Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 8 - 17th October 2262

Chapter 8: 17th October 2262

Lullin City was not the largest city in the country of Ostos, but it was certainly amongst the most popular and developed. It had been a hub for businesses and its great college, Golden Valley.

However, on Friday the 17th of October 2262, all of that changed.

"Eve Taylor reporting here, and this is... our final live broadcast, in hopes to save a few more lives, and to tell the truth, for once. We are beneath our headquarters in the East District, and have received reports from our branches across the country, and our partners in the major cities of the continents, Carleone, Aspain, Tulira, Vachasane, and Heicrin.

People, I beg of you, that you remain indoors. Do not associate with anyone displaying signs of extreme aggression, body deformations, abnormal strength, or slurred speech at all. Don’t try to restrain them, or touch them. Please, just run. Even those who seem only injured are a risk."

From the broadcast, everyone who was tuning in, whether it be from their television where they saw her dark, dishevelled hair with sweat running down her expression as she gulped, or only heard the quiver in her voice over the radio, they all heard the scream that came from the back of her, within that studio.

A great apocalypse descended, ravaging the whole world. Mystical—should have been—fake fantasy monsters appeared seemingly out of nowhere throughout Gaia.

People who had moments before been normal suddenly changed, transforming into murderous zombies.

Then that damning, worldwide earthquake hit at the same time that everyone was struck with that gutting pain.

And then, there was that message from the Akashic Records, the entity, existence, construct, or whatever the hell it was, that had spoken with its booming voice in their great moment of weakness.

It telling them, and then immediately hammering in the reality of their new world at the same time of Gaia’s awakening had to have been a sick joke. Or at least that was what many had hoped to allow themselves to believe. That was partly what Dion had believed, especially when he suffered an unprecedented system glitch preventing his proper awakening.

Eve Taylor’s eyes had shifted away from the camera for a few seconds before she forced them back.

"We have not yet received an official explanation for the global seismic event or the message heard by citizens approximately fifty minutes ago, between five and six AM, and we have yet to establish any contact with government representatives. No one can thus confirm if the so-called Akashic Records is a singular hostile entity, some kind of mass hallucination as would be its consequences, or an alien invitation."

The camera shook, and the urgent mutterings of the cameraman behind her briefly drew the attention of her eyes once more.

Someone ahead of her and behind the cameraman had shouted, "Lock the west corridor! He’ll kill us all, leave him out there! He’s infected you fools!"

With that said, soon enough, the wider world was pried free of all of their delusions.

They were immediately forced to realise that they either had to fight or run despairingly, or die immediately as they were chased down by zombies, or torn to shreds and eaten alive by monsters.

Eve Taylor’s face paled, but she continued:

"If you are with family, hurry to check for bites, sudden fevers, changes to the eyes, sudden severe memory loss, and cold shivering. These are only some starting symptoms that we have observed amongst those of us that have turned, and there could be more. To... kill someone that has turned, aim for the head or upper spine. Otherwise, they will only keep attacking. Treat them like the zombies we’ve all watched movies of."

"Eve! Hurry up, we don’t have time anymore! We have to leave, now!"

Her eyes had flickered away.

"If... there is anyone still...still alive from my family. Do not open for anyone who can’t tell you the name of my first childhood dog." She choked on her breath, silently crying.

"This has been Eve Taylor of Lullin Central News... and may hell soon take back its horrors, or those special people who awakened powers save us, because I don’t know if guns and bombs can."

Suddenly, the feed cut.

Buildings were broken through, cars toppled over one another, masses, in droves, ran, sacrificing one another to make it that extra step further.

There were a dozen people packed into a café in the southern district, packed between the storage shelves of flour, coffee, crates of syrup, fridges and shelves.

They had gone utterly quiet upon hearing the broadcast end.

The owner was a heavyset woman standing guard right before her storage room door with a thick butchering knife in her hand, dropping blood and keys hanging from her other hand.

"My husband is still outside," A woman near the shelves closest to her had muttered in a quivering voice.

