Stalking through the hallways and swinging around corners with their beamers firmly clutched in bloodied hands, the remainder of team one embarked deeper into the monitoring station.

The reason for their bloody hands was the dedication of one of their number. Who’d been viciously tackled and torn into before they could probably help her.

She’d been too close to one of the corners when they swung around it and the creature had lept from its spot on the ceiling, biting into her neck.

The time it took to get off a careful shot meant that she was dead, not that they could have done anything unless they shot it in midair. The moment it landed on her it’d already ripped out her juglar.

Now even with the lieutenant's insistence that they needed to be faster, they made sure they took their time and carefully moved around corners.

Two more of those humanoid creatures had tried the same method of ambushing them since then, both had failed.

Turning around yet but another corner, Thomel noticed the large wound carved into the stone, someone had fired a beamer on full blast her.

Looking down he saw what little remained of the creatures that had forced such drastic or unprepared action.

Little stumps were all that was left of their legs, that and the sludge that had once been the rest of their bodies.

Ignoring it, Thomel sprinted into the middle of the intersection and hurriedly dived down onto the brown sludge.

He heard the sound of something moving, the air around it being forced away and then he heard the sicking sound of the condensed and deadly beam hitting the creature.

Evaporating its blood and bursting its flesh. The instantly deceased fiend slammed loudly on the ground next to Thomel, as he slowly got up.

It wasn’t nice to know that your life depended entirely on other people being good shots but so far they hadn’t failed him and when it was someone else's turn to be the bait, Thomel didn’t fail them.

Where all these monsters had come from was anyone's guess, not that they had time to guess.

Slipping in the slide, Thomel almost fell back into the disugsting mixture but the fast-reacting hunter grabbed his arm and lifted him up.

And then they resumed their journey to save their fellow hunters. Slinking through the brightly lit and damaged corridors.

Coming across another intersection, the hunter to Thomel’s left let out a sigh and then ran as fast he could, slamming into the wall.

Nothing happened, there were no monsters that leapt out to kill him, just the loud crack and subsequent groan from the injured man.

Rubbing at his head with one hand and holding his gun with the other he looked both ways and they shouted out. “Clear.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Then they continued, all five of them running to the right. The lieutenant brought up the rear but Thomel wasn’t complaining, that tended to be where most of the monsters came from.

Passing by rooms with seemingly no function and the scenes of minute-old battles, they finally arrived at their destination.

After all the different parts of this faculty Thomel had seen, he found it impossible to call it a mere monitoring station, however, the living section was what confirmed his suspicions.

Walking past rows of barracks and stepping over the melted bodies of those humanoid creatures, as well as one unlucky broken hunter corpse. They reached the third team.

Stepping into the upended barracks’, with giant rends in the walls exposing the neighbouring barracks and the bunk beds pushed over to form makeshift barricades. Thomel laid eyes on what little remained of team three.

The RF member was lying limply against the wall, breathing heavily. The last two remaining hunters from her team lay beside her, beamers clenched firmly in their hands.

One on either side with both covering the the multiple entrances. It was almost ironic how the single easy-to-defend exit was now only one amongst many all thanks to their drastic firepower.

Looking over at the holes in the walls, Thomel could see brown sludge stuck to them and even an entire headless corpse from one of the creatures who’d tried breaking through.

“Why are you still here?” The lieutenant harshly asked.

“The discs aren’t working.” The hunter to her right spluttered out, Thomel could hear the wetness in that reply. Whoever that was they didn’t have long for this world.

“Damm it.” Snarled the lieutenant.

“What about the Neven discs?” He questioned, interrogating the hunter further.

“They got lost, we were going to use them but some sort of abomination attacked us.”

“Elaborate.”

“It was a giant mass of pulsating organs and rippling muscle, with giant clumps of fat all over it. It took us from being an eight-strong team to just four people. Speared them and then ate them, we only got away because we were like rats to it. It was a cat and it wanted to play.”

“You, how injured are you?” The lieutenant asked, directing his question to the other hunter on her left.

Silence was all that replied to him and Thomel realised with a sinking feeling that the hunter who’d he mistaken for being incredibly alert and unmoving because of their dedication was actually just a lifeless husk.

It looked like the lieutenant realised this at the same time as well because he muttered sarcastically under his breath. “Course.”

“Can you stand?” He asked the remaining hunter.

“No sir.” Was the gurgled-out answer he received.

“And I’m guessing you can’t, can you?” He directed towards the RF member.

Thomel couldn’t her face but he suspected if he could she would be staring blankly at the lieutenant.

“So be it, move out.” He said, turning around and making his way towards the barracks exit.

“But what about them?” Thomel found himself asking, even though he knew the obvious answer he was going to be given.

“Leave them.”

“To die, when we have the means to save them?” Another hunter spoke out and Thomel felt a true sense of camaraderie.

Turning back around, the lieutenant raised his gun and killed the remaining two survivors of team three in one indifferent fell swoop.

“Yes.” Was his simple answer to the horrific act he’d just committed.

“Now move out.” He continued.