“Have you got the explosives?” she asks as I hop out of the elevator shaft.

Before I even deign to answer, I lean into the wall and allow my muscles to relax. If you’ve ever been rope climbing, you’ll know that it is very strenuous on the muscles. Lifting your own body weight for an extended period of time is going to tire you out.

“Da, many bombs,” Boriss hops out of the shaft with a grin. He lays down the potato sack and then flexes his muscles as though his weight, Cillian's weight, and the bag of explosives weighed nothing.

Irmgard nods approvingly at Boriss and then looks at me.

“The way to the elevator is clear. Only the big one remains.”

“How many guards do you have to help us?”

“None,” she answers, “I am the only one left. All the others died on my way here.”

Fuck. That’s not good.

“Well, let's move on. Time is of the essence.”

“Already?” Cillian whines. “My belly’s still sore from laying on his shoulder.”

“No choice there. The longer this takes, the worse it gets. Take a look.” I point at the window.

We all move to the window revealing the entire city.

“Feck me, it’s burning,” Cillian says.

The flames we’d created from the molotovs are rapidly spreading throughout the yard. As it spreads, the smoke rises to the ceiling and smothers the lights. In the next hour or two, it will be thick enough to smother everything in darkness.

“Let's move,” I look at the Warden, “lead the way.”

“Folgen,” she says and turns toward the hallway. We follow behind until we enter a room filled with guard and fenriromorph bodies.

As I stare at the bodies, I note several bladed thrusts through fenriromorph eyes. When I glance at the human bodies, I note that not all of them were mauled to death.

That explains the red blood on her sword.

I halt my movement and Boriss and Cillian do the same.

“You executed your guards.” I point at the sliced necks, “Why?”

She turns to me and gives me an unamused glare. “They were injured. If they are left alive, they would have turned into these monsters.” She unsheathes her sword and stabs a dead fenriromorph through another eye.

“The transformation is not immediate. They would have survived long enough to fight with us.” I explain

She raises an eyebrow.

“One of my guards was injured and turned into these things in only twenty minutes. He slaughtered five more of my guards until he was put down.”

Minutes? It’s been over an hour since I was scratched. Hmm, maybe it depends on the size of the initial wound?

Just as I’m about to speak, I feel the pressure increase again. I fall to my knees and grip my right arm as it shakes. Pain spikes throughout my body as every neuron fires into every pain receptor.

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

I hear the command force its way toward me. It promises relief from the pain and pressure. A relief that no normal human can resist.

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

The command continues, stronger than ever before. So much stronger that I’m able to feel where it is coming from.

After what feels like hours, but is more akin to a minute, the pain subsides, but the mental pressure continues.

When I finally look up, I’m met with a sword pointed at my face. Irmgard glares at me angrily, ready to stab me through the eye. The only reason she doesnt is Boriss’s dagger to her throat.

I release a sigh and push the sword away.

“Boriss, let her go.”

The Russian removes his dagger from her throat.

“Comrade Quasi, is getting worse, yes?”

“It is, though I think the cause of it is the monster at the elevator. If we kill it, this sickness should stop.” I make eye contact with Irmgard. “Lead the way. My time is running out.”

She stares at me for a long moment. Then she slowly nods, sheathes her sword, and turns to lead.

We continue through several more corridors and arrive at processing. We stop at a single double door. The same door that I’d passed through on my first day at Downside.

“We must plan and prepare.” she says.

I walk to the table in the room and lay down my rifle and my rather useless daggers.

“Boriss, unload everything here.”

He does as I ask and we are left with a dozen pipe bombs, two napalm grenades, and several single use shotguns.

“Irmgard, tell us about the fenriromorph. Is it just a larger version of the usual ones or are there other differences?” I ask

“The monster is twenty feet tall, covered in armored chitin, and has five sets of horns.”

“Anything else?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

She pauses. “It moves slower.”

“Slower… I can work with that? Is it alone?”

“Yes..”

“I’m guessing you know this by camera?”

“No, my office has a full view of the elevator. That thing is the first monster that I’d seen. All the lights went off, then the emergency lights turned on and it was just standing in the middle of the elevator.”

So, fenriromorphs were teleported in and dispersed throughout the prison at the same moment that the prison was transported. That specific fenriromorph is probably the last line of defense and will need to be killed or bypassed. Considering a height of twenty feet, it can't leave the elevator. Which means killing it is a requirement for escape.

“What's the environment like? If memory serves, there were a lot of boxes and loading equipment.”

“If you are asking whether there are places to hide, then the answer is yes. But, I should warn you that most of everything on the elevator is made either of wood or plastic. It will not hold against the monster.”

“Doesn’t need to hold. We just need a way to hide while we get into position.” I explain.

My hand taps the explosives. “Now, I’m not sure the pipe bombs will be strong enough to penetrate its chitin, so we’ll have to do a test. If it fails, we’re going to have to lob the explosive into its mouth or eyes.”

“So, our plan is to throw explosives at the fenriromorph Alpha and hope it works? Is that really it?” Cillian asks, flabbergasted. “Couldn't we try to shoot it to death instead?”

fenriromorph Alpha. I can get behind that name.

“Yea,” I nod, “but thats far more riskier than lobbing explosives. If it can survive explosives, then it can survive bullets.”

He groans, “I don't suppose I can use the gun,” he points at the rifle with more than half the bullets spent.

“Go ahead, but the rifling is pretty damaged. Accuracy is going to suffer a decent bit.”

