As night fell once more later that day, Erik had skirted around the edge of the town for hours, sneaking into houses and hiding from the dogs roaming the entire area. Erik wasn’t sure why they remained here, as there was nothing around to hunt. Everyone was gone. Unless they were guarding their territory?

  The different newspapers Erik had found mentioned little of them, except the last two he could find, dated the 22nd and 23rd of February. It had been late January when Erik had died, meaning it was mid-April when he returned, since he returned a week earlier than he absolutely needed to. That meant his home had been gone for about two whole months.

  The oldest of the two newspapers mentioned a ‘monstrous dog sighting’, but didn’t even print the article on the front page. The next newspaper was something else entirely, as it was a lot thinner, and featured the monstrous dogs on the entire front page, naming them ‘Hellbeasts of Side Valley’, Side Valley being the next town over, half an hour or so by car towards the east.

  That had been the first town they attacked, and by the look of things, it wasn’t the last. If his own town was attacked that same day, or the day after the last newspaper, he wondered how many towns, how many cities and countries they had ravaged by now. The articles about them in the last newspaper mentioned that the dogs had ‘proved resistant to military weapons’, but also that they didn’t seem to kill for food.

  In fact, they proved somewhat ignorant of the life around them, as they mainly seemed to target buildings, cars and infrastructure. They seemed more intent on destruction other than survival, but the fact they were resistant to bullets was worrisome. Erik knew beforehand that the dogs did hunt humans as well, but hopefully it wasn’t that often.

  The family he had found dead in their house hadn’t been eaten whole, but they had lost a few parts which Erik hadn’t found around where their bodies were, so he figured the monsters hunted humans to feed when they were hungry, and otherwise went for destruction, maybe killing those that were in their way.

  Their behaviour was something completely unfamiliar to Erik, and he longed for an online connection to find out what else had been written about the hellbeasts the last month. He also had to find a newspaper from the time of his death.

  If his father had died along with him and his mother, it would be mentioned, along with what had caused the fire. Erik hadn’t thought about that, since most fires were accidental, but seeing the state of his house, he was unsure. The fire must’ve burnt a lot hotter than normal, if it practically disintegrated bricks and concrete. It also spread too fast, he realised.

  Everything had happened so fast, but he’d thought that was the panic, adrenaline and pain. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be. It had been at most a minute between the fire started, and he had died, and before that nothing was wrong. Considering the destruction of his town a relatively short time after the fire, Erik couldn’t help but feel both were connected, and he had to admit that his father immediately became his prime suspect.

  Erik had left the town ruins a few hours ago by now, and when he figured he was far enough away from the hellbeasts, he started looking for a car. Considering the state of the electric grid, he didn’t even consider an electric car, and seeing that gasoline or diesel cars were much louder, he had to be sure he was far enough away from any and all hellbeasts. He couldn’t be sure if they would chase him down or not, but better safe than sorry.

  The problem was, the further away he got, the fewer cars were around. Luckily, there are always some houses around almost no matter where you go, and it didn’t take him long to find one with a working car outside, and keys to the car inside the house. The entrance to the house was shut, but unlocked, so he didn’t even have to break in. Still, he did steal a car, so that point was probably moot.

  With a car in his arsenal, he was ready to get moving, as he wasn’t feeling tired at all. His destination was set; he was going to the UB. Jessie lived in an apartment outside Leicester, where she grew up, so he was going to England, more specifically. He hoped he’d find a way to cross the sea, probably from Calais or maybe near Bruges in the West Coalition, possibly Amsterdam or Rotterdam in the States.

  He had to admit he had never considered travelling to the UB without an aeroplane, so he had no idea where he could catch a ship from. He’d check to see if he could find any road sign pointing towards a harbour with a ferry crossing to the UB all along the way to Calais, the only place he knew he could cross using the Channel Tunnel.

  That meant travelling south, into the swedish and further across the danish regions of the Scandi Empire, then west through the German States and into the West Coalition.

