Am I
imagining things?
Drake rubbed his eyes and looked again. It was still there, and getting bigger
by the minute. The size of the light source grew exponentially, and it had a
tail now. Is it a meteor shower? I didn’t
see any info on it in the news.
Of course, no weather channel or computer could predict every meteor to enter the atmosphere.
“Mom,” Drake called his mother, and together they went outside to take a closer look. They turned on the television in the background to see if they were talking about it. No related news yet, despite it seeming like a pretty big deal, at least compared to the trash they were normally broadcasting.
Beil was a relatively small town, with no other settlements around it apart from the city Cyll. Perhaps that explained the lack of attention on the meteorological events that were taking place here.
By now, a few neighbors came out of their homes as well. “That’s strange. You don’t see a meteor very often,” one of the neighbors, Mr. Baker, said, “It’ll be fine,” he waved off caution, “Most meteorites disintegrate in the atmosphere. We should enjoy the show.” He then asked his wife to get the camera.
She refused to comply, “Why me? I want to watch also, you know,” and the two then started bickering over it, and neither was watching the show.
Drake knew that what Mr. Baker said was correct, but looking at the thing up close, it didn’t look like it was getting smaller or would stop. He could now hear it. The friction it created with air and its high velocity caused the rumbling noise. The bright red glow was due to the burning up of the air around it, for that was how fast it was. Usually, the meteorite itself would burn up in the process, usually in the mesosphere, but this one was already only a few miles high, and didn’t show signs of getting any smaller.
Over the noise of the rapidly descending hunk of space rock, Drake explained his thoughts to his mother. “So you were paying attention at school. See, that knowledge is quite useful, you know.” Drake didn’t respond. He didn’t want to waste time explaining that it was actually general knowledge you could find anywhere. More importantly, the object was hurtling towards where they were. Shouldn’t they leave the area because it was dangerous?
Drake looked at the people around him, who looked unconcerned, and were leisurely watching the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle before them as if they were at an amusement park watching fireworks. Was there no need to worry? The object, as far as he could tell, wasn’t too large. Accounting for the radiating flame around it, it was probably the size of his bedroom. And it wasn’t as fast as he had thought it would be. It had been a few minutes since he’d first spotted it after all. It probably wouldn’t cause too much damage, and maybe that’s why there was no notice of it from the government.
Drake’s mother was concerned, however. “We should move away from the area,” she tugged on his arm, as if expecting him to answer her doubt of whether they were in danger.
“Even if you say that,” Drake said, “it’s too late to travel far now. The meteorite is nearly here.”
They watched as it approached them.
It was so bright, it might as well have been daytime. Any neighbors that weren’t outside before, were now awake and panicking in confusion. The neighborhood crazy person ran outside in her pajamas, screaming that she was correct and China was dropping a bomb on them. When pointed out that it looked nothing like a bomb, she instantly changed her theory and started spouting something about government UFOs being tested nearby.
A few seconds later, the meteorite crashed in the nearby woods with a deafening sound. Everyone instinctively covered their ears with their hands. Drake’s house was at the edge of town, next to the woods, so he and his neighbors were the closest to see what happened. Smoke could be seen from the crash site one or two miles away. That was too close. Everyone realized that, and all stood still, wondering why they didn’t do anything. The only sound was that of birds flying away from the epicenter in panic.
A few minutes later, Drake spotted movement in the woods. He was expecting to see more animals running away from the site, but what he saw instead took his breath away. Large beasts stepped out of the shadows and into the light of street lamps. The first thing Drake noticed was their size. They were huge. The next was their color. They were all dark colored on the outside of their bodies. The last thing was what they were. Drake recognized these as normal animals that he’d seen many times before. The main difference was that they were scaled to a size much larger than they were supposed to be. There was a squirrel the size of a car with unusually dark brown fur, a deer the height of the trees around it, also with dark colored fur, this one being dark brown, there was a dark grey goose, some black ants, a rabbit, a badger, a spider, and so on…
“Unbelievable!” Drake thought. “What are these things?!” he said aloud, though he knew everyone else was just as confused as him.
The creatures moved towards them, with frighteningly evil-looking eyes. A completely black badger made its way over to the Bakers. The wife and husband were too scared to move. It bent down and chomped on them. When it pulled its teeth out, their heads were gone. Their bodies fell limply to the ground.
“Wha-”
Drake was too confused to process what was happening. Two people just died before him and it was due to some creatures he had never seen before. A human scream erupted behind him, as the person came to realize the same thing. The remaining creatures also started moving towards humans, their mouths open and ready to eat. No one knew what was happening, but everyone knew what they had to do. Run.
Everyone started running in the direction opposite to the forest, into the town. The animals followed. Their instincts and massive size helped them outrun, capture, and eat their prey. The town was suddenly in chaos. Drake didn’t know what to do. As far as he knew, these things were hungry to eat all humans, and there was no way to outrun them. Should he just give up and die?
“Watch out!” his mother yelled.
Drake turned his head in time to see what seemed to be a giant crow swooping down after climbing over a nearby house. It was aiming its beak at him. He took a step back, but knew that he wouldn’t be fast enough to escape its open mouth.
Just as the jaw was about to close on him, Drake’s mother
pushed him aside. The crow bit into Drake’s mother, and then looked at Drake,
confused as to what it had just eaten. Drake fell to the ground and looked up at his
mother. The middle half of her body was encompassed by the giant’s large beak.
Blood was gushing out of her body where the beak met at a seemingly unrealistic
rate.
“Run!” his mother said with her dying words.
Drake gulped, unable to
register what had happened.
“Drake, RUN!”
Drake was too shocked to process anything. But he knew what he had to do. He suppressed his emotions, got up, turned around, and ran. He heard the crunching of bones, and knew what had become of his mother, but he didn’t dare look behind him.
Dang it! Drake thought, What is happening? Why is this happening?
He repeated these phrases in his mind, unable to think anything else.
Comments (3)
See all