Year: 2118

  Years after the Dawn: 104

  Area: Southern fronts of Canada and borders of former United States of America

  Location: Camp Nolan

  Population: 14,405 and steeply declining

  Days since no incidents: forget it

  Days since creation: inconsequential

  Potential: Already ran out!

  William fell into the darkness. He was little again, but not lifeless.

  Borders were clad in Fogs as ever, the sky was dark, and the land was shaking. That damned head of his was hurting as if it couldn't pass on quickly.

  He forgot everything and fell into the deepest memory. It was no longer a dream. He was back. In a place where it all started. Barely thriving land was acceptable for people, but an Incursion triggered a calamity that sparked wild annihilation. It was an anomaly within this era, and for it to form against one single camp—acting with that foreboding beating noises and punishments—wasn't fine and fair.

  Alas, Walkers weren't luxury and Darks were definitely no saints. They shall destroy it hereafter, unleash fury and death.

  Camp Nolan was no remnant city. It was a camp, so it was far away from cities devoid of proper life or bizarre habitats. The whole world turned into primal form, and so did old towns and most animals. Whatever could splintered across the land and ruins, hiding away from the darkness, holes, or fog. Erratic humanity was gone, while new creatures called Darks beckoned as supreme.

  Camp Nolan was deprived of its role. It was subjected to the devastation. A cleansing, perhaps? William was not obvious to it as a five-year-old, but even he knew how camps played as work-models of hope. Their purposes were tacit and pursuing trends of work and adequacy.

  Still, a considerable possibilities were nothing for Darks, who came like annoying flies, crashing hopes again and again. Even those at Rank 4 could be disastrous unless some heroes arose and slain them.

  They often did.

  Or they tried to but failed.

  Camp Nolan became a bloodbath colored and mixed with dark colors of Fogs and blood. It was a helpless struggle when Walkers weren't successful raiding the Rifts hiding in that storming darkness. Below and around the outer walls, the Fogs of Nightmares or Dreams reached people no matter where they fled.

  There were dozens of Walkers, followed by hundreds of common soldiers bearing weapons and armored uniforms. Could a handful of such persisting elites fight against a century of accumulated Dread and Madness? No, but they did it anyway.

  They opposed Corruption, the most primal fearful Ideal of this era. By will and self-deletion, they fought against that which soiled their home, used the darkness, and Turned people into monsters.

  Corruption was mutating, changing Darks like everything living, and creating anomalies and death. The Walkers tried to fight it, for their and humanity's sake. They really did find some success, but not here. Here, they turned into toys in a petri dish.

  The past century diverted plans and embarked people in a new direction. Some people pursued long-term future trials. Those were camps and Walkers. Disasters shaped them both, while the Earth shall make it work and last enough. Hopefully, of course. It could still die trying like them, while humans wouldn't be around to see what would happen afterward.

  It wasn't even worth to call it an apocalypse. It was a straight-up advent of a new era; a true new Dawn, or so the past people called it.

  The food chain changed.

  Darks, large or small, it didn't matter, when hunters kept rising, eating, changing, or corrupting each other. It was primeval and vile, corrupting the land and changing the status of nature and death. In one way or another, it looked like a nasty experiment gone wrong.

  Humans were part of the equation and food chain, and Darks recognized them for it.

  Walkers were the strongest and most fun to meet. Darks enjoyed these sorrowful attempts and kept these hunts right and tight. The fun shall return. True terror was long over, but something new might come.

  It was true. It was coming and they felt it. And then, they feared it! It was hurting and there was no coming back.

  The Incursion was a war ordered and demanded, marking the earth with an exceptionally cursed degree.

  The sky overturned, and the earth held many new cracks. William no longer watched it from above.

  ***

  “William, listen to me.” A soft voice spoke to a frightened boy. It calmed him down, but not before a deliberate firm hug. It hardly helped, for the Dark Fog spread across the sky, looking like a storm that wasn't a storm. Camp Nolan was in shambles, obvious by screams and ticking Incursion echoes. They felt like blasting hearts but duller or louder depending on involvement and degrees.

  “William!” the voice reassured him again, feeling that he wasn't listening. “Don't be like this. Run when the shades are dark. Hide when voices turn. Mother will be safe. You have to trust it, but you need to trust me first, and you need to live for it to matter.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Like any mother, she was worried, hasty, and nervous when leaving the child unaided.

  William should be glad that this unforgiving, grimacing, and timeless moment wasn't a portal to the past. At least he fell really fucking deep... so it might last until the very end.

  Mother's voice couldn't hide her anxiety. Like usual. Her son was bloodied and her husband headed to the unknown. This camp couldn't weather this Incursion, the craziest reality that hadn't happened in nearly two decades around any camp, let alone inside one.

  She didn't want to believe it! Not many dared to close their eyes and see this reality. However, multiple rising Rifts—shattered spatial torrents in the sky and Dark Fog—split the space and connected somewhere. Darks flew or jumped from them, raiding this camp.

