[Player Log Start!]

[Log Holder: Benedict Carrey]

[Level: 1]

Verity had told them that they were monsters coming. Asadullah had decided to ignore that little factoid. The forest was now on fucking fire.

If you asked Ben, there was a very simple conclusion that could be drawn from it: when your unshakeable teammate came in near hysterics and started ranting about this new breed of enemy they had facing them, you set your worries aside and listen to her.

Yes, maybe she was being a little harsh about this. But also, she was going to be dead soon because of these stupid little children, so what did it matter?

“Asad, get out.” She warned, standing up sharply with the bat in hand. She wished she could call it her bat, but she hadn’t had enough time to break it in yet. What a pitiful way to go, without even a weapon to call your own.

“I can take him.” The boy insisted, jumping from foot to foot. Claws about two inches long extended from his fingertips.

“What are you going to do against godforsaken fire? Don’t be a hero, just grab Terry and run.” She snapped. She had humored him before, but there wasn’t any time to do that right now. There was a guy who had lit an entire glade on fire with simply a gesture. They were not fighting regular humans. Not even a regular zombie.

She might have honestly preferred the rotters now, and they were the worst things she’d ever seen.

The man turned around, and his eyes were like lumps of dying coal. Warm and swollen, but quickly fading into soot and embers. Literally speaking: the man was bored.

He was surrounded by a fresh level of hell of his own creation, and he felt nothing.

It filled Ben with another wave of visceral anger. She wanted to rocket forward and tear his head off, just to make him show some form of emotion. There was quiet scrambling behind her, and she was soothed by the fact that Asadullah and Terry might at least get out of this alive.

The arsonist – Roiland, according to the Game – was approaching the supermarket now, as if the whole display with the trees was only that. A display.

He reached his hands forward, and Ben only managed to duck away in time before a plume of bright yellow flames was roaring straight through the barrier of glass and cement and stacked up shelves in one solid hit.

That barricade had lasted two years, and the temperature shift was so intense that it had been wiped out immediately.

How the hell was she supposed to fight this beast?

The now twisted shelves were hot to touch, but it was her only chance of survival as she dragged herself under a pile of crumpled metal.

Scraping metal and crunching glass sounded from above her, and rivulets of sweat dripped down Ben’s face as she tried to hold her breath.

It was dark, the air thick with dust and debris, with only a few slivers of emerald light peeking through it, but Roiland had no problem conjuring a golden-red sphere of fire to hover above his hand with a snap of his fingers.

He moved deeper into the room, sending the fireball into a mattress they had left behind. It burnt quickly, sending foul, stinging smoke spewing everywhere. Terry was going to throw a bitch fit if he saw this mess. She carefully readjusted herself to her knees, trying to be as silent as possible even as she went for the bat.

His guard was down, and his arrogance clear. Maybe he thought that the one blast had wiped out everyone? Perfect opening for her to grab the handle by both hands, straighten up in one smooth move and swing straight at his head.

Roiland turned, alerted by her footsteps, but it was too late for him to defend himself as the metal bat came down on his temple with razor-sharp accuracy. It landed with a solid thunk, sending his head snapping to the side. A trickle of blood trailed down from the injury as he looked blankly at her.

The tip of the bat slipped off, melted to near liquid, glowing in its heat. Shit, maybe she had gotten a little attached to the thing.

“Good… try…” Roiland weaved on the spot for a second, before adjusting his feet into a more solid position, “How many of you are there here?”

“Just me.” She snarled, putting some distance between them.

“You’re a scout. Not exactly the kind of person you’d leave behind.” He noted, looking her up and down, “Your name’s Benedict?”

How had he known that? Some sort of magic Game Ability, she guessed, trying to keep herself calm.

“My parents have eccentric taste in names.”

“You mean they had. Most certainly dead by now if we’ve done our jobs right.” He scoffed. She saw red, gritting her teeth as she swung the remnants of the bat back towards him. This time, Roiland was ready for her, reaching forward to grab Benedict’s outstretched arm. His body was radiating sharp heat, blackening her skin and sending fat bubbling with white-hot pain.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Screaming was a weakness. It was an admission of loss.

But in that moment, she threw her head back and screamed, pulling back fruitlessly, the poker hot hand like a vice around her, fusing the blood vessels and fat together with a sickening stench.

“So, they left you behind.” Roiland continued, his face impassive and unmoved, “At least you must know where they went. Start talking, and maybe the pain will end.”

She was going to spit in his face, but before she could get the chance to, a stomach-deep snarl sounded from above them. A full-bodied tiger slammed down on Roiland, squashing him flat. The grip on Ben’s arm went slack, peeling away a large section of skin that had stuck onto his hand, revealing bare, bloodied muscle.

In front of her, Asadullah was still yowling, clawing at Roiland with unrelenting fury.

She gagged, pushing herself away, feeling shards of wood chips sticking to the open wound of her ruined arm. When a soft, uncalloused hand tapped the shoulder of her uninjured arm, she nearly jumped out of her skin and began screaming all over again. Would have too, if the hand hadn’t clapped over her mouth.

