What Fell From The Sky

CHAPTER 1

“It’s raining cats and dogs,” Isaiah muttered, eyes locked on the living room window.

Trent, Isaiah’s friend, popped open a soda can from the fridge. “Is there a storm or somethin’?”

Suddenly—THUD. Then another. THUD. Something slammed against the roof, the whole house groaning from the impact. The walls creaked and shuddered, the floor vibrating as if an earthquake were directly underneath them.

Trent turned to the window, and froze mid-sip. The soda can slipped from his fingers, dropping to the floor.

“What the hell…” he whispered, staring wide-eyed at the chaotic view outside.

Dogs and cats were falling from the sky in a violent downpour. Animals slammed into the pavement, rooftops, parked cars, as they screeched, and yelped. A gruesome splatter painted the window red. 

“Jesus Christ,” Isaiah breathed, frozen in place. His heart pounded, then, the lights flickered once. Then again. Then, the power was out.

Total darkness filled the room. The only illumination came from the cloudy sky outside, revealing mangled animals falling from the sky.

“Bloody hell… what is happening?” Isaiah stumbled into the coffee table. “This—this isn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t even possible. Holy, I think I lost my balls.”

“Damn. Power’s off.” Trent pressed his face to the glass. His hands trembled. “There’s… there’s so many of them…”

Outside, hell was arising. Car alarms blared in the distance. Neighbors stood under porches, watching the impossible rain of pets. Across the street, a cat slammed into a roof and ripped through the shingles.

“Holy shit,” Trent whispered. “This is not real.”

Isaiah slapped his own face—hard. “This is a dream. This is a dream. This has to be a fucking dream…”

CRASH! Glass exploded behind them. A cat smashed through the kitchen window, its body tumbling across the floor, ragdolled by impact. Shards of glass sprayed through the air.

“Fudge!” Isaiah shouted, ducking. He scrambled to his feet and dove toward the kitchen, grabbing a thick cutting board from the kitchen counter. “Trent, tape! Get me the tape from the drawer next to the TV! It’s in a case!”

Trent didn’t hesitate. He sprinted, flung the drawer open, yanked out the case, and popped it open mid-run. The tape was in there—duct tape, the thick construction kind. He grabbed it and bolted back.

“I’m gonna hold this up, just tape it down!” Isaiah slammed the cutting board over the broken frame, pressing it tight.

Trent ripped strips of tape and slapped them down in jagged angles, sealing the board in place. “Done! Not that perfect though.” he gasped, tossing the roll aside. He fumbled for his phone. “Shit. No bars. No Wi-Fi. Nothing. Hopefully our parents are fine.”

They stood there, quiet for a moment. The storm hadn’t stopped. Outside, dogs and cats continued to fall, wrecking cars, flattening mailboxes, crashing into tree tops and fences. Isaiah sank to the floor, back pressed against the wall. “I have no idea what’s going on. Maybe it’s a tornado. Maybe a freak phenomenon. Or—hell—I don’t know, maybe cats and dogs can fly, but they then lost their wings? I dunno man.”

Glancing back at the kitchen, Isaiah muttered to himself, then yanked on a pair of work gloves. He bent down to pick up the dead cat on the floor. It was limp. Still warm. Broken bones poked out through its fur. He gagged and quickly dropped it into the trash can. “This is so nasty.”

Trent stood still, paralyzed by the stench, the sounds, the surrealism of it all. Then he stepped forward.

“I’ll help—”

WHAM!

A massive Saint Bernard came barreling through the window like a cannonball, shattering the taped board, splintering the frame, and launching both boys off their feet. The impact slammed them into the floor and wall, wind knocked out of them.

Trent groaned, barely conscious. “What the… what the fuck just hit us…”

Isaiah rolled over, head spinning, glass in his arm, trying to process the pain, the chaos. His ears rang. He blinked, trying to see.

The dog, massive, injured, but still moving, dragged itself across the floor. It growled, low and feral, one leg shattered but its eyes still wild with instinct and confusion.

Isaiah’s body screamed in protest, but adrenaline kicked in. He reached for a weapon nearby, anything. Trent crawled toward the counter, blood trickling from his eyebrow. “We—we have to get out of here. We can’t stay.”

The Saint Bernard snarled and weakly stepped toward the trash can.

Isaiah found a cast-iron pan on the floor and gripped it with both hands. His voice trembled, but he said it anyway, “Holy cow, think the sky’s trying to kill us.”

“Hey doggie, chill out, chill out, ch-” The dog lunged at Trent, slamming him to the floor. Trent yelled, wrestling the dog off of him. 

Isaiah tightened his grip on the pan, braced himself, then rammed the pan into the dog’s head. 

Isaiah tightened his grip on the pan, braced himself, and swung with everything he had. The cast iron connected with the Saint Bernard’s skull with a heavy THUNK, the sound dull and sickening.

The dog yelped—loud and sharp—before collapsing beside Trent, panting in pain, barely conscious but no longer a threat. The dog rolled over, sprawled over the floor, lifeless like a rock.

Isaiah dropped the pan with a clang, breath ragged. “You okay?!”

Trent lay flat on the floor, chest heaving, a fresh gash on his cheek. “I just got tackled by a flying Saint Bernard. Do I look okay?”

“Fair. Did you get bit or anything?” Isaiah wiped sweat, and blood from his arm. “We can’t stay here. The windows are busted. The house is gonna fall apart if this keeps up.”

