Elena was scared. The black-skinned mutant unnerved her, to say the least. She’d never seen such a creature before. It wore no clothes, exposing its highly disturbing body. It mostly looked like a human but was somewhat bigger with longer arms and a slightly hunched back. Its textured skin was obsidian-black. Its face was devoid of ears, a mouth, and a nose.

It did have eyes, though. They were the most upsetting feature of the mutant: irregularly shaped and unusually large, extending to the sides of its head. Devoid of irises and pupils, they were a solid cyan color. While they lacked any expression, they were ominous. A shiver ran down her spine as she gazed into the mutant’s sinister eyes.

Despite its unsettling appearance, the mutant somehow appeared sentient to her. Unlike the other mutants they encountered, it seemed reluctant to attack them right away. There was something about it that indicated to her it wasn’t simply a bloodthirsty, mindless monster. Even though its eyes lacked any expression, she believed she could discern intelligence in them, and that made her uneasy. She’d long since come to think of ex-humans as mindless monsters devoid of any human qualities. But the black creature before them seems different. Could it actually be sentient?

Her teammates failed to come to the same conclusion, though. They didn’t seem to notice that the creature before them might be intelligent. Just like her, they were frightened by its unsettling appearance. They were so confused and agitated by the menacing-looking mutant they even forgot to scan it to assess its stats.

On the other hand, it probably wasn’t necessary considering all the mutants they’d encountered so far were about the same levels as them. Yet she was getting bad vibes from the obsidian creature. Somehow, she could tell it was highly dangerous, and they had better leave it alone. She tried to tell her teammates that, but her pleadings fell on deaf ears, as always.

At twenty-two years old, she was the youngest member of their team. That was probably the reason her friends never took her seriously. Well, they weren’t exactly her friends. They hadn’t even known each other before the Collapse. Elena met them just a couple of days prior, having been surviving on her own before that. When they offered her to join them, she agreed.

Unlike her, they appeared to have come to terms with doing what was necessary for survival pretty quickly. Looting the dead—their fellow survivors—for example, didn’t sit well with Elena, even though she was aware of the need for it. But her teammates, however, never seemed to be bothered by it. She told them it was wrong, but they simply chose to ignore her.

When they decided to kill the obsidian mutant, it seemed to grasp what they were planning to do. The mutant’s reaction, tensing up and signaling a reluctance to fight, indicated a level of understanding. Raising its hands and shaking its head, it showed signs of intelligence. At that moment, Elena was one hundred percent certain that the creature was sentient. She tried to tell her teammates that, but they ignored her just like they usually did.

And when they opened fire on the obsidian creature, all hell broke loose. A moment before they began to fire, the mutant broke into a sprint toward them. Upon seeing it happen, Elena’s heart skipped a beat. The black-colored creature moved so freaking fast! One moment it stood still, and the next it was darting toward them at astounding speed. The instant transition from standing to running was shocking. She’d never seen any other mutant move so fast.

The ex-human threw itself to the side, hurling its body sideways out of the line of upcoming fire. Yet the barrage they unleashed upon it was so devastating it was impossible for the creature to avoid it completely. Some of the bullets her teammates fired hammered the obsidian mutant’s body, tearing into its side. The ex-human staggered but kept its balance.

It ran around them at impressive speed while her teammates struggled to track its movements with the barrels of their weapons. The assault rifles Victor and Zack were armed with chattered, but all the shots they fired, aside from the very initial ones, missed their target completely. Victor and Zack held the triggers down, pouring sprays of bullets toward the mutant, but their foe was too fast for them to hit it.

Marcus’ shotgun boomed and bucked in his big hands as he fired, but all his pellets went wide. Every time he pointed his weapon at the mutant and squeezed the trigger, the obsidian creature had already shifted to a different spot. Their enemy’s swift and erratic movements made it really difficult for them to keep track of it.

Zack and Victor ran out of bullets in their guns almost simultaneously. As soon as it happened, the mutant turned and dashed toward them. Elena saw its hands sprout long curved talons in under a second. It happened so fast she couldn’t believe her eyes. One second the mutant’s hands looked like those of a regular human, and the next they morphed into menacing claws. While they weren’t overly long, they looked nasty.

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Marcus hastily fired his shotgun at the quickly approaching black-colored ex-human. Some of the pellets peppered the mutant’s side, causing it to stagger. It quickly recovered, though, and continued to run toward them. Marcus pumped his shotgun and squeezed the trigger again, but the weapon emitted a dry click. Hastily, he began to reload it.

