The megaphones screech so loudly my teeth ache. Then, suddenly, silence.
It’s worse than the sound.
Then comes the screaming.
Soldiers surge past me in a tide of panic and determination. Camouflage uniforms drenched in blood, red and blue alike. Their rifles are the size of their torsos, some still steaming. I see the badge on their chests: black, red, and gold. My country. Germany.
But some of them bear other stains. Drips of green blood.
Those who have injected the monsters’ blood. Their veins burn with alien strength. Devil Hunters, some call them. Monsters fighting monsters. Names shift with every district, every slang.
They run in disciplined lines, past me, past the corpses littering the grass.
My legs refuse to move.
Someone slams into me, an assistant from my team, and I topple to the ground. He doesn’t even look back, just keeps running with the herd.
They leave the wounded behind.
They leave the screaming behind.
I turn, still on my knees, and see the chaos. Nurses and doctors sprint from tent to tent, abandoning patients mid-suture. Civilians wail. Blood spatters canvas walls.
I spot an old man, bandages wrapped tight around his bald head. He tries to crawl to safety, dragging himself from one tent to the next, but the crowd tramples him without even noticing.
Boots strike my ribs. Dig into my spine. Grind my palms into the muck. I am nothing but another obstacle. A wall to be kicked down.
Given by father. Taught by mother.
My family’s name. Supposed to mean strong.
I turn my head and meet the old man’s eyes.
They’re wide with terror.
I see myself in them.
I am not strong. I am weak.
I am the shame that belongs to the dust of this world.
The stampede moves on.
Finally, I can breathe.
My face lies in the mud, bruised, wet, blood mixing with the dirt. My glasses are shattered, shards lost somewhere in the muck or ground into dust under someone’s boot. I push myself up with both hands, muscles screaming as I stagger to my feet, but another surge of bodies crashes into me.
I’d thought there weren’t so many of us. We were supposed to be isolated here, stationed on this outcrop above the castle—a fallback away from the main population in the old town across the lake and bridge. But they just keep coming. More desperate, terrified people pour in, shoulder to shoulder, knee-deep in chaos.
I try to focus. I’m trained to focus. I’m a doctor—would be a doctor—but none of that matters now.
The old man is sprawled face-first in the mud. His cheeks are swollen, smeared with streaks of blood running from his gray hair and dripping onto the old stones beneath us. He tries to move. I watch him tremble as he lifts a veiny, skeletal hand, fingers quivering with pleading hope.
He believes—God help him—that I will save him. That I’ll grab him, pull him to safety, carry him down into the bunkers.
Those bunkers weren’t even here before 2040. The world nearly burned then. Only because of that brush with annihilation did they bother building these. Without them, our country would be ashes. The world would be ashes. It’s already ruined anyway—just a dying star pretending to shine.
Our eyes lock. His gray eyes are clouded but begging. Wrinkles fold deeper as he tries to speak. He can’t. Tears cut paths through the mud on his face. He is begging me.
My legs move. One step toward him. I hear his hope in the way he sobs.
Someone screams it—raw, primal, torn from their lungs.
Then the mass surges.
It takes less than two seconds.
I could have grabbed him. Could have lifted him.
But they trample him instead.
His cries vanish under the stampede of boots, ragged breaths, and panicked screams that stretch into the distance.