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Darkness. Darkness was different to nothingness or the void. The void is a cold emptiness, but also the thin curtain to an entirely different realm of surreality. It's were ancient gods linger, and spectral entities lurk, waiting for some poor soul or doomed planet to pray on. Nothingness is even less, and further away than all else. It's all that does not exist, and beyond the reaches of all dimensions. Darkness, however, is not pleasantly far away. It does not lurk, either. It is always there. It's waiting in the corners of your mind, hiding below your bed. It has a dreadful heat that is cold to your skin yet it boils your blood. It's daemons hunt you. Your own mind turns traitor on you when fallen into the clutches of darkness.

I was lost in darkness. Floating the way your mind does in the middle of a nightmare. I could feel the detachedness from my own body. But right now I wasn't me. I was a consciousness made for this instant of darkness. I was peering into its infinite blackness, that covered your eyes like a blindfold and yet had all the depth of a cathedral. Then I felt my body. It was floating with my mind, numb and paralyzed. I meant to move, but it didn't react. I couldn't feel myself breath. A sensation of suffocation overcame me. I tried to breath in, but my lungs wouldn't obey. Panic seized my mind, but my body remained motionless. My mind screamed out for air. Invisible hands pressed against my throat, below my jaw. My mind struggled, screaming louder. Something stirred in my windpipe. I felt a ragged vibration. Forcing all my terrified will into that sensation, my mind was a white noise in terror of suffocation. Deaths cold hands held my throat, yet my windpipe stirred again and I imagined a damp whimper. It rose, as terror drove me mad. I screamed for all the darkness to hear.

The metro clattered loudly, and cold neon lamps bathed its interior into lifeless light. I was standing in the corridor close to the doors, grasping a handle over my head. My minds panic fled when it faced realities banality. Yet I still felt the cold, choking touch on my throat. Rubbing it with my free hand didn't change that, but eased my mind some more. Despite terror leaving me to feel hotness under my skin I had not broken a sweat. The train clattered on and on, swaying me this way and that. Looking around in the empty wagon I began to wonder where I was going. I couldn't see a thing through the windows. The displays at both ends were broken. Looking a the map above the doors did not yield any clue either, because rust from the ceiling had eaten away all the letters and most of the colored lines. A figure in the window caught my eye. The black panther looked awfully tired and unhealthily thin. His gray trench-coat made him look like one of those lone inspectors in the movies. Smiling to myself I looked down, wondering where I got it from. The shirt and jeans beneath I recognized as mine. I checked the inside and lucky me actually found an ID card. Half expecting to see my own face, I frowned at it. An old jaguar, probably in his sixties, looked at me. But I couldn't read the text. Straining my eyes to make out what this rather new looking card was all about. But it was no use.

Something shuffled by the door to the next wagon. Looking up and through the dirty glass I could make out shapes approaching from the other side. The door slid open and I might have shrieked, had the vague images not already implied disfigurement. Still, the sight was terrifying. A jaguar slowly staggered towards me on shaking legs. His clothes were torn. His back was broken a short way above the hip, so the figure dragged its torso behind. Despite its terrible condition, the dead eyes pierced into mine. Guts were spilling out, the motion doing little to keep scat and blood inside the bowls. My empty stomach churned, trying to wrench in vain. Without looking away, I put the ID card back into the movie-stars trench-coat, and like a sensible hero fled for the door by the other end of the wagon.

I saw the door motors reacting to my approach, while hearing the ragged breath of the thing behind me. It was way too close. I slammed into the door when it was half an inch open, and though it kept sliding it seemed to take forever. I risked a brief glance over my shoulder, and a split-second later forced myself to look forward again. I squeezed through the gap and resumed running. The wagon was as empty as the previous one. Tears ran down my cheeks. I was overwhelmed with panic. What I had seen that moment, glancing over my shoulder, took all my hope. There were too many! The broken jaguar up front, followed by a fox with a torn face, showing skull and gore, and half a chest missing. Then a zebra, just as bloody and mangled, and a wolf, and a lynx, and so many more shambling corpses, each in its own state of dismemberment. The end of the wagon slammed into my face. I clawed at the door madly, my mind trying to stop realizing that this was the last wagon. Through the narrow dirt stained window the rails sped away.

