Demonic Dystopia (chapter one draft)

Demonic Dystopia



After waking to a noise too eldritch to accurately describe coming from my mother’s bedroom I got up and donned my dressing gown. Leaving my chamber I turned to face my mum’s door. Following that I knocked. The lack of an answer concerned me enough to enter the room uninvited.

It was odd that the room seemed to be devoid of people as my mother should have been inside, yet all there was was a glow coming from the loft hatch.

I for one had never been in the loft. As I climbed the ladder I felt an element of excitement mixed with the cold anxiety I had been feeling since I awoke. Climbing the series of bars I saw something on my mum’s wardrobe. Or in it. I paused my ascent and walked over to see what it was: the decapitated head of my mother, missing her eyes.

That was a disturbing image for any teenager to awake to and I nearly vomited. However I stopped myself, knowing that someone had just killed my other and I would have to be alert. The sensation of loss that I felt was oddly overwhelmed by the urge – no, the need – to survive.

I swallowed my sadness, and bile, before mounting the ladder to the loft.

As I ascended to the heretofore unknown heights of my home I saw the source of the mysterious glow. There was a small bowl lying in front of a small shrine, and the bowl had a small red sphere floating above it. The concrete statue of the shrine had two things on each arm of it.

The first thing was a katana and second was, oddly, a jacket.

It had a crest of some kind emblazoned on it. I somehow instinctively knew it was the insignia of my family. I picked up the sword and the jacket before examining the floating orb, inside of it I could see what can only be described as hell.

There were raging flames and giant beasts with an insurmountable variety of limbs swaying as they lumbered through the infernos. I accidentally dropped the sword as I saw one of the smaller creatures inside look directly at me, as it began to charge the sword managed to land on the bowl (after travelling through the shimmering sphere) and disrupted whatever force kept the portal open.

How did I know it was a portal? I didn’t. I surmised this after I was attacked by one of the demons.

I was upset by the sight of my mother’s gruesome end. Yet I also found the journey to my friend’s house enjoyable, saving people and collecting resources as I went reached my best friend’s house. As my fellow teenagers and I arrived, the eerie glow from the north-east highlighted the dark of the night surrounding us: the sun was still far from rising on England.

John – known to his friends as Whale – passed me his hatchet, his lanky frame barely visible under the weak street light by the house. Taking the axe I spun and cleaved through the double glazed window to my friend’s room, the loud sound of the glass shattering waking him from his sleep. “Bob, we have to go. Get your family,” I told him before he had a chance to realise what I’d done. He got up and began to ask why but when he saw the group of us, his friends, outlined against the dull light radiating from the twenty-fifth azimuth, blood saturating our clothing and called for his brother instead.

While Bob roused Michael I suggested to Uriel that she try and explain the situation to Holly, eldest of the Levitschild children, while I was to persuade the others to try and set up a defensive perimeter. Jupiter took charge as I went to take all possibly useful supplies I could find in order to prepare for the times to come.

The chainsaw was cold to the touch when picking it up after seeing the dull glint of steel in the dull light of the Levitschild's garage.

“Dude, what's happening?” I heard Bob ask as I was packing the hefty tool into my bag. As I began walking over to him we heard a dull thud from with the main house. Bob turned and rushed back the way he had just come. Before he was able to move however I noticed the worry cloud his wide eyes.

Racing after him, I found that his brother was unconscious on the stairs, most likely having tripped and knocked himself out. I asked Bob to try and tell his parents about the situation while I went to see how Uriel was doing with Holly.

As the upstairs landing came into view I remembered Holly's room was directly on my left.  Turning I heard a roar that muted the murmuring of Uriel’s voice.  I dropped my bag, pulled the rusted red pogo-stick from my shoulder and leaped through the front upstairs window of the house, landing on the pogo, bouncing to the left as the angle caused me to fly over the privet hedge between the two houses. As I landed on my knee I allowed the momentum of the pogo-stick to carry it further before catching its spring base and climbing to my feet.

Jogging into the house,  I saw  David Denage flitting in and out of reach of a shadowy creature on the ceiling while David Josephs was attempting to save an elderly man, assumed to have been Mr Levitschild, my best friend’s grandfather. The man was bleeding profusely through the ragged bandaging that was being applied by the young brown haired boy. Swinging my pogo as I ran forward gave the arc enough momentum to penetrate the vile beast’s coriaceous skin with the axe taped to the children's toy. I had hacked at a few of these creatures before but it jarred my shoulder as the axe pierced the other side of the beast and lodged itself in the ceiling. I dived out of the way as the corpse's dead weight pulled it from the ceiling and it slid down my pogo-stick till it hit the foot-pegs which proceeded to force the pogo-axe to the floor. While I was attempting to free my high-utility weapon from the carcass that it had went through David D went to help stop the old man from dying.

Eventually I gave up on my pogo as the creature was far heavier than I was capable of lifting at the time. Having ripped the axe from the tape that held it to the pogo, and telling the Davids to let the old man die – as he would only slow us down – I left the building. David Denage, the blonde one, tried to protest but Josephs quickly silenced his namesake in order to let us move on.

Crossing the front garden I found Jupiter standing over one of the beasts, her broadsword dripping darkness as she pulled it from the maw of her foe. Even in the hectic situation I  was still jealous of her possessing a sword, but I put that aside for a moment and asked, “What's going on with Bob's family?” as I walked over to her.

“We don't seem to have progressed in that area at all yet,” she explained, before giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Try to persuade them yourself – they know you.”

