David opened the car door with trembling hands and climbed inside. Starting the engine, he slammed the gas pedal and sped onto the empty road.

  The city looked dead. There wasn’t a single person on the streets, only scattered clothes everywhere—as if the entire world had suddenly evaporated. He weaved around abandoned cars without slowing down, his mind refusing to accept what was happening.

  David accelerated and finally left the city. There had to be someone else out there—maybe the people had only disappeared inside the city?

  As he passed the city limits, the road ahead looked empty and endless. But suddenly, without warning, the car crashed into something invisible. There was a deafening impact, the airbags deployed, and David’s world went black.

  David came to the sound of scraping and barking. His head was pounding, and he tasted blood in his mouth. He groaned and tried to focus. Everything around him was white. A moment later, he pushed away the now-deflated airbag—only to receive another surge of adrenaline when he saw what was trying to bite through the windshield.

  An ugly creature, vaguely resembling a dog, but inside-out, with milky eyes that burned with bloodlust.

  David jerked back, then remembered the pistol. His hand darted to the holster, he grabbed the weapon and aimed despite his shaking hands. A shot rang out inside the tight confines of the car, shattering the windshield the monster had failed to bite through. The creature shrieked, twitched, and then collapsed—lifeless.

  Silence. David breathed heavily, trying to process what had just happened. But suddenly, something strange flashed before his eyes—a translucent screen floating in the air displaying:

  David Taylor

  Level: 0

  “What?” he whispered.

  The message dissolved into the air. After spending some time in stunned silence, David climbed out of the car. His eyes immediately landed on the wrecked front of the vehicle. He had crashed into... nothing? But as he approached the front by another meter, he saw a transparent wall—completely invisible until you touched it.

  David turned his gaze to the dead creature. Upon closer inspection, he realized it wasn’t a dog at all. The thing had no skin. Instead, raw muscles pulsed in the open air, still twitching post-mortem.

  “Demonic dog,” he muttered, deciding not to touch it for now.

  His attention returned to the invisible wall stretching into the distance on both sides. Now that he knew it was there, it was much easier to spot where it began. As he looked closely, he noticed a curve... A dome. He was inside a massive transparent dome.

  The idea of a map came naturally. With GPS down, he needed a paper one. He returned to the car—the hood was dented, the windshield shattered from his own shot, but the engine was still running.

  Turning around, David headed back toward the city. On the way, he spotted a gas station. Pulling in and going inside, he found a map, quickly scanned it, and also grabbed and ate a pack of cookies and drank half a bottle of water. While searching for the map, he saw a pile of clothes—left behind by the vanished clerk—but only sighed sadly. He still didn’t understand why he hadn’t "disappeared."

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  After a brief rest, he returned to the dome, ready to determine how far his cage extended.

  Back at the dome, David spread out the map inside the car and marked the point where the barrier began. Then, using the surrounding landmarks, he began to move along the invisible wall, carefully tracking his position.

  The road soon ended, and he had to go off-road. Slowly advancing along the dome’s edge, he periodically stopped, checked the map, and made notes. After a while, he managed to roughly calculate the dome’s radius—it was about fifteen kilometers.

  But it wasn’t the size of the dome that shocked him most. What struck him was that, when he connected the points and marked the center of the dome, it turned out that his own house was at the exact epicenter. David frowned, thinking about this discovery. His home was at the center of the dome—what could that mean?

  “What was special about this location in and of it? An Indian cemetery? An alien base? A cut in the space-time continuum?”

  But his thoughts were interrupted by a strange movement near the dome’s edge. He looked up sharply and saw the outline of another demonic dog slowly emerging from the wall itself.

  His eyes widened. Now he knew where they were coming from. The monsters were literally crawling out of the dome, as if it were a portal.

  At that moment, David remembered the lessons from Dave—his cowboy neighbor. When David had first moved to the state, he was a bit wary of Dave because he always carried a gun, even on his own property. But after inviting Dave over for a barbecue, and impressing him with his steak grilling technique, Dave had declared him a “real Texan.” One weekend, Dave had taken him to a shooting range and taught him how to shoot “properly.” Since then, David had just seen him as a slightly eccentric neighbor.

  David’s heart was pounding, but his hands moved steadily. He raised the pistol, aimed, exhaled, and fired. The first bullet hit the monster’s shoulder, slowing it down—the second hit it right in the head. The demonic dog squealed and collapsed, dead.

  David slowly lowered the weapon, realizing that those training sessions had paid off.

  Thinking it through, he came to a grim conclusion: that dog was far from the last. The monsters would keep coming, and he urgently needed to prepare. He decided to return home. But first...

  He turned and headed for the nearest hardware store. The parking lot was empty, but among the abandoned cars, he noticed a pickup with a trailer. Looking around to make sure there were no dogs—or survivors—he quickly hitched the trailer to his car. There was no time for guilt.

  Inside the store, he began loading the trailer with anything useful: plywood, nails, metal sheets, tools, some food and water—and most importantly—several diesel generators. Once done, he got back in the car and drove home, eyes scanning the road carefully.

  Halfway there, he spotted another demonic dog up ahead. Without hesitation, David floored the gas and aimed the car straight at it. The impact was solid—the beast was flung aside and didn’t move again.

  But at that moment, he felt something strange. A sixth sense told him that some kind of unknown energy had entered his body, leaving a light but noticeable tingling. He hadn’t felt it before—probably because he’d been too panicked—but this time, the kill had been relatively calm (no deafening gunshots), and he noticed the sensation.

  Still shaken, David decided to check what had happened to him. He tried saying aloud: “Status.” Nothing. “State.” Still nothing. He tried different words until he realized—maybe he just had to “think it”.

  As soon as he gave a mental command, a translucent information window appeared. Everything looked the same—Level 0, no new stats—but deep inside, he felt a strange shift. As if something had started to awaken, and he was on the verge of reaching Level 1.

  Closing the status screen, David continued on toward home. Pulling into his driveway, he looked over the house, mentally noting what could be fortified. But before starting any work, he decided to visit his cowboy neighbor. Maybe Dave had something useful.