That night, for the first time in over 6 years, Ying dreamt of something new. He dreamt of his old life, before the dreams took over his life. Before all this happened, before he ruined everything. He was dreaming of his favorite thing before he gave up his childhood to science. He was dreaming of his band. When Ying was around 12 or 13, his friend had convinced him to join a small band that was just getting their start. Ying wasn't particularly talented with music, but he did know how to play the guitar. Lacking any other activities or social events, he reluctantly agreed. What he did not expect is that it would become his fondest memories. His best friend was a delinquent, and a little bit out of control, so doing something calm like music was a pleasant change for Ying.
In his dream, he was up on stage with his group playing to an audience of hideous monsters he could only assume were from the void. Ying was playing the electric guitar, and his bestie was on the mic. They were doing incredible. Ying was having the time of his life. The crowd was loving it. He was hitting all the right notes, and his friend's voice was better than ever before. He and his friend exchanged a confident smile. This was the best he'd felt in years. Then all of a sudden, he saw someone in the audience. He recognized her immediately. Kadie.
She was sitting in the audience cheering along with everyone else. She was the only actual person in the crowd. Ying's mood instantly changed. He looked at her with a terrified expression and dropped his guitar. The room fell completely silent. Kadie was covered in bite marks, and pieces of her were missing all over. Her wounds gushed blood, and her eyes were streaming tears. Even so she was smiling a wide, comforting smile, her pink braces just visible out of her mouth. The crowd suddenly changed. All at once they started making growling noises. They started moving towards the stage.
Ying was petrified now. There was nothing he could do, nowhere he could go. His panic had just started sinking in when he felt a hand shove him from behind. He instantly fell off the stage. He was going to hit the crowd of monsters head on. He screamed as they opened their mouths to reveal their needle-filled mouths, ready to devour him. Ying braced for impact, and…
Ying sat up straight with a yelp and smacked his head on the top of his dumpster.
"Fuck!" He exclaimed as he rubbed his head.
He then noticed where he was. Oh yeah, the apocalypse. Ying groaned and laid back down. He just wanted to stay where he was and go back to sleep. It was late in the day, with the sun high in the sky. He was just about to go back to sleep when a dreaded sound met his ears. His stomach let out a mighty grumble, as if Ying had not eaten in several months.
That was it for sleeping, he had to get up now. He slowly dragged himself out of the dumpster, and slowly flopped onto the ground. He was still lacking so much energy. As he picked himself off the floor, he began to think back to his dream. He finally had dreamt about something else. He had broken the curse. His exhausted frown turned into a tearful laugh. He had finally done what he set out to do. Never again would he have to suffer through those awful dreams.
"I'm free… I'm fucking free! Haha!" He yelled at the sky.
Ying was so happy. At least all this wasn't for nothing. His cries of joy were soon cut short by the sound of gremlins approaching. Their humanoid howls were disturbing to say the least. The way they moved was jerky and off-putting, like they were robots having a malfunction. That is, until they catch their prey. When they finally go for the kill, their movement would turn smooth and precise like a panther getting ready to strike. Ying decided he probably shouldn't stick around too much longer. He locked his eyes on a local highway and began to focus hard. Just like that, he was on the move again. He needed to set up shop somewhere completely off of the monsters' radar. He thought hard for a place he could go… a bunker? No those would all be in use or destroyed. The sewers? Probably not the best place to live, he'd save that as a last resort… and then it hit him.
"The old science building!" he said to himself, "that's perfect."
Ying had become a freelance scientist at 14. Without a bachelor's though, no one would take him on as an intern. Until, he met a man that was willing to take him on. This man was named Jeramiah Totts, an extremely old physicist that ran a major science building up on a hill outside of town. Dr. Totts was a kind man and took a liking to Ying after he told Dr. Totts of his goals. 15 minutes after meeting Dr. Totts, Ying was hired.
"I like your crazy head, my boy," Totts told Ying as he laid a hand on Ying's shoulder, "normal people never get anywhere in this field. You need a bit of crazy to truly invent something new. I'll give you the funding you need, and then some."
Ying truly looked up to Dr. Totts at the time. He wasn't too fond of his own dad, so Dr. Totts became a father figure to him. Everything was going perfectly for Ying until Dr. Totts passed away due to old age. Ying was one of 11 people at Totts' funeral. After that, new people were put in charge that didn't approve of Ying's ideas or methods. Shortly thereafter, Ying was fired for some nonsense made up by the director.
