Rohan
Saturday, April 23rd, 2022 (32 days after the Shutdown)
Three Sorrows had slipped in through the crack before the door shut.
“How?”
That was all that came to mind in that situation. Based on the best estimates, the Sorrows were 2 meters by 2 meters so the fact that they’d slipped through a crack less than a foot wide…
Are they really just made of smoke?
Their nebulous forms had expanded to form a wall rushing towards him.
“Hurry up!” Peyton screamed as she opened the door.
Tearing his eyes away, he glanced at the top of the door and the hydraulic dampers installed.
“STOP!” he screamed but the words were lost in the Sorrows’ shrieks.
Ignorant of the peril they faced, she threw open the door in a panic.
She didn’t notice the dampers!
His only hope had been sealing them in the corridor but the dampers meant the door would gradually close at a snail’s pace. If he opened the door just wide enough that his brittle body could slip through, he could trap the Sorrows in the hallway.
Crossing the threshold of the second door, it was still 80 percent open.
Goddamit, what do I do?!
“Peyton! The main entrance!” he yelled, jumping back as a Sorrow entered the main hallway.
Managing to distance himself, he was acutely aware of the toll his excessive movements took on his body. The idea he had a mystical albino serpent had gone to his head and he’d rashly overestimated how healed he was. Now, the short burst of energy he’d used sapped him of most of it.
Thankfully, as he fell onto his back, Peyton appeared to understand and ran to the foyer where students and civilians stood unaware of their danger.
Is this where I die?
Of the three, only one had been trapped. The two remaining ones had stopped at the threshold as if they were considering which direction to go in.
In one direction there was him, completely vulnerable and exposed on the floor, and in the other direction, there was a crowd of unsuspecting victims. Staying rooted to his spot, he helplessly watched them decide.
With a shriek, they went in the opposite direction.
Oh gahd— Slumping to the ground, a chuckle came unbidden to his lips.
They couldn’t see me. Then, are they attracted to sound?
In the foyer, pandemonium spread like wildfire as more people were alerted.
Hopefully, Peyton was able to warn enough people in time.
The problem wasn’t outrunning the Sorrows. Aside from him since he was injured, even a light jog would be enough to outrun them. Within the short encounter he had with them, he realized that the most dangerous thing about them was the fear they inspired.
Sure, here he was on the floor thinking about things rationally while the monsters attacked people feet away from him, but he’d gotten a crash course on the supernatural when a snake decided to say “hello”. The others were seeing these things for the first time.
Humans were naturally distrustful of things they didn’t understand and when those things could kill you, that wariness would evolve into horror.
The cafeteria doors next to his head slammed open. A pair of soldiers surveyed the empty hallway until they caught sight of him sprawled on the floor.
“Hi,” Rohan said dryly.
The soldiers considered him before looking around again.
“Sorrows?” the lead soldier asked, raising an eyebrow at Rohan’s nonchalant attitude.
“Sorrows,” Rohan agreed.
“...”
“Can you help me up?”
Both of them grabbed an arm and dragged him into the cafeteria. Around 50 military personnel were there for the meeting when he was dragged into the center of them. Conversation sputtered to a stop as all eyes turned to him but he was so drained of life he didn’t say anything for a while.
A familiar face loomed over him.
“Coma Kid?” Colonel Ridges questioned, turning to the soldiers who brought him in for an explanation.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Sorrows, sir.”
Blinking as if he misunderstood, he repeated, “Sorrows? In the school?”
“Yes, sir. We found this one in front of the doors when we heard the commotion outside.”
The warmth evaporated from his face. “Kid, explain everything.”
“Sir! Shouldn’t we be helping the civilians outside!”
Staring daggers at the soldier who’d spoken up until they withered under the Colonel’s undisguised disappointment, he scoffed.
“How do we suggest we do that? They’re impervious to physical assaults so bullets go right through them. We’d suffer from friendly fire before we incapacitate them. We can’t use sonic weapons because our technology is inoperative. Not thinking this through is the same as running like headless chickens to the slaughter. The civilians can be on their own for now,” he seethed. “Now you, what happened?”
Rohan told them everything, from how the door opened, to the Sorrows’ behavior, and finally how the Sorrows had chosen to follow Peyton rather than turn him to stone. He’d purposefully left Peyton’s name out of it, not wanting her to suffer any more than she already was.
Fortunately, the colonel was stuck on one point. “They didn’t follow you?”
“Yes, they went to the foyer.”
Running his tongue over his teeth as he pondered the new information, he surveyed the windows across the cafeteria.
“Everyone, raise the blinds. Bergeron, I want you to grab another soldier and investigate the foyer,” he told the soldier who’d spoken up.
“... now, sir?”
“Yes, I mean now Private!” he yelled, watching soldiers peel away to comply with his orders. “Who was on patrol for the southeastern wing? Why didn’t they stop these two morons?”
