The water had helped immensely. Jenny was seething with rage after watching Mr. Kim die, and the terror that tugged on her every thought only made it worse. She kept picturing herself finding Oliver’s body. Torn open and disfigured. She kept picturing everyone who’d struggled against the angels, dying gruesomely because these skinny creatures were what? Hungry?

> Human population remaining: 191

It had dropped so much now. She wasn’t sure if Oliver was even... There wasn’t any point in even entertaining that thought right now.

They’d been on the third floor. Oliver’s math class was on the first. She wondered if he’d gotten out with his classmates. If he’d rushed to the lobby and tried to get out, or if he found another place to hide, but that didn’t matter. She still had to check his classroom. If only to be sure his corpse wasn’t there.

She could hear Susan’s sharp intake of breath with every step. The wound must still hurt. And of course, it hurt. A part of her leg was torn out by teeth and it had only healed slightly. They needed to get her to a hospital with painkillers and doctors and something to cleanse the wound. What kind of bacteria lived in those angels’ mouths? They reeked and had emaciated bodies... Were hospitals even around anymore? Were they torn away from home, or did the rest of the planet become that strange emptiness outside?

Jenny clutched her hatchet tight. Let's just worry about one thing at a time.

She went slightly ahead down the next set of stairs to scope out the second-floor landing and nearly tripped. Someone was lying on the bottom steps. A boy, his arm reaching for the top of the stairwell, his shirt torn open with blood flowing down to form a puddle at the base of the stairs.

The rest of the second-floor landing looked similar. Jenny swallowed hard, trying to keep from throwing up, and she felt Susan come to a stop behind her. On the floor were the bodies of her classmates and teachers. Bloody smears and handprints everywhere.

She recognized most of them. She didn’t know them all by name, but they were faces she’d pass in the halls. People she’d see sitting by their lockers or eating lunch in the cafeteria or just laughing and hanging out and doing dumb things. She forced herself to look at every single body in turn, to make sure they weren’t Oliver. And with each mangled body, each blank face, Jenny felt more and more rage twisting into a burning hot ball of flame in her head.

There were several angel corpses as well. Their gaunt faces stared blankly. Their naked, uncomfortably thin bodies glistening in the pale glow of the veil. Wounds exposed their insides, and Jenny took some pleasure in knowing that they’d suffered too.

“We should keep going,” whispered Susan.

Jenny stepped carefully over the boy on the steps. She turned to help Susan avoid slipping on the blood, but hissing made her freeze. Susan’s eyes went wide. They heard shouting next. Human’s shouting. Followed by the unmistakable pitter-pattering of countless angels. It almost sounded like the rain from earlier in the morning. An angelic stampede? Jenny looked over her shoulder, barely daring to breathe, as she saw several hunched-over angels rushing by in the second-floor hallway.

They brushed passed the doors, stumbled over bodies, and slid in blood, but they seemed to be zeroing in on the shouting like a pack of carnivorous beasts. They weren’t coming out into the stairwell, and Jenny and Susan went unnoticed as they rushed by. She could see their bones rippling beneath skin, all of them moving on all fours. She even saw the distinct coloring of Wretched Angels. One of them was green, another was yellow with black stripes, and a third was red. Dark red like Jenny’s armor.

She’d already killed one of them, but that had been dumb luck. And even with the level-up she’d gotten from the angels attacking Mr. Kim and the 2 points she’d put into power, it wasn’t enough. They would snap her like a twig and suck her guts out before she could take just one of them down.

Jenny hadn’t moved. Her hand still reaching for Susan’s arm. She wanted to fight. She wanted to butcher as many of them as she could. But she wouldn’t leave Susan here. And she wouldn’t draw their attention to Susan. There was no way they could survive three Wretched Angels, never mind the dozens of Tarnished Angels.

And Susan had been right earlier. Why did Jenny keep imagining herself as some sort of hero? What would she do? Jump into that throbbing mass of angels, swing her hatchet, and kill as many of them as she could before they overwhelmed her? Why did she want to martyr herself so badly? It was such a violent frightening urge to fight, the same thing she’d felt when she’d faced the green Wretched Angel. Kill. Kill. Kill.

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She exhaled a shuddering breath as the halls turned quiet again. If they ever got out of this, she was going to make some therapist either extremely upset or very, very happy.

They could still hear the muffled hissing and shouting, moving away from them, towards the Honors Science wing of the second floor. It was strange, almost like déjà vu, to think about how her locker was in that hallway. What if she’d been there when this whole thing started?

She wondered about the shouts they’d heard. Definitely human. If Wretched Angels were heading there too... whoever was fighting didn’t stand much of a chance unless they were really strong. It was either Jenny and Susan tried to help them and they all died fighting, or they pushed onward. There was no way to help those people.