  There were dozens of Medium Rifts, so it should be at least Rank 7 Incursion at minimum, if it hadn't been for that one cursed looming crack over the horizon, dwarfing the rest even from afar. It wasn't most noteworthy, thanks to the overwhelming Dark Fog pestering not just the minds of people but also their human senses.

  Some Fog variants could even send one into the Dreamscape, a sensual place of memories, dread, and bizarre landscapes. Some Walkers called them Deeper Realms, or Hidden Realms, but it wasn't as if if they mattered if they weren't too real.

  But they were.

  What was evident was more real and easily comprehensible. Fogs full of Corruption and poison were tame and fine compared to incomprehensible derision over one's existence, even if their sheer suffocating dread would turn absurd in different ways.

  William was frightened. Those tremors and shouts were terrifying and pursued by cursed noises. Buzzing tones were there again, with beats and echoes that made him nervous. At least there were no delirious visions. Those were the worst.

  He was way young and... wrong. He saw how Mother's hand wavered and went up. His mother couldn't deny his emotions since what could she do? She had to do something. Anything. She left the helpless boy between the buildings made of bricks, refurbished blocks of old metals, and concrete blocks. It was no particular street as everything was a battlefront right now, or... well, whatever they could be.

  William was too busy shaking to care for what this camp was about to become. He couldn't believe he was alone and stranded.

  Crying in anguish and sadness at the leaving hand of his mother, he was unable to stop her hand, even if he wished he could. He was too young to understand what was happening and what she meant, or too gone to listen.

  His hand hesitated like his eyes that opened to see her leaping figure. Then, he looked at the bizarre shaking air before him, creating a floating picture like weird darting symbols. It was shaking like water and mist, looking shaky and filled with symbols.

  He swore he could read, but he couldn’t reach anything out of this. They drove him mad like the leaving hand of his mother, so out of frustration, he touched what was before him in hopes of destruction. Nothing happened.

  It was a Screen. A filthy delusional Screen.

  Ticking clicking sounds kept going, and his inner noises ensured his confusion. Then, his leaving mother dealt the last blow to everything that he should ever own.

  He read it… not knowing what it was, or why it was there.

  There was a lot of confusion about this message for someone like him, but he knew numbers as they were simple.

  Still, this wasn't that. William touched it again and hit nothing. The Screen remained and changed nothing like the mere messenger it was. It kept lingering until it turned to dust, unlike those clicking sounds that reminded him of beats and things from the past.

  At five years of age, he should have warm hands around him, security, as well as warmth of love. Sure, it sometimes followed some rooms and voices, though gaps in the memory of children weren't unexpected to go missing. He should have a normal childhood with playful and safe bits. They were unfamiliar concepts to him.

  William felt he had overcome something when that Screen disappeared. Incursion shook his reality and stole something he always had. It was a small trick, as he couldn't possibly perceive the trickery of this situation. He should never own a degree. Never.

  He heard so much more screaming after his mother left, as well as lingering high-pitched noises of annoyance. It was here again. No. Perhaps this was much worse than ever before.

  [We go at it. Like one and for hundreds. Try to remember this time.]

  He had no mother to hug. No hand to grasp. No father to rely on. They both disappeared, leaving him alone while something else could not.

  Glancing around was futile. He couldn't stop shaking and he couldn't see Mother anywhere. She was gone, so William looked at the Dark Fog around the sky. Some buildings slowly lost their shape within them.

  No Fog had yet to touch him. Almost nothing dared to. The Dark Fog was merely processing the flying matters and corners, gushing out of some Darks holding onto their brutal concept away from the camp. Most were hiding within the storm above, or in those Rifts, providing enough nutrition to Madness—one of the most sincere and harsh and defining Ideals of men and monsters.

  Most of the Fog was intentionally kept in the outskirts, where Darks didn't have to hunt. Everything was closer, yet what kind of predators would want cornered or free prey? It depended on their hunt and tossing every one of them into the same bracket wasn't right.

  It was a curious wonder. One would think their Madness made one true lunacy. It did, but Incursions were different. They made them calmer, so they were the worst. They were organized, grasped in the Madness, and continuously dealt humans a heavy blow.

  Yet, this was just a mere camp. No one understood why it came, let alone with such a deadly force that it littered the sky in cracks and disguises. People felt it like a curse or took it for a joke that wasn't real.

  It was more than that. It created panic and dropped bodies and blood under every beat.

  Nosies buzzed and hurt, and William's mind stressed him out. His nerves itched, muscles craved for something, and mysterious crimson wanted out, escaping from this place as soon as possible.

  It couldn't since William nervously winced in that lonely corner, protected by walls, and reminders of his mother. She would protect these walls, or the earth, or the soil. Or him alone, if he could recall, but he was lost in the departure of his mother.

  Escaping what already happened was not feasible. He will live with it like always.