“Cyrus! Hold up, let’s think about this” Josh says in disbelief.

“We’re gonna fight it either way, it’s better to fight it with more people. Better odds” Cyrus says while removing the last part of the barricade.

“Oh Jesus have mercy on our souls” Josh quickly grabs another knife off the knife-rack in the kitchen, before rushing out the door with Cyrus.

Cyrus notices the beast running down the hallway with a gait resembling a gorilla, charging towards Emily. Emily stands in front of one of the suite doors banging, yelling for someone to let her in.

Shit. I need to do something or she’s going to die.

Cyrus then looks down at the food trolley and grabs one of the liquor bottles in his spare hand, before charging towards the growling abomination. Cyrus dashes the bottle at the beast, shattering it against its bulging back, the glass shards fragment all over the floor.

The beast stops running as it gets hit by the bottle and is doused in spirits. It turns around looking back at Cyrus while initiating a step forward to rush towards him, one of it’s feet is punctured by a shard of glass. Cyrus watches the beast as it bleeds, growling in pain.

Seems like that thing feels pain like humans, maybe it burns like one too.

“Yo Josh! Grab more bottles and toss them!” Cyrus yells across the hall.

The thing, growls as it bleeds from its foot, staggering against the wall of the hallway as each step it takes, pushes the glass further in, causing it to screech in agony.

Emily stops banging on the door as she notices the beast’s attention being taken away. “The things running away please quickly let me in before it comes back!”

A man’s voice responds from the room “Sorry I can’t risk it, my families in here.”

Josh runs up towards Cyrus, quickly handing him a bottle into his hand. “Follow my lead” Cyrus says as he throws his bottle at the abomination.

The bottles shatter against its skin, splattering alcohol all over it. One of Josh’s bottle manages to strike it in one of its eyes partially blinding the beast, causing it to stumble.

“Keep throwing bottles, I’ll keep it focused on me” yells Cyrus towards Josh as he begins to run towards the beast.

“Bro, you’re fucking crazy, be careful!” Josh says as he throws a bottle over Cyrus towards the beast.

Cyrus approaches the creature as it begins to lift itself up to strike him. The beast lunges at him with its left arm, but Cyrus sidesteps the attack to his left and quickly slashes the beast’s extended arm with his knife.

The knife only cuts the flesh as it was unable to penetrate the extremely hard muscles. Cyrus quickly steps back and examines the beast.

This grotesque things anatomy is still similar to ours. Maybe I can use that to my advantage and subdue it.

The beast retracts its wounded arm and swings its right arm at Cyrus, holding him against the hallway wall by his shoulder. Cyrus struggles to try and break free of its hold before plunging the knife into the beasts elbow joint, causing it to release him. The beasts arm drops as the knife has essentially crippled it. It yells in a fit of rage, growling in anger as it stares down Cyrus with a gaze of contempt.

The beast leans back onto its legs before thrusting itself into a tiger like pounce directly at Cyrus in an attempt to pin him down once and for all. Cyrus jumps to the side, barely escaping its grasp.

The beast manages to grab hold of his shirt’s collar, pulling him backwards. Thinking fast he quickly grabs the collar of his T-shirt and tears it down the middle, allowing him to escape.

Thank god it was just a cheap t-shirt.

Josh throws another bottle at the thing as he thinks to himself “What the fuck?! Why’s Cyrus smiling, is he actually enjoying this?”

Emily looks in horror at the fight taking place, frozen in shock, before coming to her senses trying to figure out what she can do to help get out of this situation.

She backs away from the door and looks around till she notices a fire extinguisher hanging on the wall. She drops her handbag to use both her hands to grab the extinguisher. She stares down the hallway towards Cyrus who is standing firmly in front of the beast, trying to calculate what the best next move would be.

“Cyrus, take this!” Josh yells as he holds the blade of the knife, throwing it with practiced accuracy as if he has done this before.

Cyrus turns to the sound of Josh, as the knife flies through the air, bypassing the beast and landing on the ground by his feet. He quickly drops down to procure the knife, but just as he’s just about to grab it, the beast lunges with its unscathed arm, attempting to grab him.

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Cyrus manages to snatch the knife just narrowly avoiding the monsters grip. Cyrus quickly tries to retaliate by plunging the knife into it again, however, the beast retracts its arm as Cyrus attempts to stab, dodging the strike.

“Take this you gross fuck” yells Josh as another bottle is flung at the beast, spreading the liquor all over its back, glass shattering against its skin letting the alcohol seep into the wounds.

There is a low angry growl coming from the beast, a rhythm of heaving breathing, slowly escalating as it turns around directing its attention at Josh.

Ice runs along Josh’s spine as he notices the red eyes stare directly at him with an animalistic anger. He reaches down into the tipped over trolley for more ammunition but finds nothing.

“Fuck we’re outta bottles bro” Josh says as he backs away from the trolley slowly.

The beast starts to pace towards Josh, with each step causing the glass shards in its feet to pierce in deeper, angering the beast further.

