"The Pompeii" Creepypasta by RuckusQuantum

The explosion was stronger than anything recorded in mankind's history, stronger than the volcanic explosion that buried Pompeii in 79 AD.

As I walked through the cold streets of Naples, in search of a home, I felt chills all over my body. It flowed like a river through my veins, which were slowly turning malignantly black.

The city was locked down, and didn't allow anyone to get in or get out. If anyone ever did, they would be shot down. Because I had the thing called “common sense”, I didn't dare to walk near the boundaries, or even show myself to any military personnel, in fear of them shooting me with their rifles and tanks. I could die in any way, but not with heavy artillery, as I fear most of them.

Everything was covered in thick carpets of ashes, and made the streets look like an ashen desert, almost lifeless and vague. No signs of life could be sensed, evidence proving this was the sudden forceful evacuation of Naples' citizens after Mount Vesuvius exploded, and scattered wrath all over the city. I could barely detect life, but they were just dying stray animals. I wandered around the city, just to see decaying dead bodies of humans; they were unfortunate enough not to be saved.

I couldn't believe I was walking through those ash-covered streets, and it gave me the most terrifying feeling and the saddest emotion I ever experienced. I just couldn't explain, why did it explode?

I thought to myself, “These things must not have happened, but it did. I wish I can escape this kind of torture.”

After several hours of walking around the silent city, I finally found a shelter I could stay in. It was just a hardly-cleaned apartment; at least I had a place to stay, and to die also. As I entered the dusty apartment, there were dirty clothes garbled on the floor. The wild stench of the begrime t-shirts and pants made its way to my nose; it smelled like something that was rotting or decaying bad. I ignored that odor and proceeded to clean the whole damn mess.

After some minutes throwing the begrime clothes, and piling and burning bags of trash, I decided to store my clothes in the cabinet, and some miscellaneous items somewhere. I felt my stomach's low grumble in hunger, so I went to the kitchen and opened every cabinet to search for food, none of them had anything. My only hope of survival was the fridge; horror-stricken when I found it cleanly emptied.

I was getting hopeless. Where could I find food and supplies?

There was only one choice: go outside and head to the nearest grocery store.

I grabbed my leather jacket, picked up my 9mm and put it under my jacket, grabbed my nearly-dying flashlight, and headed outside the apartment. The feels outside didn't change, it was still the same like several hours ago. My foot made depressions on the ash as I walked, until I found the place where my survival relied. Great joy whelmed me up, and went outside, and hunted for food, like a predator searching for its prey.

Dark and mute, that's the only descriptive words I could depict that place. I looked around the area to see if there was a light switch, and there was, hanging loose under the 12th counter. I switched it on, and I was surprised by the variety of supplies I could find there.

Everything was still there, like it was untouched for months. All that I need was in there, complete and fresh, so I swiftly clutched the cart, unleashed my inner-vulture, and scavenged everything I could scavenge. My cart was full of canned goods, packed chips, warm drinks, and some other daily necessities; maybe it's worth thousands already. Fortunately, I didn't need to pay, since everyone was gone, and I was the only one living in that city.

I was wrong about that.

The store's lights flickered 'Close'-'Open', 'Close'-'Open', until it just shut down, and plunged the entire place into darkness. Suddenly, I saw a peculiar figure on my left, which I couldn't describe clearly. I feared that I was not alone, that I was not the only surviving human there; or was it even human? I looked back but I could clearly see its details.

I regretted ever doing that. I should have just run away and leave that place.
[[File:Black eyes-0.jpg|thumb|220x220px|The eyes, it's just so peculiar.]]
A woman, a cashier judging by her clothes, stood there, staring at me with her pure black eyes, as if darkness itself was gazing directly at my eyes. Staring at her peculiar eyes made me feel weak and helpless, until my eyelids became heavy, which speedily brought me sleepiness, until I finally fainted and fell at the solid frigid floor.

I woke up in the sight of the shining sun, as I was blinded by the sunlight. It was already morning, so I barely stood up by myself, fetched the grocery cart, and walked back home. I just couldn't forget what I saw last night. Was it real? Or I was just hallucinating? Still, I couldn't explain those things; their existence would remain a mystery.

The streets didn't seem to change a lot. There were still large layers of ash everywhere, but there was this thing that made me uncomfortable of my surroundings.

A trail, imprinted by, what it seemed, a man's foot. I was sure that it was not mine, I hadn't ever walked that path, the path that leads to Mount Vesuvius. It scared the damned thing out of me, and made me run away with my heavy cart, in dread of encountering something dangerous.

I was in the front door of my apartment, I noticed that it was slightly ajar; ajar by what? Or, maybe, ajar by who? I couldn't control my paranoia. Am I crazy? I hope not.

Nothing was altered or moved even slightly, everything was in their proper place. I went near my bed and sat down, recalling the anomalies I found yesterday night and today morning. All of a sudden, my stomach stiffened hard, and I felt like vomiting. I dashed to the bathroom, and vomited out a dark-violet gooey substance in the sink; what the heck was that thing? I looked up and stared at the mirror, just to see my pupils getting bigger and bigger. Am I sick? If so, what was this disease? So many questions formed in my mind.

