Armageddon

I was invited to a late night party, don't even know who sent it to me but suddenly found myself there. Seeing a lot of familiar faces in the crowd, some from high school that I haven't seen in probably 10 years. That's when I see her, Emily. Slender build but not skinny, she has dark hair this time with white highlights. Before I can think of what to do or say, she comes right up to me and looks in my eyes like the last few years of her not talking to me never happened. She gives me her phone, "I sent you some pics, hold that for me, i'll be back in a minute."

She disappeared into the crowd and I check my phone, no notifications, no messages, not sure what she is talking about. After looking around for her my curiosity gets the better of me and I realize she gave me a flip phone, so I open it up and see if there are any pics on it. Sure enough there is but the pictures are moving and as I look at each one it doesn't feel like I am looking at a picture but looking through her own memories, it's like I can hear, feel and smell everything as well. In a matter of moments it's like I witnessed years of her memories. I start to feel guilty about how it ended, how she stopped talking to me.

I hear a scream that brings my attention back to the party. I rush over and Emily is trying to kick another woman off of her foot but the woman has a tail, almost like a serpent and she it biting Emily. Without thinking I kick the woman off of her and Emily pushes me to the edge of a large pool, she yells "get in the water!" Stumbling back I pull Emily in with me and a tail whips at us. As I take another look, the woman doesn't have any legs, she has the upper have of a young woman but the lower part looks like a long snake. She hisses as her tail comes at us again, trying to grab us. I kick us back into deeper water, holding Emily to keep her head above the water. "Emily, I'm.." 'I know' she looks at me, knowing what I want to say. "I need to say i'm sorry, I treated you like the friend that always joked around with me, I didn't know tha...". "I know, you don't need to say anymore." The way she looks at me, although I feel regret, she makes me feel something deep in my core, like a light piercing through my negative emotions.

I feel my legs touch the ground, I look back and its not a pool but a beach, far beyond the party. I hold Emily next to me to keep the weight off her foot as we make our way toward some apartment buildings. There are people everywhere but I hear screams and groups of people are running. I hear a yell, but it sounds less human and more predatory. Something that looks like a man rushes us, he bites the air at us as I kick him and knock him back, onlookers scream, some run while others are unable to move. "What the hell is that thing?!" I hear someone yell out zombie, but it's not like any zombie I know of, seems more like a ghoul with how it ran at us. We try to make our way through the crowd, with the groups of people yelling and running, it is hard to keep track of what is going on.

Suddenly I found myself alone in someone's backyard, its small and looks like the apartment complex I was at before. I have no idea how I got there, Emily is gone. Going through the apartment there is a burst of light outside, I see a man looking up and something glowing white hot hits him, he couldn't even let out a scream, he just turns to ash. The light fades so I make my way back outside, it's dark and no one is out. I go down the street back to where the party should have been and there are people out on the beach, some look like Emily's friends from high school and others I don't know. I ask repeatedly if anyone has seen her, no one has. Something makes me look up into the distance, there is streak across the sky, I know what it is but I can't move, can't say anything, then a burst of light takes the form of a mushroom cloud at the edge of the horizon. I yell for everyone to get down, find cover. I don't even look, the people around me drop with me, a thunderous roar and light get closer and approaches faster. I hear dogs whining, I try to call them over to protect them and ....