Aaron's head had just begun to settle, breath finally slowing, when a faint noise pricked his ears.
Not metal.
Not claws.
Not the jittering whirr of a drone.
It was… soft.
Human.
A footstep, light and uneven.
Followed by a stifled gasp.
Aaron's eyes snapped open.
The minimap pulsed—
A single yellow dot appeared outside the door, moving cautiously down the hallway.
"Someone's out there…" he whispered.
He pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his ribs flared raw with pain. Moving closer to the door, he listened carefully.
A shadow staggered into view through the narrow glass panel—
slim frame, torn jacket, dark hair tied back haphazardly.
She clutched her left arm, blood soaking through the sleeve.
She wasn't hostile.
She wasn't armed.
And she was barely standing.
The girl pressed her back to the wall outside, breathing in ragged, terrified bursts. Somewhere deeper in the building, a metallic shriek echoed, followed by claws skittering across tile.
She flinched, panic rising in her eyes.
Aaron acted before he could second-guess himself.
He cracked the door open just enough to whisper:
"Hey—here! In here!"
The girl jerked in surprise, eyes snapping to the door. Her face was pale, streaked with dirt and adrenaline.
"W-What—?" she whispered, voice shaking. "Who—?"
"No time," Aaron hissed. "Get inside. Now. Move!"
Another screech—louder this time—rattled the hallway.
That got her moving. She stumbled forward; Aaron reached out, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her inside. The moment she crossed the threshold, he slammed the door shut and engaged every manual lock he could find.
CLICK.
CLACK.
THUD.
She collapsed against the opposite wall, clutching her arm, chest rising and falling rapidly.
Aaron turned to her, keeping his voice low.
"You hurt?"
She nodded weakly. "Just—cut. The smaller ones—those things—they were everywhere. I ran until… until I couldn't anymore." She swallowed hard. "I thought this floor was empty."
"It wasn't," Aaron said, forcing a faint, grim smile. "Lucky for both of us."
Her eyes flicked up at him—uncertain, scared, but alive.
He pulled in a breath.
He had a survivor to protect now.
That changed everything.
Outside, something heavy slammed against a distant wall.
The girl flinched violently.
Aaron stepped closer to the door, bringing up the System interface with a sharp thought.
[Warning: Hostile Cluster Convergence – Distance: 40 meters]
Structural integrity of refuge: Insufficient.
"Oh good. Perfect." Aaron muttered. "Alright, System—options."
A new panel unfurled:
[Available Administrative Reinforcement Protocols]
– Seal Door (Cost: 1 Charge)
– Structural Reinforcement (Cost: 1 Charge)
– Acoustic Dampening (Cost: 1 Charge)
– Emergency Decoy Generation (Cost: 2 Charges)
Current Charges: 3
The girl watched the flickering hologram, eyes widening.
"You… you can see that too?" she whispered.
Aaron hesitated.
Then shook his head.
"No. Just me. I think I'm… different."
"Different how?"
"I'll explain later," he said quickly. "Right now, we need to not die."
Her breath trembled, but she nodded.
Aaron analyzed the options.
Seal Door was a must.
They needed time.
Just time.
"Seal it," he commanded quietly.
A ripple of blue light spread over the door's frame.
Metal groaned, tightening.
Bolts extended.
A thin glowing line etched into the seams as they fused into the wall.
The entire structure shifted from "Moderate" to:
Door Integrity: High
Aaron allowed himself a shaky breath.
"One more," he muttered. "Structural reinforcement."
The floor vibrated slightly as invisible bracing engaged—beams strengthening behind the walls, cracks sealing, the ceiling stabilizing with an almost imperceptible hum.
Structural Strength: Increased
Hostile breach likelihood reduced by 73%.
The girl stared at him in open shock.
"What… what are you?" she whispered.
Aaron's throat tightened.
"I'm… not sure," he admitted. "But right now? I'm someone who's going to keep you alive."
Her eyes softened just slightly—relief flickering through her fear.
Aaron glanced at his remaining charge count.
Charges Left: 1
The hostiles outside were growing louder.
But for the moment…
They had walls.
They had a door.
They had a pocket of time carved out of chaos.
He slid down next to her, keeping his voice low.
"What's your name?"
She hesitated, then whispered:
"Emily."
"Aaron," he replied.
The building shuddered as something massive moved on the other side of the walls.
Emily tensed.
Aaron clenched his fists.
He'd protect her.
Reinforce the room again.
Fight if he had to.
Just don't force him into Mutation.
Not yet.
He wasn't ready.
