He couldn't help but flinch in shock. At the same time, he pulled out the hand he had shoved into his bag. In his grip was a flare gun capable of shooting a red signal light. He grasped it tightly. In that moment—*thud!*—it stomped on the ceiling of the cave where Jian was hiding once again.
Amid the deafening roar and tremendous vibration, clumps of dirt came pouring down over Jian's head once more. It seemed intent on collapsing the cave just like this.
"Fuck..." Jian spat out a curse under his breath and bit his lower lip hard. Gripping the flare gun even tighter, he released the safety, just in case.
Ah! His heart was pounding so violently that even the insects hiding in the dirt began to flee. They too were clearly terrified of the entity before them.
Thump... thump... thump... His chest, which refused to calm down, and in that moment—it brought its foot down on the cave ceiling once more with a *thud!* Clumps of falling dirt... Soon, a hole was punched through. Through the gap, it was visible. A horrifying face. Its mouth was torn straight back to its ears, and within its briefly visible maw, sharp teeth like saw blades were densely packed.
It was enjoying itself. As if the sight of its prey trembling in terror was amusing... It was savoring the present moment. "Grrr..." It let out a sound like something scratching its throat, then ran a long tongue over its torn lips. And then it raised its unusually long leg high once more.
As expected, it intended to collapse the cave like this.
Jian thought he couldn't remain inside the cave any longer. The moment he gripped his bag tightly and rolled his body out of the cave—*thud!* It struck the ceiling with its foot, and finally, he saw the cave collapse completely before his eyes.
Jian suppressed the pain and hurriedly stood up. Only then could he see it properly.
Its arms and legs were unusually long. Though it had a giraffe-like body with four legs, limbs that appeared to be arms were also attached to its torso. Following its long neck, it had a human face, but it was a monster with beast-like slit eyes and pointed ears.
Each time it flashed a grin, its yellowed teeth, whetted like blades, stood out conspicuously.
It was a chimera-like monster, a combination of beast and human merged into one. It was letting out roars—*kwoong! kwoong!*—and then began charging at Jian. At the same time, Jian pulled the trigger of the flare gun he was holding. *Boom!* A sound rang out, followed by a piercing *screech!* The monster reacted with displeasure to it, and before long, it struck the monster's face and exploded with a *bang!*
The moment an intense light burst forth, the creature began writhing in especially greater agony.
"Kieeeek!" Of course, it wasn't enough to kill it. If it were, humanity wouldn't have been defeated by these creatures.
The flare could blind it for a moment. And the brief opening created in that fleeting instant gave Jian a chance to escape. Limping on a leg that still throbbed with pain, he threw himself straight into the river. *Splash!* Water erupted with a loud noise. At the same time, Jian's body flowed away along the current.
Meanwhile, its neurotic howling continued from behind, along with the sounds of it violently pounding the ground. It seemed quite enraged.
/////////
It was the season slowly turning to autumn. Around sunrise it was quite warm, and the blowing wind was refreshing, but when night fell, autumn would bare its sharp teeth in earnest and exhale a biting chill. How harsh would this winter be? Even though it was only the period approaching autumn, the wind that had lost its heat felt as sharp as a biting winter gale.
This was especially severe near the river. The water was as cold as ice, to the point that the warmth of the sunlight was rendered meaningless. It was enough to draw a sharp gasp from him involuntarily, and it felt as though his whole body was freezing over. Of course, thanks to that he could temporarily forget the pain, but now was the time to worry about hypothermia.
Just how long had he been following the river...
Jian's face, clinging to a waterproof bag, was turning deathly pale like a corpse. His frozen body had become stiff to the point where moving even a single finger was no easy task. Moreover, as the river flowed downstream, the current grew faster and faster until it had become rapids, and his body swept along by the rapids was nearly impossible to control.
Eventually, he even fell down a steep waterfall. And once again, pitch-black darkness completely swallowed Jian's consciousness.
