Alex wakes up in a cold sweat. His breathing his heavy and his eyes still feel heavy as he looks at the window nervously. He gets up and slowly walks towards the window.

Nothing.

He sees nothing.

Alex sighs as he rubs his face. He looks down at the ground. 'Maybe I'm just seeing things after all?'

Alex turns to his alarm clock. It's 5:30. He then turns to his closet.

———

He looks at the school through the car window. "Sweetie, what's wrong?" His mother asks. Alex turns his head towards his mother. He sees worry in her eyes, but also a small glint of hope. He sighs once again.

"It's nothing mother. Love you." Alex mumbles out as he quickly opens the door. He barely hears her say love you back as he all but slams the door. His tired looking eyes stare down the school as he walks towards the building doors.

———

Alex is in Mr. Charles once again. He tries to pay attention, but his eyes feel so heavy. He feels like he's about to all asleep at any moment.

He feels something hit his head. He looks around and sees Greg holding a container full of pencils of all things. "What's wrong Lard? Crying like a little bitch too much to get enough sleep?" Greg smiles smugly. Alex simply sighs.

That is when everyone in the classroom hears something. At first it sounded like someone- no, something breathing heavily. After a minute, it turns into the unholy combination of a bird and a bleeding woman yelling at the same time.

"What the hell is that?" Mr. Charles asks out loud as he walks to the classroom door. He quickly opens it slightly to poke his head out.

Just as quickly, something from the halls jumps out and pounces onto Mr. Charles, pining him to the ground. The students look on in shock and horror at the unholy union of a bird and a woman bites down on their teacher's throat.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Mr. Charles screams out as his throat was ripped away from him. Blood started going everywhere, including on students.

That's when everyone screamed.

———

"What the hell was that?" Ethan said as he stands outside the school skipping class and smoking a cigarette. His back is up again one of the many walls, relaxed.

"You look so beautiful!" Ethan hears an older woman's voice from the right side of the part of the building he's at. He walks towards it, confused.

"I swear if it's another teacher cheating with a teacher-" Ethan stops dead in his tracks. He sees something that shouldn't be real, but is very, very real.

He sees the back side of a woman with snakes for hair and a snake tail looking down at a terrified football jock. Veins grow and stretch on the sides of her head as she stares down the at the jock. Just like that, the football jock turned to stone.

"Oh hell no!" Ethan says as he runs back inside the school.

———

Alex looks on in fear and disbelief. "I-It's a h-harpy. Is a harpy!" Alex yells out. Some students look at him in shock. Others look at him in confusion, wondering what he was talking about.

The harpy turns her head to him and surprises everyone by laughing. "Hahahahhahaha! So, you know what I am boy." The harpy says as she starts crawling towards him. "Let's see if that will stop me from devouring you!" She starts flying towards him.

Alex quickly picks up the thrown pencil and, without thinking, stabs the harpy in the chest. "Cah! You damn human!"

"Everybody, run!" Alex yells out as he grabs one of the clawed feet of the harpy with his other hand. Nearly all the students run out of the classroom, with the exception of one.

The dark clothed student that warned Alex yesterday quickly picks up a pencil of her own and runs up behind the harpy. She quickly stabs it in the throat.

"Ca-Cah! Cah!" The harpy tries to yell out as the student pulls out the pencil, getting sputtering blood everywhere. The harpy quickly falls to the ground limp.

Alex stares at the student with wide eyes. "Thanks... uhm."

"Name's Ava Coffey, now let's go!" Ava says as she runs out of the classroom. Alex quickly follows.

What they see in the hallway is a circus from hell. Students running in every direction possible. Blood is everywhere, either in splotches or still spraying. Mythical creatures walking around and killing everything they see.

"Harpies, Minotaurs, manti-" Alex's panic is temporarily stopped by Ava pulling his hand and running out of there.

"Listen Alex, we're getting out of here. We will survive!" Ava says as they quickly run towards a door to the outside, ducking and dodging every attempt on their lives by these now real creatures and their claws, tails, and teeth.

They quickly push the door open and run outside. They instantly realize it's not much better out here compared to the school. Even more creatures are roaming around and killing out here. Even worse, it seems even nature is helping the creatures. Tree branches extend and stab multiple people. Grass wraps around and traps others running. Some of the leafs even seem razor sharp as they fall down and cuts down several.

They turn their heads right when they hear particular high pitched screaming. They see Greg, the resident bully of the school, get lighted up from the ground by the feet of a gigantic bird. He is quickly flown up into the sky, disappearing from view.

Alex's fear and panic resurfaces as his breath becomes more heavy. "This isn't real. This isn't real. This isn't real!"

"Sn-Snap out of it!" Ava yells at him, with some of her own fear surfacing up as well. She runs to towards the cars, dragging him with her. They run towards a blue van, the nearest vehicle. That's when are stopped by a skeleton with glowing red eyes. Ava and Alex look at it fearfully as it holds up a sword at them.

Suddenly, a loud cracking sound fills the air. They see Ethan slamming a baseball bat into the head of the skeleton. The skeleton falls down to the ground as Ethan looks at them with a self satisfying smirk.

Ava shakes off her shock. "In the van!" She says loudly. The three teens quickly hop in the van and find the driver, a woman with dyed blue hair in a ponytail, sleeping in her seat.

Ethan, sitting in the passenger seat, quickly shakes her awake. "Drive bitch! Drive!"

"What?" She sleepily says. She then notices all the creatures outside. "Oh! It started? Oh... it's a lot more violent than I thought it would be." She says nonchalantly as she starts the van and quickly drives out of the parking lot, seemingly not even worried about the creatures or the three teens suddenly in her van.

"Uhm... what do you mean it started? Did y-you know this was gonna happen?" Alex asks, wondering who the hell is this woman.

"Well, I had my suspicions that something weird was happening." The woman explains as they enter the main road. "I've been hearing about unexplainable disappearance, strange murders, and tragedies happening for seemingly no reason. No one in the media was talking about it, and nobody else I knew, knew about any of it. Fortunately, that is when I meant my partner behind you two." The woman says as she points her thumb at something behind Alex and Ava. The two turn to see a bundle of messy covers on a mat.

"Speaking of which, Mason! Wake up! It happened and it's a lot more violent than we thought it would be!" The woman yells out. The covers move and are pushed away to reveal a homeless looking man wearing torn clothes and a red stained up hat. He glares at the woman.

"No Grace, YOU thought it would be less violent. I tried to warm ya to bring some nice and good slicers, bangers, and shooters! But NO! That was too much work for ya!"

The woman, Grace, rolled her eyes. "Just put a sock in it. I was wrong, ok? Let's just leave it at that. Let's just go get our equipment, ok? Good."She says as they continue driving down the road, dodging abandoned cars. The man, Mason, shakes

Alex feels his anger rising up at the woman. He was about to yell out for her to give a full explanation. That is until a sudden realization comes over him as he goes wide eyed. "My mom, she's at the university! She's at her job! I-I need to go save her!" Alex starts to feel his panic rise again.

Grace cringes a bit before putting back on her neutral face. "Guess we know where to go to next. Any objections?" No one said anything. "Ok, sounds good." Grace starts to drive faster.