Nox walked towards the door, stepping carefully over Lex's outstretched leg. He tried not to look at the growing dark stain on the floor.
The revolver felt weird in his hand, and the five extra bullets in his pocket were a pathetic weight. He reached the classroom door, his other hand resting on the knob.
'Okay, just open it,' he thought. 'Just see what's out there.'
For someone who felt so damn empty inside, he was pretty sure his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest. He took a breath that didn't feel like it did much, and then he pulled the door open a crack.
The hallway outside was… empty.
There were no screams, no weird monster sounds, just silence. And that felt even worse than the screaming, somehow. It was the kind of quiet that felt like something was holding its breath, waiting.
He eased the door open wider and stepped out. His worn shoes made almost no sound on the tiled floor.
He looked left, then right. Nothing. There were only closed classroom doors and those stupid inspirational posters peeling at the edges.
'Where is everyone?' he wondered. 'What the hell happened to those screams?'
He started walking, slow and cautious, the gun held up, even though he felt like an idiot doing it. Every shadow looked like it was about to jump out at him.
The main staircase was just ahead, leading down to the ground floor. And that was where the silence broke.
It wasn't a scream that broke the silence, but a smell. The smell was so strong it made him gag.
Then he saw it.
At the bottom of the first flight of stairs, there was a body—or what was left of one. It was a mess of torn flesh and dark, wet stains spread all over the steps and the wall. Guts, actual guts, were spilled out, looking like pale snakes.
He couldn't even tell if it was a student or a teacher. It was just… destroyed.
'Damn,' he thought.
Whatever did this, it wasn't a person. It was vicious, tearing and ripping. He felt bile rise in his throat, and his hand tightened on the revolver until his knuckles were white.
For a second, he just wanted to turn around, go back to the classroom, and hide. He wanted to forget those ten survivors, forget the EXP, forget everything.
But he didn't.
He forced his legs to move, one step at a time, down towards that horror. He had to step over a spreading pool of blood that was still wet.
'Keep going,' he told himself. 'Just… keep going.'
The sounds of chaos he had heard earlier must have come from further down, maybe outside. He reached the bottom of the stairs, his eyes scanning everywhere, his breath came in short gasps.
The ground floor hallway was also super quiet, but it felt different. It felt more… recently violent. Lockers were dented, some hanging open. Papers were scattered everywhere, like a hurricane had blown through.
He kept moving, checking classrooms as he went. The first was empty. The next was empty. So was the one after that. Each open door just revealed more desolation.
That was when he heard it. It was a sound from behind him, a faint scuffling, like nails on tile. He froze, his blood turning to ice. Slowly, so slowly, he turned around.
And there it was.
It was small, maybe the size of a dog, and green. It had way too many legs, like a messed-up insect, and its head was mostly a mouth full of sharp teeth. Two beady black eyes fixed on him with a terrifying, hungry focus.
It was a monster. A real, actual monster.
It let out a low, gurgling hiss. And then it ran at him.
It was fast, way faster than he expected, scuttling across the floor with unnatural speed. Panic so pure exploded in his chest.
He raised the gun, his hand shaking so badly he could barely aim. He squeezed the trigger.
The bang was deafening but he missed. The bullet hit the lockers way off to the side with a loud clang. The little green thing didn't even flinch; it just kept coming. He fired again.
He missed again. Dirt and plaster exploded from the wall.
'Shit! Shit! Hit it!' he screamed in his mind.
He fired another shot, but he missed. The monster was getting closer, so close he could smell its foul breath, like rotten meat.
He fired two more shots in blind terror. He missed both times. Then, he heard a click. The hammer fell on an empty chamber.
He'd fired all five bullets and he hadn't hit a damn thing.
'Wow,' a tiny, hysterical part of his brain thought. 'Luck: 1. No kidding.'
The monster was almost on him, its foul breath hot on his face. Pure, animal terror flooded his system, his brain screaming one raw, desperate word: RUN.
So he turned and bolted, his legs pumping in a desperate, mindless motion, faster than he'd ever run in his miserable life. He didn't even know where he was going, just away, away from those teeth, from that godawful smell.
He saw an open classroom door a little way down the hall. It was his only hope, a sudden clear path in the chaos.
