I was 12, a scrawny, tomboyish kid with short cropped hair, an oversized backpack on my back, cargo pants and a green striped, thick, polo t-shirt, reminiscent of Steve from Blue’s Clues.
I was walking along a cobblestone street downtown where people were celebrating something. People walking around the street, talking loudly, some cheering, overall, generally in a happy mood. The air was crisp but quite sunny, hence my t-shirt. Then again, I always wore tear-aways and a t-shirt, even when it was snowing. It used to hide my figure and make me look more boyish. Marveling at the way the sun shone amber and gold on the cobblestones, I nearly bumped into this South Asian boy.
He was tall, proud, with stylish, thick, jet black hair. He wore aviator sunglasses, a thin moustache hugged his upper lip that he had carefully curated, and…cropped jean shorts that cut off an inch past his tensed buttocks, exposing his legs. A loud shirt dotted with hundreds of yellow blossoms on a black silk background hung on his frame. He was posing this way and that, rallied by the cheers of his buddies, and while he wasn’t muscular, he was somewhat in shape and proud of it.
He was laughing and showing off in front of a gang of friends, who was filming him on their cellphones. They pushed a South Asian girl, towards him, an innocent looking girl with thick, black hair tied up in a loose bun. She was a hefty girl, perhaps 14, 15 years old. She looked noticeably nervous, but put on a brave front, and when they asked to take off her shirt, she obliged without hesitation. The ring leader then cupped a hand against one heavy breast, and asked them to take a photo of the two.
I was disgusted and I knew this girl didn’t like it. But what could I do, other than shoot them a glare (and risk a punch in the face)? I was only a skinny kid who looked like a boy, and these were at least 16-18 year olds. Taller, slightly muscular, manly.
My glare towards the boys must have broken through her desire to oblige these loud boys, and she quickly excused herself, covered herself, and rushed over to me. We said hi to each other, and without further conversation, she followed me.
We walked for a bit on the sidewalk where I stopped outside a dollar store, the bright/vibrant green and yellow colour of the store’s banner encouraging me in. I told her that I wanted to take her into this dollar store.
She agreed and stepped down the stairs to the Dollar store. There were so many trinkets to look at, sparkling cheap toys and treats, designed to catch the attention of young kids. While she was in front of me, I grabbed a blue and white swirl lollipop, thinking to purchase it and surprise her with it, to brighten up her mood. I looked at other candy to pick for her and add to, being aware of my budget. As a kid, I never had an allowance, and most of my money came from doing odd jobs for other people, and an occasional $20 as red pocket money for Chinese New Year…which unfortunately my sister used to steal.
We go into the back of the store. There was a cramped aisle where we had to go down 3 steps on a grungy staircase, lined with metal at the edges, that used to be white, but now grey. At the end there was a glass display cabinet where they sold cheap but pretty rainbow plastic figurines from Japan and Korea, and a tiny, tired fan circulating stale air. We looked through the glass, and I was sad I didn’t have enough money on me to pay for even a portion of those figurines. The girl smiled at me as if she knew what I was thinking, and said she didn’t want these. And then, her eyes widened in shame as she looked at a perfect replica of what happened to her and those teenage boys. A miniature resin figurine of the ringleader, leering, hand on her bare breast, a copy of what happened only an half an hour earlier on the street.
How was this possible? I took her hand and pulled her away, giving her the lollipop then, hoping to distract her, and bluntly told her to pick something; I’d buy it for her. In my mind, I thought to myself that if I were a boy, I’d probably make a good boyfriend, because that’s what boyfriends do, right?
(I wouldn’t know, never having a boyfriend, and not being a boy.)
That’s when it happened. From the periphery of my eye, I saw a crimson tentacle, much like an octopus’, thin and flexible… an alien vibration along the window. I was curious, unsure of what it was, until I looked outside the windows of the store, and saw a horrific scene – those tentacles, vibrating, crawling along windows and walls, trying to find a way in – they looked harmless enough, but once they….sensed? saw? someone close by – it was more like they can see the person – they immediately hardened into a sharp weapon, and pierced through the people over and over again, spraying blood everywhere. The thicker tentacles would wrap around people like an anaconda, squeezing life out of them, or slamming their bodies to the ground, again and again until they became a formless mash of flesh and bone, encased by skin alone.
