1 Nightmare

<p>A thin layer of snow blanketed the yellowed grass, highlighting the expansive field surrounding the campus. From training areas, lakes, and greenhouses came the cries of students, sprinting towards sturdier classrooms and cafeterias to find shelter. Decorating the field were jagged rips in the air, spewing a creeping purple miasma. Like messy knife wounds in reality, hundreds of these tears had formed in the sky, surrounding the school. The horrific sounds of growling, gurgling, and screams could be heard from the belly of these rifts. The air burned with a thick, toxic mist.<br/>Teachers directed whoever they could to the inside of the buildings. With each student pointed to safety came increasingly fervent glances at the portals, which grew louder and larger by the minute. A sprinting, fearful student headed towards the doors tripped and fell just in front of a smaller tear, choking on the smog and tumbling to a halt. His eyes bulged as a sharp metal talon shot through the rift, piercing his chest, spraying the snow with blood. A perfect spear through the heart, killing him almost instantly. Somewhere, an anguished scream responded to the fatality.<br/>One by one they came from the rifts. These shifting, dripping monsters with indescribable faces and sharpened appendages. They mutated and rampaged, crushing any person they could find, desperately consuming and decaying all nearby life. Any student that couldn't make it to the building was stabbed, torn, crushed, or consumed by the smog.<br/><br/>[It was the worst rift break the planet Utin ever faced, right in the heart of their greatest hope, RavenArts Etherial School.]<br/><br/>A female voice echoed through the clearing, a spectating force from the sky. No one acknowledged the sound, and only I, frozen in the center of the field, seemed to hear it. Any further explanation was muffled by the booming crash of one of the school's castle spires crumbling to the earth. A scuttling group of monsters raced up the shattered sides and into the building, with the fever of locusts. From my left came the pungent smell of waste and sloshing footsteps, and I turned to see a creature heading towards me, exiting from a rift. My vision darkened with shadow as this entity, tall and thin with beaming round eyes, stood above me blocking the sun.<br/><br/>'What did these people do to deserve this?'<br/> <br/>I stared up at the monster. It blinked one eye at a time, meeting my gaze.<br/> <br/>[I don't know.]<br/> <br/>The voice echoed, more localized now as if the woman were speaking right behind me. With a deep groan, the creature's body began to thin, rolling itself out and completely blocking the sky as it prepared to envelop me. Darkness inched closer and closer and with one last look, I watched the school's walls topple further, endless horrors pouring into the hallowed grounds.<br/>The voice spoke out once again, a whisper in the back of my mind.<br/><br/>[I only know what you know, Estelle. ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■?]</p>