Author's note: I've been watching a lot of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead videos lately and decided to write this story. I did have an internal debate on whether or not to play a normal human and flipped a coin to make my decision. It landed on human both times I tried so normal average Joe it is. A normal human will also open up more options for storytelling anyways. Also this will be told from a first person perspective.
Prologue: Where It All Began
My name is Bane Veto Lynch and I am a citizen of Hive City Raptus which, in the off chance you are an off worlder who somehow found this journal and have no idea what the Hell is going on, is the capital of the planet Rubicus.
If you do happen to be an off worlder and haven't been eaten by one of those things yet then I will simplify the situation into words you can understand: The entire world has gone to absolute shit and everyone and everything has been turned into a shambling monster that hungers for human flesh and only myself and a select few others are still what you would call alive to talk about the whole ordeal. And before you ask, no, we don't know what happened and we haven't really had the free time to investigate or ask questions. We've been kind of preoccupied with this whole "staying alive" thing and have no interest in changing course anytime soon. We also haven't been keeping track of time so don't ask about that either.
I suppose I should start this story from the beginning, though I'm not sure where it officially begins. So I guess I'll start where everything began to go wrong and hopefully you can make better sense of it that I can.
It started several months before what I call the "Big Event". At first it was just high profile people going missing and all kinds of rumours circulating on what had happened, that sort of crap. But then there were announcements about the disappearances and "official" explanations on what had happened. I don't think anybody really believed the "official" stories, but that didn't really matter because the Xenos sightings began after that. That's when people really began to panic and riots started breaking out all over the hive. Naturally the Arbites were deployed and the planetary governor himself came out of his palace spire to make a statement, only to have his head blown off on live broadcast. That's about when total chaos broke out and the entire hive began tearing itself apart in an orgy of violence and insanity. Eventually it seemed like people were just rioting for the Hell of it and it was basically war on the streets. Nobody knows when the dead began to rise, it was kind of difficult to keep track of things with the ground awash with human blood and the screams of madmen as they killed each other with wanton abandon.
You are probably wondering where I was in all of this. I was in the Underive walking back to where my shack was. The rest of the hive may have been falling apart at the seams but it was still business as usual in the underhive. I had just turned in this massive bounty and was looking to celebrate with some extra rations, lho sticks and home made toilet grog. I eventually made it back to my place, stepped around all of the carefully laid out traps, unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The inside of my shack was insanely luxurious by underhive standards. It consisted of a single massive room with a kitchen area off to the right side and a mattress for sleeping on the other end. There was an actual stove, fridge and cupboards in the kitchen area. They were made from repurposed scrap metal but were fully functional despite what their appearance would suggest. The area where my mattress was had a few scrap metal shelves that were fully stocked with ammunition, tools, several frag grenades and a medpack for when I got injured. The area directly in front of me had a scrap metal dresser filled with several changes of clothes and a bucket off to the side for shitting in whenever I got the runs. Lastly there was the dining table with chairs in the middle of the room where I had my meals. These were also made from scrap metal in case you were wondering.
I walked over to the fridge and swung it open. The inside was almost entirely taken up by large plastic bottles filled with that home made toilet grog I mentioned earlier. I grabbed a few of those and put them on the dining table. I then grabbed three ration packs from out of the cupboards and tossed them onto the table as well. Finally I got a pack of lho sticks from off the dresser and put them with the rest of my party supplies.
With everything needed for a good night placed on the table, I took off my helmet and tossed it over to where the mattress was. I then unslung my rifle and leaned it against one of the empty chairs. I seated myself and began my evening meal. First I took a few gulps of the toilet grog to wet my whistle. Then I opened up one of the ration packs and began scarfing it down. After consuming a large portion of the rations I took another few big gulps of the toilet grog before lighting a lho stick and smoking the thing all the way down to the filter. I then ate some more rations and that was pretty much how the next hour went. I just sat back, relaxed, had a nice meal and listened to the sounds of the underhive.
I don't remember the Big Event very clearly, but I do know that by that point I had eaten all of the ration packs, drunk most of the toilet grog and was now smoking the last of the lho sticks.
Then I heard it.
I don't know how to describe it. It sounded like a combination of speaker feedback, the scream of a dying child and the ceiling caving in. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. I may have been properly shitfaced by that point but that sound instantly sobered me up and I bolted out of my chair in alarm. I was then immediately overcome by an unimaginable pain in my head. It was kind of like a hangover but worse in every way. This was kind of like how I imagined being mind raped by a psyker would feel like. I soon lost my sense of balance and fell to the floor.
As I lay there in agonizing amounts of pain, I curled up into a ball in a vain attempt to make it go away and soon everything went black.
Author's note: And that concludes the prologue. If you want to see a good high quality play through of Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead I recommend Worm Girl from YouTube. She makes excellent Cataclysm videos.