Emily sits in the fortified room, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the metal plates Aaron conjured. The quiet hum of reinforced steel brings a kind of brittle comfort—but her mind isn't here.
It's still back there.
She draws a shaky breath. "Aaron… I need to tell you what happened. But—" She squeezes her eyes shut. "It's easier if I just… go through it."
He nods, settling beside her without touching.
Emily lets herself fall backward into memory.
— Earlier That Day —
Emily slumps into the hard lecture hall seat, blinking sleep from her eyes. The fluorescent lights above buzz like they're personally offended by her existence. Jess nudges her elbow.
"You alive?" Jess whispers.
"Barely," Emily mutters. "If Professor Rendale mentions quantum logic gates one more time, I'm throwing myself out the nearest window."
Jess grins—right as every phone in the hall *vibrates* at once.
Then the messages appear.
**SYSTEM ONLINE — INITIALIZING USER SYNC**
**DO NOT DISCONNECT**
Dozens of screens glow with the same text. Murmurs ripple through the room.
"What kind of prank is this?" Jess asks, already trying to close it. It doesn't work. No one's does.
Then the lights flicker.
A cold pressure pushes behind Emily's eyes—like someone pressing invisible fingers against her skull.
Her breath catches.
The fire alarms scream to life.
Students jolt upright.
The doors slide shut with a mechanical thunk.
"What the hell—?" someone shouts.
A guy near the front stands, swaying. His arms twitch like marionette strings are pulling them. He reaches toward the air—
—and his fingertips crumble into drifting blue pixels.
Emily's stomach lurches.
The guy dissolves in seconds.
Gone.
Like he'd been erased.
A girl screams. Chairs slam back. Panic detonates.
Emily grabs Jess's hand. "We're leaving—now!"
The hallway outside is chaos. Students sprint. Some collapse mid-step as their bodies *glitch*, limbs phasing, skin flickering between frames—like corrupted video buffering in slow-motion horror.
Above the screaming, a voice whispers in Emily's skull.
**[Mutation Path Available.]**
**[Accept?]**
She slaps her temples. "Get out, get out—"
"Em!" Jess yells, dragging her into a maintenance hallway. "Come on!"
They flee down the dim corridor, emergency lights flashing blood-red. The whispering gets louder.
**[Accept Enhancement]**
**[Muscle Revision]**
**[Osteo-Reforge]**
**[Neural Cascade Unlocked]**
"I don't want it!" Emily cries, stumbling.
"Just focus on running!" Jess says.
They reach a maintenance closet. Jess yanks it open and shoves Emily inside. Seven others cram in after them. The door slams.
Silence—except for their ragged breathing and the faint buzzing of emergency power.
Someone whispers, "What's happening?"
Emily leans against the wall, heart hammering. Her phone pulses.
**[Mutation Opportunity Expiring]**
**[Last Chance]**
She shoves it into her pocket.
Jess doesn't.
Emily watches in horror as Jess lifts her phone, hands trembling, face slick with tears.
"Maybe… maybe this helps us survive," Jess whispers.
"Jess—don't."
Jess presses **YES**.
She screams instantly.
Her spine arches, bones grinding under her skin like they're trying to rearrange themselves. Her fingernails split. Her jaw cracks sideways.
Emily lunges forward—but one of the others pulls her back. "Don't touch her! Don't—"
Jess's voice fractures into wet choking gasps.
The whispering in Emily's skull rises to a pitch she can barely stand.
"Em… run…" Jess forces out, eyes wide, bleeding. "Run."
Emily obeys.
She tears out of the closet as Jess collapses behind her.
The hallway is worse now—shadows shifting unnaturally, distant shrieks echoing down the stairwells. Something moves on the ceiling. Emily doesn't look back.
She sprints.
Down the stairs.
Across the courtyard.
Through the broken campus gate.
Running until her lungs burn and her vision blurs.
Running until the city swallows her.
Running until she sees the fire escape and the room Aaron later pulls her into.
— Present —
Emily sucks in a trembling breath as the memory ends. The reinforced room feels smaller now, pressing in around her.
Aaron sits beside her, stunned silent.
"That's what I saw," she whispers. "What I ran from. I didn't… I didn't save anyone."
Aaron shakes his head. "Emily… you survived something no one even understands. You kept going when everything was falling apart."
Her voice cracks. "I left Jess behind."
"You honored what she asked you to do, she clearly knew what she wanted" Aaron says softly. "And you're here. Right here. That matters."
Emily wipes her eyes. "Your System… it didn't whisper to you like that?"
"No. And I hope it stays that way."
