yelled as he pushed Ed to the front of the house and into the front entrance. Without delay, Rolf then shut and locked the door behind them. Ed hid in the last place he thought the demon would look: the fireplace. Rolf fled to his father's closet, full of weapons. He promptly took a spiked hammer, the weapon he was most familiar with, stuck himself to the side of the door and waited for the monster to come through.

The creature broke through the door with its powerful feet, also breaking parts of the wall from which the door's hinges were. Rolf came from the side and bashed the monster over its head with the hammer. As the monster gripped its temple in pain, Rolf executed a second strike, with upward stroke, and the monster backed up to the outside of Rolf's house. Rolf took a look at his weapon and marveled at the fact that the monster did not show any signs of severe injury, yet the hammer's shaft was about to break in half. Despite this, Rolf charged towards the crimson menace with a battle cry, ready to strike again.

However, the creature anticipated his attack and dodged the blow. Angry, the creature sprouted its underarm wings, and flew upwards. It vacuumed into its lungs an enormous amount of air, used its high body temperature to heighten the temperature of the air, and bellowed it back at Rolf's yard, melting all the snow and blowing Rolf back into his living room. The monster landed back onto the yard, with a menacing grin, and jumped back into the house.

As every child stepped outside their home, they observed a small flying object, followed by a blast near Rolf's house that completely melted the ice and snow. Ed was in that blast, along with Rolf.

As Double D went to investigate Rolf's yard, along with all the other children, they found that the temperature in Rolf's farm and yard sparked from 5 to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. All the children promptly removed anything keeping them warm; Eddy even went bare-chested. "Jesus, I'm frying like an egg here", the shortest Ed complained.

"This is so strange", the most intelligent Ed mused. "How can the temperature change so drastically from one area to the next?"

As Edd moved closer to Rolf's home, a green light, in the shape of some sort of ball, shot straight out of the house's chimney and traveled from the crowd's location to the nearby playground, crashing into the ground with a small explosion.

Arriving at the crater, the children observed the pulsating, radiating green rock. A hand broke though the rock, prompting the entire cul-de-sac to panic. A few moments later, to everyone's surprise and relief, it was Ed who emerged from the crater, exhausted and terrified. When Ed explained what happened (in a way that only Ed would), everyone scurried to a nearby and safe house to gather supplies and kill the fiend that invaded their home.

They gathered at the front of Rolf's house, ready to fight whatever this hostile thing was. The front door was destroyed, only a rectangular opening remained, along with some of the wall torn away. They noticed that smoke was being emitted from the opening where the front door was, and then, suddenly, heard a terrifying growl that made their bones shiver and all the hairs on their bodies stand on end.

"What the hell was that?" Eddy asked panic-stricken. He was answered with the burnt corpse of Rolf flying from the front door to the grass on the yard.

All the children screamed and were frightened. Only Kevin and Ed kept their composure. Although they were mostly calm, the look on Ed's face indicated intense fear; Kevin's face indicated anger, sadness, and fear. Anger regarding the fact that his closest friend was charred to a crisp, sadness regarding the fact that nothing would be the same without him, and fear that he, along with the rest of the kids, would share the same fate as Rolf.

"This thing ain't gonna get away with this! Let's get rid of this thing once and for all!" Kevin said. The monster stepped out of Rolf's house, and all of the children beheld the monstrosity that menacingly stepped towards them.

The kids, armed with their pots, pans, household appliances, and whatever they could find, stood, frightened, but with a resolve to destroy the demon that approached them. Despite this, they were fatally unprepared.

And it was because of this that it all went wrong…

Little did the children know, the demon they faced was not only stronger than all of them, it also had friends. It emitted a shrieking cry from, the exact opposite of the booming, low wavelength that was its roar. Moments later, the kids heard the same cry from above, and as they looked up, the saw two more monsters flying in the sky. They landed beside their comrade, each looking different from the other. One towered over the others, it could have been maybe nearly nine feet tall, and it had large muscles pulsing from its limbs. One was leaner than the rest, and about the same height as the one who killed Rolf.

The kids still outnumbered the demons, but numbers didn't matter at this point. One could rip all of the kids to pieces by itself, but surviving in a fight with three of them would be completely, utterly impossible. The kids could opt to run away, but these giants could not be outrun. Despite this, every single kid ran for their lives. Running on pure adrenaline, some sprinted faster than many on the Peach Creek track team.

But there was no escape.