Outside, the storm hadn’t let up. Cats and dogs still poured from the heavens, some yelping mid-air, others already lifeless before hitting the ground. But now there was something else: a flicker of orange light in the distance. Fire.

“Man, can we have a break?” Isaiah stumbled to the window, peeked through a crack between the boards. A house down the street was in flames, roof caved in, animals scattered across the lawn. “This is spreading,” Isaiah muttered. “Fast.”

“We need to leave.” Trent stood, holding his side. “We need supplies, water, backup batteries, something.”

Isaiah nodded. “And weapons. I’m not going anywhere without something to swing. If we encounter another psychopathic dog, we cooked for.”

They rushed into the hallway. The house groaned again, another heavy hit from above. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling.

“Grab flashlights. I’ll get the emergency bag,” Isaiah said, about to sprint into the garage, but was then hit by a cat. He cursed, then ran into the garage.

Trent ducked into a closet, pulling out a flashlight, a crowbar, and a bike helmet. “This is officially the weirdest apocalypse ever,” he muttered.

From the garage, Isaiah returned, lugging a gray hiking pack. “Food, water, med kit, knives, batteries… everything. Let’s go out the back. The front yard looks like a zoo massacre.”

They crept to the back door, listening to the deafening thumps from the sky. The backyard was worse. Animal bodies blanketed the grass, some twitching, others already dead. A small poodle was stuck in a bush, yipping weakly.

Trent held up the crowbar. “We help it, or move?”

Isaiah hesitated. Then nodded. “Fast.”

Trent jogged over and gently untangled the terrified creature. It trembled in his arms. “You’re lucky we’re not heartless.”

Suddenly, a deafening boom echoed across the sky. A car exploded at the end of the block, it had been struck by a German Shepherd the size of a microwave oven. “Holy fuck…”

Isaiah pulled Trent by the sleeve, then gritted his teeth. “Let’s go. That’s our cue.”

They slipped through the back gate, crouching low, weaving between wrecked fences and battered sheds. Every step led them to animal corpses, shattered windshields, and worst of all, broken power lines.

As they ran, one thought kept pulsing in Isaiah’s mind: “The sky was broken. Something up there had changed. Something worse was coming.”

As they disappeared down an alley behind the burning house, Isaiah ripped a near broken branch in there way.“We need answers. And I don’t think we’re gonna like them.”

CHAPTER 2

“Where are we going?” Trent took an apple from his pocket and took a bite out of it.

Isaiah scanned the alley, keeping low. “Toward middle school. It’s got a basement and solar panels. My mom said it was built as an emergency shelter years ago.”

Trent raised an eyebrow. “Hmmmm. You think anyone’s already there?”

“I hope not, we got limited space and resources.” Isaiah muttered. “But if people are there, at least that means they’re alive.”

Another howl echoed through the neighborhood, this time closer. It wasn’t human, but it wasn’t quite an animal either. It was wrong—distorted, like a dog gargling glass.

Trent froze mid-chew. “Okay… I don’t like that. At all.”

Isaiah motioned for him to stay low. As they rounded the corner, Isaiah put up his hand, stopping Trent in his tracks. Isaiah pointed. Up ahead, just beyond the chain-link fence near the old community garden, something was moving. “Is that… is that a person?” Trent whispered.

“No,” Isaiah breathed. “Look at the limbs.”

They crouched behind an overturned lawn chair. The figure under the streetlamp shifted again. It had fur—but not in any recognizable pattern. Its spine twisted unnaturally, ribs almost pushing through its skin. It had the face of a bulldog and the body of… something else.

Trent gagged. “Dude. That’s not a dog. That’s a mistake.”

Isaiah didn’t respond. He watched, eyes narrowing.

The creature sniffed the air, then snapped its head toward them fast.

“Run,” Isaiah turned around and bolted away, Trent at his side.

Behind them, the creature made an odd noise and gave chase, its limbs scraping the ground as it moved in quick bursts. 

“Left! Left!” Isaiah yelled, cutting into someone’s backyard and leaping over a small bush. Trent followed, nearly tripping.

The creature shrieked again, this time louder, closer.

They reached the alley behind the school just as Isaiah yanked open a broken gate.

“There! Side entrance!” he shouted.

They ran up to the school’s side door. Locked.

Isaiah threw his shoulder into it. Nothing. “Fuck.”

Trent shoved him aside and swung the crowbar at the handle, once, then twice, CRACK! The lock snapped open. They rushed in, slamming the door behind them and locking the door.

Silence.

Trent collapsed against the wall, panting. “I am never eating an apple during the apocalypse again.”

Isaiah leaned against the lockers, wiping sweat from his face. “What the hell was that thing? That wasn’t just a dog. That thing either was my sleep paralysis demon, or a dog absolutely wack and mangled.”

Trent gasping for air, pulled a flashlight from his pocket and flicked it on. “Where now?”

Isaiah looked down the dark hallway. Lockers lined the walls. Posters still hung up for the school’s presidential elections. It was eerie how normal everything looked compared to the madness outside.

“Okay. We find the basement. We regroup. And then we figure out why the sky’s raining monsters.”

Trent sighed, raising his crowbar like a sword. “You better hope this school has snacks. I want me some Ruffles.”

Isaiah chuckled, but his eyes were serious. “Gotcha, there might be some in the cafeteria. But, you know we’re gonna need more than snacks, man.”

“I know, but I really want food.” Trent walked over to a classroom door and opened it. “Wonder if the science lab got anything.”