The monsters don’t allow me to rest for long. They know I’m up here, so they’re thrashing the lower floors. The whole house groans every so often, shocks traveling up through the support beams.

Once again, they’re trying to bring down the structure to reach me. I can chalk it up to coincidence once, but twice? No, this is intentional. There’s more to the monsters than I gave them credit for at first.

I can barely walk, let alone run, but I have to get on with it. Who knows how long the house will remain standing. At least Emily can see that I’m still alive through the party feature, but that doesn’t mean she won’t set off the bomb. I’m too close to it, chances are high the blast would kill me.

My health is slowly climbing back up, and I hope the leg will be usable by the time I’ll need it. As I did a few hours ago when I was in a similar predicament, I break a hole into the roof and climb out. I look around for Emily, but I can’t see her from here. She’s bound to be hidden by the foliage of the trees. Whistling to signal her does cross my mind, but she might not hear me over the racket the monsters are making. Not to mention that she might misinterpret the signal.

Better not to risk it.

The ground below me teems with monsters. We killed a good couple hundred of them with the last trap, but the horde is bigger somehow. I don’t need to count them to tell there are well over five hundred monsters. They’re squeezed in like sardines, blanketing the area in a sea of bobbing heads and snapping mouths.

Even if I could run, I wouldn’t make it very far. They extend a good hundred feet past the houses. I don’t see any way to escape here alive.

“Fucking fuck!” I yell, and a chorus of howls answer me.

Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I should give up and accept it. At this point, even a slim chance is better than nothing. I lower my expectations and look around again. The outline of a plan forms, and lo and behold, it’s damn near suicidal.

The fifteen or so houses here are lined up on either side of a central road. There are two more of them ahead of me, both the same height as the one I’m standing on. The last house in the row has a tall brick wall encircling the yard, and even though the monsters scale it, they don’t linger up top.

I need to hop from one house to the next, jump down on that wall without falling into the horde, and run on top of it. How I’ll deal with the monsters that will climb up after me, I have no idea. I also don’t know what I’ll do once the wall runs out, but at the very least, it’ll put me closer to the edge of the horde.

I dig through my inventory for a bit, but nothing I have on me stands out as particularly helpful. I still have a handful of firecrackers and two more firework rockets, but I’ll have to be very careful with those. If even a spark makes it near the bomb, I’m done for.

“Eh, worth the risk,” I decide as I pull them out.

My situation can’t possibly get worse at this point, so everything goes. I ready the fireworks on the other side of the roof, aimed to fly off into the surrounding fields. If they pop off in that direction, they’ll draw some of the monsters away from me. The firecrackers I’ll use when I reach that wall to hopefully distract the monsters on the final stretch.

“Okay, here goes…”

I don’t get to finish. The house buckles. One of the walls collapses with a loud crash, and the whole structure tilts sideways. I grab on to the shingles for dear life as the roof slants under my feet, but I slip down. The gutter saves me, I hit it feet first and it stops my descent. But it’s not meant to hold the weight of a grown man, and the joins come apart. I take out a hammer and plunge it into the shingles, catching a crossbeam just as the gutter falls away beneath me.

“God…fucking…”

I pull myself up and flail for balance as I rise to my feet. Below me, the monsters are angry that I’m still out of reach. They jump on the wall, tearing into it with their claws as they try to climb up. None make it.

I take a deep breath. It was a close call, but it might just work out in my favor. The way the house leans makes one portion of the roof flat and brings that edge higher. Luck smiles upon me, as that’s the ledge I need to make the jump.

I return to the fireworks and light the fuses, but I don’t linger. While they launch and explode, hopefully far away from here, I climb up to the now flat portion. My leg isn’t fully healed just yet, but I’m hoping it’s good enough. My attributes are higher now, after all, so maybe they’ll compensate.

I ready myself for the run-up, but just as I’m about to take off, something else appears. Another monster bird, except this one can fly. It swoops in, narrowly misses me, and keeps flying.

Somewhere in the distance, one of the fireworks pops and lights up the night with a shower of sparks. The other one is a dud.

Before I get to turn around and smack the monster on its return, it slams into my back. Sharp talons dig into my shoulder blades, raking flesh and filling me with pain.

I scream and fall forward on all fours. The monster flaps its wings wildly, as if it’s trying to take off with me. It’s a parrot of some kind, that much I make out. Possibly a pet african gray parrot that got out of its cage after it grew too big for it. And it is big, easily half my body weight and with a six foot wingspan. It squawks and hisses right into my ear as I try to reach for it.

“Run, dumbass! Run! Skraak!” It yells, following it up with one of those screeches that parrots make.

I freeze. Is that what its last prey said? Is it repeating the words of a dying human? That just makes my blood boil. I take another deep breath, grit my teeth against the pain, and reach over my head. My fingertips brush against feathers, but the parrot takes off before I can grab its neck.

It lands on the neighboring roof, staring daggers at me.

“Fine then, squaak! Go ahead and die!”

“…what?”

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“I just wanted to help, but I’m not risking Polly for some dumbass!”

“The fuck?”

The parrot rolls its beady eyes. An honest to God eye roll. What the hell? How am I getting sassed by a monster bird?

“I’ll give you one more chance,” it screeches. “But try anything and I’ll drop you!”

“I…okay,” I say, at a loss for words.

Of all the crazy shit I’ve seen tonight, this one takes the cake, the plate it came on, and the table from under it, too. As I stare, equally shocked and awed, the parrot takes off again. It flies the short distance back to me and lands majestically at my side.

“Ready?” It asks.

