The city shrieked and the buildings groaned in agony, unable to bear the weight of their own disrepair. The streets were a treacherous maze of broken glass. The alleyways and gutters were infested by rats. Sleep eluded the citizens. Their restless minds were plagued, amidst the shrieks and groans, by the incessant scratching from the rodents. The rumble of thunder signaled the impending tropical storm.

Spicy gazed at the cumulonimbus clouds that hovered over the hot pink city skyline. From the steps of the pier, his beady eyes gleamed at the bustling horizon with an insatiable hunger. Amidst the sickness and doom, the rat pondered only one thing: where to find the finest cheese in this forsaken city.

The air cooled and the night got darker as the clouds eclipsed the moon. A gust of wind carried the heavy scent of rotting fish from the red tide. Spicy's eyes burned. As he choked on the acidic air, he savored the moment. Red tides like this come once in a decade.

Lightning cracked the sky and blinded Spicy. Then, there was an unnerving, ear-splitting sound like metal screeching. When Spicy gained his sight again, a massive skeletal and fleshless figure stood in the ocean in front of him.

The giant turned its head downward toward Spicy. Spicy stood frozen in fear and awe. The giant's head was a CRT television flickering with static. Spicy stared deeply into the screen to see something embeddwith within the noise: a sinister eye staring back. Text flickered on the television for a brief moment.

ቻዐረረዐሠ
ጠቿ
ጌረጎክዕረሃ

Its bony finger was pointed east toward the shore into the city and its other hand beckoned Spicy to follow its music. Spicy's tiny heart pounded in his chest. He could feel the power of the music. Spicy followed, through the broken glass in the streets, by the pull of the giant's will.

The giant stood as tall as the surrounding corporate buildings. Humans in the streets recoiled. Those who were not immediately incapacitated by relentless vomiting took shelter. The rats, however, did not vomit or run away. They emerged from the dark corners that they typically lurked in. They were compelled by a force that they could not resist. To them it wasn't actually noise at all. It was music.

Spicy found himself at the head of the vast horde of vermin. Rats and mice funneled from every building, alleyway, and dumpster. The noise threw every rodent into a mania. They clambered over each other, biting and clawing. They were driven to follow the giant and nothing else. The chaos was amplified as the storm intensified.

When it seemed as though the giant had collected every rat and mouse in the city, he went out to the gulf and the entire throng of rats and mice scampered behind it. The giant plunged into the water and the rats followed to be swept away by the rip tide, drowning by the millions. Spicy fought his way to the surface, gasping for air, coughing up water. He swam to the shore, climbed out of the water, and onto the grassy shore in front of Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

Through the thunderstorm, Spicy found refuge in a hole at the base of a rusty dumpster. Inside, it was warm and humid, and was protected by the force of the violent weather. He couldn't see in the darkness but he used his nose to detect the scent of cheese. His sharp yellow teeth chewed through a polyethylene garbage bag, releasing a massive stream of putrid American cheese. Spicy sighed in despair.