"Where am I?"

"Somewhere dark."

I didn't expect a response: one usually doesn't when one is truly, deeply hoping to wake up any minute now. Any minute now.

"Get up."

I couldn't see, and I couldn't move. My whole body was numb, and cold, and the floor was wet. Concrete, smelled funny: oily, metallic. I felt a sharp pain down my back, and after a few seconds I realized that the voice was jerking me to my feet, and my hands were stuck behind my back.

I slowly started to feel in my arms and legs. Bad. Everything hurt. I took a half-step back, hoping that a wall would somehow offer itself up to me. No such luck.

"You come up from the depths? They're still dragging people out of there, I hear... " the voice was in front of me now, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. "Sorry 'bout the cuffs, but they've been bringing up some serious crazies recently." his voice was accented, New York, rambling.

"Where am I?"

"Sewer tunnels, what's left of 'em." He pulled me forward and started walking; there was debris on the ground, and I stumbled. I switched to shuffling a moment later and kicked something. It skittered off into a corner and cracked against a wall. There was a piercing beam of white as the man flicked on a penlight, directing it at the sound.

"Look. And be more careful from now on, crazy boy."

I only saw it for a moment, through spotty eyes, but it was enough; a human skull, tatters of flesh. Eaten. I retched and fell to my knees, but the man pulled me up again.

"We have to move... this isn't a good place to be."

He walked behind me and took the cuffs off. I rushed him, knocking him back into a wall and pinning him, my forearm against his throat.

"Where am I?" I bit off the words, staccato and choppy like the heavy breath in my chest.

I was on the ground again, my arm screaming in pain, and he was standing over me. A hand clamped over my mouth roughly, cutting off the sound. I felt a strange sudden rush of blood to my head that seemed unrelated to the pressure he was applying: the feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced, and it hurt. My vision filled with tiny yellow sparks, then a mist of red as my eyes crunched shut. Then it was over, quick as it had started, and my eyes snapped open again to nothing but oppressive blackness.

Silence for a moment except for a faint faraway dripping, then a rustling, and a strange clicking noise not unlike what the skull hitting the wall. It was slow, at first, rhythmic: cli-click... cli-click. Then it erupted into chaotic scampering, like a many-legged something was sliding and crashing over the concrete.

"We need to move, fast and quiet. Unless you want me to leave you for the 'Renders, in which case you really are insane." He lifted me to my feet and put an arm around my shoulders. Then he bolted: I was blind, but he could find his way easily in the dark, and had no trouble dragging me along.

The sound slowly faded as me moved along through the tunnels, though it still echoed in my ears.

"We're okay, here... they don't come up this far. Usually."

"What was it?" I whispered, a feeling of terror crashing down on me. This was very real.

"A 'Render, like I said," there was a faint light ahead. He was wearing goggles, probably night vision. His clothes were tattered and torn, he hadn't shaved in a few weeks, and his hair was unkempt and dirty. He was massive: far over six feet, and made of nothing but muscle.

"Render?" I stepped in front of him and turned around. I knew I wasn't going to be able to stop him, if he wanted to keep going, but I was confused, and I don't like being confused. "What the hell is going on here?"

"A 'Render.. like 'surrender'... as in, they'll never do it. Not as long as there is anyone left alive." He stopped and looked down at me. I'm five-eight, and pretty strong, but his face was probably bigger than my abdomen, and it was scowling at me. I moved out of his way.

"This 'Render... what is it? And where am I?" I followed him into the light.

"Just can't keep your mouth shut, can you?" he muttered, slipping the goggles into a pouch at his waist. "You are in New York, in the sewer tunnels. Do you somehow have your head shoved so far up your ass that you don't know what happened two weeks ago?"

"No," I was more confused than angry, "I don't know what happened. I woke up in that room there... a few minutes before that, I was home in Suburbia, Maryland, playing Guitar Hero. I have no idea what happened... I want to go home."

"Home doesn't exist for you, crazy." His voice softened a little.

"The name's Jack, actually." I murmured, the full impact of what he said hitting me.

"Well, Jack... Annapolis, Maryland was the second spot hit, after some tiny fishing town in Massachusetts. It's completely overrun... we got the survivors into the sewers and set up a camp, but they've pushed us back farther every day.”

"I don't understand... hit by what? Hit when?" I could see that up ahead was a stone wall about as high as my shoulders, and the light was coming from above that: spotlights were trained down the tunnel, illuminating it for a good hundred feet before the shadows ate it up again.

"The world ended, Jack. December 24th, 2012. There's no better way to say it. The ‘Renders came up out of the water, and ever since then we’ve only been getting closer to being put on the 'endangered species' list."

The man vaulted over the wall headfirst, and then turned and reached down for me. As he pulled me over, I realized just how tight the opening was between the top of the wall and the ceiling. I couldn't imagine how he had managed to fit through.

