The End

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Welcome to The End. This story is a gritty, visceral exploration of a world pushed to its breaking point. It contains graphic violence, extreme gore, and adult language. Reader discretion is advised.

Updates: To ensure the highest quality for this journey, new chapters will be posted on the 1st and 15th of every month. This is an active draft and is focused on the plot only at this point in time. Editing will come after completion.

Thank you for stepping into the wasteland.

In the year 2121, the world is destroyed by brimstone and fire—cities left in ruin. Civilization, as we know it, has ceased to exist. I have been there since the beginning. My name is Rebeccah, and this is my story.

I am just your average blonde-headed, blue-eyed, ten-year-old scrawny, snot-nosed brat. My parents coddle me, providing everything I need, even though they spend most of their time fighting. Dad is rich, and I’m pretty sure he has a mistress—or a “home-wrecking whore,” as Mom calls her when she thinks I’m not listening.

Mom just wants to make sure he doesn’t spend more money on that bitch than he does on her. My dad is the cliché rich man—handsome and tall—while Mom is the perfect swimsuit model trophy wife.

I don’t care about anyone other than myself because I have everything I want at home. Honestly, I am a bit of a bully. I kick other kids around and make their lives hell, standard spoiled-brat behavior. I’m always too busy playing games on my tablet to notice the world around me.

That’s when it happens—a bright flash of light knocks me unconscious.

“Becky! Becky, wake up, dear!” Mom screams.

My ears are ringing. Everything is blurry. “What happened, Mom?” I grumble.

Mom is already picking me up off the ground before giving me an answer. “I don’t know, sweetie. Your dad’s dead,” she says, her voice breaking.

I don’t know what to say. I am at a loss for words. As I try to walk, a white-hot pain shoots through my calf. I look down to see a gash that has cut through my jeans, my blood leaking out from the denim.

Mom does not let me stop. She picks me up and rushes up the stairs to the foyer.

The house is in ruins. Wood, glass, and debris are everywhere. In the middle of it all is my dad. He is impaled by a pipe through the chest, lifeless.

I let out a scream.

“Don’t look, Becky! Close your eyes!” my mom shouts as she makes her way through the debris.

We get outside the house, and the surrounding area isn’t any better. The entire neighborhood is leveled. The sky has a dark orange glow through the smoke and ash. It looks like it is raining fire. Screams of horror and the crackling of flames fill the air. The car is useless, covered in debris, so my mom runs with me in her arms.

“Mom, where are we going?!” I cry in a panic.

“I don’t know, sweetie. The air force base, the police station, anywhere left standing,” my mom pants. She notices my blood starting to soak her arm. “Honey, we have to look at that,” she says, stopping to set me down on the street.

She rips the rest of my jeans down to my ankle to see the gash on my leg. It goes from my knee to halfway down my calf. She winces, looking around frantically. She removes my belt from my jeans and starts folding it up.

“Bite down on this, love,” she says, shoving the leather into my mouth. “This is going to suck!”

She grabs a red-hot piece of rebar off the ground and presses it to my leg.

The hot metal sizzles against my skin, cauterizing the wound. I scream, my teeth sinking deep into the leather belt.

The heat of the rebar burns my mom’s hand as well, but she does not stop until the job is done. Those thirty seconds feel like an eternity. I will never forget that pain.

She tosses the rebar down once she is sure I’m not going to bleed out. I spit out my belt, inhale deeply, and begin to weep.

“I’m so sorry, Becky. We have to go. Can you walk?” she asks, her eyes tearing up.

“I-I think so,” I cry, trying to stand.

I stand up carefully. My leg still hurts, but I have to push through it. My mom is no longer able to carry me due to the third-degree burn on her hand.

We walk through the rubble of the neighborhood to find that everything is the same at the end of it. The streets are mostly intact, with some good-sized craters taken out here and there.

We hear the roaring of an engine barreling down the street. We turn to look and see a minivan hauling ass down the road. The driver slams on the brakes as he sees us, the tires screeching as he comes to a stop.

An older, bald man swings open the driver’s side door and jumps out.

“Holy shit, I thought me and my brother were the last two people alive,” the man says with a thick southern accent, sliding the back door open. “Get in!”

My mom and I do not hesitate. We jump in the back, and I shut the door behind us. I am relieved to sit down, as my leg is still in excruciating pain.

“My name is Joe,” the bald man says, pointing to his brother in the passenger seat. “And this is Cody.”

Cody waves politely. He is a scrawny, middle-aged man in overalls and a denim cap. His skin is tan and leathery from years of working on a farm.

“I’m Jennifer; this is Rebeccah,” my mom says with a slight nod, trying to ignore the pain of her burn. “What the fuck just happened?!”

“It’s the rapture, I’m telling ya!” Cody yells with a lisp through his missing teeth.

“Oh, don’t scare the young miss, Cody. We don’t know what is going on either,” Joe says, shaking his head.

I flinch as a hail of fire bounces off the roof, sounding like someone throwing rocks at the van. I look out the window to see if anything has survived. Everything looks the same: fire, smoke, and an orange glow across the horizon.

Something catches my eye, cutting through the orange haze like a jagged blade. It looks like a bird, but the scale is all wrong. Its shadow alone could overshadow a mid-sized car. It doesn’t have feathers to catch the wind; instead, it flaps wings of dark, oily flesh that look like stretched leather over rusted wire.

As it banks toward us, I see the face. It isn’t a beak so much as a hinged maw of jagged bone, and set deep into that brown skull are its eyes. They don’t just glow—they throb with a rhythmic, bloody light, watching us with a precision that feels less like an animal and more like a predator waiting to strike. My breath catches in my throat.

“Mom, what is that!” I yell, pointing out the window at the creatures.

Everyone turns to look. As their eyes meet the oncoming creatures, their faces drain of color.

“What the fuck are those!” Joe shouts.

“Motherfucking Demons!” Cody screams as he pulls a pistol from the door panel.

Cody rolls down the window and fires his gun into the crowd of demons flying toward us. I go deaf, hearing only a high-pitched ringing as the first few shots ring out.

The demons are quicker than anything I have ever seen. They slam into the side of the van with such a violent thud that I see the indentation of one of their bodies on the inside of the door. The van flips immediately after, and once again, I fall unconscious.

I wake up to the sound of screams.

I open my eyes to see Cody being ripped in half. My mother is panting, carrying me as fast as she can. I look up, seeing the agony in her face as Joe is carried away by a demon above us.

Suddenly, a crunch echoes, and something wet splashes over my face.

My mom stops in her tracks. “I…love…you,” she grunts weakly before dropping me to the ground.

The wind is knocked out of me as I slam into the dirt. As I force my eyes open, I see my mother being carried away by a demon. I try to scream, but nothing leaves my lips since I have yet to regain my breath.

I roll onto my stomach and begin to crawl toward a cave in the distance. This is my light at the end of the tunnel. My escape from this hell.

I hear the flap of wings closing in on me. That is it for me. It is time to join my mother and father. I close my eyes, but something else catches my attention: a rhythmic thump in the distance—machine gun fire.

I look up to see a man in military fatigues and an M16 running toward me, firing at the demons.

“I got you, sweetheart!” he shouts. He grabs the collar of my shirt with one hand and begins to drag me toward the cave, firing the M16 with his other. “I got you!