The day the Lurkers came, everything changed.

    Before, everything was as good as it could be. I had just bought my groceries from the market. The sweet aromas of sweet berries, fresh bread and rich, musky pine filled my lungs with such contentment. Everything was good. I didn't even mind the clouds that had taken over the usually blue skies, or the animalistic growls and snarls that could be heard a distance away. It was probably a bear, or even a wolf. Nothing that the few remaining dryads couldn't handle.

    Then, the first screams erupted from the crowd. 

    My head instinctively snapped in the direction of the screams. Before I had time to comprehend, a whole stampede of people rushed my way. Through the sounds of the distressed crowd, I could make out only one word.

    Lurker.

    My body then sprang into a mad sprint, finally realizing the danger the it was in.

    Screams could be heard from every corner of the city. Before my very eyes, it transformed into a grotesque, morbid opera.

    Someone tightly gripped my forearm. Before a scream even had time to escape my lips, I was harshly yanked into an house.

    "Where did you think you were going?"

    A wave of relief spread over me. "Thank that gods it's only you, Nikan."

    "Who else would it be?" 

     The quick click of the lock filled my mind with a newfound ease. Only then did I dare ask the questions that were on my mind.

    "How did the Lurkers get here?"

    He grabbed a piece of plywood that laid against the door. "No clue. Can you come and hold this?"

    I quickly set my bags on the floor and rested my body weight on the board. "I thought Lurkers where only the source of fairy tales."

    Nikan chuckled under his breath. "I wouldn't exactly call cannibalistic monsters fairy tale creatures, Zillah."

    "You know what I mean!" In between breaks of the bang bang bang from the hammer, I continued. "Like, they're supposed to be make believe. Something fake. Not something, well, real."

    "A lot of stuff that has happened recently shouldn't be real, but here we are."

    Nikan gestured for me to step back, then took time to admire his handiwork. "Hopefully works as good as it looks."

    The nearby crash of shattering glass alerted Nikan and I.

   "Board the windows," I questioned.

    Nikan shook his head. "They're good enough. Lurker's can't climb, I hope."

    A chill ran up my spine. The hunger induced groans and growls had started to slowly make their way closer and closer to us. Sooner than later, our make shift barrier would be put to the test. We'd either be safe or join the undead army.

    "Maybe it's a virus," Nikan muttered under his voice.

    "Hm?

    "Like what we read in novels, Zillah. Maybe it's a virus that's affecting them. Maybe these zombies are actually the after effects of some vaccine gone wrong?"

    "Don't talk such nosense," I barked. "It couldn't affect the people in this short of time!"

    The growls had be happening days prior. Turns out, it wasn't just wild animals after all. It was a pack of savage, humanoid beasts in search of their next meal.

    "Plus," I mentioned, "no vaccines have been administered ever since the first wave of students came, and that was years ago."

    The word sent a chill through my spine. Students. We were everything but students. We were test subjects, guinea pigs. Students was just the way they disguised their wicked and inhuman morals.

    I couldn't help but to chuckle. First, it was being forced into a system who's main focus was to strip us of our heritage. Next, it was learning how to survive in a human's world while still trying to grasp onto what little of our culture still remained. Now, it was a full on apocalypse.

    Our kind has had nothing short of a few eventful years.

    A loud bang sounded by the door, followed by hellish growls.

    "Upstairs!" Nikan quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me. 

    Alarm bells blazed to life in my head. 

    The lurkers, they're here. 

    "Stay up here," Nikan ordered, "and don't move."

    As he raced back downstairs, I quickly grabbed to his arm. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

    He shook off my grasp. "I don't know how long our barricade will last," he muttered. "Plus, it's only a matter if time before the whole horde comes knockin'."

     "Can't you just stay here? Please," I pleaded, "I already lost Fraiser, I don't want to loose you too!"

    Nikan sighed, the shrieks and growls downstairs growing more intense by the second. 

    "I can help. There's only so much you can do with fire, Nikan. There's so much shadows here, I could take out whole waves of Lurkers."

    "But your shadow magic takes more energy than my fire, Zillah." He started to head down the stairs once again.

    "But Nik-"

    "You're staying here," he shouted from downstairs. "That's an order."

    Watching the horde from the upstairs window, I watched Nikan slip through the small slits of our downstairs window. Before he even fully made it out, the Lurkers lunged for him.

    In one swift motion, Nikan kicked one in the face, sending it tumbling. Nikan's hands became living torches as fire blazed to life on them.

    "Get back," he hollared, lighting up any Lurker who dared to come too close.

    I was witnessing a dystopian before my very eyes. Hell, this whole world with a dystopian. Before the humans came, we lived in beautiful, nature filled utopian society. Then, the second they showed up, the determined we were unfit to govern ourselves and determined that they needed to have authority over us. That's when the dystopian hell started. 

    As I watched Nikan battle for our lives, a a realization dropped to the pit of my stomach. We could be far from making it out of this.

    My brain began to spiral. What would be next? Would they lock us up again? Since they deemed our people lost causes, would they use us to fight this undead war?  Did this undead army signify that the end of the world was near? So much possibilities and thoughts jumped into my head, and I dreaded every single one.

    A scream sounded from below, jolting me out of my brain.

    "Nikan!" I raced downstairs and, as quick as I could, slid through the window.

    Only, the scream didn't come for Nikan. It came from a zombie.

    There Nikan stood, in the middle of the street, with hundreds of dead bodies at his feet, oozing black goo. 

    "We have to leave, Zillah. That scream could have alerted the whole horde, and I don't want to test the strength of anymore Lurkers today."

    I nodded, quickly following behind Nikan.

    No matter where we went, I knew one thing for sure. This nightmare was only just beginning.