2094
Steven was packing all his stuffs in his room for the evacuation. Suddenly his mother called him to go downstairs. "Steven! We need to leave now! The evacuation will leave within 20 minutes!", she called.
Steven headed downstairs with his parents and little sister waiting. They packed up every essential supply such as: food; water; weapons; and medical supplies. They exited the house and rushed towards the neighborhood playground.
"20 MINUTES TO REACH THE EVACUATION POINT", a man with a megaphone said. It was getting late, and the Shredders would soon come. Throughout the run, Steven noticed corpses killed by both survivors and Shredders overnight. They reached the playground and had 15 minutes to spare. All of a sudden, shrieks of Shredders were heard in the distance.
Confused and scared, everyone was panicking. The military drove off with the rest of the survivors. Steven's family got up to the bus, but their father was still running with his life. Steven's mom reached out for him. But a Shredder was in hot pursuit. The father's shoe was bitten, but at least the foot wasn't.
After bringing him in, they closed the door and kicked the pursuing Shredder's head to knock it out. At last, they all made it out alive.
Back in The Present Day (2103)
The van that they rode to escape Terry's city ran out of power.
"Great. God's not in our side!", Derek sighed.
Steven exited the van, and saw nothing but dirt, dead trees, and the heating Sun. Kelly checked the map to check where they are, and it seems like they're nowhere near an abandoned city.
"This is bad. Terry or the Shredders or who-knows-what will just come over here!" Steven cried. They had no choice but to grab the parts from the van and started heading forward.
After around 11 hours of walking, the group haven't met a single soul along the way.
It was starting to get dawn, and they'll need to find shelter quick before the Shredders come. Then, out of the blue, they found an abandoned village. Steven and Murph started to run towards it, but Jack pulled them back. "It's all dark. There could either be Shredders or survivors there.", Jack explained. But the rest just went towards it.
The village seemed to have been ransacked and ruined, but then they found someone entering one of the houses. The group slowly peeked towards the house, with their guns loaded, and finally approached the man.
"Stop right there!", they shouted. "Wait! I can explain myself.", he replied. "The name's Braum. I'm just trying to find my friend's book after bandits burned the village.”.
Steven remembered the name during their journey. "Wait. Is your friend in a mountain outside of the Town of Walten?", Steven asked.
"That means you're the people Buck told me! Oh, I thought you were bandits.", Braum said in relief.
Kelly asked who's this man, and the rest of the group told her that they found his friend in their first journey and mentioned about Braum.
Braum searched the chests and wardrobes, and finally found the still-safe book. The group asked what the book is, and Braum replied with "DOOM! No literally that's the title!".
"I come from Greenhouse Research -", the group cut with surprise.
"Let me continue!".
"Greenhouse Research... had another task. They monitored the increase of global warming, the Shredders, and the natural disasters. They found odd patterns in the meteors, so kept it out of public. They found out that the meteors weren't natural. None of this is natural. The meteors were found to be, dare I say it, extra-terrestrial. Which meant that... something or someone wants this to happen. I don't want to say this, but, there could be a higher intelligence being in play. But it was too late to spread to the public. Then, we created the Seeds of Life, manufactured to withstand radiation, so that life may go on. Until... that one night. Where... I lost everything... I lost my family... I lost my comrades... I lost my research... and I lost the Seeds of Life. A captivated Shredder opened cages to other Shredders…".
The group heard shrieks in the distance, signaling the presence of Shredders. "Oh no...", Braum said while stammering.
"The Alpha is here!".
They all hid behind the counter in a house and saw a Shredder that's different than the regular one. Its scales were black, with a face resembling a skull. It had spikes attached to its tail, and it walked with two instead of four. Other Shredders followed and monitored the area. Kelly was surprised on their behavior; she's only seen Shredders by themselves.
The Alpha walked in the room. The group held their breath to avoid suspicion.
Steven and Murph were very anxious, for they saw glimpses of its claw peeping above the table, seemingly trying to reach if something is under the table.
Surprisingly, the Alpha roared and lead the other Shredders to another area.
"The best place to hide is the church! The problem is, it's in the West of the village. If we want to reach, we'll need to run!", Braum pointed.
"Is there anything safer other than the church?", Jack asked. Braum shook his head.
With no other option, the group slowly made their way out. The Shredders were gone, but they still felt that something was watching. They ran through the dead trees and saw the church. Unfortunately, the Shredders came again.
They ran as fast as they could and managed to reach the door. They held it in, with banging and shrieking surrounding the empty church. Braum and Derek pushed some furniture to block the way. Suddenly, the shrieking stopped.
"Hopefully they can't scratch down a wooden do-" Steven's words got cut due to
a Shredder's claw bursting through the wooden door.
"OK, new plan: RUN!", Braum screamed while running to another direction. The Alpha broke down the door and started to send a group of Shredders after them.
They were wishing that the church would be small, but there were lots of ways to go. The corridor was too small for the Shredders, but they were still able to scrape through.
At last, they made it out from the church and closed the door behind them.
"Oh no it's still night time! Darn it!", Derek shouted.
They soon found a small hole that they can hide to, although it's not the most comfortable. They blocked it off with rocks to block the Shredders' vision. They still heard screeching outside.
Two hours had passed and they wished to sleep, but the deafening screeches made it impossible to do so. The group felt like it's been a long time since they hid in the hole.
But finally, sunrise peeped through the hole. Derek and Murph quickly dug out the rocks, and finally escaped the Alpha's wrath.
Everyone sighed in relief, but quickly saw something in Braum's backpack. "Wait. What is that?", Steven asked.
"It's a watch. Why'd you ask?", Braum replied. "Let me see..", Steven said while taking the compass out of his bag.
Memories flooded Steven's mind. If he remembered correctly, it was a watch his mother had before judgement day. "This was... my mom's. How did you-",....
"I found the ruins of a neighborhood while exploring. Interestingly enough, it had the
words 'Manufactured by Greenhouse Research’ on it, though I never heard about this.", Braum replied while cutting out Steven's words.
Kelly took the watch from Braum's hands and accidentally clicked something while holding it. It was an audio file.
"November 15, 2090. The mining project was a complete disaster. No survivors were found when we arrived. We don't know what the Heck those things are, and how they're in here. The only remnant of the team was a camera that was still recording during the attack.
It showed a number of whatever those things are and what was inside the cavern.
The information gathered was... deemed too dangerous to be revealed in public.
We'll try all we could to contain and learn about this possible threat. This is Dr. Ga- Wait, is that-", then the audio cut to rumbles and screams.
After the audio was complete, it showed numerous other files, both videos and audios.
But one thing that stood out from the rest is a button called "Navigate to Lab".
Upon clicking, it displayed "Lab is about 5 km away from your current location".
Steven and the others were surprised. This might mean they were pretty close to the lab. Steven, on the other hand, felt a slight remembrance of his mother.
"Well, I guess this is it. After what seems like a whole year, we can actually go back home after reaching it!".
Then, the group followed the watch's compass to reach their destination.
Little did they know, something else was watching...