He knew it was a hallucination and begun to think if he too, like Apollo, had gone insane. But the more he thought about the image in front of him, the more he realized it was not a product of psychosis, not of the abnormal kind at least. No, his illusion was a bit more grounded, a bit more real if that could be said.

He was staring at himself, along with Sophie, dead on the floor. And it was an image strong enough to hold him in a trance.

It was a death grip on his soul. A hand clench on his attention so hard that the flames of the burning room, or the expansion of a creature seemed like an irrelevance, an accessory to the scene.

He wasn't thinking of danger at that period. And after a while, (what was seconds, but felt like hours), a new image formed. Him, once again, walking into the scene with a spear coming out of his abdomen.

He regretted having the capacity to remember. Of thinking. Of being.

Something touched his shoulder. He screamed. His breath was hard and brief.

"What are you waiting for?" Aenea asked. She pressed down on his body. Her hands were roughed, scratched and calloused. She came around and tried to help him raise his gun. It was a struggle, the weight was too much for her. And for him too, because his hands could not move. And she stopped, to breath and to scream and to slap his chest around, for the creature approached.

"If you don't do it, if you can't do it, we die." She said, gritting her teeth and tightening her face. Here she was, obviously injured, with the blood running down her face and her body bruised and battered, with tatters for clothes. Rings of ripped flesh lined the limbs she had been grabbed from by the monster. They were red, bleeding.

She was in pain, even Dion could see that. Yet she did not stop.

"You don't get the luxury to go off and daydream," She said. "Not yet, at least."

His heart felt like it was going to sink again. Like something had cast him down, as he looked at the young woman struggling and then back to Apollo, now completely asleep under his armpit. He breathed in sporadic coughs, in bursts of wheezing air. The smog, the injuries, all compiling a complication on his lungs.

He felt stupid. Amongst other things, and the idea of his stupidity made him feel weak.

Sophie, still severed at the stomach, still in front of him created a frown of disgust. But more so than that, was himself. For the thought of repeating the same mistake, or crime, or sin (he forgot what it was) seemed more disgusting to him.

His breathing eased. He felt his hand rise.

His gun steadied. Not completely, for neither was he completely convinced. But he could raise it, he could do that much.

He felt the air behind him move. He jumped, pushing Aenea to the side as he did so. The black tendril, a sword almost, had cut through the thick atmosphere of smog, stabbing into the floor.

He landed on the floor next to it, steadying his gun once more. He heard it click. His heart, he swore, had stopped beating. His eyes aligned to the door and the large black mass covering it.

He felt the shot ring through his body. A familiar feeling.

Three times before the gun slipped out of his hand.

The loud flare of the gun nuzzle had blinded them, the meteorite flying through the air whistled. With a crash, the doors broke. The blood of the creature spilled everywhere. The tendril wriggled on the floor.

Silence possessed them all, the creature most of all.

He dropped one of his guns. The recoil was too much. The other remained, opposite to the hand he held Apollo.

He was starting to hyperventilate. Seeing this, Aenea grabbed him and pulled him towards the door.

He rushed them down the stairs.

"What took you so long?" She shouted. Apollo dipped into consciousness temporarily, to stare up. He took one look at the stairs before his head fell again. The smoke rose through the center, like a chimney shoot.

"Life's complicated." He said. "I can't even promise I'll be able to shoot again."

"That's great to hear. That's exactly what I want to hear!" She said. "What's the plan then? You wanna shock the thing, right?"

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"Yeah, Apollo said something about wires. Electricity." He said, "Your job is a little different, though."

Floor twenty-one, the numbers flashed in front of Dion on the top of the door frame. He stopped. She had a long way to go and they both nodded in understanding.

"Get to the fuse box and make sure it doesn't shut off on me, all right?"

She shook her head. Her bloody feet made a slapping noise against the floor. Behind him, a room full of slot machines, a noise, rattling bustle.

He pressed his shoulders against the door and broke through them. Apollo groaned.

"Watch it."

He was awake. It made him breath easier.

A giant screen looked on from above, on an overhead in the center of the room, where it glared at him with passing colors of red and yellow. News forecasts, jackpot winnings, different specials and deals and advertisements for things no one cared (and there was no one to even bother). It had a glare to it. A terrible, giant red glare. He walked into it. Behind him, he heard the drag and snag of the creature's tendrils like a passing snake. He could hear the crackle of metal and concrete expand in the stairway.

And after some time, it slipped into the room, squeezing through the door frame.

Dion ran to the center, where he had the most area to view the creature and to see where it traveled. It had brought its whole body here, which as he further analyzed, was more significant than it had been before.

