I could feel flakes of rust break off and scatter as my hands frantically grabbed onto the pole and pulled myself further up to escape the maw of the rat that was after me

I scurried up the pole in a hurry causing my hands to repeatedly slip and my feet to stumble slowing me down

"Reear"

"Creashhh"

The entire catwalk shook under me and cracked as the rat crawled its way up towards me

Reaching up I held onto the edge of the doorway on the second floor and started pulling myself up

'I'm almost there!'

I lifted my body up and slid my second hand onto the other side of the door frame to pull myself through it

"Arghhh"

Before I could pull my torso through the door way I felt a sharp piercing pain course through my ankle

Looking back I saw the rat with its mouth locked around my left ankle almost dangling from it

Blood flowed like water and my flesh stuck to it's rotten teeth

I desperately held onto the doorway but I could feel myself slipping despite my struggle for life

I started kicking the rat in the face with my free leg. over and over. again and again

But no matter how many times I stomped, stamped and kicked the rat it didn't loosen its grip on my leg even slightly causing me to start hitting it more and more frantically scared of my death and the excruciating pain

Finally I saw the rat start slipping off before falling to the floor below with a loud thud

"Doof!"

After the rat finally fell off I pulled myself up and threw my body through the door way and onto the cold hard concrete

I actually escaped from that rat. it had been relentlessly hunting me for the last three weeks after I had trespassed into its territory a single time

It hadn't been this relentless to anyone else even though half the base had come and gone through its territory every week, its probably just because I'm weak

I'm always targeted by them just because I'm weak

"Why me!"

I slammed my fist into the ground and screamed my lungs out. as I was engulfed by rage and hatred I could feel hot tears flowing down my cheeks. it was so frustrating to know how utterly useless I am

The stinging in my hand quickly faded before a searing hot feeling embarrassed my entire left leg

Looking down at it I saw a mangled bloodied leg that was oozing blood and exposed tendons and muscles, spots of white bone were visible between the mangled flesh and tendons

It was absolutely destroyed due to the rat. It didn't slide down because it lost its grip, it slid down with the rest of my legs flesh and muscles

"Hahaha. FUCK!"

It hurt so much it felt like I was loosing grip on my rationality. I couldn't feel any part of my body except the searing pain

I reached into the satchel and pulled out a small vial and a roll of bandages

I put down the bandages and unscrewed the lid of the vial and carefully brought it close to my wounded leg

I gently tipped the vial until a single small drop trickled out and splashed onto the wound causing the muscles fibers to flare up and squirm before settling down again

I quickly tipped the vial up again and put the lid on so no more of the liquid inside of it can't come out, what was in the vial was extremely precious. it was a healing potion created by the geniuses at the base with the help of different monsters and Charlottes unique ability. although it takes a lot of effort it can't be compared to the versions made in the bigger cities

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

I could only use a drop as it was unbelievable expensive no matter how weak it was compared to the 'real' one's

I only managed to get my hands on a hand full of drops because Charlotte happened to get a few potions every month or a bit

After I put the vial back I grabbed the bandages and went to apply them to my calf

"Craah"

A stifled cough broke through my lips as I pressed the bandage against my exposed muscle tissues

After calming myself I continued to gently apply the bandages gasping and panting every time the bandage touched and rubbed against the vulnerable tissue

After a few minutes I finally finished completely wrapping the bandage and tied it tightly making sure it wouldn't come undone easily

Standing up with the help of the wall I peered through the doorway to see what the rat had been doing this entire time as it had been making quite a ruckus all throughout the process of wrapping the bandage

The rat was walking back but was limping due to its mangled front right leg, the leg was folded like a piece of paper causing the tendons and bones to be entangled like a spiders web, even through all the pain the rat turned back towards me before it bolted for the catwalk

The rat was jumping up aiming for the doorway using the pile of rusted metal and concrete that had collapsed behind me under the rats weight

"How're you so fucking relentless?!?"

