It was cold out.
It was cold. And wet.
All I could hear was a ringing in my ears.
As the ringing faded away, I heard the ticking of my watch.
My old watch.
It was an old watch, in fact, it was my mother's. It was older than me.
"Ugh, my head... Where am I?" I ask myself.
It certainly wasn't home.
I was there now, so one could only wander aimlessly.
The city in front of me was only half lit up as if many of the lights were destroyed. As I entered the city, I could see the shell of the proud city. Barrel fires. Broken Windows. Cracks in the road.
What the hell happened here? I could only ponder.
I saw someone walk down the cracked road. She looked as if she was looking for someone.
"Hey! Over here! You know anything about this city?!" I exclaim. She looks over and walks towards me. She stops a few meters from me and studies me. She then speaks in a tongue I don't understand. She repeats the phrase to me, but I can see the look of distrust in her eyes. She walks away, but motions for me to follow her. And thus I do.
We come across what seems to be a once-popular beach that has since been evacuated. She writes her name in the sand and points to it.
"Wu-Yue Yü?" I question, as I remember those characters. She pouts, points to it again, and then shouts,
"Sa-mi-da-re!"
I am taken aback, as she seemed to be a quiet girl. She waves for me to continue following her, and thus the walk continues.
A Base. A Naval Base, here of all places. She leads me to what seems to be an office. She motions for me to wait there, right outside of the office.
Samidare? Those characters I recognize, but I don't recognize the pronunciation... Shit, I wanna go home...
I hear footsteps, but I still hear the girl talking in the office. I look up to see someone in a blue sailor uniform and cap to match. I stand up and try to greet her.
"Hello," I say. She looks over but says nothing.
"Erm," I stutter, thinking of other languages that she might speak.
"Guten Tag," I said.
"Guten Tag," she replies in a worried voice.
"Would you know how the city was destroyed?" I ask in my best German. Maybe my luck won't fail me today.
"Yes, the city was destroyed when Abyssal Warships attacked the world," she replies. "The only way we could fight back was through the creation of new weapons."
"New Weapons?"
"Yes, people like me..."
Like her? Shit, what the hell is going on?
As soon as the conversation finished, an explosion rang out. I could hear the sirens from the city.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
I could see them in the distance. The Abyssals. Dark black/gray skin and lifeless eyes. Lifeless and alien. I stood there, watching them just sail closer. Everything now just went to instinct. I heard the faint noise of aircraft soaring overhead. I ran towards the nearest anti-aircraft gun, as I saw them. The aircraft simply echoed the form of their mother-ships. I opened fire. Flames spewed from the barrels of the gun, and the ringing in my ears became louder. I continued and kept firing. And I kept firing until the only thing I could hear was the incessant clatter of the gun and the ringing.
I saw one go down in flames. As I fired upon another, I heard a click. Out of Ammo.
"Ich brauche mehr Munitionen!" I shout. No response. I looked for anybody who could help me. There were none. So I ran, and I kept running. Then I saw more aircraft flying overhead. These ones looked like Zeroes. Each plane simply jumbled together into one large dogfight, and one plane after another went down, no matter from which side. I ran towards the stockpile for more ammo, but I was running out of time. As I ran back, I saw black forms crawl up the beachhead.
Whatever they were, they were coming right for the city. They were coming straight for me.
I loaded more ammunition into the gun and swiveled it towards the beachhead. I opened fire again. Every single damn one I destroyed, another would take its place. But I kept on the trigger. Even when they closed within 100 meters, I kept firing at that gun. Within 50 meters, rounds kept popping out of my gun.
Click
Click
Click
I was out of ammo, and they were soon going to overrun me.
Tick
Tick
Tick
My watch stops. And they were right there. The saying goes: "If one is to gaze into the abyss long enough, the abyss will begin to gaze into them."
And as I stared at those monsters, they stared back into me.