“Okay,” whispered Jenny, looking back at Susan and her pink helmet. “I think they’re gone now.”

She helped Susan get over the body, then they turned to the next flight of stairs, moving slowly, making sure none of their steps made a sound. She’d grown accustomed to the stench of death and blood, but she could sense it was getting worse as they descended.

Jenny wished she was stronger. Wished she had more energy. She wanted to keep Susan safe, but fighting more angels was the only way to get stronger. The only way to get more energy. But that meant risking their lives, and while she was more than willing to risk her own, she didn’t want to risk Susan’s. It was a frustrating catch-22.

They moved around the bodies on this stairwell. Necks torn open. Blood dripping down the steps. There were guts and chunks of flesh and vomit all over. The stench was unbearable now, and even the air seemed thicker. The veil, whatever it was, seemed to be more present the closer they got the first floor. It was like walking through a clear mist that got denser with every step.

More screaming echoed all over. It set Jenny’s teeth on edge. When they finally got to the first-floor landing, something large and glistening was waiting at the base of the steps. Jenny almost swung her hatchet, thinking it was one of the larger Wretched Angels with red skin, but it was her World History teacher.

He was flat on his back, his shirt torn open, and almost every bit of him was covered in blood. His golden compass rose pin glittered in the gloom, still attached to his tie. Several angels lay beside him, unmoving.

“Mr. Ahmadi...,” said Susan. She’d been in his class last year, had loved him, and insisted Jenny take his history class this year.

Mr. Ahmadi had been a large man. He loved his sweets, and every Friday, he treated his students to chocolates, candies, and pretzels. For Thanksgiving, he’d baked several large cheesecakes and shared them with each one of his classes. For Lunar New Year, he’d introduced us to his wife, who was from China and made dumplings and sweet rice balls for everyone.

He was jolly and awesome and on parent-teacher’s evening, spoke warmly about Jenny's grades in his class and her papers, and even said she'd make a fine historian if that was what she wanted to pursue.

Jenny looked at the angels. He must have strangled them to death. Knowing Mr. Ahmadi, he tried to hold off as many as he could while students tried to escape. She blinked away tears. She didn’t want to cry. Not yet. Even though she wanted to sob and scream, she knew it wouldn’t help. And Susan must be feeling the same way.

She knelt and shut his eyes and pushed his tongue back into his mouth. One of the angels had bitten off his ear and a part of his cheek. Susan nudged her gently, and Jenny finally managed to look away from Mr. Ahmadi. There were tears streaming down Susan’s face, but her lips were pressed tight, and she didn’t say a word.

The remaining flight of stairs would lead down to the basement. More blood and bodies. Something, or many somethings, were moving down there. After a quick glance at the first-floor hall and seeing it empty, Jenny pushed one of the doors open. Susan followed close behind.

They were met with sounds of chewing, teeth gnashing, and the gross wet sounds of swallowing. To their left was the lobby, and the sight of it made Jenny's stomach turn worse than anything yet.

Tarnished Angels, dozens of them, on all fours. Feasting on the flesh of countless people. Like pale, glistening hairless hyenas. She spotted the dark blue uniform of the security guards. She saw teachers, some of the nurses, the lunch staff, and so many, many students. Their clothes torn, their necks ripped open. Some of them were still alive.

Begging for help, their voices nothing more than whispers and sobs. Some of them were praying. One teacher, Jenny didn’t know him by name but he was an art teacher. He was on top of a pile of students, a bald angel picking through his chest with its fingers, while the teacher murmured words in another language. The glass doors of the main entrance were cracked and shattered, but it looked like nobody managed to make it outside. Were they bolted shut somehow? Had no one at all managed to escape the building?

It was more than Jenny could take. She pictured the initial rush to get out. The panic, the fear... only to be trapped in the lobby. How many of them tried to fight back only to be swarmed? How many were trampled to death?

A pressure built up in her stomach and rose so swiftly to her throat, she couldn’t stop herself. She retched all the water she’d downed. What was left of her breakfast. Stomach acid. Blood.

Almost in unison, every single angel in the lobby turned their heads at the sound of her vomit splattering the floor. Blood and viscera dripped from their mouths. All of them hissed.

Jenny stumbled back as the angels rushed at them, scrambling over bodies. Kicking up blood. They all looked to be Tarnished Angels, with levels ranging from 5 to 9.

Susan was screaming something in her ear, but Jenny couldn’t hear a thing other than her beating heart. With a cry, she swung her hatchet at the first angel that reached them. It was a brunettee, its tits swinging, its eyes wide and white, and its face smeared with blood. Jenny cut through its head, and before it could even hit the floor, she buried her hatchet in the next one’s chest.

She didn’t even bother pulling out the hatchet. Golden light flashed, and it was back in her arm, and she was swinging again.