Sobbing wildly I looked around. The rotten mob had caught up half the way already. Somehow they were slower when I didn't look, or just seemed slower than they were while I was looking. My eyes caught a red sign by the window, and some metal tool in a red box. Without thinking I grabbed the hilariously small hammer, smashed the window and jumped right into the passing tunnel walls. For half a heart beat my world turned white as I felt my skeleton shatter.

Then I tore my eyes open, breathing in so sharply it hurt my lungs. Sitting up on the stone floor I began to tap near every part of my body with my hands. I was entirely unhurt. Now I was covered in cold sweat, my heart pounding like a steam hammer into my rip cage. My brain was filled so much with adrenaline my vision swam while I saw stars blinking at me. It took several minutes to catch my breath and calm down to some degree at least. During that time I looked at the old ruin of a train next to me. It looked rejected and left to decompose. Which it must have been for decades. Save for a few broken windows, there was nothing else odd to it. I regained some of my composure and got up. It was pitch black down here, yet my night vision served me well enough to get an idea of everything around me. An underground world colored in grays and blacks. When I was sure I was alone, I slowly walked past the train. But every few paces I had to stop, looking about myself. Closed my eyes, took a few breaths and got going again. Despite everything I saw, I could smell warm oil and hear the faint sizzle of cooling engines coming from the train. Like an echo in my skull the sensation accompanied me.

I knew it wasn't real, the sound, but it still unnerved me. Before my last black out I had entered a subway station in the east of the city. My mind was still fuzzy, I didn't remember what I was going after or where I'd been coming from this time. But I remembered that traveling that way through this damned place just happened sometimes. With my left I reached into my trench-coat and took out a pocket flask taking a deep gulp. The taste was awful. Liquor with a lot of salt. But it did its work. Some people preferred sugar, but sugar only accelerates your system without clearing your mind. My opposite hand reached into the other side of my trench-coat and took out my ID card. I couldn't make out anything, it was but a flat surface in the dark. But I knew it was my face and my name on it, and that comforted me a lot.

I put both things back into my trench-coat and moved on. While my mind cleared, the impression of cooling engines faded into the background without vanishing completely. A good sign nonetheless. It meant I was in the real world and awake. The ID card would also state me an agent of a big company going by the name of JQL.Inc. Someday I was told what the letters stood for, but I had forgotten it instantly then and there. Their facility in this place was working in some electromagnetic fields, researching their psycho-reactive and psycho-suggestive abilities. Ironically I was in fact a sort of inspector. Give an unemployed good for nothing the chance to get paid for roaming the streets and subways all day and night to do nothing but gather data with a receiver and a pen save for some occasional interviews, and he'll sign the contract with a polite smile while laughing himself silly on the way home. I didn't know if I wanted to beat the crap out of that past-me before or after the signing.

The train was far behind me. Reaching one of the subway stations I climbed up the pedestal and look around. Four columns, one of them broken, three black posters in a row and one slightly brighter right next to it. I walked a few steps over the old floor which still stuck like glue to the shoes. Five stations jumped from the depth of my memory which could fit into this profile, two of them seemed likely to be my target. Churchwell Square and Parkdown. Churchwell usually held some provisions by the few survivors that maintained the place to the best of their abilities. But something told me I was heading for Parkdown. A meeting? Something like that, I don't know. My head hurt. Rubbing my forehead I resisted the urge to drink more alcohol and just went to the right, where I supposed the east exit should be. After a trip like this one, you never knew for sure where you ended up. But you might just as well hope for the best.

My employment at JQL.inc was peaceful for a couple of years. I had known little about the things that I actually investigated, neither did I care. Until everything went to hell and took the whole city with it. Once known by the name Lowry City. From then on things went from bad to worse in a rush, and from worse to terror. The haunted ruins could hardly be called a city anymore, yet it was inhabited by survivors. They stuck together as much as greed and famine allowed them to. And a bunch of them even preserved a shady net of organization. Which still goes by the name of JQL.inc. I had found out by chance. All communication by electronic means had broken down. Still we were a people that had gotten very used to written communication, thanks to the Internet, phones and beepers. At least I supposed that was the reason we started leaving notes for one another. Sometimes you'd even find small stacks where people had collected paper and pencil to write and copy whatever they had found out about the horrors. Or where to find shelter and food. No one could remain in one place for long.