  By car, the journey was through almost half of Europe, so he could only hope the situation wasn’t as dire the further he got from his home. Hopefully, he’d find an end to the hellbeast influence somewhere, hopefully while still in the Empire, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Erik stopped the car a short while later, as he had a decision to make; he could either travel towards, and eventually through, a city, or he could avoid bigger population centres and travel the longer way through small towns instead. The hellbeasts would likely target the bigger towns and cities rather than smaller ones, but the same could be said about the military - they would focus on defending the cities, especially if those were targeted by more hellbeasts.

  That meant the cities involved higher risk, but potentially higher rewards as well, as the military could tell him more about the invasion, and possibly even help him get to the UB. Erik decided against it. He wanted to get further away from the hellbeasts’ starting point, which seemed to be really close by, before daring to venture into a city. He hadn’t seen any other people yet, so best case there was a large area closed off for civilians.

  Erik had barely driven by the next small town when the car was violently pushed off the road by a hellbeast charging into its side. Erik had luckily noticed the large beast charging towards him hundreds of metres away, and had tossed himself out of the driver’s door, letting the car continue on. The beast didn’t seem to notice this, but if it did, it was more interested in destroying the car rather than killing Erik.

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  His body rolled several times after he hit the asphalt, eventually coming to a stop right as the car was attacked. Erik felt bruised, but only lightly. He had been told his body would be stronger now, but he still felt the pain.

  The doglike beast shook its head after the head-to-car collision it had caused, but seemed otherwise unharmed after the major crash. It turned to look at Erik before it snarled deeply, lowered its upper body slightly, and charged at him.

  “Fuck.”

  Erik ran into the woods by the roadside, stepping into a small puddle. He heard the large beast following him, but since it was so large, it would have more trouble than him in the forest. Erik didn’t look back as the charging beast was kind enough to growl loud enough to let him know it was still there, but luckily it didn’t seem to get any closer to him.

  It didn’t fall behind either, and Erik could only thank his new magical body for that, as he felt himself running just a bit faster than he’d ever done before. If it weren’t for the forest obstacles to avoid, he felt he could go faster still. He ran for several minutes, until he realised he’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

  A young boy, maybe eight or nine years old, was about fifty metres in front of the sprinting Erik. The boy was covered in dirt and tired clothes, and further behind him was a couple of pitched tents, one blue and one in a camo pattern. There might be more people around, and Erik was leading the beast right towards them.

  As soon as Erik noticed this, he stopped, his feet sliding half a metre on the mossy ground before completely stopping. He turned to face the beast, which was much closer than he had thought, and it rammed into him before he could do anything. Erik flew right into a tree, crashing through several smaller branches as he did. The air vacated his lungs with a heavy gasp, and the world started spinning.

  After this, the hound didn’t seem as interested in Erik as it was the boy and the tents behind him. The beast lurked away from Erik and towards its next target. Erik couldn’t let this happen. He was supposed to have magic - he could do something about this… if only he had tried meditating, connecting with his power. He had no chance against this beast otherwise.

  He closed his eyes, his head still spinning. He tried holding it together, but it proved more difficult than he initially thought it would be. He inhaled and exhaled. Inhaled. Exhaled.

  Eventually, he felt it. Something was tugging at his mind. It was more a gravitational pull than a string or rope, as it pulled his entire being. He gave in to the pull, not sure if he was falling or flying towards it. Suddenly he crashed against a large pool of something, smashing hard into it, but then gently being enveloped by it, sinking deeper.

  He didn’t know this, but if he could see his Crest right then, its core was filling with colour, washing away the dark grey of the symbol that had appeared in the swirling centre. He was deep in magical energy, and he was absorbing it. He had thought his body already magical, but that was just a drop of what it could’ve been.

  It was more like residual magic from his time in Afterlife than anything else - it was nothing. He couldn’t absorb all of this at once, and he was out of time. He also felt that most of the pool was somehow out of reach. He had to grow stronger to get at it. Unsure when he became conscious of what he was doing, the moment he realised it, he willingly snapped out of his meditation.