They were brutal, fast, precise. Someone came pounding on the front door of the dollar store, trying to hide away in the store. They were so frantic, their pounding fists broken the glass. The employees gathered at the front, trying to stop people from coming in, but the small tentacles dispatched the people outside.
With the hole in the glass, it crept inwards. The tentacles had no mercy. I couldn’t watch, just heard the screams of the employees and the customers at the front of the store,. The screams were quickly cut short, and the store was silent again, save for distant cries in the mall.
I crouched down, and crept to a small exit of the store, which was supposed to be used by employees only. I tried to move as silently as I could, seeing that the tentacles had taken over the whole front part of the store. Going to the back took me into a back passage, leading to a door that connected to the main part of the mall. As I looked through the window of the tan doors, I saw a giant tentacle, the largest one I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t tell how long it was, but it was at least as thick as an orca. It was a couple of feet above the ground, swaying in the air, up and down slowly. A group of people levitated to the rhythm of the tentacle. As the tentacle lifted up, so too did the people, all the way to the top of the mall’s ceiling. Slowly floating up, slowly floating down, then up, a little faster, down a little faster, up again, faster, down again, faster and this time, these people were jerked in one direction to an unknown source around the corner, and disappeared. So did their screams.
The tentacle found another group of people – a mother and a father, and their little girl, in a red dress, golden curls, no older than 6 years old. The giant tentacle waved slowly, up and down, and the family followed. They floated upwards, screaming. The mother tried frantically to hold her girl close to her. They looked ridiculous, like people skydiving and in prone position, arms outwards, trying frantically to hold on to each other. And they went up, down, up, down, up, down up, down….I counted it again. On the 4th down, these people got sucked in the same direction as the other people. Something went wrong, though. Maybe the girl was too small? She, instead of being sucked towards the direction of the tentacle, simply fell from the ceiling. Her body broke as it hit the ground, and lay there, motionless.
I shuddered. I didn’t know how to escape. While the little tentacles seemed to kill their victims right away, the larger one seemed to be gathering people.
And that’s where I made my mistake. The large tentacle seemed to sense me, or maybe it saw my face from the door. The door slowly opened, powered by the tentacle’s telekinesis. I floated with my legs up in the air, head down, terrified. Up I went. Then slowly down to the ground, levitating only a mere few inches from my fingertips if I stretched hard enough. I couldn’t do anything. Then up, then down. I counted. I knew I was going to die. I was so scared.
When I flew up again, it was much faster, just like what happened to all the others, and in desperation I kicked and I struggled as hard as I could, and somehow managed to find a tiny crook in the ceiling that could partially block me from the path of the tentacle. I used the grip of all my strength in my fingers and legs to scrabble along this crooked part of the wall and ceiling. Thankfully the veiling provided me the momentum to move further away from the source of the telekinetic power.
It seemed to work, because instead of quickly being pulled down and then being shot towards the tentacle, I was still remained floating up near the ceiling, fighting against the invisible force. The force weakened, and I was slowly floating down. Halfway in the air, I promptly fell.
I fell to the ground hard, my breath being knocked out of my lungs, my arms and legs screaming in pain from the impact. Stars, black dots, and flashing lights sparkled in my vision. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t relax, I was so tensed up, my body screaming silently in anguish. I shook my head, trying to clear the now red sparkly haze and my anguished body. Luckily, despite my tense state and agony, I could move my arms, move my back, move my legs. I didn’t think anything was broken. And the South Asian girl was right beside me, in the open, exposed to danger, frantically pulling at me.
I got up, took her hand, and we stumbled in the opposite direction of the tentacle, which was focused on other people. Along the way, somehow we had picked up a small band of young children, and I headed straight to my house on 39th Ave. It was dark, locked and silent. I sensed that the neighborhood could possibly be taken over…or already was. I ushered everyone upstairs and took them to my upstairs bathroom – to me, it felt like the safest place, in the middle of the house, with the smallest window. It was cramped, but it felt safe. I took towels and lined the door frame to prevent any sound or light to leak through, and I also turned out the lights. I asked everyone to keep quiet and try to sleep, or at least, rest because I didn’t know what else would happen – and then I heard my parents coming up the stairs. They had been out, and they didn’t quite know what was going on, but I quickly unlocked the bathroom door and ushered them in. In a whisper, I explained to them what happened.
