It’s very cold outside and the rain seems to have been going on forever. There’s almost no visibility as I can’t even  make out the vehicles strewn across the field around me. The sky itself seems to have bowed down to wreak havoc as closely as possible. 

Among all this stinging white noise of the cold torrent and the frequent growling and roar of thunder, I can hear a distant noise, sharp, piercing, sinister popping. Gunfire. 

There’s a war going on. I don’t know since when, I don’t know whose side I am on, I don’t even know how many sides there are. But looking around, I can clearly judge that the place I am in, this field, is nothing but a kill zone, a death trap. I can become a plank for target practice any second now. I need to get out of here. Fast. 

I take cover behind the many cars and other small vehicles, both military and civilian as I try to follow as straight a path in an arbitrary direction as possible. A man is following me. Wearing a uniform turned dark by the mud just like me. The symbol on his helmet though, is different. Enemy. I reach for the sidearm supposed to be holstered on my belt, but there is no belt. I turn to look back at my adversary, but his hands are raised. Surrender. 

“We have to get out of here.” He shouted over the grind of the rain. 

“Who are you?” Exhaustion made itself apparent as I tried to scream out as well. 

“Does it really matter?” He retorted. “If either of our people find us, they’ll probably kill us both anyways.”

I nodded my agreement. We started running together, in whatever direction we assumed to be away from the center of the field we were on. In some time, we see houses in the distance, visibly abandoned, partially dilapidated. Not a single pane of any window could be seen intact, and the walls were riddled with bullet holes. We chose one with relatively the least amount of damage, and went inside. Outside the storm and rain raged on. 

“They’ve summoned a monster.” My companion said, his voice lowered as the shouting was no longer needed. But the fear and urgency was clear. 

“Who?” 

“Have you suffered a head injury my friend?” He said angrily. “Maybe you have, never mind, who cares if you  have. The locals from the village have summoned a monster.” 

I was not following, “What are you talking about?” 

“This rain, the thunder and storm, all this is not natural. The locals, they have a God, and apparently they have summoned Him for help to put an end to this war.” 

“Okay, hold up.” I might have been slow on the uptake, but I needed a little clarity nonetheless. “Is it a monster or a God?”

“God to them, monster to us. Have you always been this stupid or have lost your mind recently from the injury.”

I decided to move on from my apparent lack of wit. “What does this god-monster do?” 

“From what I have heard, he’s the God of Destruction, kind of one part of their religious holy trinity. Legend has it that a whole river stays trapped in his hair, and he unleashes them in the form of rain like this or a devastating prelude when he’s angry. And this weather right now, seems to be the manifestation of that anger in our case.” 

“And what about the thunder?” 

“That is apparently from his third eye, destroying everything in its line of sight.”

“So we have angered this God?”

“Not really, he doesn’t care for war, but the locals, they did some ritual to wake Him from his sleep and now he’s on a rampage.” 

“So, if He is going to destroy everything, how would the locals survive?”

“They won’t. It’s a sacrifice.”

A shock wave hit us at that very moment. It came from the direction of the field. The already shattered windows flew into the room, crushed into hundreds of little pieces. I could hear nothing more, my ears were ruptured, the pain was immense, both in my ears and my chest, a couple ribs cracked for sure. With my limited vision though, I could tell that the winds had picked up and another flash of lighting, brighter this time, lit up somewhere high in the sky. Out of sheer stupidity or hopeless surrender, we peeked out of the windows. 

Out there in the field were two feet. Toes the size of the cars nearby, with veins the size of fire hoses running to them were visible. The legs faded high into the bowed clouds.