He dreamed again. A dream from long ago. It was also a dream from when he was still with his mother. Sadly, the moments he spent with his mother had been the happiest and the safest of days.
The sudden appearance of grotesque monsters had been before Jian was even born. In fact, because of this, Jian couldn't know just how peaceful and joyful the old civilization had been. He had only ever heard of it through fairy tale books he obtained while wandering the world or from stories at the occasional shelters he visited.
More than anything, his mother would sometimes tell him stories of her childhood. Her childhood had been a time when things were still peaceful.
Walking along the discontinued railway tracks, even while looking at the long train that had become a beast's den, she told him stories of traveling all across the country by train, and stories of such trivial daily life from back then while walking along station platforms that would have been used by far more people than now.
Jian liked those stories. What had been trivial back then had become a very special story that could never return now. Moreover, to Jian, it was no different from a story inside a fairy tale book—something he had never experienced even once.
"Back then... did people not go hungry?"
"Of course! They didn't have to starve. Of course... it's not that there weren't people who starved. But... many people lived peaceful daily lives, working ordinary jobs and earning money, resting comfortably... and happily in their own homes. On days off, they would idle around on computers, cry and laugh while watching TV, listen to music..."
"Hmm..."
"There were many people who exercised, met with friends, and enjoyed tranquility with their families."
To young Jian, these were still stories that felt far too distant. No matter how much he tried to imagine the stories his mother told, he couldn't picture them in his head at all. That life from back then, which had now become so special.
Yes, it was truly a world he couldn't even imagine.
"Back then, the Earth... belonged to humans."
"Then where did they come from?"
"Well... Mom doesn't really know either. Some say they came from space... Some say they were born in the deep sea, and some say they might have appeared from the distant South or North Pole filled with ice... Or that an extreme virus spread and people turned into grotesque monsters..."
"Then will we become like that too?"
His mother stopped speaking for a moment and faced young Jian. Jian looked at her with a curious expression. She pondered briefly, then shook her head. "No, that won't happen. Mom thinks... they seem to have come from that distant universe." Jian's gaze reached the sky.
It was an overcast sky. Naturally, he couldn't see space from here.
Jian tilted his head quizzically and looked at his mother again. "Why did they come here?" he asked. His mother also looked at the sky and shrugged. "Well... why did they come here... Perhaps because Earth is such a beautiful star... don't you think?" she answered.
Jian had more he wanted to ask, but he held back. Before he knew it, he was getting hungry, and his legs were beginning to hurt and tire. Right now, they had no home, little food, and hardly any place to rest safely.
"Let's hold on a little longer. If we keep going, we'll reach a shelter soon."
Following his mother's words, he nodded and walked along the rusted railway tracks.
They walked for a long time, and as they went, the sunset began to deepen. The overcast sky had begun to pour down raindrops before they knew it. And then... "Mom... over there..." Jian said, pointing behind them. His mother too looked back, and soon her face drained to a bluish white.
As if she had seen a ghost...
She picked Jian up and ran with all her might. Held in his mother's arms, Jian could see the approaching thing a little more clearly. How should he describe it? Could it be called a human? Or could it be called a beast? Its body looked easily over three meters tall. It was long and spindly, and its arms were longer than its legs. A bulging belly, and a face like that of a bird.
It had a sharp beak on its face, and sharp, saw-like teeth were densely embedded between that beak. Just then, it raised both arms high. Then he saw something even more bizarre. Under its arms, wing membranes were attached, connecting to its body. It bellowed thunderously. And the moment it flapped its arms...
Ah! It took flight.
If someone saw it, they might have mistaken it for a pterosaur descending upon the world once more. Jian too had seen pterosaurs in books, and it looked similar. But except for the wing membranes and face, its body was entirely like that of a human. From the legs, a protruding belly, chest, even to the hands... At the tips were long fingers, and its nails gleamed sharply like eagle talons. That wasn't all. Between legs that were unusually short compared to its body, something resembling human genitalia hung limply.
It was truly a hideous sight. Jian felt fear so overwhelming that he could barely breathe.