Chapter 1

Rex was just sitting on his balcony when space was ripped apart and millions of orbs were launched from a tear in the cosmos. Some raced across the sky and away from Earth but most made a mad dash to Earth’s surface. One massive orb seemed to go far to the southeast, landing somewhere in the Yukon. However, one flew right over Rex’s apartment and seemed to go directly into his parents neighborhood. He rushed for his keys and hopped on his motorcycle and directly to his folks place.

His dark hair whipped behind him as he flew down the highway. His motorcycle roaring away while his heart raced with worry. He exited the highway and made his way towards their neighborhood and saw something strange. Strange people were just wandering the streets in a daze. They were dressed in an unknown and ratty attire as they made their way aimlessly through the neighborhood. Their skin was oddly pale and none of them, that Rex saw, had any hair.

Not only did they wear strange clothing but he didn't recognize anyone either. His parents had lived here the entire time he had been with them making it the better part of 25 years. He should recognize at least one person you would think.

As Rex rode past, some of these people looked his way and lunged but, quickly realized he was moving too fast.

He rounded a turn that led towards the park near his parents house. When Rex passed this park, he looked to see if he could find some normalcy but what he found was anything but normal. Bodies were littered through out the park and the weird pale people were haphazardly patrolling the area. Even worse, some of the people were squatted by some of the bodies and looked like they were gnawing on them.

Rex felt something hot rising in his chest, his fear for his parents began to morph into something else. He knew this park was huge. The section nearest the road was a children's park with equipment to run around on. Most of the bodies were in fact children. However, worse still was he could see a glow in the distance the same dark, sickly green of the orbs that plummeted from the sky.

There were miles of trails and trees beyond the roadside play area. Who knew how many people and bodies were out there, rotting. Rex sped up, more rage building in his chest with every rumble of his bike.

He took one last turn before he was able to see the house. From a distance it seemed normal, there even less pale strangers wandering around. When he pulled up to their house and he saw that the front door was barricaded, stopping him from going in the front door but the window was smashed in.

Before he tried to go in through the window, he went around the side of the house to go through the gate and see if the back was open. If it was locked, Rex was confident in his ability to kick down a door, regardless of his wiry frame.

He reached the back door and found it was locked but not barricaded. After a few tries he finally kicked in the door. The frame was damaged but the door itself was fine. The backdoor took him into the kitchen, which looked untouched.

"Ma? Dad? You here?" Rex called but heard no response. He slowly crept through the house and peeked around the corner to look towards the front door where the couch was situated. Rex felt strange that the house so normal, aside from the furniture moved to block the front door.

He saw an extremely dark green substance stuck to the broken window which turned into a trail leading up the stairs to Rex's right. He felt worse about the house now.

Rex's eyebrows furrowed and he tried his best to make his way silently up the stairs. He followed the trail which led to his parents bedroom where their door was broken through and covered in the same viscous green fluid. He rushed towards the door and charged right into one of the strange people that was itself running out of the room at the same time, covered in red blood.

Rex was much heavier than this thing and the pair barreled in the room, falling over each other. The bloodied man made a horrifying sound that was a mix of an angry bulled and howling winds. He had no eyes but glowing embers of neon yellow. One of his hands had long hard nails on and three thick fingers on the other. It's skin was oddly smooth and almost white with gaseous looking veins flowing under its skin. It's clothes were ripped on this chest and he was slow leaking the fluid Rex had seen on the way to this room.

It swiped at the shocked Rex, causing him to stumble backwards and land on something hard and wet. He shoved the man back with his feet as he reached around desperately to find something to fight it with. His hand found something sturdy and swung it as hard as he could at the feral man thing. Rex's newly discovered weapon clobbered the head of the man and it crumpled to the ground. Rex quickly got up and swung his club onto the downed man, insuring the thing was actually dead.

Finally able to relax a bit, Rex looked down to appreciate his weapon of choice. It was a bloody femur. Horrified, he dropped it and almost retched. That's when he finally noticed that what he landed on before was a gory set of skeletons, barely held together by scraps of flesh and tattered clothes.

His parents, unable to defend themselves in their old age, died to that crazed person. Tears began to well in Rex's eyes but before they could fully form his mood switched. He stared at what was left of the people that took in an abandoned child, well past their age to bear one of their own.

He let out a roar of grief and anger, not knowing what else to do. He felt helpless. He felt he should have been there. He could have saved them right?

Rex let out a quick gasp and looked at the pale body of his assailant.

Are all the people he saw on the way here like this one? Were they the ones that killed all those kids in the park?

His heart began to boil, rage rushing through his body. He stomped and punched the body of his parent's murderer, smashing and splattering it's innards all around the room. The violence felt good. Tears finally began to stream down his face as he continued to smash the thing. How had this happened? Was it a drug? The orbs that crashed, did they carry some sort of disease that caused people to turn into cannibals. Was it affecting him, is that why he was so angry?

As many theories ran through his head, Rex saw a mist of the same color as the sludge coming from the pale man rise from the corpse. The fluid, its flesh and bones all began to evaporate, leaving nothing behind but Rex, his parent's defaced bodies.

And Rage.

Rex didn't know what was happening. He was never prone to anger, particularly of this intensity. He wanted to be sad, to mourn their passing but all he he felt he could do now was break something. He felt justified in his anger but it began to overwhelm him. His sorry receded and fear was a distant thing. His hands began to tremble as he looked at his parent's bodies. He didn't want to leave them there but there were so many of those people out there.

Where would be take their bodies? Would the sounds of digging outside attract those madmen?

No, he couldn't take them anywhere. He would leave them here for now and try to figure out what was going on.

He said a short prayer through gritted teeth, went downstairs and began to smash everything in the house.

His rage had consumed him.