If it was were here because they had caught me, maybe they intended to rescue me? Yes, of course.

I saw it before others did.

I got the answer I had been looking for, but that didn't make me feel any better at all. A corpse had appeared out of nowhere in front of the door frame, over a large pool of blood. His blood. That's where it had come from, after all. A poor bastard who had been invisible until that thing had moved far enough away.

And he'd been silenced, too. Most likely.

Because his neck was wide open and I'd used enough knives to know he hadn't been cut. What we had there was a complete mess. Something made, if I had to guess, by claws.

Claws?

Oh, God.

“Next stage. Don't lose your cool!” The masked man, shouting another order.

But it was funny he should say that, when his little shitty group had lost their cool even before that thing entered the room, leaving only a trail of bloody footprints.

I couldn't blame them for their fear, fuck, I was scared shitless too. Obviously.

But it was still vaguely funny. He was straining to maintain a control he didn't know he'd already lost. He was under the illusion that it was still possible for them to recover from this, but it was nothing more than that. An illusion.

That would crumble as soon as Death started tearing them to shreds.

I mean...

Stolen story; please report.

It had already started, that guy at the door had to be one of them, but it wouldn't be real until blood and guts were flying right here. In this room. When they had no escape and nothing but horror around them.

The thing jumped and landed on a pillar at the other end of the room. I could tell by the usual blood marks, but also by the deep grooves that suddenly appeared on the surface of the pillar. They were claw marks.

They really were claws. That thing had landed and slid down a bit, stopping with its claws.

And those grooves kept appearing. That thing evidently ran up the pillar.

The masked man took a step backward. To his credit, he didn't go further than that. It didn't turn around, running away when it was too late. He didn't seek anyone's protection. He didn't crumble, simply put.

But what did it matter? Even with that small gesture he had shown that he was just as scared as the rest.

That the semblance of control was just that, semblance.

How many had noticed that so-called small gesture? How much more had the group's confidence been shaken? More than the masked man wanted, that was for sure.

I felt myself smiling, even though I wasn't sure which side I should be cheering for.

The masked man had said he meant me no harm. It was what anyone would say to convince a hostage, especially if they believed I was a stupid child. But it seemed to me that he was telling the truth. His interest in me began and ended with my role as bait.

On the other hand, it wasn't like he was on my side either.

If I was serving as bait, it meant this thing was here because these guys had trapped me, right? That is to say. That it intended to rescue me. Right?

A sudden explosion. A beam of energy had shattered the pillar that thing had been climbing.

Had was the key word.

It had already disappeared, landed on the second floor's balcony. It was going straight for the masked man, to cut off the snake's head, uproot the problem.

In any case, there was no one who could stop him.

Not in this room, at least. I was convinced of that. And this time I wasn't wrong.

Encountering no real opposition, as before, Death (it had to be that, right, Death?) reached the masked man and ripped his chest with a claw.

That pompous son of a bitch collapsed in a single attack, with four thick lines of blood gushing from his chest.

He fell at the feet of the creature that had burst in here.

To be executed, while his comrades could do nothing but watch in horror, scream and accept the fate they had earned by kicking that huge hornet's nest and setting it on fire?

No. Not exactly.