It was strange, despite the burning pain on his forehead, the one thing that caught Clay’s senses was the vile, disgusting smell that permeated the Tile Store. It smelled like shit and death, or at least what Clay imagined death to smell like. Unable to take the stench, Clay quickly stood back up.

“WHAT THE HELL MAN!?!?” Clay shouted at Ophelia, which echoed throughout the store.

“T-that’s my line….” Ophelia responded, her voice shaking as she stared at Clay in utter disbelief. All the while being pinned down to the floor, with a member of the Tourist Squad standing on her back with only one foot while locking the arm that had previously stolen their partner’s gun into a tight, painful hold.

As his two friends gazed at each other, Shane let out a loud, inappropriate belly laugh.

“What’s so goddamn funny?” Clay and Ophelia asked Shane in unison, their voices low and seething.

“You really thought a gun was going to be enough to kill a Chosen?! If that were the case, I wouldn't need you or Clay in the first place, Phil. No offense Clay.” Shane explained before continuing his laughing fit.

“…. None taken.” Clay answered with a dry, almost sarcastic tone.

“Oh, and let her go please,” Shane ordered the Tourist Squad member who had Ophelia in an armlock.

“If you knew it was pointless, why didn’t you try and stop me?” Ophelia questioned Shane as she slowly stood up.

“I tried to tell you-.”

“You didn’t even move a bit when I elbowed that guy-.”

“I’m just out of practice.”

“Are you serious?” Ophelia asked in disbelief.

“Who knows.”

“Well, he wasn’t the one that shot me in the head, asshole,” Clay grumbled as he glared at Ophelia before he took off the bandana he had been wearing.

As the room fell silent after his comment, Clay looked down at his ruined bandana and was shocked to find the backend covered in blood, the white of the bandana turned into a disgusting brown. Clay quickly put his trembling right hand on his forehead and, he felt nothing out of the ordinary. No blood, dried or flowing to be found on his head, only sweat.”

“Holy shit….” Clay uttered in shock, his voice trembled as he looked down and found a couple small drops of blood and a bullet casing on the floor.

“Clay, calm down-.”

“CALM DOWN?! HOW? I JUST GOT SHOT IN THE HEAD AND I’M STILL ALIVE!”

“Well, look on the bright side, you are still alive.”

“Is that really a ‘bright side’?” Clay wondered.

“Don’t say something like that! Just calm down and think-.”

“Right, your brilliant plan.” Ophelia interrupted Shane in a snarky, condescending tone.

“You know Phil, you really need to stop interrupting me,” Shane stated in his unusually calm tone.

“Do you really think this will just work out like my…. Usual funks?” Clay asked in quiet desperation.

“I believe so. The Lord’s only have as much power as you let them gain.” Shane vaguely explained.

“What a load-!”

“Phil. Please. Be. Quiet.” Shane coldly commanded Ophelia, his smile still plastered on his face. Ophelia just walked away, unable to find a response to her old friend seemingly snapping at her.

“Anyway, don’t think about what is going on outside. Try to think, in the past, why did you resist death, resist defeat?” Shane questioned Clay.

“Are you seriously asking me to just ignore the giant rats and flies tearing apart the city?” Clay dryly asked, unable to grasp what Shane was thinking.

“Yes, I am.” Shane immediately replied.

“Even with the horrifying buzzing and squeaking that will haunt my nightmares?” Clay continued to ask.

“Yes, even with the horrifying animal noises,” Shane confirmed.

“Ok…. Then how the hell am I supposed to calm down when it smells this bad?” Clay finally asked the question that got him to stand up to begin with.

“That is a good question. This smell does indeed eclipse shit.” Shane confirmed.

“I don’t know guys, smells normal to me.” Ophelia commented.

“How the hell does this smell norm-?!”

“Ignore her Clay. We come from a rather…. Unusual world.” Shane vaguely explained.

“Anyway, why does it smell so….. horrible?” Shane asks the two members of the Tourist Squad that were in the store.

“Sorry sir, we had no choice. All the cockroaches and pests tore through the building.” One of the two Tourist Squad members reported.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I see, do I need to ask about the other people in this shop?” Shane questioned his hired guns.

“No sir…. You don’t. In fact, your imagination would be-.”

Before the casually dressed mercenaries could finish their report, Shane heard the echoes of someone loudly throwing up further in the store. Shane, Ophelia, and the two Squad members ran deeper into the store and found Clay sitting down in front of his puke and behind a large marble slab, lightly hugging his knees. In the aisle ahead of Clay was a line of dead bodies, both human and giant cockroaches.

“Damn Lords!” Ophelia cursed, as she looked away from the line of corpses and her hands began trembling.

“Clay, are you-?”

“No.” Clay immediately answered Shane, his eyes blank as he stared at the marble slab on the opposite side.

“Clay, of all the things to do right now, the last thing you need to do is give up-.”

“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?! HOW CAN YOU BE SO CALM ABOUT ALL OF THIS!?” Clay lashed out at his online friend.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?! All these people, all because of me. And yet…. I don’t know what the fu-!.”

Before Clay could finish his declaration of defeat, Ophelia grabbed him by his shirt collar, made him stand up by sliding his back upward using the marble slab behind him, and pinned his shoulder behind it. Though Clay's body felt more limp than usual, most likely due to the extreme stress, and he didn't resist, the feat took a lot from Ophelia, causing her to mumble under her breath "Christ, you're heavy..."

“Look! I’m sorry for shooting you a second ago, but I can’t stand your attitude! Not when you have his face.” Ophelia ranted at Clay.

“Phil, I already told you. He is not the Clay you knew-.”