He waited, with a table flipped over and his shoulder against it as cover. His throat was scratchy. He swallowed spit. His head peeped over the side of the table, dragging across as he observed for the creature. The bottle broke beneath, leaving trails of glass where the long tendrils walked through.

And he began to dial his phone. He only had one gun, anyway. And with it, only six bullets.

"Are you close?" Dion asked.

"Yeah. How are you holding up?" She asked.

"It's not doing much." Dion looked to his rear. He placed Apollo on the floor and put his back against a small step, hiding him. "But I think he's going to start getting lively soon."

"What floor are you in again?"

"The twenty-first. Direct everything here,"

"I told you! I'm not there yet."

"Hurry then." He hung up. And it came to him immediately, that he only had six shots before reloading. Six chances to miss or hit, that would, he was sure, decide his life or death. He stood then, tall. Running from Apollo, concentration the attention of the creature, now beginning to fill space and cover the walls.

There was no darkness to hide the monstrosity. The vascular limbs, the scales, the heart that paced through its small tendrils and veins like a speedy, red blur. He needed to shoot it. He was sure. But he needed to keep it still, to shoot the heart.

So that was the game then. Finding a means to stop the organ traveling through the creature. It was terribly sad, this joke of a fight. To have the weakness suspended in front of him, the glowing heart, and to still have it so far from him. It felt like a mockery.

A tendril shot out. Like a rod of black steel. It struck the floor. The debris of the floor rose rocks cutting his cheeks, halfway into his inner mouth.

He couldn't focus on his injury. He saw tendrils approaching...approaching...where?

To his rear! He put both hands against them. A limb whipped him.

His body shot down, dragging along the floor. A line was formed through the tile of the floor, pulled in the trajectory of his body. Another limb came for him. He stood slowly, tile interred in his skin fell off. Blood left the exit wounds. Most of it collected behind his shoulders. It felt like a burn and a cut and everything in between the pain of broken bones and the pain of a gash of skin.

He breathed hard. He felt his lungs ache. He was glad he still had his gun on him. That he had not dropped it. And in his desperation, shot once against the hands approaching him.

It shot through the approaching limb.

The black mass of flesh plopped down, the monster made an... audible sound. Though all he could decipher was that...it was sound. Of some kind. A hellish screech, from a sonic platitude that rose and rose and rose before the screech became indistinguishable to silence. Though his ears still buzzed and his eyes still winced and he still felt the vibration of air. Too loud, too loud.

When it was done, Dion's ears rung with buzz. Then brief deafness, like the aftershock of an explosion.

Somewhat muted, bleeding, hurt. He looked around, desperation in his eyes.

His eyes caught a glimpse of the wires above traveling up the ceiling.

His eyes were focused, but the monster did not care. It came again. He dodged. Jumped, traveling up a limb. Jumping off it, hanging himself by the chandeliers and the lights.

Jumping. Hopping, chandelier to chandelier. Avoiding the shooting limbs.

By now the creature was more of a mass of flesh, for its body had completely covered one wall. It had many limbs, many ways to attack and Dion saw dozens of them extend towards him. They struck him, the chandeliers, destroyed everything in the ceiling.

The metal chandeliers crashed down.

His eyes focused though, beaten, tossed around. He focused on the television panel (right in front of him!). He narrowed his vision to the large wires, like pumps. They dangled, and waved back and forth, enticing him almost.

He was struck on the side and bounced off the floor. His ribs felt fractured, he knew that feeling well. He rolled around on the floor for a while, dodging other limbs shooting out.

He pushed himself off. He ran into a sprint, holding his sides, knocking down slot machines and the quarters that spilled from their mouths. They exploded into metal shavings, into smoke.

He hid behind each one, like small spartan shields, and kept his body low as he approached the giant monitor.

He climbed up to the television, hanging by it by the edge and waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

The creature shot out.

Dion let go. His body fell, the limb struck the glass panel. Then through it.

And it was shocked, immediately. The lights in the room flickered on and off.

Dion steadied his gun, the joy and glee on his face, a familiar feeling.

He looked for the red (Now still! Still!) heart of the creature. His heart rate increased. He aimed.

He aimed...

Aimed? Fire. Aiming. Fire, please.

He saw Sophie again. He saw Astyanax. He saw both fast approaching, and shot. Shot the hallucination. The imagination.

He shot. And...missed.

And the power went out.

And he could hear the creature, screeching once more, in absolute darkness.

He tried to dial his cell phone. It rang. But no one picked up.