Morons? I’m not the one who opened the door though…
“Rao and Chen were, sir. Perhaps they were taking a break?”
“Why now of all times?” Sitting down, he was lost deep in thought. “Bergeron, what do you see? How many did we lose?”
“... I think it’s better to see for yourself, sir.”
Tagging along with Colonel Ridges as he hurried over to the main door, Rohan looked past the row of soldiers cramming the doors. Through the glass panels, they had a direct view of the main entrance and the entrance to the northwestern wing.
From what Rohan could see, there hadn’t been any new statues but they couldn’t investigate further… because of the Sorrow standing on the other side of the doors. Wisps of smoke slipped underneath the frame, discouraging the soldiers from approaching.
“Are the other exits still an option?” a soldier asked.
The cafeteria had four exits so Rohan wasn’t worried about leaving the cafeteria, but in the case that a Sorrow blocked both hallways of the eastern wing, they would be trapped. Unlike the western wing, there was no second floor. So if the eastern wing was closed off, the only escape was going outside.
“Why isn’t it screaming?” Rohan thought aloud. He’d fallen victim to their death cries twice now and the trigger had been when they were within a certain distance. True, there was still a faint wailing that could be heard but it was muted. “Can’t they see us through the glass?”
“Not always. Our theories are still all hypothetical but the Sorrows are pack hunters like wolves. Imagine a wolf in a zoo. Their behaviors are tempered and it’s usually not aggressive unless you antagonize it. Now, let’s say this wolf is chasing you in the wild and you shut the door in its face. In its mind, the door is an obstacle and you’re still its prey. It will scratch and growl at the door, trying to get in,” the Colonel explained, waving over soldiers who’d explored the exits behind the stage at the end of the cafeteria.
So unless they were hunting you in the first place, they won’t attack on sight… but that doesn’t explain why they hunt in the first place or why one of them is just hovering outside. If they chose not to hunt me and went after Peyton, I don’t think it's because they didn’t see me. Something else attracted them, something more enticing than the prospect of my death.
“... we can’t locate the other one sir. It’s not in the east wing,” a soldier reported.
“Okay, that’s fine. What is that one waiting for?” Colonel Ridges asked, pointing to the Sorrow.
“...”
“Forget it—”
A noise erupted from the Sorrow startling the soldiers. Instinctively, Rohan shuffled backward in case their tendrils of darkness whipped about wildly and grazed him.
“Where the fuck did that come from?!” a soldier of a similar disposition cried out, hitting the edge of a table in his haste to run.
As if a switch had been flipped in it, its body flared, lashing out at its surroundings. Without wasting a moment, it swept toward the foyer, overturning the garbage cans in the halls.
“Colonel! There are people in front of the main entrance!” A soldier observing the situation from the side of the cafeteria announced. “It's the scouts we sent!”
“Get ready to receive them! We’re going to practice what we just talked about.”
On his command, the tables were flipped onto their sides and shoved towards the opposite door.
Yelling at his men to pick up the pace, he said to Rohan. “We want to funnel them or at the very least slow them so we can escape. We still haven’t determined their limits, but everything has its restrictions. If not, the Sorrows would be climbing the walls and entering the air ducts. Even— They’re here!”
In their mad dash inside, the scouts had attracted the attention of both the Sorrows. Frantically banging at the door, a soldier hastily opened the door and they collapsed in a heap on top of each other.
“Move away from the door you idiots!” the colonel bellowed, rushing forward to drag them away from the door.
On cue, the two Sorrows buffeted the doors, making the window panes rattle as gales of wind repeatedly struck the doors, making them teeter dangerously off their hinges. Bracing himself for what came next, he covered his ears as an earsplitting scream like the mark of the dead careened across the school. The anguish they inflicted was a hundred times worse than what he’d experienced before, twisting his insides till blood dripped out of his orifices. Wincing through the spur of nightmares, only a few soldiers had been able to stay on their feet, the rest cradling their heads like him.
“B-Barr-rricade! D-D-DO… DOOOOOR!” the colonel sputtered through grit teeth.
No one moved to obey. The few who were still conscious were gasping for air like their lungs were paralyzed.
“... everything has its restrictions…” What if they don’t?
The cry stretched till time became inconsequential, seconds turning to minutes, minutes turning to hours. Just when his sanity was hanging by a thread, they stopped and hovered in place, reverting back to their docile state.
Coughing out the blood that had pooled in his throat, he dry-heaved, trying to shake the sense of nausea that had become a lingering effect of their death cries. By then, soldiers had managed to stumble toward tables or the scouts who were unconscious in front of the door.
“Sir,” one of them said weakly. “Two of them have turned.”
Rubbing his head like he was nursing a headache, Colonel Ridges stared at the dog pile. “... How many survived.”
“Only one, but he’s unconscious.”
… how are they being so nonchalant about this?
“Wake him up.”
“S-Sir?”
“I SAID TO WAKE HIM UP! The longer we wait to act the more people will die!”