"I'm Vincent, by the way," he said as I got my footing on the narrow wooden platform midway up the wall. "I'm taking you back to camp. Tomorrow we'll see what we can do about getting you some answers."

I felt a rush of blood to my head, like before, in the dark. The world went red as my hair fell over my face, everything inverted, and then suddenly it was dark all over again.

-- -- --

"Jack?" It was Vincent, I knew the voice. Wished I didn't. That meant I wasn't home yet.

"Jack?" Head hurts. Whose voice? Oh right, Vincent. Head hurts. My head hurts. Didn't anyone care? Did I say it out loud? I was certainly trying. Head hurts.

"Oh... well, you did fall on it. Bad timing, too... the 'Renders attacked the wall just a minute or two after that. Lucky they can't fit through the gap." Something cold on my face now. Fall on it? What? There had been a wall, and a platform, and then something strange had happened, as if enough strange things weren't happening already. Steady. Steady, Jack.

"Fell?" I tried to open my eyes, but there was an ice pack over them. Ice on eyes. That was nice of him.

"You were there one second, then the next you had passed out and hit the floor head-first. Nasty fall. You're not epileptic, are you?" He sounded concerned. That was nice of him. Who? Vincent, that was it. Head hurts. What was the ongoing prevalent question? Right, silly. That. Unless very weirdly... wait. Doing it again. Stop.

How long was I out? My meds were wearing off, or completely departed, entirely finished, gone, hopeless. I just. Stop.

"No... " Not epileptic. Obsessive-Compulsive, Schizophrenic. The list went on. But definitely not epileptic. I was clinically insane, but I was definitely not crazy. This situation: that was the crazy thing. What had happened? How had it happened? Happen, happening, lapping up the gasoline? The gasoline on the floor, I remember well the smell. Gas and gore. Stop it.

"What happened?" I really needed to know that right now. Maybe I could stop it from occurring once again, and ascertain its origins. Stop. Stop doing that.

"You fell." Duh. Yeah. I know. Head hurts. I know.

"No, I mean.. did you feel it too?" It was a pretty unique feeling, for me at least. Maybe this after apocalypse hopefully hallucinated guy got it all the time. Stop.

"Feel what?" That wasn't productive. I needed my meds. Thinking train telling tracks –stop– telling tracks to shove it. Stop.

"It was red... " I couldn't manage any better 'cuz dear empty falling giddy happy, I, Jack. Stop. I'm off my meds, can't think straight. Need to think straight right now.

"Red?"

"I saw something in the red, when the world went red. Underwater," I didn't remember this. What? What was I saying? "There was a man in the town, a man who made these things appear, alright? He did something. I don't know. The town up north, in... that state. Massachusetts." It was getting hard to think. I couldn't focus.

"Yeah, it was one guy. How'd you know that?"

I can stop him. If I could find him, I could stop him.

"What was his name?" Somehow I knew it. I could feel them coming, sense them. I knew why I was here, even if I didn't know where here was, or what had happened to make here such a bad place to be.

"His name was Thomas something. He said he was the antichrist or some crap like that, and no one believed him. Then he made the world end. That's all we really know about it."

I can stop him. World getting fuzzy and sparking and red. Head hurts.

"Jack? You okay?" Concern. That was nice of him.

"Bye, Vincent."

-- -- --

Home again, couch, Guitar Hero, I lost. No time for that.

Hallway, door. Mirror? Is that me? Oil and blood and... what is that? Bone chip in my hair, blood. My blood? Focus.

World ending. Soon. It's 2008, I have some time. Need to find Thomas. Get up north. Need my meds. Scatterbrained, Blatterscained. Strawhead, scarecrow. If I only had a brain.

"Jack, are you... OH MY GOD!" Mother? Really? Need to get north. Find Thomas.

"Need to find him. Went forward in time, world had ended. Need to stop that from happening, I can do it. I can... need to go north. Find Thomas." I said it out loud, I think. There's the door. Hand? My shoulder, get off. No, no, my arm. Get off. I need to go.

"Get back here!" Ow, ow. Frying pan? Did she really just... Head hurts. Head hurts. Ow, ow, ow. "I'm putting you back in the hospital... you're hopeless, Jack. I should have never taken you back here." Why hitting? Need to find Thomas. Save the world. My job. Pan hurts. Really hurts.

"I have to save them all... have to find him. "

Clicking against my head. A 'Render? What was that? I'll never surrender, that's it. Banging now. Frying pan. Not again, please!

"Hopeless. How could I have ever given birth to such a worthless... " Ow, no hospital. Black again, creeping up. I can't... I have to...

I fell to my knees, heard shouting. Hospital? Going to the hospital again? I don't want to go back.

"No hospital... I can't... "

"You're going back there, Jack, and you're staying there this time."

Ow, ow. Now it was dark again. Blood on the floor, and oil. Drip. Click. "But... "

But... I have to save the world.