The monster was lying in a room. With a chair in the middle of said room.

In the chair sat a man staring at the walls of the room.

First, the man had tried to reason with the monster.

When it had captured them in their sleep and bound them in this room.

Then he had pleaded when it had approached his family.

Then cursed when it had cut his wife, anything to change the monster's focus upon himself.

Then burst to tears and kept asking “why, why us?!” when the spark of life left her body.

The monster then continued to slaughter both his daughters and his only son.

He had tried everything.

Every time. Every time he begged, threatened, cursed at the abnormality while it slowly tormented his family to death.

And even after all that, he still cursed and cursed the fiend who had appeared from the night.

Then there was silence.

The Man broke, once the monster painted the white walls with its paintbrush using the man’s family’s blood as paint.

The man sat there looking at the walls.

He looked at the uneven crimson paint that “it” had generously applied upon the walls, slowly dripping downwards towards the floor.

The husk of a man just kept staring.

I slowly come to my senses and stared at the ceiling.

God, I was hungry as well as thirsty, so I shambled to the bathroom to get some water while avoiding stumbling on the corpses that were starting to stink.

I drank until I was full, to ease the rumbling stomach, and looked into the mirror over the sink.

What greeted me was a face covered with dried blood dyeing the face sloppily with deep crimson. The familiar cold, unfeeling, pale blue eyes stared at me on an angular face with slightly sunken cheeks that empowered the already defined cheekbones, giving the face a wolfish look.

Crimson suits me. Really brings out my eyes.

I strip out of the good doctor's clothing and do my best to use the sink to clean off the blood and the irregular pieces of gore and brain.

After I mostly got all the gore and crimson off, I put my head underneath the sink and rinsed my hair, dyeing the water once more crimson.

I look into the mirror again to see if I washed the blood out of my black hair. Using the toilet paper to dry most of the dampness from my hair, I put my clothes back on and headed to the office to look for my dear companion, Jason.

After scouring around the office, I found it underneath the couch. I had moved it out of my way to make more space in the office before the fight.

It’s good to have obstacles in a fight but they’re a twin edged sword, easy to lose yourself in the adrenaline and forget there is something behind you.

I inspected Jason and saw that he was in a relatively good condition, unlike his donor. Zombies really don’t have any grace while eating. Still, I can’t help but admire the purity of their actions.

Such simple unbiased creatures who are true to their nature.

My appreciation of the undead variety is interrupted by slow singular bangs, accompanied by the familiar gurgling and moaning behind the office door.

I really dislike noise or rather really like the silence. The sound of silence is simply breathtakingly beautiful. A rarity in this modern world.

With displeasure clearly showing on my face I walk to the door, flip Jason into my left hand and then unlock the door with my right hand and pull it open and swing Jason towards the lonely noisy zombie at the door hitting it in the left temporal area.

With a satisfying crack, the cudgel's handcuff spikes penetrate the surprisingly soft skull, sending the undead on its way.

I close the door again and lock it while inhaling and exhaling deeply while feeling the exhaustion and stiffness of my body due to sleeping on the floor.

I then proceeded to enjoy the silence once more. Only to come upon a rather pressing question. “Why is it so quiet?”

While a welcoming change after yesterday’s migraine inducing events, the sounds of chaos in form of snarling and screams had subsided while I had been asleep.

Some might say it was eerily quiet. But what do some know?

I haven’t heard the warming embrace of silence for a long time here in the asylum.

There was always some kind of disturbance as insane people are more honest with their base desires and rarely care about others' convenience or about my poor ears.

Especially those that feign their affliction to get out of jail sentence are especially noisy first. Oh, it normally takes them about 2 days in here to come clean.

Too bad for them that is just something the shrinks call denial and tell them that to get healthy you have to start with admitting you’re ill or if they do believe you your sentence gets lengthened and off to jail you go.

Or even better, if they get admitted in as a psychopath, the doctors wouldn’t give a fuck what they say. As feigning mental illness is something a psychopath would do. Oh, the little Joys of life.

I shake my head out my remembrance to get myself back into the game and try to figure out my next action.

Trying to get out would be tricky, as that would be what everyone else would have tried to do.

Not to mention I’m famished, so I’m unable to function optimally.

Going for the pantry is out as well. It isn’t any easier as I have to descend two floors in a high security installation probably filled with undead to get to the canteen. Then through there to staff hallway and so on. Too many variables and dangers. I’m not suicidal.