Emerging from the underground I saw my instincts had almost been right. It wasn't Parkdown, it was Hardton Alley. And I recollected where I had to go from here, so I went northward, along a street. By the end, if the notes were accurate, I'd find a building with a poster on a westward wall, and the holes in that poster made it look like a creeper from one of those video games. I hadn't played this game myself, but the author was bright enough to sketch a little creepy face next to the note. The way we tried to help one another I wondered why hadn't he just written "looks like a face".

Something crackled behind me. My fur stood up when I noticed how loud it was already. Carefully I looked around. Where ever I faced, the sound remained behind me. Crap. Slurping steps added to that sound, like walking on gravel. Crap. Beginning to move very slowly, I meant to accelerated to get away. Steps meant you had to get running. I was just about to start of in a sprint when I heard the stepping sound had covered a much fainter noise. A whimper, like a wailing girl. Shit! Suddenly I stood still were I was, almost throwing myself over with the force I had already accelerated into. Standing as still as possible, I looked down with closed eyes. Wailers were the worst. I had met only one so far, and hadn't I found a note about them some days prior, I'd be dead as a door nail. Most horrors had the mercy to be overcome by running, but not this one.

The steps came closer. I could hear the crying noise very well now. It was heartbreaking, and creepy. In the middle of the street it was a sound like from a child lost in the sewers, blindly seeking her way out. The air around me grew colder and moist. I could smell waste and rust. The steps came closer. I tugged my tail in, afraid of it touching someone, so real was the sound in the back of my head while to the eye I was just a man standing in the open street. Her soft voice was right behind me. "Hello?" Havens, what a voice! Half a women at least, and in its twisted crackling it was simultaneously dominant and terrified. "Who are you?" I felt her eyes staring down on me. She sobbed. "Why are you ignoring me?" She. Was. At. My. Shoulder. I felt her breast touching me. Fingers of cold bone phased through my clothes, clawed the fur of my back. "I can't see you." She wailed. "Look at me." She was hyperventilating. Her breath rushed around my ear. In my mind I could see her, a face caught in the static white noise of an old TV screen. It was just outlines of her features, empty eye sockets and a feline face. I saw a smile just in the corner of that face. That instant I blocked away the image, thought of anything I could come up with right now. Which happened to be the broken jaguar from my last nightmare, it's guts spilling out, it's dead eyes starring at me with blood lust. She shrieked, her voice piercing my ears. "LOOK AT ME!"

Fingers touched my face, pushing it this way and that. Sharp claws dug at my eye lids, trying to pry them open. The force was but enough to flatten my fur for real, but not enough to overcome my stiff muscles. She shrieked like a banshee. My imaginary mind focused on the shambling corpse from the metro, by lack of time to come up with something nicer. How well I even remembered those maggot eaten kidneys. Her steps sizzled away, just an arms length in front of me. I heard a sound like ripping paper or a roughly closed zipper, while her voice cried out in pain. Hysterical laughter mixed into despair. A body fell to the crackling ground. Her voice grew silent. And with a soft clap in the air, all noise was gone.

Several minutes I just stood there, waiting. Nothing but the wind blew around me. The air was peaceful. When I finally opened my eyes a flood of tears ran down my face. I breathed heavily, half suffocated in my determination to stay frozen. When I relaxed, I fell on my knees, shuddering, crying. My mind was crystal clear, but my heart was beating so hard it hurt. I wish I had a cigarette. Another few minutes and I was able to stand up, somewhat calmed. I brushed the tears off my face and looked at my black furred hand. Imagine you were wearing black gloves all your life, if you don't happen to have the color anyway. You won't see any coffee stain, ever, the cleanness of your hands a matter of guesswork. You by yourself will get the hang of noticing the differences. And only with this hang of things, I was able to notice the blood that had mixed with my tears. The horror had actually managed to open a small cut over my left eye.

