The Earth Online

4 Monsters arrive

Kedrick used to be Thaleos’ personal assistant in the psychiatric clinic. He was basically a jack-of-all-trades and helped as much as he could around the office.

His orc-like built usually intimidated a lot of people, but once they discover how much of a gentle giant he was, patients would immediately take a liking to him.

This all-around guy decided to make his own business from scratch and decided to dabble in some questionable deals. Since he was a bastard child of one of the largest mafia dons in Ellis Town, he had the knack for hiding from the government’s radar.

“Bro, I thought you’d never call! What do you have for me?” Kedrick said with his baritone voice.

“Dude, I need you to set us up with some weapons and high-grade military construction materials. You down?”

“You know that I’m always down, brother. I got your location, tell me what type of you need, and we’re good to go.” Kedrick responded with a laugh.

“Something that’d stop aliens and monsters. The best kind.” Thaleos said, which made the other man howl in laughter.

“You still got it in you, T. See you tomorrow.”

They didn’t survive the streets together without shooting one or two people.

~ ~ ~

Haya unrolled one of the blueprints for the military base’s bunkers. He wanted to get everything ready before Kedrick could send his guys over and start the construction.

The two men were currently scouting the barn. They were checking whether the structure was big enough to be a forward operating base — basically, where they can plan out their strategies.

“Yeah, looks big enough to have some bunkers, watchtowers, and some concrete barriers. We just need to —” Before Haya could finish his sentence, suddenly, a knife flew in his direction.

Haya managed to move a millimeter away, leaving just a thin slice on his left cheek.

“Still go it, I see.” A dark-skinned man said as he appeared behind them. Kedrick proceeded to get the dagger stuck on the wall and put his arm around Haya.

“Kedrick Costa, still a d**k, I see.” Haya said as he rolled his eyes and just continued checking the blueprint.

“Haya Keli’l, happy to see you’re unhappy.” The giant-of-a-man responded while laughing.

“Kedrick, I missed you, man. How have you been?” Thaleos was incredibly happy to see his old friend.

“Same as ever, brother. Glad to know my savior is out here planning to save the world.” The gentle giant said with a chuckle.

Kedrick preferred mode of communication were calls and emails, so Thaleos decided to send one long email explaining everything about The Apocalypse.

He wasn’t too worried about security since Kedrick was obsessed with top-tier web encryptions.

“Alright, enough of the pleasantries, we have less than two months to build this military base. You got the material and people?” Haya asked as he was busy writing things down on the blueprint.

“Yep. My people are here, and I got top-tier military construction material. We’re talking about triple-galvanize structural steel and climate-sensitive covers. When I say top grade, I’m talking about the global superpower-top grade.” Kedrick answered as he proceeded to call his workers.

“Thanks for doing this, Kedrick. You and Haya are the only people I could call.”

“No worries, T. You know we all got each other.”

~ ~ ~

For the next week and a half, Kedrick deployed about 40 workers to make the Forward Operating Base. It was amazing to see the large piece of farmland turning into this mini-military home base filled with bunkers and watchtowers.

At the same time, Haya and Thaleos decided to focus on the fields and animals. Since the waterway system seemed to be rotting, Haya decided to team up with one of Kedrick’s engineers to make a more efficient irrigation system.

They made sure that the water was filtered and scheduled to water the crops based on the best timetable and, also, the weather.

Thaleos decided to get busy and build chicken coops and pig pens. He wanted to focus on this task alone since he needed to rebuild his stamina and strength.

“T, we’ve got a problem with the medicinal herbs. They’re at the foot of the mountain and going there every single time to get a bundle of herbs might take us more time and effort needed.”

“Try building a greenhouse for the medicinal herbs. Let’s see if we can control the moisture and heat to properly fit their growing needs,” Thaleos said as he was hammering on a plank of wood.

“Right, why didn’t I think of that? Of course, since those medicinal herbs grow in a specific temperature and climate, we can make our own greenhouse. Thanks, T!”