I’m better off trying to find if there is some a vending machine or anything useful here in the office block before moving forwards.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I once more unlock the door and step out into the minimalist hallway that had seen better days.

The hallway has the offices to the left facing towards outside of the asylum and a white inner wall separating this block from the rest of the facilities of the asylum on its right.

I’m at the beginning of the hallway, with the offices continuing to my left and the exit to my right, behind a corner.

I take the keys still hanging in the lock and lock the door again from the outside to maintain a safe area for me to return to if thing would go south out here.

I first silently make way to my right to check if the magnetic door isolating the offices is still closed.

To my relief, it’s sealed, and it’s even decorated with a couple of bloody handprints on the window. Gives the dreary white hallway a rather nice touch of colour.

I’d wager at least a couple of the five I took care of before I passed out came from here, as there are no corpses around here, only drying blood.

I proceed back to the corridor where I came and once more stop next to the office I was in earlier, facing the corridor going towards the left.

All the doors seem to be closed and probably unoccupied as yesterday the chaos erupted early in the morning. After about 50 meters of hallway, there is a turn to the right towards the inside of the asylum with more offices and I’m unable to see what’s behind the turn.

At least the hallway I can see is clear of corpses that could suddenly decide to come to life like they have an odd tendency to do with an even higher tendency for the living to just ignore them in stories quite like the current reality I’m in.

I slowly move as quietly as possible towards the other end of the corridor while staying away from the office doors and keep close to the wall to my right while looking into the offices and trying to perceive if any of the doors look to be ajar.

I’d hate to find myself in the unlikely situation where a zombie miraculously manages to get an ajar door that opens inside the office somehow open.

Luckily for me, all the doors I’ve passed are closed and empty. Till I’m around 10 meters away from the corner.

In the middle of the office sat a lithe figure, probably of the female variety, who had buried its face into its bosom while hugging its legs.

How un-zombie like.

I saw in its right hand a pair of scissors. The figure seemed to have noticed my gaze and lifts its head, showing her snotty face smeared with mascara and stares at me dazedly. She’s ether a survivor or a rather disappointing undead.

I give her the thumbs up with my free left hand while flashing a bright smile and then silently mouth the words “Go for it, Girl” encouraging her to continue with what I assume is her suicide attempt and then continue on towards the corner.

I only manage to move forward 2 meters past the occupied office before I hear banging on safety glass and muffled yells behind me.

She’s yelling about something about not leaving her here or some other cliché.

I sigh at the irrational behaviour and stop while keeping my eyes on the corner 8 meters away.

The woman with the scissors isn’t much of a threat.

She’s too afraid to even open the bloody door herself and just hysterically bangs it.

I take it back what I said earlier. She’s quite like a zombie. The resemblance is uncanny, quite frankly.

Zombie goes moan, moan, bang, bang.

This woman goes whine, whine, bang, bang.

As I ponder the human nature and compare it with the new invasive species, three figures slowly slouch out behind the corner, attracted by the commotion the woman is causing.

Ah, the migraine is back. Thanks, fellow survivor.

I hold Jason in both hands and go to meet the three whom are joyfully doing the same, arms wide open with happy smiles on their distorted faces.

We meet at the halfway and I swing Jason at the leg of the one forefront bringing the former psychiatrist down to the ground with a broken knee while bringing Jason up above my head and cracking its skull and taking a couple of steps back and steady myself.

I see the woman still staring at me from my peripheral vison. At least she shut her mouth now.

One of the two remaining undead, also dressed as psychiatrist, stumbles on the corpse of their former comrade and falls face first into the floor while the other dressed as an orderly circle around the mess and keeps approaching me.

I take another two steps back to generate some distance between the two foes as I see the one who fell is still in the game and is crawling towards me.

As the one still up comes into the swinging distance, I swing using both of my hands at it with a horizontal swing aiming at its head. I hit it in the jaw, twisting its head in an unnatural direction as it goes down for good due to snapped spine.

Fearing the fatigue that will probably soon hit me due to hunger, I quickly go to the downed one and finish it off and sit down, leaning my back onto the white wall facing the occupied office and look at the dirty face staring at me.

She flinches at my gaze like most do. Can’t blame her for it.

