The creature's clawed hand scraped against the maintenance alcove door, the sound like nails on a coffin lid. Inside our cramped hiding spot, twenty students held a collective breath, the air thick enough to choke on. Mrs. Yamamoto was muttering prayers, her face a mask of terror. Mr. Ishikawa had fainted, slumped against a conduit. Others were crying softly, their whimpers a pathetic counterpoint to the monster's wet gurgling outside.
Then, a whisper, so close I felt its warmth in my ear. "I need to make a distraction," the quiet combat student said, his voice devoid of fear. "When it moves, stay silent. Don't open this door for anything."
Before I could process his words, he moved. With a fluidity that defied the tight space, he slipped past me, his shoulder brushing mine. He didn't go for the main door. Instead, he wedged his fingers into a gap in the service panel, prying loose a heavy, rusted iron pipe. He gave me one last, unreadable look with those dark brown eyes
Outside, there was a metallic *CLANG* from the landing below, followed by the sound of something heavy skittering down the next flight of stairs.
The creature at our door froze, its head tilting. The wet, gurgling sounds ceased. It hesitated, its milky eyes drawn to the new noise. Slowly, with a shuffling, dragging gait, it began to descend, its interest in our alcove temporarily forgotten.
A collective sigh of relief filled the small space. But it was premature.
"He's drawing it away!" Aoi whispered, her face pale with a mix of terror and hope. "We have to help him! We can run now!"
"No," I hissed, grabbing her arm. "That's not what he—"
But she wasn't listening. In her panicked state, she saw only an escape route. "They're gone! We can make it!"
She lunged for the main stairwell door, her fingers fumbling with the emergency bar. Mr. Tanaka, a portly councilor, tried to grab her, "Aoi, stop! You don't know what's out there!"
"Aoi, don't!" I screamed, but it was too late.
With a loud *CLICK*, the door swung open onto the landing.
It wasn't empty.
Two more were there, drawn by the noise. One looked like a teacher, its glasses shattered and hanging from one ear. The other was smaller, a female student, her body twisted into a permanent crouch. Both heads snapped toward the sudden light, toward the fresh, warm meat standing in the doorway.
Aoi's hopeful expression shattered into pure, undiluted horror.
The first creature, the one the quiet kid had lured away, heard the door open. It abandoned its pursuit and scrambled back up the stairs with a guttural roar. We were trapped between three of them.
That's when the quiet kid moved.
He exploded from the shadows. Black hair, grim determination—he was a blur of motion as he met the teacher-creature head-on. He used the pipe like a sword, a brutal, efficient tool of death. A quick, sharp jab to the creature's knee brought it down. As it fell, he swung the pipe in a horizontal arc, connecting with the side of its head with a sickening crunch. The teacher-creature dropped without another sound.
I watched, stunned, my mind struggling to process what I was seeing. This was the quiet, sullen kid from an advanced combat class? The one who never spoke and always sat in the back? He moved skillfully, every motion precise and lethal. It was terrifying. And, a small part of me admitted, it was the most impressive thing I had ever seen.
He didn't even pause to watch it fall. He was already moving toward the second one, the crouching girl, who was now hissing and springing toward him. He sidestepped her lunge with impossible grace, bringing the pipe down on her spine. The sound of bone breaking echoed wetly in the stairwell.
But he was one against many. The first creature, the one that quiet kid distracted earlier, was back. It lunged at him from behind, forcing him to abandon his downed foe and dodge. He parried a swipe with his pipe, the impact throwing him back against the wall. He was fast, but this thing was a juggernaut of rage and fury.
In that moment of distraction, the third creature—the crouching girl he'd thought he'd disabled—scrambled across the floor and sank its teeth into his leg.
He grunted in pain, a sound of pure, frustrated anger, and kicked it off. But the damage was done. He was bleeding and cornered.
And Aoi, the cause of all this, just stood there, a silent scream frozen on her face.
The first creature, seeing its packmates engaged, ignored the quiet kid. It turned its milky eyes to the easier prey. It turned to Aoi.
"Aoi, RUN!" My voice was a raw shriek, but it was useless. She was frozen in a state of shock.
The monster surged forward and slammed into her. Its claws pierced her ribs as easily as paper. Blood erupted in a perfect arc, splattering my face and soaking my blouse. For a heartbeat, I locked eyes with her before the creature's jaws closed around her face.
The sound she made wasn't a scream; it was more of a sigh, like the final expulsion of breath from her lungs.
I watched Aoi Fujita perish.
I stood there and did nothing. Perfect—Student Council President: hero of the day.
My hands trembled as they rose to my face, and suddenly, I recognized the raw, broken sound of my own screams echoing in the chaos. The other students in the alcove were screaming too, a cacophony of terror that made my head throb.
The creature turned back to me, its mangled face now smeared with Aoi's blood. Its mouth was a horrifying mass of shredded lips and broken teeth, smeared with a thick paste of flesh and blood. Innards dripped from its chin, plummeting in heavy drops that resonated like a clock—pat-pat-pat—staining the floor beneath.
Across the landing, the quiet kid was still fighting, a whirlwind of desperate motion against the remaining two creatures, but he was losing. He was forced back, disappearing down the next flight of stairs, a trail of blood marking his retreat.
I was alone.
I stumbled back, my legs quaking.
Then... I felt something hard beneath my heel. Looking down, I caught a glint of black and steel poking out from under a toppled storage locker, half-buried beneath papers and shattered glass. Emergency equipment—someone must have tried to reach it and failed.
I dropped to my knees, my fingers fumbling to retrieve it. The casing slid free with a reassuring click, revealing something sleek and heavy.
A Stun-Tonfa.
Carbon-alloy body. The kind reserved for riot control by security.
They'd had a security briefing freshman year; I remembered the basic grip from a lecture and forced my hands to move.
My hands shook; the grip felt unfamiliar, but the humming device gave me something to do.
I gripped the handle and twisted. The shaft extended with a low fzzzzk, blue arcs of plasma dancing along the conductive edge as the weapon hummed to life.
My heart thundered louder. I glanced back at the terrified faces peering from the alcove—Mrs. Yamamoto, Mr. Tanaka, and the others. I had to protect them. I had to do *something*.
I stepped forward, swinging.
The arc of the tonfa met the side of its head with a crack of thunder, light exploding at the impact point. The creature jolted mid-motion, electricity coursing through its jaw and eye socket.
It crashed into the wall hard enough to leave a dent, but only for a moment—it surged back to me again.
Its grin smeared like a wound.
I swung again, and again, and again.
Each strike jarred my bones, but the creature kept coming back, that sick smile unrelenting as it reached for me with its blood-drenched claws.
The tonfa slipped from my grasp, slick with blood as I dragged myself backward, leaving a gruesome trail across the polished floor. My designer sneakers squelched in fluids I desperately tried not to contemplate.