Sighing with something that sounded more like a war-cry, I lifted my head and took one step after the other. I had no cigarettes, so I had to keep going.

By the time I saw that creeper face torn in the poster, my heartbeat had normalized and my head didn't feel as if it would explode any moment. My cheek fur was still a little damp, though. It couldn't be helped. Now that I saw the building, I looked about it. There were two entrance ways. Surviving was difficult since you needed shelter from all the material perils just as much as you needed emergency exits. Usually in form of windows or outward swinging doors.

With that in mind, I made my way to the left side of the building, where I could see some rooms in the first level with windows facing onto a very low roof, which again was an easy jump to get on the street. I went for that entrance. One might expect a ghost city to be all in ruins, but actually most of all walls and doors were intact. Explosions are a thing you get in the movies. Usually. I admit that sparks and gas-pipes in direct conjuncture are an exothermic exception to that rule of thumb. Still the interior was either empty or a mess. The entrance hall was clean actually, safe for a layer of dust covering the floor. The staircase was right next to it, which I headed for. I passed a door which was but an inch ajar and peaked through it without stopping my walk. Boxes and small fling cabinets were piled to half its hight. Someone had begun to break them away again from inside, but a dark shadow on the floor behind those boxes, sunken in one corner, told me this one hadn't made it. In the first days many were not aware the horrors could appear anywhere.

The staircase was well lit, thanks to huge windows facing toward the inner courtyard. I didn't want to look there. The door to the first floor was unhinged and placed next to its frame. Slowly approaching I cleared my throat and called loud but carefully. "Hullo?" I stood still, listening. It didn't take long before I heard shuffling from the right corridor, and a thin voice answered mine. "Hello? Who is there?" "My name is John" I answered "I found notes about this place. Are you from JQL.inc?" A moment of silence, but then a figure shot out of the doorway so suddenly I almost jumped. He was a coyote wearing a suit, who looked severely beaten and slumped. "jequl.." he muttered. His eyes looked through me for a moment while his mind wandered. Than he brightened and grinned at me. "Sure! Come on in! I even got coffee." "Awesome." I could not help but cheer, all ruin and lack of electricity momentarily forgotten.