He threw himself inside, slamming the old wooden door shut behind him, his breath tearing out of his lungs in ragged gasps.
For a split second he thought he was safe.
But then a horrendous CRASH echoed from the other side, and the wood of the door splintered inwards violently.
'Shit, no!' he thought, his blood running cold.
The creature was way stronger than its small size suggested. The door exploded inwards, torn from its hinges, the wood offering almost no resistance at all.
He scrambled back, his heart beating so hard he thought his ribs would break. His eyes darted around for anything, anything at all he could use.
His eyes landed on a chair. He grabbed it, adrenaline giving him a burst of frantic strength, and he hurled it with everything he had at the advancing monster.
It just bounced off the thing's mottled hide with a dull thud, doing absolutely nothing to stop it.
'Fuck!'
Then he saw a small student desk, and he heaved that too, pure desperation making him reckless. But again, it did nothing. The desk skittered to the side, and the monster didn't even pause its advance.
It lunged then, a sudden attack he barely, just barely, threw himself sideways. He felt a rush of air as its claws raked the spot where he'd been a microsecond before, tearing chunks out of the floor.
That had been too close. Way too fucking close.
The smell, God, the smell hit him full force then. It was the stench of death itself, rotten and thick. He could see bits of what looked like dark, stringy flesh, maybe human flesh, stuck between its teeth.
The son of a bitch was a killer, a real one, and it was enjoying this.
He kept scrambling, evading its quick, jerky movements, his mind trying to come up with a plan. Then his back bumped into something hard propped against the wall, and his hand instinctively reached out, fumbling.
It was a broom, just a stupid wooden broom with worn-down bristles.
'This? This is all I got?' a hysterical part of his brain shrieked.
There was no other choice, no time left to think, because the monster was coiling, tensing its unnatural legs, ready to pounce again. So he gripped the broom handle tight, both hands, the old wood rough against his palms. As the creature leaped, its mouth wide, he didn't try to dodge.
He lunged forward, a raw yell tearing from his own throat, a sound of pure rage and fear. He thrust the splintered end of the broom handle with all his might straight into its gaping maw.
There was a sickening, wet, crunching sound.
The monster's forward momentum carried it right onto the makeshift spear, driving it deep. It let out a choked, gurgling screech, its many legs twitching violently for a moment, then it just went limp, impaled right through.
The broom handle had gone deep, punching out through the back of its head. A dark, thick liquid was already oozing out around the wood and onto the floor.
Nox stood there, panting, his arms burning, the broom still in his hands, the dead weight of the creature pulling it down. He stared at it, at the thing he'd just killed.
'I… I killed it.' The thought was strangely distant.
Slowly, shakily, he let the broom fall, and the creature slumped to the floor.
Then, just like before, those letters flared up in front of his eyes.
[Gobdog Defeated!]
[EXP Gained: +20]
[Level Up!]
[Player Profile: Nox]
[Level: 2]
[EXP: 20/200]
[HP: 85/85] (+10)
[MP: 40/40] (+10)
[SP: 60/60] (+10)
[Core Stats Increased!]
Strength (STR): 7 (+1)
Agility (AGI): 8 (+1)
Constitution (CON): 8 (+1)
Intelligence (INT): 10 (+1)
Willpower (WIL): 19 (+1)
Perception (PER): 9 (+1)
Luck (LCK): 2 (+1)
[Elemental Affinities: None]
[Skills: None]
He just stared at the new numbers, his breath still ragged, his body trembling from the adrenaline crash.
He was Level 2 now. All his stats were up by one, even Luck.
'Luck… 2?' he thought.
It was still pathetic, a laughably low number, but it wasn't 1 anymore. That had to mean something, right?
And he had gained EXP. He got EXP for killing that… gobdog. He'd gained twenty points of EXP.
'So, killing them gets me stronger too.'
The mission was to save people, for EXP but killing these things also gave EXP and made him level up.
A thought started to form in his mind, pushing through the receding terror. Maybe this wasn't just about saving people. Maybe it was about surviving, first and foremost.
A familiar detachment settled over him, pushing back the fear.
'So they can die,' he thought, a realization forming. 'And killing them makes me stronger.'
A new purpose began to solidify in his mind. It was time to hunt.