It’s distracted we need to finish this thing off before one of us gets more hurt. Fuck it here we go.

Cyrus takes a few steps back and sprints at the beast’s rear. He jumps onto its back quickly grabbing it around the neck with one arm.

Cyrus tries with his other hand to plunge the knife again into the beast but fails, the beast swerves and aggressively tries to shake itself to release itself from Cyrus’s hold.

It reaches for its back attempting to grab him but Cyrus quickly slashes its hand with the knife, causing the beast to scream and spin against the wall, crushing Cyrus and releasing itself from him.

Cyrus now on the floor barely conscious looks up at the beast, whose face is just inches away from his.

I… can’t get up. I guess this is it. I wonder how Sierra is doing, would be nice to see her one last time

Drops of saliva drip from the beasts snarling mouth, as it leans in closer towards him. Its foot weighs down on Cyrus’s left arm crushing it further preventing him from escaping. Cyrus looks back at the beast while smiling, looking as though as he’s ready to embrace what comes next.

WHAAM

A metallic sound echoes as the beast is smacked in the head against something large. It then collapses off of Cyrus’s body freeing his arm.

Emily…

“Quickly get up!” Emily reaches for Cyrus’s and quickly pulls him up to his feet “are you okay!?”

“Don’t worry about me” Cyrus examines his arm, trying to move it but it’s no use “We need to finish this now!”

The beast in a daze, staggers as it stands back up, unable to maintain a good balance, it steps slowly towards the two.

Alright this is the best shot I’m gonna get.

Cyrus reaches for his pocket and pulls out his lighter while facing the beast, he watches the beast move slowly on the floor, noticing all the of the alcohol covering its body.

Suddenly behind them a door opens and out rushes a slightly overweight man holding a golf club over his head. “You guys alright?!”

“Are we alright?!” exclaims Emily “you left me to die you fucking asshole”

Ignoring the dispute Cyrus reaches out towards the beast and attempts to ignite the flame but to no avail. The beast slowly regains its composure and attempts to stand back up.

“Quickly, get back” yells Cyrus to Emily, cutting her off during her petty dispute with the man.

Ahhh this isn’t good. I knew I should have gotten a new lighter.

The beast gets back up in a staggering motion, standing on its rear legs towards the group. Visibly wounded and damaged.

It locks its eyes onto Cyrus, as he is the closest to it, giving him a menacing stare.

Emily backs away slowly, closer to the man with the golf club. Slightly trembling with each step she looks at Cyrus with panicked eyes. “Cyrus please, let’s run!”

We have no way to light this thing up, no matter what we throw at it, it just gets back up. This is hopeless… There’s no escape.

The man with the golf club slowly lowers his weapon as he locks eyes with the beast properly for the first time.

“w-w-what is that thing?!”

His eyes widen with panic, but he does his best to not attract any attention to himself.

The beast standing up straight for the first time showing its intimidating height and tenacity, looking as though its ready to strike again at Cyrus. The anger in its eyes penetrating fear into everyone within it’s vision.

Looks like I’m gonna die trying to save people, who would have guessed.

Its mouth begins to open up, showing the rows of teeth opening wider than what seems possible, until its head splits. Its mouth opened large enough to consume an adult whole.

Cyrus steps back dropping what’s left of his bravado as he stares into the gaping mouth of this monster, readying itself to lunge at him.

Emily screams in horror witnessing this, she covers her eyes and drops to the floor. “Run Cyrus, Run!”

Suddenly she feels a slight surge of energy in her desperation. She drops her hands from her face and stares at the beast.

The beasts movement starts to slow down as if time around it is being manipulated. All of a sudden, the beast seems as though its muscles have seized up and frozen in place like a statue.

Cyrus realising that the beast has stopped moving altogether regains his posture and looks with wonder.

What… What just happened?

He turns around and looks back at Emily and the man with the golf club who is standing in shock still staring at this beast, but he notices Emily with a serious and spellbound stare on her face as she sits on the floor. It is as though she is mesmerised with absolutely no movement.

Emily?

“Cyrus light it up!”

Yells Josh, hiding behind the tipped over food trolley.

Cyrus takes a hold of his lighter and flicks the flint, he feels a small sensation in his hand as though blood has momentarily rushed through to his fingertips.

The flint sparks and ignites the flame, the flame burns larger than normal as though it is being fuelled by something else. Burning hotter than usual with a dark red colour.

Why is this flame so big??

The beast screams, echoing through the hallway, the screams could be heard from all over the building. The beast still unable to move, but the pain clearly showing from its red wide eyes.

The flame stops and Cyrus lowers his hand. They all stand and stare at the beast as it shrieks in pain spreading the fire around it, on the carpet and hallway. Finally the beast lays silent and the movement stops.

Josh runs towards the fire extinguisher and quickly picks it up to put out the flames before they become untameable.

“What the actual fuck just happened?!” Josh asks as he looks in disbelief at what remains of the burnt corpse

Cyrus turns and looks back at Emily who lays unconscious on the ground

That’s a really good question