They noticed something was off, but they didn’t know what. Trusting their instincts, they had rushed home before they saw any strange occurrences. Unfortunately, every time I tried to explain, my father would interrupt and yell at me for being crazy, or that I was overreacting. When I tried to ask him to whisper to prevent tipping the monsters that they were here, he just got more angry and loud. My father was old, and he had dementia. He couldn’t remember anything after a few minutes. I got a fleeting flash of anger, a desire to just put him in the bedroom next door to prevent everyone from being found…and immediately felt immense guilt. To do so would inevitably lead to his accidental death.
I didn’t have long to feel guilty, though. As he was yelling, I noticed my mom had opened the window, and I freaked out. I shouted at her to quickly close the window as those monsters were just outside. I closed the window as quiet as I could, but she too was yelling at me now, because I yelled at her.
I realized that she merely had only closed the screen window, and not the whole window. I shut the window as quietly as I could, and lay down on the floor with everyone else, trying to ignore my dad yelling at me, because I had raised my voice against my mother. I pulled a fleece blanket around my head to muffle out the sounds when I heard more sounds – right outside the door.
Human chatter and laughter – and lights outside the bathroom door. I opened the door cautiously, looked down the hallway – to my left was the sliding door to the kitchen, and men in construction outfits were crowded around in my kitchen dining area, in full view of the giant window. Then I heard someone call my name – some of my mother’s friends, sitting in the fat, comfy leather couches at the far distance of the living room. Her white hair bobbed as she waved enthusiastically. She looked exactly like Mrs. Claus. She called out to me – “Pinfeathers, where is your mother? She left so quickly, I was worried so I followed her here!”
I came out of the bathroom and made my way halfway down the hall cautiously, whispering to her… to please be quiet.
“WHAT?” She shouted.
“Please be quiet!! Please!” I pleaded, unsure if she would believe me. Being a kid, maybe I could trick her into playing with me. “I’m playing a game where everyone has to stay as quiet as possible. We can’t let anyone know we’re here.”
“SWEETIE!” Mrs. Claus laughed, “Precious girl, I have no time for your games. Where is your mother?”
“My mother is here with me,” I said, admitting defeat and decided to tell her (and all the other ladies sitting there with gaping mouths in curiosity) the truth. “There are monsters right outside our door, and we have to stay quiet because it’ll come and kill us. My mother can attest to that. I have others with me. We have to stay together and away from the windows, turn off the lights, and not speak –“
“Darling, you’re crazy! I told you, I have no time for your games,” Mrs. Claus interrupted me, chiding me.
Hearing that I was crazy, again, felt like a red-hot arrow pierced my heart. I was upset that first my parents, now this stranger in my home – well, my parents’ home – endangering everyone just because they haven’t seen what was happening…it wasn’t fair. So I went back to the bathroom, and grabbed the South Asian girl’s hand, and I whispered to her that we had to get out of here…with this many people, it wasn’t safe anymore. I had to find a safe place.
I left her to my parents’ bedroom where we had a small sauna in the corner. There, it was all wooden with only one door – but when I looked up, there was a huge hole in the ceiling! When did that happen? Anything can now get into through this sauna, so we exited and that’s when I saw it – a tentacle crawling, probing along the windowsill of my parents’ bedroom, faint scrabbling noises. And I knew I had to escape. I ran down the hallway, saw the tentacles outside the bedroom next to the bathroom where we were at, and now also on the large living room window, so we turned right and went downstairs, past the bewildered people, and opened the door to the garage. A blast of chilly air hit my face, cooling me down, making me more clear-headed. I figured there were two doors on either side of the garage, that would take us past the tentacles without it noticing us. I headed to the door on my right, but when I opened that white door, a tentacle was twitching on my neighbour’s tall, wooden fence just to the left of the door. it was just the tip of the tentacle, so it didn’t notice me. Fine, time to slowly close the door and exit to the left. I knew that there were tentacles along the upper bedroom window, so I would have to sneak past it.
