The future was dark. He had seen it. It was even worse than the present. Worse than the past.
He was on the run. Fleeing his destiny. The vision was always in his mind. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing could change it. Still he fled. Running from nothing and everything. Panic always breathing him in the neck.
The world was destroyed. The mass extinction of species had gotten to a breaking point hundreds of years ago. Only the strongest, most adapted creatures were able to survive. And they did well. Cockroaches. Rats. Fungus and bacterias.
Mankind had fallen. Epidemics, hunger and war became the end of all civilization. Everything was in ruin. When the nuclear plants started to leak hope was already lost. Mutations. The cockroaches got bigger, the rats more intelligent. Mankind was no longer top of the food chain. They were outnumbered. Outsized. Outsmarted.
He remembered the night of the fever as if it was yesterday. The night his little family died. His beautiful wife. She had looked like one of the humans from the early days. The days before the destruction. Almost. And their child, such a lovely child. He was born with seven fingers, but better off than most newborns these days. He had two arms, two legs. The fever didn’t care.
There, in his hallucinations, time had played him a trick. Beside his wife’s dead body to the sound of his son’s last moans, he had seen the future. The night of his death. He suddenly had known the fever would not kill him. He wished it had. He was terrified.
He stops. He’s seen this place. He turns around, but it’s too late. It always has been.
Something approached. It was no cockroach. No rat. Not even of this world. It was something else. Deeper. Darker. Gigantic.
A monster created of death itself. A monster of destruction. Humanoid with horns of a demon. Diffuse, yet solid, with a morbid glow in it’s eyes. A lust for pain and terror. Behind it there were more of them. They had come to end it all. An army of judgement. He didn’t know from where, but he knew why. This world was too fucked up.
He stood between the monster and the lake. He wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. He could see tentacles searching for anything alive in the toxic shore. Cockroaches came out from holes in the ground. They’d smelled him. They were hungry. He was surrounded. The cockroaches held him down with their creepy legs. Nibbing on his skin and flesh, flawing him alive.
The giant kept it’s red eyes on him, looking at him viciously. It looked amused by his pain, intrigued by his fear. Listening to his screams with attention. It crushes the cockroaches slowly, let him lie half eaten on the ground. Lifts him up, holds him in front of his face studying his suffering with an evil smile on it’s face.
He can smell it’s breath, more horrible than anything he had ever smelled. Worse than the stench of rotting corpses he had gotten all too used to. It swallows him. He falls into an acid pool, screaming in pain as the liquid enters his wounds. When death comes, there is nothing he wants more.
The giants moved on. The end of days had arrived.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/
https://opherworld.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/animal-rights-plant-rights-human-rights/
Fictionspawn 
Great – though there is no ‘end of days’ in any biblical sense – just an end of our days – caused by us.
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Exactly! That part might come true. The rest is pure fantasy.
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This is a meaningful story, while I can’t look at the picture much — roaches very much gross me out… which means you did a good job with them. The biodiversity link sparks additional context, such as that the lack of plant life and environment would be acidic.
Of course the horned beings and the tentacled life reaching out of the liquid (maybe water, maybe not) aren’t appealing. And the skulls drive home the meaning that some people will dane worth considering while others just won’t think about it.
Opher’s site is interesting, too. It’s an intriguing aspect of your site that you link to well-chosen forums I might never have come across. I am familiar with concepts of biodiversity, but would have been less likely to encounter Opher and friends.
Certainly, I’ve heard of what he talks about in that post, but it’s interesting to see how people there interact and the unusual topics and memories shared. (I spent some time looking around there after I first read your story about a month ago.)
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I really apreciate your wide spectre of interest, Marleen. It’s good to see my efforts makes sense to someone. The biodiversity problem is a really important subject to me, and I believe it might be the most important problem we as the human race stand against. There’s a lot of attention on climate changes lately because of the visible consequences, but the mass extinction of species is likely to become much more serious and irreversible in a relatively near future. This documentary is very interesting: http://www.cowspiracy.com/
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I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this yesterday:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/07/she-felt-a-crawling-sensation-doctors-found-a-live-cockroach-in-her-skull/?tid=pm_national_pop&utm_term=.eff9af7cf5ae
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Thank you for an incredibly creepy article, Marleen. The stuff nightmares are made of. You’ll love my next story;) This article might even affect it. Nice timing.
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This is a great read, my type of story! Thanks for sharing 🙂
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Thanks! Sorry about the delayed answer, I think it got stuck in my spam-filter.
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Yes! I knew I remembered reading this! A fantastically thought provoking story that stayed with me. And a much more gruesome time for your poor protagonist, I’ll send zombie Isaac round with the party boys.
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Hahaha! Please do, it would do him good! End of Days II – The Giant Cockroach Party.
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🎶 now that would be one hell of a clean up 🎶
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The bit about rats made me shudder. Fantastically written, I really like the detail about how his wife almost looked like the old humans and his son was only born with seven fingers so in context it wasn’t that bad.
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Thanks a lot! I published a rewrite of this one (the pingback above your comment). Quite similar, but the last monsters are of another nature. Very happy you liked it 🙂
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not a very bright future!
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Not at all…
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