With the money Ying had made working for Dr. Totts (a hefty sum), he decided that he didn't like working beneath others. He was going to go into business on his own. This is when he hired Kadie, and began his own small startup company called "Here-and-there". If only the portal didnt ruin everything, their discovery of teleportation would've sent their company rocketing into the stratosfeer. If only…
All of a sudden, a shocking amount of nostalgia hit him like a brick. He gave into it for a few seconds, reliving his fondest memories of Kadie and Dr. Totts, before steeling himself for the journey ahead. The science building was about 3 miles outside of town, overlooking the city and the ocean in a truly beautiful view. It was a long walk, and he could only 'blink' so many times. Once he got settled in, he would have to experiment with this new ability of his to find its limits.
Off he went down the roadway, passing broken down cars and crumbling debree. What disturbed him the most was the amount of bodies on the bridge. Every few feet there were torn apart limbs and severed torsos. Emotionless heads stared up at him, judging him for their deaths. He saw men, women, children ripped apart from their neck to their legs. The sight was grotesque. Ying felt an immense sense of guilt and horror. He had done this. These lives lost were his doing. He wanted to cry, he wanted to make it right and apologize to everyone he'd hurt, but nothing would come out. He just kept walking.
After walking for about an hour he finally reached a section of bridge that had been completely destroyed. Those titanic monsters were probably to blame. Ying looked at the surrounding landscapes. Sure enough, those colossal horrors were still lumbering along, destroying everything in their path. They moved surprisingly quickly for things of their size, reaching speeds of up to 30 miles per hour. Ying casually gave them the finger as he blinked to the other side of the chasm.
After a long while of trudging along, avoiding those tiny gremlins, Ying's stomach became too much to bear. He needed food, and he needed it now. The section of city he was currently in seemed to be relatively untouched by the bigger monsters, so the buildings were mostly intact apart from a few broken windows. Maybe he could find a store of some kind. He needed to be careful though, those smaller aliens were everywhere.
After sneaking along for a bit, he came across a bakery. Perfect. He could see through the window that there was food. He didn't want to make too much noise though, so… poof. To the other side of the glass he went. He immediately went to the back of the restaurant. The food in the front was probably bad by now. He scavaged around looking for some pastaries or something when…
"WOOOOO!" Cried Ying, "DONUTS!"
He had hit the jackpot. Loads and loads of fresh-ish donuts of all different flavors. Strawberry icing, chocolate, maple bacon, they had it all. Ying gouged out a bite of a particularly scrumptious looking jelly-filled glaze.
"Oh my god thish ish exchactly what I needed…" Ying mumbled through bites.
It was glorious. If you've ever been at that place where you're about to starve to death, and you finally get your hands on something exceptional, you'll know the absolute contentment and euphoria that comes with it. Ying was in pure bliss. Something felt off though, like he wasn't satisfied.
"Meat." He thought to himself. "Flesh. protein!" His body screamed at him.
He decided to ignore those disturbing thoughts and continued to enjoy himself. Ying spent a good few hours in the bakery after eating his fill to come up with a plan. He would go to the science building and set up a temporary shelter. After that, he would experiment with his powers to see if he could do anything more with them. Then he would go into town and start gathering supplies for a permanent base. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start. He packed up some food supplies like flour and sugar, and grabbed a couple donuts for the road.
On his way out of the bakery he realized that the area was now crawling with gremlins. He would need a way past them, but teleporting wasn't ideal. Sure he had just eaten, but he already felt exhausted after only two jumps. He creeped out of the bakery making sure not to make any noise as he unlocked the front door. Ever so carefully he snuck into a nearby alley way right before a pack of monsters noticed him. Their heads pricked up. They could hear something. They looked around for a minute, rummaging around trying to find what was making the noise… After a moment, they gave up and slinked away. Ying breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to have to be more careful if he was going to make it through this.
On his way out of the city, he could see helicopters and jets flying overhead. The military.
"At least everything hasn't completely collapsed," said Ying, "maybe the government can handle this…" the jets flew towards the giants, blasting them with missiles and heavy gunfire. The helicopters fired off round after round of explosives. Several of the large beasts went down, wailing and screaming as their bodies slammed into the ground. The sight was gruesome. More and more giants swarmed the area, overwhelming the poor pilots inside those machines.