Terry must have made a one-handed sign behind her, because subtitles peeked in from the back, “Shush!”

“Yeah. Okay.” She agreed, choking on nothing, “Wait, what the fuck are you still doing here? I thought you left!”

Terry didn’t respond, probably too scared to, as he dragged her into the safety of the backrooms. She immediately made a beeline for the sparse medical supplies they had left behind, and also the sink full of warm water. She washed it out, feeling it sting as the mess of glass and splinters and blood was washed down the drain.

“You okay?” Terry asked, only able to stop himself from wringing out the hem of his shirt to sign out the words, “I mean… obviously not, but can you run?”

“Our only exit was just destroyed.” She pointed out gruffly, “How are we running?”

He gave her a side-eye, “There’s a loading dock, too, you know.”

Oh. Right. She’d forgotten about that.

“Why haven’t we been using that until now?” She asked, “Is it broken or something?”

“Overrun by the vines covering the whole thing.” Terry explained, “So the joints will be hard to roll up, but we should be able to swing it, as long as you take it easy.”

Ben frowned, dabbing smudges of burn ointment on the edges of the arm, fighting down a reaction from the jabs of pain poking into her nervous system. She would have argued and insisted that she could handle herself, but the burn was bone-deep, stretching all the way up to her biceps. Any use she had was rendered null by this injury.

“Alright.” She agreed, tucking the corner of the bandages away as she finished wrapping the thing, “Let’s do it.”

In the distance, she could hear animalistic roaring and screeching, accompanied by a sharp hissing sound that seemed characteristic to Roiland’s combustion powers. From the sounds of it, there was no way to tell how the fight was going. There was enough crashes and physical blows for Asadullah to be putting up a good fight.

A good fight was not enough. And one glance at Terry made it clear that they both agreed on this.

“He’s not going to be okay.” Terry’s hands were shaky as he signed it, and that made the subtitles appear wavy.

“Yeah.” She agreed, not one to soften blows. But maybe she should have been, by the way alarm lanced through Terry’s face.

“Let’s get out of here.” She urged him, reminding him to stay on track, “Retreat to somewhere safe and hope he walks out alive.”

Terry nodded absently and led her to the very back to a parking bay for large cars. It took both of their strength to heave the rusty gate high enough to give them space to slip out. The fire was only at the front of the supermarket, and hadn’t spread over to the back yet. It was also late enough in the day that the dark green sky had stars glimmering in it. She could use that to get to Hygeia.

“Come on, mushroom boy, get a move on.” She prompted, turning around to look at Terry. He hadn’t left yet, lingering on the boundary line.

“Oh, for god’s sake, move!” She snapped, clapping her hands, “We don’t have time to deal with whatever trauma you’re dealing with.”

He looked up at her, face screwed up in discomfort. But slowly and methodically, he reached his foot forward, and placed it onto the wet grass outside.

It was like a string had been cut inside him, letting him go slack and take a breath of relief. With shaky legs, they moved the other foot onto the ground, too. The world shifted, just by a degree, but it had.

“Okay, great, now do it faster.” She nodded, breaking into the move. Terry did things far too slowly for her to ever be comfortable with.

Terry nodded, following in step with her as they began the walk down the debris-covered highway, the blaze a yellow beacon for miles around. It brought zombies towards her like moths to a flame, and it wasn’t ideal conditions for Terry to be exposed to them for the first time, but they had to work with what they had.

“You sure this is the right direction?” He asked.

Ben looked up, the North star to their left, and the last few rays of the setting sun almost directly head-on, “Yes.” She agreed, “The highway should lead us straight to it. I think.”

Terry nodded and trailed after her without argument. At some point, the giant six-lane highway became clogged full of vehicles. Cars, lorries, even bikes packed tight and discarded. Something terrible had happened here, and she was betting that it had been a giant hoard from the early days. Maybe it had already disbanded and there was nothing to worry about.

A gritty scraping sound came from the car she was crouching beside, and a rotter brought its hand up to claw uselessly at the glass. She bit down a scream, her brother’s face flashing for a second above its rotten face. It didn’t even have a nose, she needed to get a grip.

“Let’s avoid the cars.” She warned, stepping over the roadside boundary to put some distance between them and potential surprise zombies.

Terry didn’t follow, his eyes fixed on a large billboard set up close by them. It was old and stained, holding up the tattered remains of an advertisement for a tourist supermarket.

“Whatcha doing?” She asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“We can… climb up there.” He explained in a breathy whisper, eyes tracking the ladder and thin bridge made to take the advertisements off the billboard easily.

“And?” She asked.

He cast her a scornful look, “To keep a lookout.” He explained, “See if Asadullah comes out alright.”

She should say no. This was the same kind of coddling that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. Asadullah was a fighting machine, but there’s not a lot that a lion could do when faced by the raw energy of fire. He was good as dead.

But she nodded, beaten and broken, “Yeah. Alright.”

[Player Log End!]