Brrrrringgggggggg. Brrrrringgggggggg. Brrrrringgggggggg.
It was during the early hours of the morning that the silence was shattered by the loud and jarring voice of the alarm that rang throughout the city.
{Attention citizens!! We are being invaded by The Neilarchs, I repeat!! We are being invaded by the Nihilarchs. This is not a drill. This is code level zero. This is code level zero. All non-combatants, please evacuate towards the city centre. All combatants, please give us your support and come to the outer ring of the city to fight.}
Hearing the announcement that kept repeating itself, Rudra felt terrified while playing with his sister, but after looking at his sister, who was still sleeping peacefully, he put on a brave front as if he were not afraid of anything. 'I am a big brother now, and I cannot be afraid anymore. I need to protect her.'
He quickly ran towards his mother's room only to see her suiting up and picking up what looked like a 6-foot-long Halberd out of a box from under the bed. Hearing the sound at the door, she smiled and beckoned her son to come closer to her.
"Hey sweetie. Come here. Let mother take a look at you." Rudra came running towards his mom and dove into her arms.
"Are you going out there to fight the bad guys, Mom?" The mother rubbed her son's head while trying to calm him down.
"That's right. Your dad is on the wall fighting those things. He is so weak and fragile, ya know, and he needs mother to protect him from harm. Why? Are you scared?" Hearing his mother's teasing voice brought a smile to Rudra's face as he said stubbornly.
"Who me? I am not scared. Not at all! I am going to grow and become a protector just like you guys!!" Hearing her son's words put a smile on the mother's face.
"Good boy. Now I am going to give you a very important task, okay? I need you to take your sister and run towards the city centre, okay? No matter what happens, do not look back and keep running. Run until you reach the city shelter and hide with your sister. She is still young and needs your protection. So, it's up to her brother to protect her now. So, just run and hide for a while to protect her, okay?" Rudra was shocked by his mother's words, as this was the first time he had seen her act so seriously.
"You have to promise me that you will protect your little sister, okay? Promise me. You are a big boy now. It's up to you to keep her safe, okay? I trust you." She looked him deep in the eyes while talking.
He was not able to register her words. Everything felt like it was happening too fast to Rudra. His mother kept speaking something to him, but he wasn't able to register anything she said after that.
"RUDRA!! Promise me that you will protect her, okay?!" It wasn't until his mother started shaking him that he took a deep look at her and saw the anxiety she was feeling as the time kept slipping away.
"I promise Maa, as long as I am here, nothing will happen to little sister." Just as Rudra nodded his head in determination, a deafening noise suddenly rang from the outside. He looked outside and saw a big cloud of dust going up into the atmosphere at the city's outer walls, making a part of the city block vanish from where it was supposed to be.
Rudra watched in horror as all of this happened in front of his eyes. "Damnit, there was supposed to be more time!!" He saw his mother growling before vanishing and reappearing in the room with his sister in her hands. She promptly handed him the little bundle before picking up a white cloth and tying the baby to the front of her son's chest.
"There is no time. Go NOW!! I'll pick you up after all of this is over. Take your watch with you. I'll find you again with it. If you can't contact me, call your aunt, okay? Just remember to call Aunt from your watch and tell her you are my son." The sounds of chaos outside grew, and an urgent expression came to her face.
"Always remember Rudra, no matter what happens in the future or what you do, your mother always loves you, and I am very proud of you." A foreboding feeling crept up Rudra's spine as he heard his mother's last words. He felt like his mother was saying her last goodbye to them, but he wasn't given enough time to think as another deafening noise rang outside.
The mother crouched down, kissed both his and her daughter's foreheads, before picking up her halberd, and took one last look at them before flying out the window, towards the noise of the blast that came from.
All this disturbance woke up his little sister, who started crying as soon as she woke up. This broke him out of his stupor. "Hey there, little Anaya, don't worry. Your big brother is here. No harm will ever come to you, okay? Mom and Dad will be back soon." After placating his sister for a minute, Rudra made up his mind, gritted his teeth and started to run outside the house.
It was mayhem outside: people were screaming, cars and houses were burning, and everyone was rushing to get to the city centre. It was a carnival of chaos. Seeing as there were no signs of crowd thinning, he dove headfirst into it, while making sure to shield his little sister in his arms.
In the big crowd, he was not able to see anything, but he used his height to his advantage and started to run like his life depended on it in the general direction of the city centre, ducking left and right. He did not know how long he ran for, and before he knew it, the crowd had stopped moving.
Rudra, who was not able to see anything, ran out of the crowd without thinking and paused for a moment to adjust his eyes to the new light before he saw a sight he could never forget in his life.
There was a blinding flash of light that erupted from the city centre, swallowing it whole.
There was a moment of pure silence in the air as everyone kept staring at the light that swallowed the last place of refuge before a shockwave came crashing towards the crowd. The shockwave was so strong that all glass windows in the city shattered at the same time, while simultaneously throwing the people into the air.
Rudra was also thrown back forcefully and fell into the crowd of people, who somehow cushioned his fall. But his mind wasn't able to register none of that. All he was able to focus on was the gigantic behemoth that rose from what was left of the city centre rubble, standing around 300 meters tall, which was a big, fat, grotesque mixture of different animals and stuff he had never seen before in life. He felt nauseous just by looking at it.
That thing stood there for a moment before it roared so loudly in the air that it kicked up a big cloud of dust around it for miles. Rudra suddenly felt his hearing go away, and the only thing he was able to hear was a ringing sound. He touched his ears to see what was wrong with them, only to feel a viscous liquid trailing down the side of his face. Only when he stared at his red hands did he realise he had started bleeding from his ears at some point.
Then, the Earth started vibrating. It was slow at first before it began to increase in frequency. He did have to look far to see the one who was responsible for it. That giant blog of flesh had started running, and it was running towards him at speeds which seemed impossible for someone its size.
Looking at that monster-like thing that was growing ever closer and bigger in his view, the only thing Rudra felt was overwhelming despair. 'We are all going to die here.'