Path of the Berserker

I was eight years old when the cultivators first arrived.

It was a Friday night, a fun time to relax and chill after a boring week at school. Dad was in the living room with Mom, watching a movie. My older sister, Jess, pretended to be watching the movie with them, sitting the wrong way on the love seat, dangling both legs over the padded armrest as she thumbed away on her cell phone.

I played Minecraft in the adjoining computer room, just out of sight and earshot of the PG-13 movie. That’s why it took me a few extra seconds to realize something was wrong. I was too busy clicking away at blocky pixels to notice the loud beep of the emergency broadcast warning.

It was only when my mother let out an alarming gasp, did I look up and see all three of my family members standing and gawking at the flatscreen on the wall. My heart sped a little as I joined them, confusion turning to apprehension as I entered the living room.

My dad, a plumber by trade who sported a grey-streaked beard and a beer gut, upped the volume on an Asian-American anchorwoman on the news. She was visibly distressed, but clearly doing her best to remain professional as she read from an unseen teleprompter.

“…reports as far as Australia, China, parts of the Middle East. As far as our sources can confirm, this is a global phenomenon we are witnessing.”

“What’s going on?” I asked my mother.

She didn’t respond to me, her hazel eyes wide as they remained glued to the TV.

“Mo—”

“Shut up, Max!” my sister snapped.

Normally I would have snapped right back at her, but something in the way she said it caused me not to. That strange tremble of fear in her voice said to do exactly what she said. So I did. And for the next thirty minutes I stood in dead silence as I watched the end of the world play out on the TV.

The first anomaly detected were the golden pagodas floating in the sky. Minutes of chaos ensued as footage rolled in from TikTok and YouTube stars filming the strange objects. It took them a few minutes more to realize they were not in the sky, but in space.

And getting closer.

White House press secretaries and Department of Defense personnel came on next, blubbering about the sightings, mostly trying to downplay it. That’s when the first of the attacks happened. I can’t recall which country was first. Indonesia? China? It didn’t really matter.

They all folded just the same.

The only thing I truly recall were the images on the TV screen. It was like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. I watched the snow-capped peak of Mount Everest get cleaved off like a watermelon being sliced by a katana. Later I learned that the actual truth wasn’t too far from that.

A shaky image of an aircraft carrier taken from a helicopter, I assumed, came next, depicting a man-sized figure hovering over it, suspended by nothing. It was an old man as far as I could tell, with loose flowing white hair and a matching beard that undulated as if underwater. Robes made of some unknown, sparking material moved in sync with the beard as three golden rings rotated in a circular pattern behind him. Missiles and anti-aircraft guns fired on the old man at point-blank range, only to detonate prematurely as they collided with an unseen barrier expanding several meters around him. After the assault, he raised his hand and huge bolts of purple lightning crackled from the sky, shaking the footage with static as they struck the deck of the carrier. Huge explosions engulfed the vessel and a hundred thousand tons of steel upended and sank into the sea.

Another image caught a woman with cat-like ears, wielding a sword against a battalion of tanks, slicing through them like they were made of Play-Doh. A group of warriors in ancient bronze armor and spears faced off against a company of modern-day soldiers with assault rifles and tactical gear…the warriors won. At one point some country panicked and launched a nuke, I think, but as it detonated the enormous mushroom cloud was consumed by a vacuum, generated from the palm of a bare-chested old man wearing a rusted crown who flew through the sky like a Greek god.

My young mind didn’t know how to make sense of it all, still in that stage of deciphering fact from fiction. They were like superheroes to me, or supervillains, I suppose. I kept waiting for the real superheroes to appear. To arrive at the very last minute and save the day, just like in my comics.

But no heroes came that night and things only got worse.

Reports of strange creatures began to appear. Giant leviathans crawling out of the sea, wildlife mutating and attacking people in the streets. The footage grew more and more graphic as the editors, I assume, gave up and let the reports stream in uncensored in real time. There were ghastly scenes of carnage my young mind couldn’t handle, and I recall my mother pulling me to her chest at one point to shield me from it.

But she couldn’t shield me from the sounds. I can still hear those screams to this day.

Yet strangely it was still all just like a movie to me at the time. Unreal.

Perhaps almost…not real. Or so my young mind sought to protect itself.