I was getting sicker as time gone past. My head ached distressingly, at least once every two hours; it was like something was attempting to bang my head off. I felt nauseous every single minute, and I couldn't handle those anymore. Once and for all, my hands snapped up some medicines and put them inside my mouth. As I swallowed the pills, I felt my neck hurt. What the hell was happening to me?

Seeking some entertainment, I popped the television and watched the news. It's something that I couldn't explain with common language; I couldn't identify if it was helpful, worrying, or both. It was news about Mount Vesuvius' explosion, and its effects to vulnerable people around.

“I know that this may sound scientifically impossible, but the volcano's ashes can induce an unknown type of disease, which the scientists and chemists are still trying to understand. But there already hypotheses released publicly. As stated by this hypothesis paper I'm holding, it says, 'When someone is exposed to the volcanic ashes or to any carriers of the disease, one may feel dizzy and nauseous every minute and every hour. Direct or indirect exposure to someone who had this disease can also harm you. As this disease progresses, it destroys your circulatory system and nervous system; you can see your eyes' pupils dilating until it takes up your entire eyes, making them purely black.' As stated by the professionals, this phenomena has never happened since human's genesis, and this is the first one to set a new history.”

I jarred quickly out of my seat, and thought about the things that happened.

I asked myself, “I've been exposed to the ashes for almost two weeks now, and I'm not sure about that woman looking at me with her black eyes.

"Oh fuck! Jesus Christ, I'm infected! No! That's can't be! I don't have any infections or problems with my body.”

Plugging the television out was my only way of avoiding realization of truth, and I did it in just few seconds. I didn't want to be hopeless, or leave myself to die; though I wanted to die, but it was not the right time. I wanted to discover the truth, and to see if there's possibility of survival.

I packed up my things and left the apartment, I was homeless for the fourth time. Hesitant to head to places I didn't know well, I still went through the streets of neighboring towns, for my own sake of survival. There, more creepy shit was happening, like when I saw shadows, men's shadows everywhere. There were countless anomalous things I saw there.

It was a foggy evening, while traveling the town's main cemetery. I admit, it was god-awfully creepy walking across people's tombstones. I saw some weird figure, which I could describe as a man, standing in the fog still and unmoving. I didn't dare to walk near it; no one knew what it could do to me, whether it was kind or malicious.

Walking outside the cemetery was the most relieving experience I ever had. I thought it was the first and the last, but there's another one coming to get my inner chicken show up.

I walked past a video arcade, looking inside, I felt very suspicious, a peculiar feeling I couldn't explain. There were pinball machines, arcade stalls, games, and other entertainment stuffs everywhere. In need of an important thing, specifically a flashlight or at least batteries, I went inside. Everything was opened, like everyone was playing and then suddenly left.

My suspicious instincts never failed. On the spur of the moment, there were bare-footed twin sisters, both of them playing an arcade game, wearing washed-out sky blue dresses paired with yellow belts. They sensed my presence, turning away their faces from the screen to look at me. They slowly broke their eyes open, revealing their horrifying pure black eyes, pupils heavily dilated, the same appearance as the TV reporter said; they were infected by the plague. They were directly staring at my soul, and I couldn't keep up with my guts. As swift as I could, I ran away from the two hellish creatures, without looking back. I didn't even fetch the batteries or flashlight, at least I knew I was safe.

I ran away, and sought for a car to ride. Fortunately, I found this old worn-out farm truck. I started the engine up and rode around the town, hoping to see a house that I could stay in.

The city, it's as close to hell as it can get.

Nothing was more disturbing than seeing men, women, elders, and children looking at you with their eyes, with their eyes' pupils expanded to the maximum limits, erasing all the white parts of the eye. It was so hard to ignore them, so I sped up my truck, and made it run as fast as it could. Unfortunately, the engine broke down in the middle of black-eyed crowd. Why now? I slammed the goddamned dog-tired truck and went out.

I darted quickly, and tried to escape the infectious people. I ran for hours and hours, until my fate decided: I was cornered by them.

I had nowhere to go. I thought I'd just sit in that place and wait for my terrible fate. There were hundreds of them. I couldn't handle these kinds of feelings. I thought, “I'll just die here.”

Everything suddenly changed as fast as lightning, like nothing happened. They were already near me, but they ceased themselves from moving forward, but insisted on moving backwards instead.

I was so confused. What happened to them? And why didn't they continue to swarm me?

As soon as they vanished out of my sight, I stood up and ran anywhere I could go, hoping to find some answers to address my questions.

I found the answers in a shattered glass window. I stared at the broke glass pane, and stared at my ominous reflection. My eyes were sheer darkness; pupils heavily dilated. My head hurt a lot, like it was being continuously hit by a baseball bat. My vision distorted, then went very dark. However, I could barely see what was in front of me. I saw myself, my skin's color turned absolutely pale, and white.

So, this was the answer.

So, this was my terrible fate.

I'm now one of them.{{by-user|RuckusQuantum}}
{{sort| Pompeii, The}}