“And I already told you to shut up! This dimensional crap still hasn’t sunk in yet and I can stand seeing weak shit coming from Clay’s mouth.” Ophelia explained to Shane.

“Look, I don’t know who the hell you’re talking about, but I can’t do sh-.”

Before Clay could continue to wallow in overwhelming doubt and defeat, Ophelia shoved him, the back of his head hitting the marble slab at his back.

“Of course you can’t! Nobody can! But I’ll be damned if I’m not going to keep fighting.” Ophelia declared.

“…. Good for you,” Clay responded in a low, defeated mumble, his eyes gazing downward.

“God damn it! Pull yourself together! If you can’t die, fight! Even if you don’t know how!” Ophelia shouted at Clay, whose eyes quickly began to meet hers.

“Good, it seems you really are on board with my plan, Phil. But I assure you it will-.”

Before Shane could finish pitching his plan to defeat the Lords to Ophelia, a large crash was heard on the ceiling, and a swarm of flies began raining down into the Tile Store.

“Why must I always be interrupted….” Shane pondered quietly to himself.

“Son of a bitch!” A voice cries out near the entrance of the store. The voice belonged to one of the two Squad members guarding the entrance who ran to meet the rest of the group inside, his gun drawn.

The flies, seemingly on instinct, landed on the dead bodies littered around the store.

Before the newly arrived, panicked squad member could pull the trigger and unload on the closest giant fly, Shane puts his open palm over the muzzle of the mercenary’s gun.

“Don’t waste any ammo. We need to relocate.” Shane suggested to the panicked gunmen, who simply lowered his gun and replied with a trembling yet casual “s-sure.”

“Roberts! Show some-!”

“Oh, it’s fine. Not much need for formalities during the beginning of the end.” Shane casually told the woman who had scolded her fellow squad member.

“You know, you’re not helping….” Ophelia seethed, having dragged Clay's limp body by the collar to the end of the aisle just as the flies descended.

Suddenly, breaking through the oppressive, overwhelming buzzing that now permeates the store, a shrill cry rang out.

“You gotta be kidding me!? Shit!” The once-panicked squad member shouted, running back toward the entrance.

Shane and the other two mercenaries followed him and before Ophelia could join them, she noticed that Clay just crumbled to the floor as she let go of his shirt collar.

“So that’s it huh? I guess that bullet really messed you up…” Ophelia lamented before walking away from Clay.

As Clay watches Ophelia move toward the entrance, he continues to stew in doubt, pondering Ophelia’s words.

‘Fight. Even if I don’t know how.’ Huh? …How could I have forgotten? Clay questioned himself.

***

When Shane and his armed guards reached the entrance of the store, they saw the corpse of a gigantic fly and right next to it is the one Tourist Squad member that was stationed at the entrance, her body slumped behind the monstrous creature's back, the right side of her face completely dissolved by acid, leaving a skull and no eye.

“JESUS CHRIST!!!” The other squad member that was previously at the entrance yelled.

“Well…. I’m pretty sure she’s dead….” Shane commented as the rest of his armed guard ran toward their mutilated squad member.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ophelia harshly asked Shane as she ran over to him.

“You heard me? Well… it is a tragedy for sure, but you know better than I that we can’t spend too long mourning over the dead.” Shane coldly explained his equally cold observations.

“Not only that! Why the hell did you guys move toward the front entrance?” Ophelia critiqued.

“Well, it wasn’t my decision and as you can see, my men seem to have soft hearts. Perhaps I should have brought the more experienced-.”

Shane was once again interrupted by three flies entering the Tile Store. As the remaining Tourist Squad members started firing at the monsters, the flies continued to make their way toward their attackers. The wounded flies reached their foes and hovered atop the squad members, their acid raining down on the squad members' shoulders and legs.

As the flesh of the tourist squad members slowly and brutally started to melt, the blood underneath boiling and evaporating, all they could do was wait and pray for their demise as the giant flies crushed them beneath their newly acquired weight.

“Shit, we need to find a back entrance now,” Ophelia ordered as she looked away from a sight that despite being familiar to her was, nonetheless, hard to see.

“I don’t think that will make any difference at this poi-.”

“What’s the harm in looking if we’re dead anyway?” Ophelia proposed.

“…. I suppose you’re right. Where is Clay?” Shane suddenly asked.

“…. Probably where we will be if we don’t move our asses to the back door.” Ophelia solemnly concluded.

“You don’t give this Clay enough credit. I know he will-.”

Suddenly, in the most gruesome interruption yet, The overgrown maggots that entered the fallen Tourist Squad members' bodies begin to turn into flies, bursting out of the corpses. Currently, they were the size of a normal house fly, but they kept getting bigger by the second and Shane and Ophelia knew that they would grow into full size in about 30 minutes.

Without saying a word, Shane and Ophelia made a break toward the back of the store, avoiding Flies and zigzagging through aisles that weren’t blocked by fallen ceiling rubble.

As they made their way through the last aisle toward the back of the store, Shane and Ophelia’s feet slipped on the floor causing them to fall to the ground and Shane to crash into a small yellow ‘wet floor’ sign.

“Shit, of all the goddamn luck….” Ophelia seethed as the newborn flies that had been chasing them, who by now were the size of bulldogs, closed in on the pair.

As Ophelia closed her eyes and Shane grabbed ahold of his sunglasses, a loud command echoed throughout the store:

“STOP!”

With that simple command, the flies immediately became still. As Ophelia and Shane stood up and looked for the source of the call, they saw Clay standing in the middle of the store, his eyes no longer filled with the empty doubt that had clouded them for the last few minutes but with a determined glare.

In response to seeing his friend, Shane let out a chuckle and bragged to Ophelia, “See? I told you you didn’t give him enough credit.”