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They came out of nowhere all of a sudden. Unremarkable and unassuming.
No one knew about them until it was too late.
There wasn’t time for humankind to even give them a name...so they were just called, “The Monsters.”
I scoured all I could on them through the database of knowledge that was in the hidden wing of the Shelter. No one seemed to know what they were.
Thousands of accounts and filmed footage pulled up when I did a search for them. Taken from people’s own cameras and posted through social postings. People running frantically through the streets as though something terrifying was chasing them.
When the people stopped running, they stood still as though in a trance. The next thing they all did was cover their ears, close their eyes, and sink to the ground, huddling and shaking with fear before letting out a blood-curdling scream right before they die, frozen with that face in utter terror.
It reminded me of the painting called “The Scream” by Evard Munch painted in 1893 which portrayed a man or a woman, you couldn’t tell which, holding their elongated wavy head with both hands, while screaming as though their very soul was dying.
The sky and air around the screaming victim seem to twist and turn into waves as the victim is engulfed in agonizing pain and fear. As though they had witnessed the gulfing flames of hell and had died of fright.
Evard Munch’s own poem describing his painting reaffirmed my suspicion about this:
"I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature." - Edvard Munch
But this was something else more terrifying. The Monsters were attacking people with this wave of fear in masses. Like a horrible unspeakably evil storm, waves of people were engulfed in this terror, unable to escape, until it was too late.
The darkness covered the Earth. The only glimpse of light was the blood red of the flames underneath the dark clouds from explosions that came with unattended fires running rampant, caused by accidents.
“Mom?” I asked while helping her make dinner. “I can’t see the Monsters from any footage people took of them. It’s like where they are supposed to be, there is only a wavy blurred image. Can they be seen?”
“Not with the human eye, Evie,” Mom said. “That is why they are so formidable. We can’t see them.”
I shuddered. A cold chill went down my spine. “Then how are we supposed to fight them? How did Dad tried to fight them?”
“Ever since we were attacked at New Earth,” Mom said. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. We knew a little bit about them before building the Shelter. We also knew a little about them before we tried to colonize New Earth. The Monsters travel like the wind, appearing suddenly out of nowhere, and feeding off people’s fears, destroying them with their own worst fears.”
“We fight them psychologically,” I said.
“Yes,” Mom said. “By being strong and grounded in something more powerful and stronger than they are.”
“How did Dad tried to fight them?” I asked.
“He helped build the Shelter. We knew we had to block the Monsters from feeding into our fears.”
“Mom, doesn’t fear and other emotions, come from the brain?”
“Yes,” Mom said. “And that’s how we triggered the security measures for the Shelter.”
She showed me how it worked and where it was around the Shelter.
“There is another thing you should know about The Monsters, which I realized your father knew, but the rest of us didn’t. They can evolve. Change shapes. When they solidify, we might be able to fight them then. So...”
We hit the martial arts gym Mom had set up. Instead of the usual mats and wrestling gear, now there were spears, archery, and other weapons. “What’s this for?” I asked.
“For when they solidify so we can take them down,” Mom said, gritting her teeth. “Because no matter how big they are; we will never go down without a fight.”