While I was seething, it wasn’t the time. Sure, I would find a way to get back at each and every one of the people hiding in the garage- I could and would hold grudges for years- but right now they have another potential use. Wandering around a corner and out of sight from the barricade, I fired off a series of questions to Cleo.

“A few things: How long do we have until second-wave demons start to manifest? How is ‘saving people’ defined by whatever system you have- would giving those assholes a chance at escape constitute ‘saving’ them even if they didn’t make it out of the zone? And could those batteries even have any energy left in them after the Breach formed? Oh, also- how did none of them see you?”

After a brief moment of doing their freezing thing, they whispered into my mind, {One: you should have a few minutes before the demons propagate from the breach proper. After the first wave, where they can appear is limited to closer and closer proximities of the tear itself. Two: saving is defined as “Giving another person a significantly greater chance of survival through direct action.” Hooking up the batteries could be argued to qualify as increasing the chance of survival, and would be a direct consequence of an action you took. Third: If properly shielded via a faraday cage or similar, the energy could have eluded being taken- however, it would be a hotspot for demons trying to gather more energy. I can feel faint energy from the direction they are supposed to be in, so it is likely they were designed with proper Breach protections in mind. Fourth: I am only visible and real to you without using energy to manifest myself.}

“Alright,” I said absentmindedly while unrolling the map I was so graciously given. It was not as nice as the ones I had taken from the internet, being roughly hand drawn and only showing the relevant path. That was fine with me as I already knew the layout of the building and only needed to know where the room I needed to get to was. It’s a basic precaution to know the potential escape routes in any building- especially the ones where you’ll be living- so I made it a point to study up on that before coming here after the first time.

If I had suspicions that the universe was conspiring to screw me over, the fact the backup battery room was on the other side of the building in the staff area all but confirmed it. If I wanted to get there, I’d have to navigate the grunt-work offices, various break rooms, and the rest of the jumble that made up that section of the floor. Why couldn’t it just be a nice, straight hallway and one room?

If that had been the case, I could just go quietly and make sure each door along the way was locked- but with this mess I’d need to carefully clear and secure every room so I didn’t get ambushed either on my way there or way back. If the previous encounters were anything to go by, I was not a good fighter and if this mess took too long the stress might reach the limit of what I could suppress.

I swear that’s a healthy coping mechanism.

“I don’t know if I can take this… Why do I always seem to get caught up in the ‘improbable’ negatives of every supposedly good thing that happens to me,” I complained to myself- the other healthy coping mechanism I had developed.

{I think you will find you are much more capable than you think you are. Dealing with the trapper previously is normally something that new MGs struggle with, but you only briefly hesitated before taking action,} Cleo told me in what was clearly an attempt to motivate me.

“Yeah, thanks. It’s just a lot. I’m not exactly trained in breach and clear maneuvers- all that I’ve done that could really be called training is practicing technically-not-illegal-but-highly-questionable skills…” I trailed off, having a new thought hit me before facepalming.

“Why don’t I just go over the whole thing. If this floor is like the others, I should be able to make my way through the ceiling-maintenance-area and just drop down into the room that has the stairs to that basement. I doubt the demons would be up there and while it might be slower, that's not really my problem.”

With this in mind, I tried to remember where the nearest janitorial closet was. I had been to a lot of those today, but this time it was with good intentions. Maybe I could get a perk that would let me traverse closets like druids or faeries can with trees in some stories. After pushing aside that though, I realized that the one closest to me should be the main one for the building as a whole, and was just a short trip down a hallway.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Said trip was terrifyingly uneventful. Every shadow looked like it could hold a monster, every door containing unknowns. But nothing happened. I carefully picked the lock on the closest- really storage room for this one- and prayed the hinges had been oiled recently as I pulled it open and held out my knife.

Despite my fears, there was nothing in the room besides shelves of cleaning products and buckets. I breathed a sigh of relief as I closed and locked the door after stepping inside. Still feeling a little spiteful, I took a minute or two to peruse the items in the room for anything that might fit in my pockets. Sadly, nothing was both interesting and small, but I did find a length of rope that might let me not drop two floors down into my target room. It was actually a very lucky find- if I had just gone right away, I might have needed to make a trip back or done some climbing on the walls to get down without breaking my ankle.

Much like with the others, in the corner was a ladder leading up to a hatch, which in turn led to a cramped and dusty space. Unlike with my trip to the offices, I lacked a proper floor plan and had to rely on my own sense of direction to keep on target. When I was what I’d estimate to be three-quarters there, I started to hear some very quiet clicking. I froze as I realized it was coming from directly below me, in one of the rooms I would have needed to pass through. The noise came in waves of quick clicks moving in one direction, being muffled enough to fade out completely just as the next series could be made out. Something about the sound made me think that whatever was making it was very hard and very sharp.

Eventually the noise passed, but as I started moving, I came to the horrifying revelation that it had been moving in the same direction as me. I guess I should have assumed that with how long it took to get anywhere in the maintenance subfloor, the second wave demons would beat me to the basement-access, but the thought had never crossed my mind. I picked up the pace, but right before I made it above the proper room the noise came again. The same waves of disturbing clicking passed below, also heading to the access room.

Once I was in position, I took a deep breath and held it as I shifted a ceiling tile out of place. I only took a brief look at the horror show below me before instinctively jerking back and shivering. In that room as a spiraling mess of segments and legs. All I could think of was the images of a centipede protecting its children- except at the scale of a room. Each sin against creation below me was at least twenty feet long with long, thin, shimmering legs that made the eerie clicking noise as they piled on top of each other in a vain attempt to open a small door tucked away in the corner.

Trying to maintain control of myself, I shakily asked Cleo, “Is… Is that normal?”

{Second-wave hunters are known to swarm locations of high ULE density. Despite the apparent shielding of that room, they must have been attracted here in great numbers due to the vastly greater quantities of energy still detectable. On the bright side, it is unlikely that you will encounter demons in other rooms. In similarly good news, they are deceptively easy to kill: a relatively small wound will hemorrhage their internal fluids, making them unable to move.}

“So how the hell do I deal with that? I don’t have any way to blow up a room or anything! All I have is this short knife- and I doubt it will do anything.” I was on the verge of tears- just ready to give up.

{How did you deal with the previous horde of preliminary gatherers?}

“I don’t think there is enough alcohol in this building to deal with those. Maybe not even in the state,” I panic-whispered before taking a moment to take some deep breaths and calm down. True, there wasn’t any alcohol on hand to burn those things with- but did I need alcohol?

There are plenty of other dangerous things we just have around because they’re more convenient than deadly. I’m sure I could scrounge up various cutting implements from the operating theaters. Or maybe I could snag a taser rifle from one of the guards? I doubt they’d care about spicy food…

Could I make capsaicin?

No, I have no clue how I’d synthesize it even with a full lab- let alone the nothing I had.

How about other irritating chemicals?

…

Maybe…

After all, there's a reason you never mix two cleaning agents together- and I had a room full of every variety you could think of.