Thanks so much! Yeah The Colour Out of Space was definitely a big inspiration (in fact if you've seen the 2019 movie with Nic Cage, it was where I took the colour from haha).
Starting at day 499 was kinda my attempt to include the "End is Near" theme (aside from it being an end of the world scenario), since we're starting at the end of the story before jumping back to the beginning. Glad you ended up liking it!
I'll definitely post in the Discord once the final version is up (should be in the next few days) so you can see how the story concludes :)