  The beast had barely moved ten metres from earlier. If Erik had known how fast it would go to connect with his power, his magic, he would’ve done it right from the beginning, but Nana had said it could take mucthe beast inching ever closer to the kid and the tents.

  “Hey!” he yelled, getting the hellbeast’s attention, at least for a second or two. “We’re not finished yet.”

  Erik felt his own magic pour into the stick. When it was released, a greyish-white substance shot from the end of the stick with a horrid ‘plff’. The icky substance flew at the beast, slowly coating it.

  The beast roared in anger, and charged at Erik, or at least attempted to. Its movement grew heavy and slow, and it wasn’t long before it stopped its movement entirely. All it could do was growl at Erik, as its body was stuck in the glue the stick had shot out. Erik rushed in close to the beast and started pounding it with closed fists.

  While his body was strengthened by magic, it was by no means hitting the beast harder than bullets, and yet the doglike creature’s skin started splitting apart and its teeth loosening from its mouth. Erik’s hands bruised as well, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t taking the beast down before it could hurt anyone else.

  The now hardened glue covering the hellbeast slowly cracked from the hound’s strength, and the beast gained more room to move, further increasing the decay of substance hindering it. The creature’s eyes glistened with rage and fear both as Erik was slowly beating it to death, until it finally broke free.

  The beast raised its massive paw and struck Erik’s head with unbelievable speed and power, and the man was sent flying once more, this time unconscious before he even hit the ground.

  Erik woke an unknown time later, the boy from earlier looking at him from above. The boy’s face was filled with wonder and curiosity, and when he noticed Erik waking, he shouted for his mother.

  “Mum! He’s awake!”

  A lady in her late thirties rushed towards the pair from outside the tent.

  “Please, stay still. You’ve had your bell rung quite hard. I wasn’t sure you’d survive, but… your wound doesn’t look… quite as bad now,” she said, clearly growing more confused by the end of the sentence.

  Erik sat up with a groan, massive pain ringing all throughout his head. It felt like a thunderstorm inside him. The rest of his body felt fine, except his hands which were still bruised.

  “Are you a superhero?” the boy enthusiastically burst out with a wide-eyed grin on his face.

  “I sure am,” Erik said jokingly, and looked at the two with a smile.

  “Well, you’re not the best since you lost, but even bombs don’t work against those monsters,” the boy responded, a little less fervour this time. The boy’s mother looked at her son nervously, as if scared Erik would react poorly to the kid’s unfiltered words.

  “Well, this is just my origin story, you know. I’ll get better at it, I promise,” Erik said, the mother visibly letting go of some of her tension.

  “That fight was so cool! What’s your power? I mean, you must be super strong since you could even hurt that monster, and what was that gooey stuff you stopped it with? Was it webbing?” the boy continued.

  Erik spent the rest of the day and night with the mother and child. He learned a lot more about the situation he had found himself resurrecting in, but the information the two had was outdated, to say the least.

  The military had attempted to hold the beasts back, but it had proved futile. There was nothing they could do to even hurt the beasts, as armour-penetrating bullets, bombs and anything else they could come up with proved ineffective. The only thing these things did was prove the beasts were also dependent on the laws of physics, as they would be blown away, but otherwise unharmed from the blast.

  The last they had heard, the European military was holding their own further south, but that was weeks ago. A lot could have happened between then and now. The pair of them used to be six people from the last town Erik had passed on the road, but some had left and others had died finding food in the town.

  Erik asked them both if they wanted to come with him, as he was travelling south, but the mother said no. They hadn’t been attacked ever since they had left the town behind, with the exception of the one Erik had led right to them.

  As far as she was concerned, they were safe so long as they kept away from the town, and she had already managed to make some fishing and hunting gear, and had kept both her and her son fed with nothing but hunting and foraging for a week.

  She only asked that Erik tell the military, if he found them, where they were and that they could come get them with a helicopter or something. Erik understood, but was still reluctant about leaving the pair behind.