One after another they were plucked from the sky by thin spiky tendrils or knocked into the ground by the creatures' long spindly arms. Boom. Boom. Boom. Over and over and over, the last resort of humanity was destroyed before Ying's very eyes. There must've been about 10 or 20 of those kaijus now, towering over the nearby forest and hills. Their combined noise was a bone-chilling melody of death. Ying hurriedly looked away and kept walking, this time a bit faster.
An incredibly dull 4 hours later, Ying had finally made it up the long winding road towards the science center. He was only about half a mile away now. He could see it in the distance. The science building was a massive building. It has for massive pillars that raised it off the ground, and the building went from a square to a triangle half way up. The triangle section was composed of three big, spindly towers that came to a sloping point in the middle of all of them. Each tower was facing away from each other, creating a lovely triangular pyramid when all 3 were put together.
It was a beautiful sight that overlooked the entire city. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. As Ying came up to the science center, he noticed that it was absolutely pristine. Nothing bad had happened to it- well- except for one of the triangle towers was gone. But other than that, it was completely untouched by the destruction.
Ying beamed ear to ear as he made his way to the entrance. As the building was raised high off the ground by 4 beams, you could enter the building through a spiral escalator in the center, although they were just stairs now that the power was off. Or, you could enter through one of the 4 beams which all contained stairways, and their own respective rooms. Ying figured the escalator was out of order, but he still wanted to see the inner courtyard. Under the raised building there was a beautiful garden that was usually supported by grow lights in the ceiling.
As Ying came around the corner, he saw the beautiful flowers and bushes that he always loved. There were purple irises, white roses, blue bellflowers, and a wonderfully trimmed set of bonsai plants that were scattered here and there. Ying was going to have to maintain this if he wanted to keep enjoying these wonderful plants. He took a deep breath in, letting the aroma of flowers wash over him. This was truly peaceful.
After a few minutes in the flower garden, he made his way up the building through a stairway in one of the 4 supporting buildings. Up, up and up he went trying to plan out how he was going to renovate this place.
"Indoor farm there, supply room there, frozen foods over there…" He rambled to himself.
Then he began the grueling task of looting the building. He would need to find everything of value here, and sort it. First he went to the chemical storage closets and grabbed everything he could find. It was a goldmine of chemicals. This would come in handy. Next he raided the robotics center. Every tool he could ever need was there, along with many parts perfect for future contraptions. Then he took a look in the computer lab. The internet was probably down, but these might still come in handy. He scratched his head for a moment.
After a while of thinking, he decided that the bottom right supporting building would be a storage facility. It took hours upon hours, but he finally managed to sort all of his chemicals, computers, tools, robotics, and other things he found along the way into separate areas. All the while he had to remind himself that "Being efficient was important, it pays to be organized." His muscles ached, his brain screamed at him to take a break. He couldn't afford to take breaks right now. These first steps of setting up were essential, and had to be completed immediately.
He finally got the last of the computers into the new computer storage room, and crumpled to the floor. He gave an exhausted sigh as he took in a few much deserved deep breaths. He began to snack on a strawberry donut. Today had surely been an ordeal. And he still had to find somewhere to sleep for the night. That was his next mission. Find a comfortable place to nap.
Ying searched and searched, but he couldn't find anything that would work as a bed. There were just fancy benches and the occasional office chair. He decided that he would sleep on the director's couch as a last resort. The director had a very large office with a couch, tv, and his own personal bathroom. Ying didn't want to admit it, but he felt a little bit of justice in knowing that the director was probably dead. He was an insufferable man. Taking credit for others, ruthless to employees, rude to everyone but clients, etc, etc. That man just might be worse than those monsters outside.
Ying curled up on the couch and shut the blinds. The sun had begun to set on the horizon, highliging the mile-high monstrosities in a creepy light. They were like massive shadows against the sun, plotting to blot out the sun's light for good. He looked away and tried to get comfortable. He was going to start working on his new house tomorrow, he had to be well rested. As he began to fade away into thoughts and dreams, he thought of his band. He thought of Kadie, and he thought of Dr. Totts. He missed them so much. It was gonna be hard to make it through this without anyone else. Someone else came to his mind too, someone who he was surprised to see himself thinking about. His old best friend, Adrian. Ying shook his head and tried to think about something else. Why would he think about that asshole at a time like this?
"I should forget about him. Adrian is probably dead anyway. Good riddance."