"What is our play?" Aurora asked, her voice low and steady. "Do we stay here and wait for rescue?"
"The emergency alerts mentioned martial law in major cities. There was no mention of rescue operations or evacuation zones." I gestured toward the warped steel of the door where I had crushed the creature. "And whatever is happening, it is big enough that they are treating it like nuclear war. I don't think help is coming, Aurora. Not anytime soon."
"So we get out on our own."
"Yeah. But we do it carefully."
I moved to the door and pressed my ear against the cold metal. The building above us had fallen into an eerie, suffocating quiet. There were no more screams and no more crashes. I could only hear the distant, mechanical hum of the building's climate control systems and something else. There were faint voices, too muffled to make out the words, echoing down from the upper floors.
"It sounds mostly clear," I whispered. "But there are definitely people still up there."
Aurora's sword materialized with a soft shimmer of silver light, casting long, metallic shadows across the concrete walls. "Survivors or more of those silver-eyed things?"
"I can't tell from here."
"Stay behind me," she said, her tone brook no argument. "If something goes wrong, use your gravity ability. I will handle the close quarters."
I nodded, reaching for the connection to my power. The crystalline quill did not appear yet, but I could sense the Astral Ink waiting just beneath the surface of my perception. We unlocked the deadbolt. Aurora gripped the handle, and I took a steadying breath.
She pulled the door open slowly. The hinges protested with a soft, metallic squeak that sounded like a gunshot in the silence of the stairwell. Beyond the threshold, the world was bathed in a dim, pulsing red from the emergency lights. It felt like standing inside the throat of a massive beast. Where the zombie had been, only a dark, oily stain remained on the concrete. The system was already reclaiming the matter, the residue fading into nothingness.
"Clear," Aurora whispered.
We stepped out. Every footstep echoed against the stone stairs despite our attempts at stealth. As we climbed, the voices from above became clearer. It was definitely human speech. I could hear the rhythmic rise and fall of a conversation rather than the guttural moans of the transformed.
"Security office first," I suggested. "It is on the ground floor. It should have first aid supplies and maybe a radio that actually works."
Aurora nodded, and we continued our ascent. We moved past the first landing, then the second. At the third floor, Aurora held up a hand and froze. The voices were much clearer now. They were coming from at least two floors up.
"Other survivors," I murmured. "They must be barricaded in."
We reached the ground floor exit. The heavy door was marked with faded exit signs, but when Aurora tested the handle, it didn't budge. It was electronically locked from the other side.
I closed my eyes and reached for the code. The quill shimmered into existence between my fingers, and my vision fractured. I saw the simple mechanism of the lock through the steel. It was a digital strike with a mechanical backup. I focused on the internal pins, specifically the gravitational constant of the small iron tumblers. I made a tiny, localized adjustment, increasing the weight of one specific component until it dropped into the open position.
There was a distinct click.
Aurora raised her eyebrows. "That is a very handy trick for a physics student."
The quill dissolved as we stepped through into the hallway. The ground floor was a disaster zone. Fluorescent lights strobed intermittently, casting jagged shadows over abandoned backpacks and scattered papers. There were no bodies here, which was almost more unsettling than the carnage upstairs. It meant people had been taken or they had fled.
We moved down the corridor toward the security office. We reached the main intersection, and Aurora peered around the corner before pulling back quickly. She held up two fingers. Two zombies were standing motionless near the main entrance doors. One wore a torn business suit, the other an NYU sweatshirt. They weren't shambling. They were standing perfectly still, their backs to us, watching the glass doors.
"Are they guarding the exit?" I whispered.
The security office was twenty feet past them. We would have to get incredibly close. I reached for the gravity rewrite again, the quill manifesting silently in the dim light. Through my enhanced perception, I saw the creatures as outlines of raw lunar energy. They were waiting for something to come from the outside.
I focused on the gravitational field around both creatures. I didn't use crushing force this time, I simply increased the pull of the earth beneath their feet. The effect was subtle. Their legs suddenly felt like they were made of lead. They looked down in confusion, trying to lift their feet, but they were pinned to the linoleum.
Aurora moved like liquid lightning.
Her sword flashed twice in the strobe light. They were clean, horizontal cuts through both necks. The creatures collapsed without a sound and began to dissolve into motes of silver light before they even hit the floor.
[Experience gained: 50]
The notification flickered in my peripheral vision. We hurried to the security office door, but the card reader was blinking a steady, stubborn red.
"Save your energy," Aurora whispered, catching my hand as I reached for the quill. She pointed to a window beside the door that was already spider-webbed with cracks. A few quick strikes with her sword hilt sent the reinforced glass shattering inward.
The security office was small and smelled of ozone. Banks of monitors showed various camera feeds from across the building. Most showed empty, blood-stained corridors, but one monitor caught my eye. On the fourth floor, figures were moving deliberately behind a wall of overturned desks in a lecture hall.
"Survivors," I said, pointing at the screen.
An older woman with graying hair and glasses was gesturing frantically. Beside her were two younger students, a man and a woman, looking increasingly desperate. The older woman looked directly into the camera, her lips moving in a silent, three-syllable plea: Help us.
"They know we are watching," I said. "We have to go."
Aurora was already moving toward the window, her expression set in stone. We gathered what we could from the office: a first aid kit, a few emergency rations, and a heavy-duty flashlight. I tried the radio setup on the desk, but it was mostly static and fragmented military chatter about containment breaches and sector seven.
"Military channels," Aurora noted. "They are losing ground."
A heavy crash echoed from the ceiling above us, followed by a muffled shout. It came from the fourth floor.
"What are we waiting for?" Aurora asked, her sword flaring bright in the dark office.
We climbed back out into the hallway, but as we reached the stairwell, a new sound echoed down the shaft. It wasn't a human scream, and it wasn't the moan of a husk. It was a rhythmic, metallic scratching. It sounded like claws dragging across steel. It was getting closer and louder with every passing second.
"Whatever that is, it is heading right for them," Aurora said.
I felt the quill try to materialize unbidden. My perception was picking up a massive disturbance in the local gravity. Something heavy was coming down the stairs, and the three strangers on the fourth floor were trapped directly in its path.