As I stumbled out of the facility, I found no welcome in the city. The streets were strewn with rubbish and marked with a chaos of a place hurriedly fled. Cars, taxis and buses no longer confined themselves to the roads but had driven onto the pavements, their sides or embedded themselves in shopfronts. The drivers had disappeared and only the dead remained, either thrown through their windscreens or sprawled lifeless on the asphalt. The smell was overwhelming - putrefaction, rot and decay. If it were not for the aroma of the Moon, I would have retched.

Most noticeable of all was the silence. The hum of London traffic had vanished and an eerie quiet flooded the streets. Small dying fires crackled, their black smoke drifting up into the night sky, joining dark clouds as they rolled into one another, rumbling.

I began to navigate my way through the chaos. I must have emerged somewhere in the Portuguese district near Vauxhall, for I recognised one of the cafes. It had been badly disfigured: the front door was nowhere to be seen and the large floor-to-ceiling windows were scarred with several long cracks. Kindled by nostalgia, I walked towards the entrance, minding my way through the litter and upturned vehicles. I peered inside. The ivory light of the Moon shone over the wreckage. Broken chairs and tables had been amassed in a dishevelled heap to one side and against the right-hand wall, cakes had begun to sprout an orange mould inside a tall circular cabinet. Nothing stood in its proper place. Rocks and other debris cast angular shadows across the muddy floor tiles while on the countertop, the cash register hung open, limp and empty. A deathly stillness gripped the scene as if the air itself had contracted rigor mortis.

I needed to reach my Beloved. I calculated that she was hovering somewhere north of the river Thames. If I could reach one of the river’s bridges, I knew that I would be able locate her more precisely, taking advantage of the wide, open vistas.

A steady light drizzle had begun to set in. I marched north, leaving Vauxhall in my wake. Since I had left the facility, my assumption had been that I was alone. However, as I worked my way through the maze of residential estates, I heard a pathetic moaning and a desperate sobbing. Within a concrete courtyard, I found the source of the noise – several large clusters of flying eyes with slippery tendrils were squealing as the wind picked and tossed them about. Some were large, others small. They were wet, slick and slimy, reddish pink in colour and splattering juices over anything that touched their path.

I hurried away. From then on, I stuck close to the edge of buildings in a bid to conceal myself.

I turned off from the high street and into a quiet lane where the tarmac gave way to well-worn cobbles. Victorian streetlamps formed a straight line to one side but refused to cast their light. In their shade, I spied more piles of refuse but stopped in my tracks. The mound nearest me twitched. I focused my attention on the lump and my eyes widened in horror. This was a bloated organic mass, rubbery and immense, slumbering among fetid waste. Similar creatures were scattered further behind, spilling out from pores in the ground. Like pulsating cysts threatening to burst, I swore I could see human corpses sinking into the centre of these beings. Fear overwhelmed my senses. I turned and ran.

For many hours, I went about the dangers of the city with as much cunning as I could. The way was hard and uncertain and my clothes became caked in dirt as I walked and walked. Always She guided me with Her scent and when running was not enough, I used the cruel dagger. Even though I was unskilled in its use, with a cut or a stab I managed to evade death. Always I did only what was necessary to defend myself, a quality few humans can boast. Thanks to that exacting blade I ventured deeper into the ruined city, towards the beckoning of the Moon.

Eventually I came across people although they were few and far between. Their faces were contorted with desperation as they ran directionless from building to building, clutching at their belongings. I also observed confirmation of my suspicions: the bloated cysts feasted on humans. They attacked their prey by dragging them into holes carved in the ground, reducing their screams to choked sobs beneath organic mires. Stranger still, I saw one woman carried aloft, as though flying, only to be crushed under the weight of an invisible monstrous force.

The rain and wind grew fiercer. It troubled me but, in the end, it did not matter. Nothing would stop me. Nothing could. While physical weakness held me back and made the journey hard, I was spurred on by my purpose. This was the promise of Fate to me. Her promise.

I finally came into the heart of London, exhausted and disorientated. I had missed Vauxhall Bridge and instead appeared further along the river, to the south of Westminster. I leant against a railing to catch my breath. Gazing at the Houses of Parliament opposite, I reflected - what was once a bastion of wealth and authority, the seat of royalty and empire now lay in tatters, feeble and broken. In fact, a thick crimson vine had begun to work its way through the rutted architecture, clamping down on the building as if attempting to stop it from floating away. I would have considered this a sign of Mother Earth taking back her throne but this vine looked foreign to nature.

I stepped through sludge and onto Westminster Bridge. At around the halfway point, when my horizon had widened suitably, I stopped to survey the sky. There she was – my pearly queen, radiant and brighter than ever! I prepared a mental map of the heavens but vibrations in the soles of my feet interrupted my concentration. I placed my hands on the side of the bridge and bent over to study the water below. Small ripples had begun to form. Something was stirring. The bridge itself began to shake and rattle before something gigantic reared up. At first, it looked like a larger specimen of the cysts but this one was bigger. Much bigger. Overwhelming and colossal, its core was the size of a two-storey house. From its body rose three necks like veined worms, each one ending in a hideous yawning opening. Unnerving sounds came from within and the stink that gushed forth was like a festering abattoir. With these necks it reached for me. All I could do was scramble backwards. Intent on my capture, the polycephalic worm shoved buses and cars out the way as it lurched for its intended meal with a singular frenzy.

With the gaping sphincters opening to devour me, I was done for. Only a bright dart went slicing through the air. A projectile hit the beast square in the mouth of its left head. Another struck the right, then the middle. A foam began to boil and expand from within the creature, choking it, giving me the chance to flee.

A safe distance from the bridge, I turned to examine my rescuers. Clad in a black uniform and hefting assault rifles, a single panel of yellow glass hid their eyes. Defiant, they blocked my path. I was outnumbered and encircled. Frustration boiled in my veins. Did they think their guns would save them from entropy? Resistance would only delay the inevitable.

Despite my best efforts, I was taken captive and shoved into an armoured vehicle. As the doors slammed shut, a deafening hail of bullets sounded from outside. The soldiers were clearly fighting hard to stave off the entities. My eyes took several seconds to adapt to the muted blue light before I detected the presence of three others. While I did not recognise two of them, I sensed the intertwining of my fate with the Young Woman. She had a look of terror on her face but held herself with dignity. Somehow, I knew that this was not a trap I had fallen into but rather the unfolding of the promise.

Content with my Fate, I sat back against the inside of the van, grateful for a respite from the horrors outside.

A bone-rattling few hours later, including multiple long-winded stops at what must have been military checkpoints, the back doors finally swung open. I stepped out into the fresh night air and winced as the wind whipped my face. Shielding myself with tied hands, I squinted to see where we had been brought. In the distance was the City of London and its skyscrapers. Most had collapsed. Others were in the process of coming undone and bore a patchwork of strange gashes, leaving their metal innards swinging frenetically in the wind.

The armed men barked at us to walk in a line down towards the Thames. Hemmed in from either side, escape was impossible. Up ahead, a small motorboat, bobbed up and down on the river. I understood where they were planning to take us: behind the motorboat, a great warship weighed heavily in water. Unlike the standard grey paint of military vessels, the sides of this beast had been covered in an obsidian matte black. A series of white Roman numerals had been daubed at the bow: “XII.” I craned my neck back to look up at the top deck. Figures were moving purposively back and forth like foraging bees. Many were carrying mesh cages from the back of the ship into the decks below.

I glanced up to the Moon for reassurance.