The News

I woke up like I normally did, staring at my phone. The last couple of days had been incredibly hectic. The mist had caused a widespread communication blackout in the northeast of the country no one was able to get any signal through. Many hundreds of people went missing either due to TikTok challenges or trying to find their loved ones on the other side. I would pull up and recycle through all of my social media accounts for any new videos. That was when I stumbled upon a video making its rounds on my “For you” page. It was a flying creature on the outside of a plane. The video was no more than 30 seconds long, more than likely due to the limitations of the app, but you could see the ridgelike spines throughout the wing itself. It reminded you of a very large bat wing. The length of the wing, I had to guess, was about 30 ft. I could only see things from the angle of the camera. Then in the last second of the short video, there was a head.

I played the video over and over again until I was able to pause the video at just the right time to see it. It looked like a dragon’s head or rather, something that you would see in movies about dragons. The scales on its head were clear as day. The yellow eyes with their cat-like slit focused ahead as it flew. I took a screenshot and tried to find a way to save the video. It was still early but. I knew my producer was heading into the office at the moment. I emailed him the footage with the screenshot. 

To my left, I could see outside of my apartment window and the sun was starting to light up the sky in the distance. I took off the blanket I was still under and placed my feet on the carpeted floor. I took a couple of moments to scratch my toes against the carpet. It helped me gain my senses and wake me fully up. I stretched my arms and reached over to grab the TV controller and turn on the television. The very first story of the day was a believed mass suicide that might have happened down south. Some of the reports coming out of the area said that it was incredibly violent. A man named Bob came on the TV.

“I didn’t know what to do, everyone just started to kill themselves. I tried to stop them. I tried to save them but the girl and her mother kept them under almost a spell controlling them. Thank goodness I was able to put an end to one of them but I was too late. So many had died under their control.”

The look on his face told me he was lying about something or knew something completely different, but I had to get ready for my morning shift at the station. I hopped into the shower and took my time while listening to the news report. It looked like the military perimeter around the mist was spreading. I knew from my contact within the Pentagon that they were planning to use the Army Corps of Engineers to build a fence covering much of the borders to prevent more disappearances. It was one of the biggest feats of human engineering to happen on short a short timeframe.  I washed my hair as the happier story of a local woman donating blankets to a local homeless shelter came on. It was one of the less interesting stories and I was borderline obsessed, just like everyone else, with the gigantic amount of mist covering almost half of our country.

I finished my shower and began getting ready. I know that for the most part, we have our wardrobe room at the station and make-up department but I still try and look my best while I am out in public. I put on my skirt and a silver reflective blouse. That was when I looked outside my window again and thought that I saw something perched outside on the balcony staring at me. I quickly turned and saw something standing on the ledge. It had an eagle head with feathers along its chest. Its legs looked more closely related to that of a man and it had gigantic wings. I stumbled over my bench and fell to the ground. Slowly crawling my way backward away from the glass door. I was on the 20^th floor of the building. I tried looking around for something to throw or defend myself from but there was nothing. It just peered at me, questioning my movements, and squawked.

My back hit the wall.

“HELP!” I screamed. 

I heard a burst window in the next apartment over and then a scream as my neighbors struggled for their lives. Finally, I heard a hard thud against the wall. It rattled the photo frames that I had along the wall. 

“Margaret! NO!”

A final scream came from the other side of the wall as it sounded like he tried fighting off whatever it was, only for it to be cut short by a crunching sound. I tried reaching for the door handle of my room. I had to be close to the door. I kept reaching back to find the handle. The eagle thing kept staring at me until it pecked at the glass door. It immediately cracked. A confused look came across its face as it continued to stare. I heard another scream as the woman next door seemed to wake up only for it to quickly be answered with a crunch and silence. 

I found the handle just in time for the eagle thing to break through the door. I quickly turned it and left the room as there was a squawking cry. It had rushed towards me and in shutting the door had hit it with a thud. I let out another scream calling for help as I ran to grab my keys for my car and rushed out of my apartment. In the hall, I was greeted with a gruesome sight of blood along the walls. One of the hallway lights was flickering. It had been knocked down by the body of a man now lying on the ground with the exposed bones of his back. His head was twisted in a weird angle. 