And that’s when I saw the door from the house open – my mom and my dad were trailing after us.
I told them to go back, because it was too dangerous. They refused, and asked to follow me. Again, I felt a pang of guilt, having initially leaving them behind, but thinking that perhaps the tentacles had already infiltrated the house – especially with so many people in there. All I could hope was that the children who followed us, would stay quiet in the bathroom, and keep everything still and be undetected.
Opening the door on the left as softly as I can, I took a quick look to my left. There was a long, red tentacle, thin and menacing, probing the window of the bedroom. There was nobody in there, so it seemed relaxed in its probing. I quickly ran the opposite direction, seeing the sunlight slowly fade in the distance. My runners hit the hard cement of the driveway, our backyard gate wide open, and directly in front of us, in the car port of my neighbour, was the full body of one of those tentacles. I had never seen the bodies – only the tentacles, and seeing them didn’t feel scary. It hadn’t noticed me yet. It was just standing there in the middle…it was the shape of a short squid, a slender body with a head. It stood, towering above me, at least 6-7 feet tall. As a kid that was only 4’9, that was plenty tall.
The tentacles were spread out below it, twitching but not seeking anything. It was pulsating some sort of dark pink light through its body to the top of its head, which was mostly a swirl of purple, maroon, and red. The tentacles themselves were that dark red of old, old blood that I’ve seen far too many times now. It seemed like it was sleeping. I veered off to my right, hoping to sneak by it when I saw another squid form, hidden inside the carport next to a stack of chopped wood. I nearly missed it, and if I had run full on, I would have met my demise.
So thus, I turned left and…almost ran into a polar bear.
Its fur was white and magnificent.
Its eyes were bright circles of white light, focused on me. And it was angry.
I noticed there was a bright, white spot on its right side, just above the ribs. I was backing away, hoping my parents didn’t make a sound, so focused on the bear…that I didn’t notice the movement to my left.
Suddenly, a tiger, golden orange with thick, rich stripes, also came out from the grass and pea plants of my neighbour’s overgrown garden. This tiger, too had bright glowing eyes. And it had a bright glowing dot of white right in the middle of its forehead. It uttered a low growl, and I knew that these animals were being mind controlled by these squid things – that’s why they weren’t directly attacking me. I kept backing up, and with a shout, I yelled at my parents and the South Asian girl to run back to the house, back to the bathroom, while I turned down the street and ran for my life. My shouting had attracted the tentacles, and now they were looking for me only. I zigzagged through alleyways, ignoring tentacles, running around deserted bicycles and tipped over trashcans. I didn’t bother looking back – focusing on not tripping on the ground in front of me. I got to a major street that seemed to be deserted, and saw a broken window that I could sneak through.
It was eerily quiet here, so I took a few seconds to catch my breath, and squeeze past the broken glass, into the ground floor of this empty building. All the lights were off. Dust littered the ground. It was clear nobody had been here in months, at least. Until my eyes adjusted to the dimness off the room.
A girl, sitting in a plastic blue chair with metal legs, slightly hunched over, facing me. She just looked past me, refusing to acknowledge me, her hair falling over her face.
I walked past her, nodding to be polite, and went down this wide staircase. Blue illuminated the staircase, and ripples moved along the wall.
Ripples…I looked to the left as I went down, and saw a giant window – an aquarium. In it was an orca, swimming around, but it didn’t have glowing eyes. It was a normal orca. I thought to myself, this is where the polar bear and tiger probably came from. The aquarium and zoo must be compromised by the tentacles
The darkness of the vast room, contrasted with the vivid blue and shimmering whites from the rippling water…I can’t fully describe it. But what I remember was that the whole room felt like sound was sucked out of it; a void of any vibrations. Along the walls were caution tape in yellow, spelling out SAFEHOUSE in black, bold letters, repeating over and over again. A safe house? It was peaceful in here, but I sighed, thinking it wasn’t safe – not with the open cement staircase, the fact that there were no doors, and broken window.