I know I’m irregular, missing something crucial. And it shows. Most just don’t know what I’m missing. Mostly because they haven’t met someone like me before.

I hear the lock turning and then the sound of a door opening, so I come out of my daze and raise an eyebrow at the lithe female coming out of the office.

She ignores my stare, walks to me and stands in front of me with barely any more distance than half a meter between us. My mind is in overdrive, simulating different ways to approach her.

A leg sweep to take her down. A quick rise to the knee and a quick strike to the forehead.

A leg lock and a pull, to make her fall. Grab her and twist her around and choke.

“I know you.” She states.

“I’d question your credentials if you hadn’t.” I say knowingly and beaming a smile at her while keeping eye contact.

“So, what do I owe the pleasure of you coming out and standing close enough to me for me to kill you if you know who I am?”

Due to my facade crumbling thanks to the fool in front of me, causing me unnecessary problems, my voice starts to sound more and more monotone, as if someone is slowly reducing my pitch and intonation during my question.

She flinches again, but doesn’t take a step back.

Her face is pale and looks like a small deer whose about to be run over by a car.

“I-I-“She stammers, trying to say something.

I sigh and close my eyes. Readjusting my facade “If you want to kill yourself, do it yourself and leave me alone. I have better things to do that helping people commit suicide.”

“Take me with you.”

I open my eyes to evaluate her for a second, before sighing and closing my eyes again.

“Fuck. No. You’re a useless burden.” She then proceeded to open her mouth to argue back at me only to be interrupted by my rumbling stomach.

“I’ll give you a muesli bar if you take me with you.”

“Give me a sec to gather my breath to incapacitate you and take it for myself.”

“I’ll know where to get more food.”

“Tell me something torture wouldn’t tell me.”

“I’m able to get us out of here. I know the staff areas.”

“Still a no.”

With frustration, she throws her hands in the air “What would a monster like you need, anyway?!”

“Someone who’s not useless.” I declare and then add with my purest smile yet while looking into her eyes, “Or someone who’s willing to become useful.”

-Perspective of Kaitlyn Hal-

Kaitlyn Hall stared at the smiling man sitting on the floor in front of her. A million things went through her mind, processing the situation.

She remembered the stories on the news as this man wreaked havoc for 5 years in the union, only to get caught by chance while he was finishing his latest project.

A patrol car had noticed an open front door left so by that man or by fate and came in to investigate.

Only to find a man strapped to a chair staring at the crimson walls Kaine Smith had painted with the blood of the strapped man’s family.

As the officers entered and saw the room, according to the report, Kaine merely turned to them and smiled. Causing the officers to overreact.

He was then shot twice. Once to the left shoulder and once into his right thigh. The biggest and last mistake the officers ever did.

Instead of going down, Kaine Smith merely staggered and then dashed at the first officer punching with his fist which had the index finger slightly elevated creating an edge to apply the kinetic energy into a much more compact area and used it to strike the lower chest area, above the middle of the torso where the vital organs are unprotected by the ribcage.

The external force applied to the proximity to the officer's heart disturbed its rhythm, causing the officer to go into cardiac arrest.

Without even checking the result of the punch, Kaine looking like a devil with an eerily calm face had then pounced at the other officer, grabbed the gun with one hand while putting the safety back on and with his other hand grabbed the officers hand holding the gun and used the gun as a lever while holding the officers hand in place, twisting the gun and the trigger finger of the officer along with it to an unnatural angle.

And only then he had succumbed to his wounds, passing out due to blood loss as the bullet that had hit him in the right thigh had grazed an artery. After that night, he was unveiled as what he truly was and was granted the nickname The Devil.

And that devil is sitting before me, smiling and offering me a bargain. The cost? My humanity, without a doubt.

For that is his modus operandi. To break the humans and shape them in to his image.

There is no point in hesitating.

There can only be one answer to the dilemma in this situation.

“I accept.”

I’ll wager my humanity for a chance to live.

For this is no longer the world of men.

I heard the screams and saw the smoke rising from the city. There is no rescue, no hope. No sound of gunshots from the cavalry trying to retake either the metropolis or this facility. It’s most likely the world of monsters now.

And one of them who happens to be specialized in making more of them is in front of me.

The Devil keeps smiling at me after hearing my reply. But for the first time in encountering him, his blue eyes betray emotion. Bestial excitement, and…

Anticipation.