Only when I saw the reactions of my family did the reality of the situation finally hit me and my heart began to race. I vaguely remembered my sister crying and my mother desperately trying to console her despite the tears streaking down her own face. My father was as I’d never seen him before. The blue-collar tough guy reduced to a man trembling and fearing for his family’s safety, yet not having the slightest clue as what to do.

He stayed fixed to the TV as if waiting for answers.

Only when the lights flickered and the power cut off, did he finally spring into action.

“Everyone, get to the truck. Grab what you can. Now!”

“What?” my mother cried. “Where the hell are we going to go, Steven?”

“I don’t know!” my father fired back aggressively, but more out of fear than anger, I could tell. He then composed himself a little. “Look, we can’t stay here. We need to get out of the city. Maybe head into the mountains or something.”

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“Steven, it’s November!”

My father ignored her. “Kids, grab your things now. Come on! Move it!”

That’s when I finally began to cry.

The next ten minutes went by in a flurry of sobs, tears, and hasty confusion. By the light of cell phones, we tossed canned goods, sleeping bags, and whatever we could think of into the back of my dad’s plumbing truck parked in the garage. I remember packing my iPad, some comic books, and a stuffed walrus named Sammy that I was growing too old for, but that night, I clung to like he was my very last friend on Earth.

After wrestling the garage door open with no power, we hopped in the truck and my dad gunned it in reverse and onto the street. It’s hard to remember what happened next, because there was a loud bang and my head flew into the side of the car door.

The blaring sound of an unyielding car horn woke me and I realized I must have blacked out for a moment. My head hurt and felt wet when I touched it.

“Mom?”

My mother was there in an instant, already outside the truck, helping me and Jess out of the wreck with tears in her eyes. My sister was screaming and crying almost hysterically, causing me to do the same when I saw blood gushing from her nose, having smashed it into the back of the headrest.

When my mom finally got us out, I saw a convertible had slammed into the back of the truck, spinning us in a 180. My father was outside yelling at the driver, a guy in his 20s that was holding his own head and bleeding while shouting aggressively in my dad’s face.

Fear and pain paralyzed me. All I could do was cry and cling to my mother and sister.

“It’s alright, babies,” she said, trying her best to console us. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

I stared up at her and the vacant, fear-soaked look in her eyes did the opposite of fill me with comfort. I looked past her instead to the night sky beyond. In that odd moment I recall never seeing the stars so vividly before. The entire street was pitch black, with only the sound of sirens filling the cold November air.

Then I saw it.

One of the golden pagodas floating in the sky. It had looked so fake on the TV, but now with my own eyes, it looked both real and unreal. It was small yet huge, looming like a second moon in the sky. The moon itself was also odd-looking, tinted a deep orange-red. Small objects streamed out of the pagoda like a trail of ants and in the sky, shooting stars whipped by like lightning.

The blaring car horn must have alerted something, because the next moment an object the size of a semi-truck dropped violently out of the sky. It decelerated rapidly, stopping just meters before impacting the ground. It was shaped vaguely like a sailing ship, made of what looked to be wood with a mast and sails of stiff, white cloth. A loud humming emitted from several glowing rocks lining the bottom of the hull.

All of us grew silent then, even my dad and the man arguing with him.

My breath caught as a gangplank lowered from the strange craft and visions of all the horrors I’d witnessed flashed through my mind. Two men in black robes trimmed with jade descended the plank, curved scabbards held tightly by their sides. They looked somewhat Asian to me, but darker skinned, like Malaysian perhaps. A woman then followed behind them and as soon as she looked in our direction, my blood froze with an inexplicable fear.

Her face was what you’d think an angel would look like, narrow with elegant features, her skin so pale it was nearly paper white. In the darkness she seemed to produce a light of her own, accentuated by her silvery eyes. Her body was as slender as her face and moved with a grace that made her float more than walk in her silver robes. Her platinum hair was pinned in a top knot and held in place by a small crown of jade and gold.

I could hear only sniffles from my sister as the woman approached us, flanked by the two men with swords and although I could see no sword of her own, something told me she was far more dangerous than the two men with her.

They shared quick glances between themselves, speaking in a clipped language I didn’t understand. Finally, the woman took hold of a small jade bead on her necklace and began speaking into it. While her lips moved, sound came from the bead itself in perfect, accent-less English.

