Chapter 1: Beginning of the End
His heart thumped madly.
Sweats and tears rolled down the side of his face as he weaved through the crowded street, squeezing in between the cars and buses and people.
Everything had stopped, drowned in utter darkness. There was hardly any light on the street or in the homes that lined up on both sides of the road.
He could not see where he was going. Only that he had to keep going. His mother had told him to run, and so he did without protest. He would continue to run for as long as his two little stubby legs could take him.
"Jonathan," the little boy recalled the familial voice in his mind. It had overshadowed the surrounding, blocking out all the terrified screams. "You have to be strong… you have to be strong. You have to stay alive… Jonathan… if you are alive… good things will happen. So please, please, Jonathan. Promise me. Promise me to stay alive. Promise me!"
"I promise, momma," Jonathan murmured and tried to wipe away his tears, but only managed to stain his chubby face with the crimson liquids that both his hands and forearms were completely coated in.
His clothes were in the same state. Soaked in blood. Not his blood, but still belong to him. His mother was gone now. Left behind in the debris when the sky shaken. When the heaven trembled. When the earth exploded.
And thunderous roar came.
There was something titanic lurking in the shrouding darkness above. It took the shape of a dragon. A mythical beast that should only existed in fiction. But it was not. The monster came out of the ground, spreading its vast ancient wings while driving up the dirt and gravels into the sky.
Its emergence from its slumber sent dozens of shattered concrete slabs flying in all direction. The very same concrete slab that had taken his mother away from him along with so many others.
The winged creature followed Jonathan everywhere he ran. Its piercing roar echoed between the high rising buildings, rippling through the countless glass windows, shattering them and sending numerous deadly shards tumbling downwards and showering the people.
Unending sounds of glass shattering against concrete could be heard, intermingling with the screams of those that stood too close to the buildings.
The massive creature eventually swooped down. Its two expansive wings slashed through everything within sight. Glass. Concrete. Steel. They were all made of paper before its might. And before it could reach the ground and filled the void within its stomach for the first time in countless eons, its body illuminated, glowing ever brightly.
The ominous light swirled within its colossal belly, highlighting its pitch-black scaly armours, seemingly unscathed by the destruction it had just unleashed.
The dreadful light rose up to its titanic body, shifting into a fiery yellow and orange illumination until it surged out of the creature's throat and blasted at the terrified masses of people.
Torrent of flames came forth and swept through the crowded street like an unstoppable tsunami. Fire enveloped crashed vehicles, washed over the fleeing people, roasted and incinerated all within reach.
Metal melted. Glass melted. Flesh melted. Nothing was spared in the deadly inferno that was created by the towering monster.
The flames soon crashed against Jonathan from behind, stripping him of his clothing before scorching his back. It sent him flying forwards with dozens of screaming people and immediately woke him from his nightmare.
Sweating against the wall, his weary eyes slid from side to side while his hands gripped a can tightly.
The can was emptied. The same with his stomach. He tossed it to the growing pile in the corner of the unlit room and pulled a thick blanket over his body, starving off the cold and snow that had filled the open slit carved into the blast door of his bunker.
He tried to get some sleep, but his mind replayed the event from the past.
16 years in the past.
On the day of reckoning. The day that humanity got dethroned from the top of the food chain. Dragons took that spot from the moment they emerged from the earth and feasted upon the world.
Billions perished within a matter of days. The people fought back with guns and bombs, but the effort was ultimately in vain. Bullets simply bounced harmlessly off their thick scale armour and heavy shells only seem to annoy them.
The best anyone could do was run and hide while cities and armies were burned to smoulder ruins.
Then the killing stopped as quickly as it had started. Their hunger quenched, and their reasoning finally returned. Many dragons disappeared into the sky, looking for better feeding grounds, and those that remained made nest in still standing urban centres before entering hibernation once more.
Every once in a while, a few dragons would wake up and scoured the land and sea for foods. They had apparently stopped killing indiscriminately because they wanted the world to repopulate again.
That was not going to happen. Not for a very, very long time.
Jonathan rubbed his scarred back and shifted against the wall. He looked at the wooden shelved across the room from him and calculated how long he could hold up inside the bunker before he had to tread through the unending snow and looking for more non-perishable foods once more.
It became harder and harder each time.
And running into another person was more dangerous than poking a dragon in its slumber. Perhaps it was even more dangerous now.
"6 days left," Jonathan said and searched the floor for a water bottle.
He drained the bottle of its icy liquids to quench his thirst before shaking the bottle and checked how much liquids remained.
His weary eyes ran over the dozens of bottles on the floor, all sitting within his immediate vicinity.
"16 days left. Need something to melt the snow."
Jonathan rubbed his shoulders and looked through the slit of the blast door and watched the outside world.
Snow had never stopped falling since the Great Awakening – the event that awoken all the monstrous beast dwelling deep within the earth's crust. Snow provided him with the water needed to stay alive, but it also made growing any kind of vegetables and herbs outside in the climate impossible.
They would die in the freezing night, where temperature dropped far below zero. Thus, the only way to grow anything was inside and away from the cold, hopefully with plenty of sunlight.
It took far too much effort to do that with a single person. It was better to just scavenge for foods and hope that they were still edible long passed their expiration date. Flours and grains seemed to last for a very long time.
Thus, those items were highly sought for by the remnant of society. They were actually traded goods in this desolated era. Paper money and gold had lost all meaning years ago. Only foods mattered now.
When the temperature outside of the bunker was high enough, Jonathan removed himself off the wall and picked up his backpack from the made shift rack.
The backpack was stocked with a couple of water bottles, tools and some ropes. He then took a pistol and a few magazines from the table along with a shotgun.
After making sure everything was in order, he eyed the phone that his mother had brought for him on his birthday, many years ago. The device no longer worked just like everything electronics in the world.
"I'm off, mom. Wish me luck."
Jonathan said and pulled the heavy level to release the locking mechanism, allowing the blast door to creak open halfway. He climbed through and exited the hidden bunker before heading into what was remained of the human world.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Erosire
Erosire I actually had written this a long time ago. I am just updating the story now. It is a survival story of sort, at least for the first few arcs.
After that, it is more like an empire building story. Then who knows. I had not written that far yet. Anyway, enjoy. Support me and join my discord server!
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