A man beside me screamed. I didn't look, I didn't need to. His scream cut off with a wet, bursting sound, and he collapsed on the ground. My eyes widened, not from fear but shock itself.
Warm blood sprayed across my cheek and temple. I swept it away, staring at it. My white shirt stained with blood. I knew how it worked, yet it didn't make me a player but a wary witness.
I looked around at strangers.
Terror was everywhere.
People screamed, clawing at their skulls. Those who passed held bodies of friends, siblings, parents.
And I stood there completely silent.
My panel buzzed, dragging me from my stupor.
[Ordeal complete: passed]
I didn't even do anything.
[Participant
Name: Serin
Age: 20
Patron: none
Skill: not determined
Attributes: ..]
My blood went cold. It had scanned him, Serin, the one whose life I wore. It had found his past, not mine. Had it found nothing of the ghost inside? How could it let me go so easily?
I sighed, a shaky release of air. I should be grateful. I had survived.
I fumbled my phone. The time glowed.
[16:50]
At 17:20, the beasts will be released. To them, this is a game. The games have levels, and levels have different beasts.
I didn't know how I knew. But I was certain.
I turned. The cries still echoed. A part of me wanted to shout a warning, to gather them, to save someone.
But it would be useless. They wouldn't listen. They would demand explanations I couldn't give, and the clock was ticking down to zero.
I started walking down the street. The soundscape of the end: the distant cries, the husks of fallen drones, vehicles frozen mid-escape. The tall buildings stood like silent tombs, their glass facades cracked and smeared with red. Bodies lay crumpled along the footpaths like discarded rubbish.
The mid-sector was safest, military and hospitals were there. Luckily, it was only two streets away. A thread of relief, thin but real.
I walked for a few minutes, reaching a corner where the street formed a median. My gaze dropped to the left. The other side of the street by a glass building sprayed with red.
A woman lay on the ground, the top of her head a ruin. Blood had sprayed a dark halo around her, soaking clothes and pavement.
Beside her sat a girl, no older than twelve. She had a shock of blonde hair, matted with blood at the ends, and eyes the colour of fresh crimson. Her dress was a map of blood stains. Her small hands were painted red, resting on her lap. Those red eyes were wide, unblinking, locked on the woman's body. She was utterly still.
People had gathered in the distance. Some speaking frantically into their Comms. Others just stared at the girl, their faces masks of horror.
I checked the time again.
[17:00]
I tried to walk away, but then I would become one of them, the ones who watch from a safe distance and do nothing. I tried to move, but my body refused.
I walked over to her, crossing some vehicles standing mid-road, and crouched beside the woman's body. The girl's crimson eyes, empty of tears, found mine.
"Is my mom dead?" she asked.
I hesitated. There was no kind lie. I gave a single, slow nod.
She stood and hugged me, burying her face in my shirt. The sudden weight threw me off balance, and I sat down hard on the pavement.
People stared, and I ignored them.
I didn't know what to say. I was no good at comforting people. So I didn't speak. I just held her while she cried.
I checked the time again.
[17:05]
I let her cry until the tears became hiccups. Then, a cold wire of dread tightened down my spine. Something was coming. Not a person. Not a drone. Something with weight.
I took a shaky breath. "Hey."
She pulled back, her crimson eyes searching my face. She saw the fear there and flinched. "I... I'm sorry..."
The feeling was a clock hammering behind my ribs. No time.
"Can I carry you?" I asked. "We need to go. It's a hurry."
She took one last, devastated look at her mother, then nodded, a quick bird-like motion.
I hauled her up and sprinted. The mid-sector. Two streets. Just run.
A guttural roar split the air behind us.
I glanced back.
A monstrosity of matted, ink-black fur filled the street. It had the primal silhouette of a wolf, but warped, enlarged to the scale of a truck, with corded muscle rippling beneath its pelt. And on its brow, pulsing with a sickly violet light, was a jagged purple emerald.
It crashed right into the intersection we just left. It moved not like an animal, but like a landslide. A parked car vanished under a sweeping limb, glass and metal shrieking. The people who hadn't run fast enough were gone.
I didn't look back again.
The girl's arms were a vise around my neck, her breath coming in terrified gasps against my ear.
I rounded the final corner and stopped dead.
The beast was already there.
It filled the street, waiting. Its obsidian head tilted, the violet gem on its brow pulsing slow and steady, like a heartbeat. It wasn't panting. It wasn't snarling. It just stood there, blocking the path to the mid-sector, and stared directly at me.
Then, without a sound, it moved.
Not charged. Not lunged. It simply blinked out of existence and materialized again, closer. Ten metres became five. I didn't see it cross the space. It was just there, suddenly, its massive form filling my vision, close enough that I could smell the rot clinging to its fur.
I stumbled back, nearly falling. The girl's arms tightened around my neck.
The beast didn't attack. It watched. Its burning emerald gaze slid from me to the girl, then back to me. A predator's patience. It knew we had nowhere to go.
I looked around frantically. We were trapped in a canyon of silent skyscrapers. The street behind us, the one we'd just come from, was empty. But the beast stood between us and safety.
I let the girl down behind my back, my gaze fixed on the beast.
"Run," I said, my voice a low, urgent rasp. "Straight to the mid-sector. They can help you there."
Her crimson eyes, wide with terror, flicked from me to the beast. "But..."
I shook my head. She looked at me hesitantly, her small body trembling like a bird frozen before a storm. Then she turned and ran across the median behind me.
I heard her footsteps fade, but I didn't turn. I kept my eyes on the beast.
It watched her go. Its head tracked her movement, the violet gem pulsing faster. Then it looked back at me, and something shifted in its stance. Muscles coiled beneath that matted fur.
I had bought her a few seconds. That was all.
The beast lunged.
I threw myself right, rolling across shattered glass from a street-level shop. Shards bit into my palms and knees. The beast's claw swept through the space where I'd been, carving deep gouges into the concrete.
I scrambled to my feet, backing toward the building. The beast turned, faster than something its size had any right to be. Its gem blazed violet.
I looked past it. The girl was still running, a small figure disappearing around a corner. Good. That was good.
The beast followed my gaze. It saw her too.
It turned away from me.
No.
I ran. Not away. Toward. I cut diagonally across its path, hurdled the low concrete median, and sprinted toward the street where she'd fled. My lungs burned. My legs screamed. But I reached the corner just as the beast's shadow fell over her.
She had stopped. Frozen at the dead end. A construction barrier blocked her path, tall sheets of corrugated metal she couldn't climb.
She turned, saw the beast looming, and let out a sound I will never forget. A small, high whimper, cut short by terror.
I planted myself between them.
The beast didn't hesitate this time. It didn't need to toy with us. A backhanded lash of its claw caught me across the torso and threw me like a doll into the wall of a building. The world exploded into a cacophony of shattering glass and crumbling metal.
I hit the ground inside a ruined shop, warmth flooding from my belly.
I tried to stand, but my legs gave in. My vision tunneled into a blur of gray static. I saw the girl running toward me, her face filled with fear. I couldn't hear her screams anymore.
Is this where I will die?
But yet I don't feel disappointed, because I tried.
A final shape appeared, blotting out the light. Humanoid. Dark. It stepped between me and the beast.
Then darkness swallowed everything.