I was shocked, this rat had been after me relentlessly and yet it still doesn't give up even after getting its leg hurt like that

Sighing I just watched the rat for a few minutes as it relentlessly tried to climb up the wall and claw away at the wall before it finally gave up and curled up in the middle of the warehouse almost as if it was waiting

'Great, now I can't go back that way'

Sighing I hobbled away from the door way trying to find another way out of the building since the way I came in was now guarded by an annoying rat that I knew for a fact wouldn't give up no matter what I did

The second floor wasn't as big as the first floor but it was filled with hundreds of different cubicles for office workers to do paper work, this made it annoying to navigate through as there were only a few pathways

It didn't take me too long to look around and realize there wasn't anyway out other than the floor the rat was currently guarding

After thoroughly checking the entire upper floor I gave up and leaned against one of the walls that split up the upper floor into small cubicle offices

I felt tired and almost on the brink of exhaustion

Looking backwards staring at the small trail of bloodied drops that had soaked into the carpet behind me

I looked down at my bandaged leg to see blood soaking all the way through the bandages and slowly trickling down my leg and sneaker before falling down onto the old dusty carpet that had been left to rot for decades causing large holes to appear, its colours nearly fully gone

"Shit"

I quickly started searching through my satchel, I threw everything out that was blocking my view of the thing I was searching for

I became more and more panicked as everything was finally emptied from my satchel and I still couldn't find what I was searching for

"FUCK!"

I couldn't find the small see through vial holding the yellow viscous liquid that smelled so horrible it would hide the scent of blood and all other types of flesh type of items that would attract predators

I was a sitting duck if I didn't do something fast

I quickly spread out all of the items I had in my satchel

There was my new dagger, old dagger, the vial holding the elixir, rope, water skin, dried jerky wrapped in cloth and other miscellaneous items that weren't important at the moment

After staring at the different items I finally decided to do what I didn't the most

I sat against the cubicle wall and grabbed some jerky, I put it in my mouth and bit down hard on it before I started unwrapping the bandages

After I finally freed my leg I saw that most of the bleeding had stopped but the muscle tissue and tendons had yet to change, the only thing that had slowed down was the blood leaving most of the leg manageable if I still had the scent in the vial

I reached over and grasped the metal vial which held the elixir

'If only there was another way'

I unscrewed the lid and completely tipped the bottle upside down onto my wounded leg and watched regretfully as three or more drops of reddish liquid soaked into my tissues and mixed with my blood leaving a warmish sensation bubbling inside of my leg as it slowly moved up and down the injured area

I sat there waiting for my leg to start healing properly until it was usable, at least it was stable enough for me to run back to the base without getting killed by any of the predators that might be coming soon

As I was waiting I picked up all of the items that I had laid out and put them back into the satchel making sure I wouldn't accidentally leave anything behind

I checked again and again as I sat there waiting for the tissue to repair

I decided not to pack up the bandages but to leave them out so they wouldn't leak blood on any of my other items or incase I needed to compress the muscles so I could start running even before my leg fully healed

I just had to wait until the tissue had fixed itself even halfway before considering my escape

'Sigh, no matter what, I'm stuck here'

I couldn't leave even if I used everything in my satchel, no matter what I couldn't even get away from this place soaked in blood, thanks to that asshole of a guard rat on the lower level

I silently sat there before I got shocked when a loud thud echoed out from the floor beneath, there seemed to be a brand new mutant down stairs

"Haizz, I guess I'm fucked either way"

If I stayed here more mutants would come leading to my death, I couldn't leave because my leg was torn up and there was no buildings within jumping range with a leg like this, the best I could do was crawl up to the third floor leaving myself exposed to any flying mutants

'I just had to be this unlucky, fuck life'

As I was wallowing the noises downstairs was getting louder and louder till the point I couldn't take it anymore and went out to see what exactly was happening down there