A ding down the hallway caught my attention. I turned to see the elevator door opening. I quickly ran to it as fast as I could. The blood on the floor was very wet and slippery. As I got closer to the elevator doors, my feet flew out from underneath me and I landed on my back. There was a loud screech from up the hallway behind me. I arched my neck to look back. It was the eagle thing being flanked by something else. The other one had blood in its fangs as it looked in my direction. 

They slowly made their way toward me. I rolled towards the elevator and reached to push the parking garage button. That’s when I saw another body just outside of the elevator. Probably the one who originally called it. Their eyes were wide open, the fear that had gripped them at the moment of their death remained in the absence of their life. I kept hitting the close door button. The creatures in front of me started to run at me faster. The door closed just in time to stop them with a loud thud. I had fallen back against the back wall bracing myself for the horror I had believed was going to come. The elevator began to move. I closed my eyes and tears began to well up as the adrenaline began to wane. 

The time it took to get from the 20^th floor to the basement car garage allowed me to get up and reevaluate my surroundings. The walls were shiny until you looked at the spot where my back and head had been. I reached up and touched the back of my head. When I looked back at my hand, it was covered in red. I reached back to check again, feeling for any obvious wounds. Then it came to me. It wasn’t my blood. I tried to wipe off my hand on my blouse as best as I could. It wasn’t coming off very easily but it was a little cleaner. 

I tried to pat myself down looking for my phone to try and call someone. That was when I realized that I had left it in the apartment. I looked up at the control panel and I was a floor away from the garage. I prepared myself for the worst by stepping back to the side, out of the view of the doors. The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened with a ding. I waited to hear any sounds coming from inside the garage, an echo of some kind or a loud screech but there was nothing. I peeked around the corner of the wall and took a moment to scan the area. My breath was overwhelmingly fast and my chest was tight. I felt the wetness of the blood on the back of my shirt sticking to my back.

I sprinted as fast as I could in bare feet to my car. The pavement was cold to the touch, but to my relief it was dry. I knew where I had parked but I still clicked the unlock button on the remote over and over so that I could hear where it was located. The flashing lights as I clicked it one last time brought a smile to my face until I heard a reply to the sound it made. In the distance, I heard a high-pitched screech of another bird as it popped up its head. Its mouth was bloody and a hand stuck out of the side of its beak. I screamed but continued to run towards my car. It screamed back and decided to run towards me. I unlocked the car and started it. It jumped on the roof of the vehicle and immediately broke its face through the moonroof. I screamed harder as I threw the vehicle into reverse, backing it out of the parking spot.

It continued to turn its head this way and that as it tried to get itself free. It screeched again, with blood-filled saliva flying at me as I put the vehicle in drive. I heard a scratching on the roof as its feet flew off and it was being held primarily in place by its neck. It cried in pain as wings beat against the side of the vehicle as it continued to try and free itself. As we rounded the corner, I saw the light of day out of the exit. Instead of slowing down, I sped up to escape the barrier. As we crashed through, my front windshield cracked but I felt a huge pull coming from the roof of the car and then a thud of something landing beside me.

The head of the eagle had been ripped off in the process. In disgust, I pushed it to the front of the passenger seat floor. I calmed down a bit and kept driving as fast as I could. As I drove I noticed the city in chaos. I turned on the radio. The news report came on.

“…. Flying creatures coming out of the mist. We report, that flying creatures are coming out of the mist. Stay inside where possible. Reports of wounded are flooding in. The emergency switchboard is overwhelmed. Stay inside, and find a safe place.”

I looked around and saw many people running around trying to escape the creatures. There was only one place for me to go. I needed to leave the city as fast as I could. A roar erupted overhead. I peeked through a clear spot in the front window. The giant dragon, I had noticed on those Tiktok feeds started to fly overhead. The car began to accelerate too quickly as I had been distracted. The next moment, a crunch on the side of the vehicle. I felt my head thrust to the left too fast before hitting the steering wheel. That was when everything went dark.