All this time, Elena stood rooted to a spot, paralyzed with fear. She knew she had to do something to help her teammates fight the monster, but her body refused to obey her. All she could do was watch the terrifying creature run toward Victor and Zack, who were the closest to it. She could see greenish-blue light emanating from the bullet wounds inflicted by her teammates on the mutant. The color of that glow matched that of its eyes, and it also bore a striking resemblance to the magical energy found in mana consumables.

Now that the obsidian monster was in close proximity, her teammates hesitated. They couldn’t continue to fire at their enemy without running the risk of accidentally hitting one of their teammates. They panicked, not sure what they should do now. The ex-human seized the moment of their confusion to its full advantage.

Zack screamed when the obsidian mutant reached it, swiping at his exposed throat with its claws. Dropping his weapon, he raised his hands to his throat, which had just been torn open. He dropped to his knees, choking on his own blood. Without even slowing down, the monster was already moving toward Victor, who looked scared out of his mind. Seeing that he didn’t have the time to reload his assault rifle, he dropped it and reached for his heavy-caliber pistol holstered on his hip.

Only he never got the chance to fire his sidearm at the mutant. The obsidian ex-human unleashed a flurry of swings at his stomach, ripping it open and causing his intestines to spill out of him onto the ground. The next closest enemies to the mutant were Marcus and Maria, and the monster chose Marcus to be its next target, likely because he was armed with a powerful shotgun. However, underestimating Maria was a mistake. Her Pistols skill was the highest among her combat skills, making her a deadly gunslinger. She was extremely proficient in wielding her dual pistols.

As her handguns cleared their holsters, the mutant charged toward Marcus. It rammed into him, sending them both crashing to the ground, with the ex-human landing on top of him. At that moment, Maria noticed Elena standing behind her doing absolutely nothing. She glared at her over her shoulder and snapped, “What are you standing there for? Do something!”

But Elena had had enough of that by that point. She glanced at the carnage the mutant had caused. Victor was already dead, the coils of his intestines strewn on the ground. Zack squirmed on the ground nearby, gripping his torn throat with both hands in a futile attempt to stanch the profuse bleeding. Elena could try to heal him with a stimpak, but to what end? Both of them would only become easy prey for the obsidian predator after it dealt with Marcus and Maria. Even though the two of them were currently alive, Elena knew it wasn’t for long. So she had to try to save her own life while she still had a chance to do so.

She spun around and broke into a run away from the battle.

“Useless bitch,” she heard Maria snarl behind her.

Then Maria’s pistols both cracked, and Elena flinched, thinking the cold woman was firing at her from behind. But the anticipated pain never came, and when she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Maria shooting at the back of the mutant instead, which sat atop the struggling form of Marcus. Once the bullets ripped into its back, the ex-human leaped to its feet and spun around. It closed the gap to Maria in an instant, slamming into the woman and sending her tumbling to the ground.

Elena averted her gaze when the monster began tearing Maria’s face to shreds with its claws. Sobbing uncontrollably, Elena ran as fast as her legs could carry her. The world blurred before her as tears flowed from her eyes, but she made no attempt to wipe them away, refusing to slow down even for a second.

When she looked back another time, she saw Maria was already dead, and the mutant was straddling Marcus again, pushing the talons on its thumbs into his eyeballs. Terrified, Elena averted her eyes, focusing solely on running. All her teammates were dead in a matter of a minute. But she was alive. For now. She could still save her life—all she needed to do was run as fast as possible.

When she thought she’d covered quite a lot of ground, she looked back one more time. The sight of the obsidian monster sprinting after her at an impossible speed terrified her to the core. Meeting its emotionless cyan eyes, she screamed in sheer horror, trying to pour on speed. Yet she couldn’t run faster than she already did.

Suddenly, her feet tangled in a cluster of grass pushing through the cracked asphalt, causing her to crash to the ground. When she looked back, she saw the terrifying black mutant closing in on her, which sent a wave of terror through her. Screaming in horror, she scrambled to her feet, fueled by adrenaline. Finding the strength to bolt forward, she broke into a run, well expecting the obsidian mutant to close the distance between them any second now.

“Please no, please no, oh gosh, please no, oh no, oh no,” she mumbled frantically as she ran on.

Legs pumping, hands flying, she raced ahead at top speed. She was so scared she didn’t even dare glance back anymore. At some point, she realized the mutant should’ve caught up with her a long time ago, but for some reason, it hadn’t happened yet.

When she found the courage to do so, she glanced back and saw the obsidian predator was nowhere to be seen. At first, she thought the monster was about to pounce on her from above, but it didn’t happen either. Not believing in her luck, she ran on, fueled by the adrenaline still coursing through her veins. A couple of minutes later, she stole another look back over her shoulder only to find nothing behind her.

The mutant had mysteriously vanished.