After she patted me on the back I went to follow her advice. To go and see the Levitschilds... Walking from their front garden I felt like trying to save them was likely going to be pointless unless I could explain the situation quick. I could hear the screams as they began appearing closer to our location. Following the clearer sound of Uriel's attempt to explain everything, I walked in-front of the infamous bathroom door that could apparently stop a grenade's blast. Stopping as I saw the family crowded around near the bathroom, I chose to speak: “Demons – that's what we think it is – demons. Now hurry up and get going, or else we will have to leave you behind. You won't survive.” It was harsh, I know, but I knew that the brutal truth was what was required to force a decision from them.

“Okay,” was Ruth's reply, having spoken with the authority of a matriarch nobody had dared to question her choice to speak for her entire surviving family. I turned and led them back past the bathroom door, but as they followed past the lavatory; a sputtering could be heard from within. An intense heat emanating from the doorway that otherwise seemed innocent.

“Run!” was my only thought and all I could say before the bathroom door exploded from its hinges, flying through the air and walls of the house alike. I noticed the beast leap from the remnants of the door as it flew past before seeing the body of the poor soul, which it had hit as it smashed its way through the building fall to the privet hedge between houses. Unable to register who it was that had just been killed I thought I had to prepare to fight, the noise of the explosion having left my ears ringing and the dust from the broken walls clouding my vision, I knew I was not in the best of shapes to fight, but to my surprise the creature had leapt not at us but towards the front garden. I blinked and raced down the steps to try and help my friends out front.

I was tiring by the time I made it to the garden and those following me had no weapons other than a kitchen knife I had noticed Bob holding when he ran ahead. Remembering the dogs of the household I told Michael to go and open the back door to get them; though Colin, his father, insisted on going with him.

As Bob and Jupiter lacerated one of the creatures that had focused on devouring John, Lucky and Maisie ran from the front door. Even though there was ample opportunity for Bob and Jupiter to aim, the beast survived the encounter and flew off, two lines of blood spurting from its the two crimson streaks on each side of its thin, grey, skin covered spine.

Regrouping I noted that Uriel, John and David Josephs were all absent, presumed dead, and that Michael and Colin hadn't emerged from the house yet. Ruth was holding Maisie in her arms as Bob was trying to comfort his sister, the rest of us were on guard, looking round the dimly lit road to see if any more beasts were trying to rip us all to shreds and feast upon our remains. It was during this time when a blue humanoid creature, clad in robes that strained to conceal its heavily muscled body. In its left hand there was a suspiciously human-looking leg that was directed at the face of the creature. The blood dripping from it staining the light robes as the man consumed the raw flesh. David Denage, having noted the gargantuan blue man first was the one unfortunate enough to try killing it.

As he had rushed toward it an aura began to emanate from the robed figure, its eyes glowing purple as they glanced at David. The glow intensified as the aura began to stir some of the glass shards that had littered the front of the house after I had jumped through Holly's window earlier. As David neared the unnatural creature, the purple light from its eyes became brighter than the lampposts that lit the confrontation. Drawing the attention from the rest of us, Ruth screamed – recognising her son's leg being gnawed at. The fact that we had now all noticed the light and our attentions were drawn to it like a moth to a flame probably was why the winged beast was able to fly in and snatch the Levitschild Jack-Russell from Ruth's arms and shower us in the small dog's blood. Chunks of bone also erupting from the canine's frame as the creature crushed it with its talons while crashing into David and the blue man.

The robed creature just stood where it was as the winged demon crushed David against between the two ungodly beings. When the winged thing died, from most of its blood having seeped from the gashes either side of its spine, the purple glow from the man's eyes surrounded the three forms and as the light disappeared so did the bodies.

When I had recovered from the retina burn from the flash of purple I saw the visuals of the retching I had heard. Bob was vomiting into a nearby drain as Jupiter was once again finishing off one of the demonic creatures with her sword, after the creature had killed both Ruth and devoured most of Holly's lower half, a wound that she wouldn't be able to come back from. Bob seemed to be the only survivor from his family, as we all seemed to be from ours... Even Lucky, Bob's greyhound was nowhere to be found.

Having searched the Levitschild's corpses we were able to bundle everyone into the family people carrier, offering Bob some of the mints that we found in the glove compartment. As Mary drove through the streets towards the local bus station, I noted that as the sun rose the glowing ripple in the sky was still noticeable, its purple tinged green smudge ruining the smoky sunrise as the building in the distance seemed to have been burning. I couldn't help but think. We had prepared for zombies, but this seemed supernatural. Could we manage to beat back what seemed to be an apocalypse? Who knew..?

The bus station is coming into view now, I have been getting more confident the closer we have got to this, our planned base but now as I see it. There is a boy sitting on a one of the benches; I think he has wings, and he appears to be on fire. His eyes are purple and his skin looks blue, his cold eyes are locked with mine and he seems familiar. But I can't place him and I just noticed the charred corpses by his feet, I should tell Mary to turn us around – nobody else seems to have noticed him. I can't move. The depths of his eyes are pulling me. I don't think I will be able to stay conscious for long: it's taking all of my willpower to not fall now. My legs are weak; as the car is rolling closer I can feel my thoughts slipping. Samael... The boy's name is Samael. How do I know that? Damn it, I’m going to pass out. Is that concern on Samael's face? Why would he be concerned? Brother? He isn’t my brother; my brother is in Eccles and is called Alexander... I don’t have a second brother, do I? A half-brother? What do you mean, I am my father's son? Who am I talking to?