New York City
1 week later
Ryan woke with a start. The bright lamp above him made him squint, making his vision fuzzy. He looked away and he opened his eyes.
He was in a basement of some sort. The walls were solid concrete and the door leading out was thick iron. He recognised it as his own basement. His emergency gear (first aid kit etc.) was on the floor, and a home radio was sitting on a table. Ryan walked over to it and began to search for a channel.
Every station was static. He turned the knob over and over and over until it broke off the radio. He threw the knob down in frustration. He felt a sharp pain in his arm.
What the? he thought.
His arm was attached to a drip. The drip was attached to an empty bag that Ryan assumed used to be filled with liquid food.
I must have been down here for a while, but why?...I can't remember!
He looked up at the door.
Maybe someone can tell me why I'm down here.
He walked up the stairs to the iron door of the basement. He undid the latches, pushed the doors open and stepped up out into the next room.
Or what was left of it.
Oh my god... he thought.
Ryan entire house was reduced to rubble. He could see the sky from where he stood in his previous main corridor. The clouds in the sky were a deep orange. The clouds covered the sky like a stormy night.
All the buildings within Ryan's sight were rubble. Some bits were still intact but most of them were piled on the ground. Everything was blazoned in a fiery orange. Cars were upside down, wrecked, and smashed.
Ryan walked out of what remained of his house. He strolled down the rubble covered streets. He kept walking looking at all the buildings; he recognised fast food places, apartments, and schools.
Ryan walked into a primary school. Or the remains of a primary school. He walked into a class room, the tables and chairs were all over the place, maps were burned to a crisp, books everywhere. It looked as though people had left in a hurry though the accident that caused this probably didn't give them time.
Ryan picked up a book, it was a novel.
He was about to look through it when a noise made him jump. It came from an air vent in the floor. The air vent opened and the most terrifying sight met Ryan's eyes.
Some sort of creature stood before him. It stood taller than a man; its skin was like black glass. It had no visible eyes and its head was elongated and slightly banana shaped. It had razor sharp teeth as long as fingers that were permanently bared. It had four prongs on its back, two thin arms and two thin legs both with sharp claws. It had a tail long enough to be held in front of it and on the end of it was a lethal looking claw. It was moist and had a transparent slime dripping form its mouth.
The creature opened its mouth and let out a slow, loud breath as another smaller mouth came out on a stalk. Ryan backed away as the creature crawled nearer. He hit a crumpled wall and couldn't move any further. The alien stopped right in front of him. It lowered its head to his head height. It retracted its mouth ready to strike. Ryan began to shake.
Suddenly something broke though the alien's chest. It was a spear of some sort. The alien whirled around; Ryan looked over its shoulder.
A man stood in front of them holding a staff with the tail claw of an alien on each end. He wore armour of some sort, looking more closely Ryan realised that he was wearing the skin of an alien over his torso, arms and legs. He had a thin scar diagonally down the centre of his face.
The alien leaped at the man and knocked him over. They wrestled on the ground franticly. The man somehow flipped the alien to on top of him and kicked it into a wall. The alien seemed slightly dazed from the impact and did not react quickly as the man leaped into the air, twirling his double-ended spear as he went. As he reached the alien, in mid-air, he spun his spear, slicing one end into the alien's neck and then plunging the other end through the alien's head as he landed. The alien went limp instantly.
The man stood up and pulled his spear out of the alien's head. He then turned to Ryan.
"Well don't just stand there, let's go!" he said.
Ryan slowly walked towards him, keeping a careful eye on the alien.
"It's ok, it's dead." The man said.
Ryan took his eyes of the alien and finally spoke up
"What happened here?" he said.
The man looked surprised.
"Where the hell have you been?"
"I woke up in my basement about twenty minutes ago."
The man paused.
"I'll explain everything when we meet up with the others and make it back to base camp."
They started to walk to the door.
"My name is Cheetah by the way, what's yours?"
"Ryan."