It finally crosses my mind to scan the damn thing and see what it is.

Polly - Level 11 Auravian Female.

This creature is a pet.

Pet? I look around, but I can’t see the owner anywhere. Then I do a double take.

“Level 11?!”

The parrot looks almost insulted by my outburst. It puffs up and pushes its chest out.

“Some of us have been hard at work, we’re not all lazy little dumbasses.”

“Hey!” I say, jabbing a finger at the creature. I know full well that I’m arguing with a god damned parrot, but I keep going anyway. “I’m not lazy, you little shit! I just…have an expert class.”

“And my mom was a flamingo.”

I sigh. How the hell did my life turn into this? The parrot wants to say something else, but it stops when the house creaks beneath us again. We look at each other, our expressions turning serious.

“How do we do this?” I ask. “I’m guessing I can’t ride you.”

“I’ll jump on your shoulders,” the parrot starts explaining, adding another squawk at the end. “It’ll hurt, but you’re a big boy. You jump, I give you more airtime.”

“Okay. Hop on.”

I tense my whole body, readying myself. The parrot flaps its wings and takes off, landing on my shoulders. Its claws pierce my skin, sending shivers down my spine. My health takes another dip, but the parrot doesn’t stop.

“Ow! Fuck!” I complain. “Slow down, you’ll kill me!”

The parrot leans forward, making eye contact with me. Its stare is unnerving, clearly the mindless look of a monster.

“I have someone here that wants to talk to you,” it says.

“...what?”

The parrot makes a gurgling sound. Then its voice changes, and it says a single word.

“Jack?”

That’s Emily’s voice. Even distorted by the parrot’s vocal chords, I can recognize it. My eyes go huge.

“Emily? Is that you? Where are you?!”

The parrot’s voice changes back before it talks again.

“She’s here, and she’s safe. If you’re done being a scared little bitch, I’ll take you to her.”

I want to ask for more details. To hear her again and make sure she’s okay. But I know I’m just wasting time, so I nod instead. The parrot digs its talons into me again, and I tremble with the pain. But I keep my mouth shut and take it. It flays skin and scrambles flesh until it hits bone. The talons turn, curving under my clavicles.

The pain is atrocious, cutting through my breath like a hot knife. I can barely think straight, and I have to grit my teeth hard enough to shatter them to stop myself from crying out. The system healing, which I’d thought of as a miracle at first, is quickly turning into a curse. I’d suffered more pain and injuries tonight than I have in my whole life before all this, and I know there’s so much more of it in store for me.

But now’s not the time for a pity party. Now’s not the time for shutting down under trauma. That will come later, but right here, right now, I have to focus on surviving.

I rise to my feet with a shudder, my whole body throwing up complaints.

“Run!” The parrot yells.

I take off, pushing against the roof with all I have left in me. Shingles crunch under my feet, and the house creaks again. Polly starts flapping her wings, taking some of the weight off of me but sending bolts of pain shooting down into my chest.

A few moments later, I hit the edge and jump. Polly isn’t big enough or strong enough to fly while carrying me, but true to the bird’s earlier words, she gives me more airtime. Less of a jetpack, more of a hang glider. One that’s attached to my bones.

I hit the other roof’s edge with my stomach, scrambling for purchase. My arms don’t work quite right, not with how messed up my shoulders are. Polly keeps flapping, though, and together, we make it onto the roof.

“One more to go,” I grumble, feeling my senses slipping away.

A quick glimpse at my health shows that it’s in the red, down to 20% and falling still. I take off again, a little more wobbly this time, and I jump. Polly struggles, but she gets me to the final roof.

I really need a moment to catch my breath, but I know I can’t afford it. The monsters down on the ground are running wild, and I get an idea.

“What are you doing?” Polly asks as I take out a couple of hammers.

“Don’t worry about it, focus on your part.”

As we make our way across the final roof, I toss all of the extra hammers, knives, and other small weapons over the edge. They hit some of the monsters, and even though none are killing blows, they give me some frenzy. Only a few percentages, but it’s enough for what I need. The bloodlust wells out of me, sending adrenaline coursing through my veins. The pain doesn’t go away entirely, but it gets muted enough for me to function.

I lean into the sensation for comfort as we reach the final edge.

“Think you can give me enough airtime to make it over that?” I ask, pointing at the horde.

Polly takes a moment to think. We’d need to glide for a good hundred feet or so to make it.

“Maybe. Think you can still run when you hit the ground?”

“Maybe.”

As my health hits 10%, I light the last of the firecrackers I still have. I run up to the edge and jump, dropping them in the horde below us. They pop and attract the monsters, keeping them packed tightly together as we sail over their heads. Polly flaps its wings so hard that they start shedding feathers, but we still lose height too fast.

It’ll be close.

“Don’t…fight…these guys…” Polly strains to say a few words.

I don’t know what that means at first. Then a bunch of monsters pop out from the surrounding grass and bushes, barreling into the horde. I scan them quickly and see they’re all pets, mostly cats and dogs.

The pets tear into the horde, keeping the wild monsters at bay. They form a line, and we land a mere ten feet or so behind them. Polly frees its talons and flies away, and I take off running the best I can. The last of my frenzy decays, and the pain rushes back in, pelting me like a rain of sledgehammers. I stumble, my vision turning blurry around the edges.

Just when I think this is it, I won’t make it, Emily comes riding in on what looks like a sabertooth tiger. She reaches me and yanks me not so gently off my feet, then the sabertooth turns tail on the battle and runs. The last thing I see before I pass out are the pets retreating from the horde as Emily lets the firework arrow fly.