~ ~ ~

25 Days Before The Apocalypse

“Right over here.” Kedrick said as he appeared right behind Thaleos. He might be a giant, but his movements were still fast and agile.

As soon as Thaleos heard that, he elbowed Kedrick and held his waist to twist him around. The larger man’s body got slammed on the floor, knocking out the air in his lungs.

Kedrick was fast, but so was Thaleos.

“It feels good training like this again. We need to get as strong as possible to make sure that we can easily level up.” The man said as he scratched his beard. His beard was a far cry from his usual five-o-clock shadow since he didn’t have the time to shave anymore.

“We’re doing good, bro. The military base is 65% done, the animals are thriving, and we’re getting stronger.” Kedrick said while still lying on the field. He was sweating pretty hard as they had been training under the heat of the sun for the past five hours now.

“Moderation’s great as well. I think five hours of training a day is good enough.” Thaleos said as he greedily gulped some of the water from his bottle.

Suddenly, he felt another presence in the field that they were in, the presence was non-threatening, but it seemed like it was intentionally hiding.

He immediately threw his water bottle towards the direction of the presence, and then, Haya suddenly jumped out.

“Accurate throw, training seems to be working out great.” Haya appeared to be non-threatening, but when it came to one-on-one combats, the guy was insane. Usually, he’d reserve his energy and won’t go crazy until he feels like it’s the right time.

Kedrick chucked corn at Haya’s direction, in which he responded with throwing it back.

“One day, Keli’l. One day.” The giant jokingly said.

“You wish, Kedrick. Anyways, T, we have a problem.”

~

“Seems like a large wolf or bear bit into the wires.” Thaleos said as he was inspecting the chicken coop that he just finished. The farm animals were placed outside of the military base, so they could be nearer to the river.

“I think that the way they’re positioned right now makes them more vulnerable to other predators.” Haya said as he took out the surviving chickens. Kedrick helped by removing the wires and handing it to Thaleos.

“If that’s a wolf, I think that with this bite size, they’re larger than the usual-sized wolves. I’d say almost twice its size.” Thaleos said as he inspected the large bite patterns.

“I’m thinking of building electric wires around the area just so these larger animals would stay away from our poultry. I’m even playing around with the idea of making a force field.” Haya said as he had this shining look in his eyes.

The dude was absolutely obsessed with building innovative things, which was pretty great for the Melam Military Base.

“Also, the greenhouse’s been pretty awesome. We’ve acquired most of the medicinal herbs at the foot of the mountain, and we’re deciding to expand our search just so we can get more varieties.” Thaleos just nodded his head at the update.

~ ~ ~

A week and a half after, the shepherd told Thaleos that they were losing some sheep. Luna was amazing at herding them, but they’ve lost about seven sheep since a couple of days ago.

Kedrick advised them to install a video surveillance camera just so they could check out the disturbances, Thaleos agreed.

They got a couple of CCTVs installed around the area to watch over the animals and decided to observe them for a couple of nights.

“I am bored out of my mind, there’s literally nothing there.” As soon as Kedrick said the last word, a wolf-like creature with wings flew over the electric fence and swooped right in to take one sheep.

“I-I’m pretty sure that wasn’t an eagle.” Haya said shocked at seeing the beastly creature.

Thaleos took out James’ journal and looked for one of his journal entries about beasts,

Nightmare # 14

October 31

11:46 PM

This is weird. I just woke up from a dream and saw this odd-looking animal or creature? I’m not really sure.

It looked like a wolf but it was as big as a full-grown elk and it had wings? I was watching it carefully observing a smaller animal. It walked quietly, and as soon as the deer dropped its guard, the wolf swooped down and bit its neck.

The odd thing about it, is that it seems like the wolf’s saliva was like acid. The skin on the deer’s neck immediately melted. But as soon as the sun rose, it whimpered and ran away.

These nightmares are getting weirder and weirder. Maybe I should lessen my load next semester in Uni.