“This One is known as Silver Tear, Seventh Warden and Silver Leaf sect elder, Chief Administrator for Cultural Appropriation of this…” She paused and whispered something to one of the men who whispered something back. “…of this planet formerly known to you as Earth. You are now wards under the protection of her divine majesty, Third Princess Lunalah, Two Hundred and Fifty-Seventh heir to the Imperial Yee Dynasty.”

No one said anything, stupefied by what the woman had just said.

The guy in the car made a sudden break for it, his fight or flight response choosing the latter. He got all of five steps before one of the men literally flashed across the street twenty meters to reach him and stomped him into the tarmac with a swift kick to the back of his thigh. The man cried out, wailing in pain, cursing about his leg being broken.

My sister shuddered against me, whimpering even more. “I want to go home…”

The silver-eyed woman spoke again. “You are mortal savages unfamiliar with our ways. Thus, only due to your tremendous ignorance, shall This One pardon your transgressions for not showing proper respect. This one shall spare your lives, but you will pay for this insult with something else.”

“What?” my dad said. “What are you—”

“Luckily This One has need of what you possess.” She then turned to her subordinate. “Deliver the children to me.”

“What?” my mother screamed. “No!”

Her cries went unheeded as the other man zipped across the distance to us and grabbed both my sister and I by the arm. We screamed and struggled in unison, our feet skidding across the asphalt as he dragged us towards the vessel.

My father let out a primal cry as he rushed the man.

He slammed a fist into the back of the man’s head and suddenly his eyes shot open with pain like he’d just punched a bowling ball. He cursed, grasping his wrist, but that didn’t stop him from trying again. He lunged into the man with a shoulder tackle. My mother joined him, screaming as she thumped the man repeatedly on the back.

“You can’t do this!!” my mother screamed hysterically. “Max! Jessie!”

The man finally pushed them both aside with a gentle sweep of his arm that somehow threw them back ten meters across the road, slamming them forcefully into the side of the truck. It was Jess and I’s turn to cry out now, wailing for our parents. They stirred slowly, stumbling to get back on their feet, but both clearly had broken bones or more.

“Mom! Dad!”

My vision blurred as I cried uncontrollably, tears filling my open mouth with salt. Just as we were being dragged up the gangplank the silver-eyed woman stopped and gripped my sister forcefully by the chin to stare directly into her bloodied face.

“Not this one,” the woman said. “Too old. She will remember too much. Never learn our ways. Leave her.”

The woman stared into my face next and pinched her slender brows together curiously. “How old are you, boy?”

I’d always been small for my age, but I prayed that somehow, just this once I’d look older than I was. I steeled myself, purposefully trying to hold back my sobs.

“Twelve,” I said.

The woman smirked, amused. “Clever, but not very wise. You barely look half that age. You’d have been better off saying seven. Even then you’d be too old.”

“Wait!” I shouted. “I’m eight! I’m really eight!”

She chuckled. “This one has spirit. Take him. He may have potential to assimilate even at his age.”

“No!” I cried.

My sister screamed, reaching out for me as they pushed her down the gangplank. “Max!”

Our fingers barely touched before they pulled us apart. I screamed my lungs out, crying for my sister and my parents. As the gangplank raised my father made a desperate last attempt to rush the boat. He got halfway up the gangplank just a few feet from the silver-eyed woman, fist cocked with a punch. In a flash, one of the men jabbed him lightly in the stomach with his scabbard, causing my father to keel over with blood leaking from his mouth.

“Daddy!”

My sister and mother rushed to his side, cradling him as he wheezed in pain on the ground.

“Shall I kill him for attempting to lay hands on you, Lady Silver Tear?”

The man’s words caused my heart to stop. I looked desperately up at the woman’s cold, steely eyes.

“No,” she said finally before gazing at the sky. “The Bloodmoon is nearly formed. The aberrations shall come to devour them soon enough.”

I didn’t know what that word meant but images of those frightful monsters came to my mind and I began to wail uncontrollably. “No! Please, no! Don’t leave them! Mommy! Daddy! Jessie!”

“This One will waste no more time here,” Silver Tear said as she turned her back to me to depart. “Go.”

With that, the gangplank was secured and the craft began to rise. I dashed to the side of the boat, screaming over the railing for my parents and sister, my stomach sick, my mind filling with the horrors of what would soon happen to them.

I cried out for them futilely, their figures growing smaller and smaller in the darkness as the screeches of monsters began to fill the night.