He picks it up alongside the last few bullets. “I’ll hang back and wait for an opportunity.”

“Fine with me. We’ll divide up the explosives between the rest of us. Then we’re going to enter the elevator and split up. Let's try to surround the thing.”

______________________________________________________

The doors slide open to the scent of blood and the taste of Iron. We enter the massive elevator and are met with hundreds of stacked crates and several forklifts near them. Above, two cranes tower over everything.

“Where is-,” I begin, but am interrupted by movement and a growl. We look towards the direction of the sound. Above a stack of crates, a massive head rises to peer above them. The head clearly looks like a fenriromorph, except it is far larger with ten horns and what seems like a combination of scales and chitin for its skin.

Six eyes turn towards us with an intelligence not before seen by any other fenriromorph. As it stares, a chill runs down my neck alongside the mental pressure. No pain yet, but that I expect to happen soon.

The fenriromorph opens its mouth and then howls so loud that we’re all forced to cover our ears. When the howl ends, the monster ducks under the crates.

And now the hunt begins.

“Split up and don't wait in the same place. If you see it and it sees you, yell loudly so we can support. Keep low and always have somewhere to run.”

We split up and travel through the mazes of crates. I keep my ear open, but find the large fans above to be drowning out any nuanced noise.

I weave through the boxes quickly while making as little noise as possible. Nothing is out of the ordinary as I enter deeper into the elevator.

Then I feel it. A spike in the pressure on my psyche from my right.

Without thinking further, I immediately sprint left. A second later and the crates burst apart as the fenriromorph Alpha stomps after me. To my surprise, though the monster towers over me, its movement speed is both slow and surprisingly silent.

I grab one of the bombs and light the fuse. After two seconds, I throw the bomb towards the Fenriromorph Alpha. It reaches the monster and explodes a foot away from its chest. I hear a roar and then feel the elevator rumble as the fenriromorph falls to the floor.

I quickly stop running and turn around to assess the situation of the damage. I grimace as the Fenriromorph Alpha gets back up. Green blood can be seen leaking from the scales, but the scales look to be moderately undamaged. Some cracks, but nowhere near enough to do any real damage. I assess the rest of its body, and eventually realize that the scales on its head are smaller.

“Aim for the head!” I yell. “Its scales are too thick everywhere else!”

The Fenriromorph Alpha shakes its head. Our eyes meet and I feel the pressure build up again.

Then I watch as a pipe bomb lands on its nostril.

I grin.

The bomb explodes and the beast screams and falls from the impact.

I look up and find Boriss standing on the top of the crane with a crazed glint in his eye. The Russian throws another pipe bomb just as the Fenriromorph raises its head. It bounces once and then explodes.

Seeing what he is doing, I throw my own bomb at the Fenriromorph’s head. This time, the monster actually rolls to the side and dodges the explosion. When its head rises again, half its eyes are on me and the other glare up at Boriss.

Then the Napalm hits from the back and smothers the Fenriromorph’s head in flames.

“MORE BOMBS!” I yell. I throw another Pipe bomb that explodes. Followed by another from Boriss. Then Irmgard, the source of the napalm grenade, throws her own explosives at the fenriromorph. Eventually, Boriss and Ingrid run out of explosive and I am left with a last pipe bomb.

We all wait with bated breaths as the dust settles for long moments. When the dust clears, the mutilated face of the fenriromorph is left covered in green blood. The scales on its face have all been destroyed and melted off to reveal bone.

As I stare at the face, a grimace forms on my lips. The pressure is still present.

And just as I’d expected, the beast's eyelids flicker open. Two eyes are destroyed, but four are staring angrily at me.

“Shit.”

The fenriromorph, clearly angry, gets up faster than it did before. An arm grabs a nearby crate and then Yeets it in my direction. I try to dodge to the side, but am too slow. The crate makes contact with my body with enough force to shatter and send me reeling into another crate. I feel several bones break and a puncture through my stomach.

Even so, I ignore the pain and continue to stay conscious until my body slides to a stop.

Groaning from pain, I force myself to quickly stand back up- only to fall to one knee from a shattered knee. I shift my head upwards and feel the pressure on my head increase as I match eyes with the fenriromorph Alpha.

The fenriromorph snarls at me. It takes a step in my direction.

Then a third eye explodes followed by the sound of a distant gunshot.

Fucking lucky shot.

The fenriromorph shifts its head towards the source of the sound.

A fitting distraction for Boriss to hop off the crane and land between the monster's horns.

“Like riding bear!” I hear the crazy Russian yell. Then I watch as he pointblanks a shotgun at its head. The bullets impact bone and lodges an inch inside. Not enough to penetrate, but enough to piss it off even more.

The beast roars in pain. It shakes its head and attempts to force the Russian off, but Boriss grabs a horn and stays riding. The beast, in panic, confusion, fear, and anger rushes around in circles to throw him off.

Damn. We need something stronger.

I glance down at my feet to find my last pipe bomb.

Maybe if I lob that thing in its mouth?

I glance at my body.

Broken ribs, puncture wound through the stomach, unusable left leg. Yea, I’m not going anywhere… unless.

My eyes move to my right hand and the slowly rising pain.

I chuckle as the pain continues to rise and spread throughout my body. This time, instead of resisting the pain, I embrace it. The Pressure in my Psyche grows stronger and stronger as does the pain.

Then I hear it.

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

It grows stronger.

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

With a thought, I retreat into my mind and relinquish my body.