She shivers. "I hope so too."
Outside, something howls in the distant street.
Inside, Aaron and Emily sit in silence—two survivors holding onto the last fragile scraps of humanity in a world already rewriting itself.
For several long minutes, neither of them speaks.
The hum of the reinforced walls fills the silence—soft, faint, but steady. Outside, something prowls across broken concrete. Its claws click gently, dragging sparks. Aaron tenses, but Emily is the one who rises first.
Slow. Controlled. Quiet.
Not panicked.
Not impulsive.
Careful.
Aaron watches her cross the small fortified room, her footsteps placed with precision—avoiding loose paper, avoiding the metal struts he'd materialised. She moves like someone who has spent a long time practicing how not to be found.
"Emily?" he whispers.
She pauses by the reinforced door, her ear against it. Her hand lifts—not trembling now—and she carefully flips the lock's manual latch, muting its rattling vibration.
She waits. Breath held.
The creature outside sniffs.
A low, guttural sound vibrates through the hallway.
Emily flattens her palm against the cold metal, grounding herself. Her voice, when it comes, is barely a breath.
"It can't smell us through the plating. But it can hear us."
Aaron blinks. "How do you—?"
"Because I've been listening to them since the campus," she murmurs. "They hunted by sound first. Eyes are wrong. Like static. I watched one walk past a whole group of students who were frozen silent."
Aaron stares. He hadn't noticed anything like that—then again, he'd been running, panicking, burning System points just to stay alive.
Emily gently steps back from the door, sinking into a crouch. "Whatever's out there… it's moving slow. Searching. Not sure where we went."
"How can you tell?"
She gestures subtly at the floor. "The vibrations. They're uneven. Low weight at the front, heavier at the back. Something armored, maybe." She shakes her head. "It's limping a little."
Aaron's eyebrows rise. "You picked all that up from… vibrations?"
Emily finally looks at him. Her eyes are steadier now—not the wide panic from earlier, but sharp, observant, calculating.
"My dad used to hunt," she says softly. "Before uni. Before all of this. He taught me to listen for patterns. Footsteps. Breath. Animal behavior." Her jaw clenches. "I never thought it would matter like this."
The creature outside growls again, deeper this time—frustrated.
Emily lifts a finger to her lips, though Aaron isn't moving, barely breathing.
Seconds crawl by like hours.
Then, slowly, the scraping footsteps grow distant.
Emily doesn't relax until the final echo disappears.
Aaron finally exhales, shoulders dropping. "You… you saved us."
Emily sits back down, drawing her knees up again—but not in fear. In thought. "It's strange," she murmurs. "I was terrified all day. Running blindly. But now? I don't know. Maybe fear finally peaked, and my brain switched to something else."
"Instinct," Aaron says. "Survival mode."
She looks at him for a long moment. "Yeah. Maybe that's it."
The quiet settles again, deeper than before. The air feels thicker, as if the building itself is holding its breath along with them.
Emily pulls off her backpack and begins sorting through it, slow and methodical. She spreads its contents on the floor: a metal water bottle, a cracked phone, two protein bars, a pocketknife, and a spiral notebook with dog-eared corners.
Aaron watches her work. "You… packed this while everything was happening?"
"No," Emily replies softly. "I already had it. I always carry more than I need." She glances up with a half-smile. "Anxiety makes you overprepare. Today I'm glad it does."
She unwraps one of the protein bars and hands it to him, but not before snapping it in half cleanly. She eats only a small piece, rationing without being asked.
"Eat slow," she says. "Your body's burning through energy from the System. You look like you're about to collapse."
Aaron does as she says, chewing slowly. His muscles ache from overuse, from adrenaline, from everything. Emily's calm focus is a strange contrast to the chaos outside.
"How are you holding together better than me?" he asks.
Emily rests her head against the wall, eyes half-lidded. "I'm not," she says. "I just don't have the luxury of falling apart yet."
The room falls quiet again, the distant hum of the city—whatever remains of it—seeping through the reinforced walls.
Aaron watches her examine the metal plates he created, quietly calculating something in her mind. She checks each one for heat, sound, structural give.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"Learning your fortifications," she whispers back. "So I know how long they'll last if something worse comes. So I know how to brace us from the inside. So I know where to expect failure points."
She looks over her shoulder at him.
"And so you don't have to be the only one keeping us alive."
Aaron's breath catches.
The world outside is tearing itself apart.
Monsters prowl the streets.
People glitch. Mutate. Disappear.
But inside this tiny fortified room, for the first time, Aaron doesn't feel alone.