"Nobody will be opening this door for anything or anyone until things calm down, unless you want to stay out."

"He’s alive! How could you just leave him out there?"

"I can, and I will." The keys in her hands clattered faintly, and she raised them. "If you don’t like that, then you can go continue your meal out there with him if you’d like."

The woman’s face crumpled that moment.

From beyond the walls, shrieks of people in pain, furniture breaking, shattering, and the distant roar of a monster resounded.

A student in a Golden Valley jacket pressed his palms over his ears, his head tucked tight between his folded-in legs and his torso.

"This can’t be real. How can the world end in just one night? Yeah, it must be fake. I’m dreaming! I have to be! It’s just a lucid dream!" His voice grew more and more hysterical with each word.

There was an older man who had been sitting silently beside him; the man was tending to what they had all ensured to prove had only been a glass cut wound over the palm of another man.

"What? You think all this shit is real, old man?"

"I only find it ironic... how I said those same words when I had to kill my wife."

Thereupon, their attention was drawn towards the door. The shopkeeper hesitated several steps away, her eyes furrowing deeper and her hand trembling over the knife she raised towards it.

Repeated, insistent knocks came from the door.

"Samantha! Samantha, please open the door! I heard your voice! It’s bad out here1 I managed to kill one of those things and got away! Open up before the others find me!"

The woman, Samantha, who had mentioned her husband, immediately jolted upwards from where she had been. Her expression flooded with relief.

Then the shopkeeper grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her. The sudden jerk shut the woman’s mouth from speaking. Her expression darkened with desperation and begging the moment she saw the threatening look on the shopkeeper’s face.

"You heard Eve." A harsh whisper came from the shopkeeper’s mouth.

"...At least... please... just let me test him at least... I’m sure he’s fine. He is a strong boxer."

For a few moments, the desperation on Samantha’s expression only grew, and then the shopkeeper released her.

"...Dylan," she paused and swallowed down the burning in her throat and the weakness in her knees, "what nickname did you give me when we were children? The one I hated?"

Seconds ticked on with silence, and the moment that a laugh came from behind the door, tears fell from Samantha’s eyes.

"People are dying out here, and you’re asking me—"

"Just answer!"

"...Was it Sam? It was Sam, right!? You didn’t like it because it was boyish! Now let me in! They’re coming! One of those monsters is coming!"

They heard the roar of a beast shatter through the glass panels into the shop, and Dylan’s roar thereafter, as Samantha fell to her knees, cupping her mouth shut from her sobs.

Meanwhile, beyond those walls, blood flowed through the streets of Lullin, and throughout the whole world, as the crack of gunfire, explosions, roars and wails mingled under the indifferent moonlight.

"Move, damn you! Let’s go, kid!

"My mother’s still inside the building!

"She’s dead! That thing it—it ate her throat!" A man pulled at a younger teenage boy, dragging him towards the only place that seemed safe

"Don’t you dare!"

Thereupon, the bus doors that they were headed for shut in the faces of their group.

"Driver!" He immediately released the boy to the ground, his hand banging against the glass, his expression torn into desperation, flickering his gaze behind their group where dozens of zombies were stalking out of the building they had exited, plumes of smoke pushing through the shattered glass. "Open the door! We have children out here!"

"I—I can’t." The engine starting up drowned out the trembling in the driver’s voice as it came through muffled, "One of them gets in—one of you could already be scratched, and if you get in, we’ll all die! I have to get home! I have a family too!"

"You heartless coward!" The women hugging their children cried, many of whom ran up alongside the men to bang on the glass in desperation, intent on forcing their way into the bus. "What about our children!?"

The bus sped off as the driver shut his eyes tight.

Within moments of the bus driving off, suddenly, from the other street, a figure was thrown through the air.

The impact against the bus of the human wreathed in flames threw it off its wheels.

Screams followed as it tumbled, and the enflamed, awakened human’s arm was in the grasp of a Gnoll as his fire died.