I looked up to the ceiling and walls of an inner room, that was more dark, shielded away from the aquarium glass. Again, it didn’t have a door, but I found a peculiar mechanism near the base of the staircase. On the right of the staircase, on the grey cement all, was a red box, that looked like a fire extinguisher box. Instead, it said: “Caution: high water pressure. Use in case to trap disorderly construction workers”
When I opened the box, and pulled the lever inside, immediately a thick glass platform slid out over the staircase, and a jet of powerful water gushed from hidden hoses embedded in the walls. I realized that any tentacles that tried to creep here, would not like the water pressure, or would be entirely cut off.
This truly was a safe place.
All I had to do now, was guide my family and the people from my house, to this place.
After watching the orca swim for a few more minutes, I walked out, past the prone girl, and back to my house. The tentacles and animals had dispersed like I hoped they would. I crept back into the house, and gathered my parents, the South Asian girl, the children, and whoever remained of the adults. Mrs. Claus wasn’t there. I quietly led them back, and one by one, they squeezed through the glass. The South Asian girl and I were further up, near the staircase when a child cut themselves on the glass, and gave out a cry.
And everything went to pandemonium.
-—————————————————————————————————————————————
My name is Gandhali. I lay there on the cold cement floor, face pressed up against the coolness as my hot tears puddled around me. I had pulled the water lever like how my Chinese friend told me to, right before he pushed me down the stairs before the wall of people engulfed him. I waited as long as I could, hoping he – and everybody else - would get through before I sealed the aquarium off to the outside world. All was quiet now, except for the gushing og the water. Worse, I was alone. What was I supposed to do now?
I groggily got up on my feet, watching as the orca thrashed around its tank.
“Just you and me, for now” I thought, “But not for long?”
I still had hope my Chinese friend was alive, so ignoring the blood pooling on the other side of the glass, I pushed up the lever, stopping the water flow, and the glass gate retracted back on itself.
There, on the platform of the stairs, were a pile of bodies. And in it was a green striped shirt. I immediately ran and tried to pull him up, but his head was missing.
It can’t be. It can’t.
I looked at the neck, but the head is missing.
The head is missing. The body is limp. My Chinese friend is dead.
But it can’t be? My Chinese friend is a hero, and heroes do not die. Not that easily.
I am alone.
I am alone.
I feel like I need to vomit. I am alone, everyone is dead. What do I do? Where will I go? This room was empty, no food, no water, and soon, no electricity to shield and seal this room from tentacles.
I go up the stairs, ignoring the rest of the bodies. I squeeze past the glass, go outside, and head towards a river nearby. Across the ricer spans a small bridge.
And on this bridge, sits a woman and a man, both with calm, serene expressions on their faces.
I gape at them, not believing my own eyes. It’s so beautiful, so deeply different in contrast to what I’ve experienced in the past few hours. Dark clouds in the sky pepper the blue sky, the river glitters gold as it moves with the wind.
The woman is wearing an elaborate white dress, complete with a veil tucked behind her carefully coiffured hair. The man is dressed in a white tuxedo, complete with a white bow and white shoes. Next to them, is a large, white bowl of huge proportions, filled to the brim with raw, uncooked rice.
And the pastor is standing right there, in front of them, pronouncing them husband and wife.
“You may now kiss the bride,” murmurs the pastor, who is also dressed in a neatly pressed white suit.
Before the couple kiss, two long sticks appear from the sky and grab the woman and the man between them. I follow the two sticks with my eyes, and realize that they are chopsticks. And there is a squid, as tall as a mountain, lifting these two people with these enormous chopsticks the size of tower cranes, and a slit of a mouth opens up and swallow these two people whole, lips wrapping around the chopsticks. It lowers and grabs a clump of raw white rice from the bowl, returning the rice to its mouth, and this time it chews.
The pastor is next, expressionless and waiting for his turn to be eaten. He faces the chopsticks as they descend towards him, smiling slightly. The chopsticks come back down, and with the man, another clump of rice. Another chewing.
And a voice that seems to revibrate throughout the earth:
“Happy humans who are purified, are most delicious with white rice.”
And I realize, this huge, tall squid, is the source of all the tentacles.
This is the end of mankind.