His office was the opposite of his look. Tidy, orderly, clean. The coffee, he told me, was crushed coffee beans he kept in glasses with water over a day and then thinned it to an agreeable taste. So I got thin, cold coffee made of stale water and old beans. At least it took effect. The coyote had introduced himself as Mike. Since then we both were sitting opposed to each other, looking this way and that, thoughtful, waiting. Living on the run and in terror for a while, when you were usually alone, made you forget how conversation works. "So" Mike started at some point. "You're John. You've been working for JQL before, er... " he made a gesture in the air with his plastic spoon, trying to fetch words. "well, before it happened." I wasn't sure if I saw fright or guilt in his eyes. But answered nonetheless. "Yes. I gathered data, sometimes interviewed people. That's it." "Ah". He nodded to himself. "An investigator. OK. So you vaguely understand we were working on electronic fields in Lowry City." It wasn't a question but I nodded anyway. "Good." He continued. "We are still working on it. Somehow. I was only informed that the high-ups are still in charge, that our enterprise aspires to fix whatever happened here and that I was tasked to gather remaining employees. To inform them, you see." I listened quietly. But from here on he seemed to drift into his own thoughts again, nursing his coffee. I did the same, but kept an eye on him. This information was good so far, but what was it really good for? So JQL was working on the electronic fields. Did they suppose they were causing these horrors some how? A strange idea, but one that made a vague sort of sense, considering our neural system is theoretically reactive to electronic fields and creating them as well. However, something told me that wasn't it. That was too easy, too obvious. And also, too questionable. Just this day I had experienced things you could not simply squeeze into that theory of psycho-electronics. So I looked Mike in the eye and said: "There's more. What has JQL.inc really been working on? What caused these horrors? Why broke hell down on this whole city?" My words seemed to shock Mike, but more likely because he wasn't used to be interrupted in his thoughts anymore. He gathered himself, took a sip of coffee. "Well, I see you are a bright one. I myself don't believe things are simple. And I believe there's more than just electronic fields to all of this. But consider: Our organization is still working. We somehow survived this catastrophe!" I interrupted him, snarling. "Doesn't that make it seem more like JQL being in charge of this catastrophe?!" Mike gaped at me. He sunk in his chair, and pondered something. Then he asked. "May I see your ID card?" Shrugging I took it out of my trench-coat and handed it over. Mike look at it and frowned deeply. Something seemed to confuse him. He looked at me with more than a hint of suspicion. I snarled, "What? Don't I look as lively as I used to? It's an old picture, damn it." He frowned at my ID card some more, then put it on the table and crossed his hands on top if it. "Well, John." Something was queer in the way he said my name. "Let's talk about the horrors, yes?" he didn't wait for an answer. "You will have experienced they can do pretty real things to us. And I suppose you have nightmares... and wake up someplace else than were you blacked out. Right?" I nodded slowly. That was unusual. I didn't like to talk about it, but also it didn't seem to be a common thing among the survivors. Well, nightmares were. The part of moving during them wasn't. Mike pondered for a few moments again. "You should see the headquarters." That startled me, and I blinked at him. The HQ? What about business hierarchy? Why would a low executive speak with a CEO or director? Mike seemed to read my thoughts and laughed. "We're not in the peaceful times anymore, John! The HQ is just where we gather our intel, because all of our employees know where to find it. At least the few we still have of JQL." He actually smiled, but only for a second before his face turned serious again. "I'll give you a map with notes. But you must be very careful. The horrors evolve." I'm not sure if he allowed that info to sink in or if time slowed down for me while it did. I'm not stupid, I didn't need to ask how and whatnot. Evolution changes and usually improves things. Which meant hell would get worse for us. "No." I gasped under my breath. Mike nodded solemnly. "Try to keep your mind clear when you encounter something new." He got up and rummaged in a file cabinet behind him. After a moment he went around the table and stood in front of the glassless window. He handed me a stack of papers and a small booklet. "There." He said.

I had just grabbed the stuff when both of us froze. We heard something. A noise like wind went through my skull, very quietly. No, it wasn't quiet. Now that I payed attention some lazy memory of my brain informed me it had been there for a few moments already, slowly growing louder. The crackling accent to the noise was tell tale of a horror. I was still looking into Mikes face by which I could tell he went through the same chain of realizations. Both of us frowned. This sound was new. Right on time, damn it. All this took less than a second. Two decisions were made that moment. Fetching my ID card from the other end of the table I let myself drop from the chair. My arm was hitting the tables edge painfully but I accepted that in trade of reaching cover quickly while also snatching the papers and booklet from Mikes hand. At the same time Mike decided to let go of the papers and jump out of the window. While I was hitting the floor, which did something uncreative as adding injury to injury by bruising my already wrenched shoulder. The wind noise intensified with a couple of rendering sounds. Something soft and warm hit my belly. While the blood from Mikes hand soaked my shirt, more of his body parts dropped to the floor. The winds sound was a mix of a ventilator and a - pun not intended - sharp masculine shriek. I was crawling over the floor, clutching the notes to my chest while I shoved myself away, laying on my back. The table vibrated under an assault of shattering impacts, and soon it too was shred to pieces. I watched in terror. I was allowed to see the thing by the window. Blood, wood splinters, paper shreds and pieces of flesh and fur were all sucked into a localized tornado. At its center the blood drops gathered, painting some invisible surface crimson red. A canine skull was looking about the room. Only now did I realized that below the gale some sort of heavy breathing could be heard. Slowly its bloody face turned to me. While it moved the pieces of flesh glued themselves to the skull. Splinters of wood, metal and bone lined themselves into teeth of a grinning maw. At this point I had reached the entrance, shoving my back up the wall, one hand grabbing behind me madly in wild search of the handle. The skull shrieked. A bloody arm tore a piece of shredding wind out of the tornado. My hand found the handle. A ball of whirling air and tearing pieces was thrown at me. The door opened and I fell backwards into darkness.