Devil's Apocalypse

The four humans managed to get back to the camp without any additional problems. When John first noticed that three quarters of his arm was missing, he had gone chalk white, but, other than that, his reaction was quite good.

It seemed that when, whatever it was, took his arm, it also disfigured the mystic armour covering his arm, causing it to mostly cover the flesh and resist whatever corruption permeated the air.

Though after they got to camp, they enquired if any others had left the fog and made it here, but the answer wasn't good. Other than the 4 of them, no one had come back.

"...That essentially concludes what happened." Michael said to the expedition leader after all of the survivors, barring John, who went to get medical treatment, met in his tent to discuss the events.

"Hmm, so some unknown creature lurks in the fog. Considering the fact that even the stronger personnel that were with you didn't escape, then it can be deduced that this, 'distorted black figure', has, at the very least, a combat power that can match up to combatants who have classed up 3 times. You also mentioned that your companion was injured by it."

"Yes, his arm disappeared."

"Can you be a bit more specific please."

"There's not much more I can really say, all that is left of his left arm is a few centimeters of his upper arm connecting to his shoulder, everything else is just… gone. From the initial glimpse I got, I was shocked that he hadn't bled out, in fact, it seemed that the injury wasn't bleeding at all."

"Interesting, I'll go and talk to him after he finishes getting checked up. If there is nothing else, then you are free to go. We'll organise what we're going to do about the exploration of the crater tomorrow."

After that, the three of them left the leader to his own thoughts and planning as they quietly walked to the tent where John was.

Walking in, they saw him sitting on a bed with a bandage wrapped around his arm, what remained of it. He was putting on his boots and clearly had the intention of getting up and walking around.

"Are you meant to be walking around?" Enquired Michael as he observed John, who had looked up to watch them approach.

"Neither the doctors nor priests can find anything wrong with me, apart from the obvious of course, so there is no reason to stay. By the way, new guy, I don't think we've been formally introduced, what with the mad running and trying to survive." John replied in a light hearted manner, showing that he is, in fact, mostly ok.

"I'm Tycheros, though most just call me Ty, I'm sorry about what happened to you."

"Why are you sorry? Just be glad we're all alive, it's more than what others got."

The four of them left the tent together and walked around the camp while discussing the horrible events that took place, but despite the people that died, they weren't exactly traumatized due to all the death they'd witnessed since the apocalypse began.

John and his team members said their goodbyes to Tycheros, as they had different tents, once the sun started to dip below the horizon, and, gradually, the activity in the camp slowed down as everyone went to their designated sleeping locations.

Lying down, John considered his future possibilities as fighting would now be more difficult without both of his arms, but after considerations, there wasn't really anything he could do about it, so he decided to just do what he must.

Closing his eyes, John entered a light sleep.

"Welcome..." A whisper could be heard, indistinguishable, but existent.

John's eyes sprang open as the ethereal, grating noise echoed in his eardrums and slowly faded. He rapidly looked around the space as he sat up and pushed the covers off of his body with one hand.

"Damn, must be still sleepy." He muttered as he saw a thin, grey vale hovering over the world.

However, after watching for a few seconds, the vail didn't go away, instead, it seemed to get denser.

"What the heck is this?" John asked noone in particular as he looked around the tent and his eyes landed on the tent flap, which seemed to have a slight, greyish mist, or fog, slowly seeping through the gaps.

Standing up, John walked over to the flap and unzipped it before pushing it aside so he could see the camp, however, once he did, a large amount of the fog blew in, completely filling the tent space.

But even though the fog was dense, he could still see quite a distance in front of him, he could still see the person in front of him.

Someone facing away from him and wearing the strange hazmat suit designed to resist the dark mana.

"Hey, do you know what this strange fog is? Also, why are you wearing one of the protection suits?" John asked as he took a few steps closer to the person.

However the person didn't respond, and John suddenly noticed a large tear in the side of the suit, and warning bells started going off inside his head.

"I think your suit is broken, why are you still wearing it?"

John no longer walked towards the person, and instead started backing away, when the person suddenly started turning around to face him, and he saw a glimpse of a shattered mask and a misty black substance radiating out.

John's head flared with pain as he looked at where the person, the thing, should've been, which he instinctively knew shouldn't exist.

"...John..."

John leapt out of his bed as sweat poured from every pore of his body. He rapidly surveyed his surroundings as his eyes couldn't take in enough of everything at once while his rapid breathing slowly became calm.

"Hey John, you alright?" Asked Michael who was woken up by his sudden burst of movement.

John didn't answer as he quickly approached the tent flap which was still closed, just as it was before the three of them went to bed.

He opened the entrance and walked out to survey the makeshift base, illuminated by the early morning sun, and he watched some people going about their business.

"Hey, John, you okay?" Asked Michael who had followed John out.

"Yeah, yeah, just a strange dream.." John replied, still gazing out over the camp, not even sure what he himself was looking at.