After the Scream - 900 million universes remaining

The decaying yellow walls, the flickering ceiling lights, and the feeling of being followed could easily drive travelers into paranoia and madness.

While Jason and Arden remained perfectly calm, this was not the case for the unknown man beside them.

The man was beginning to understand that something was wrong. He had unconsciously quickened his pace, and his heart was now pounding.

He wanted to start running, but Jason held him back by the collar.

Seeing the confidence exuded by his two new travel companions, the man partially regained his composure.

He knew deep down that they would have a better chance of surviving if they stayed together.

Fear must not cloud his judgment, especially at a time like this.

'I must stay strong!' he thought to himself.

However, it only took a few seconds for his instincts to remind him of the situation he was in:

'But aren't we about to die?! I suppose they have a solution, right? RIGHT?!' he screamed internally.

It hadn't taken long for the unsettling atmosphere of the place to begin deteriorating his mental health.

They had arrived in a large room.

The man was finding it increasingly difficult to hide his anxiety as they advanced.

The wall facing them was smeared with inscriptions.

One of the unfortunate souls who had ended up here seemed to have tried to warn others, but they had been pressed for time. They had written only a few brief, confusing phrases in black that contrasted with the permanent yellow that haunted the travelers of these places. The words had been written in panic, the letters becoming more and more illegible as the sentences progressed. The neatly written lowercase letters filled with rationality had quickly given way to scribbled uppercase letters filled with terror.

[They can hear you]

[RUN]

[THEY KNOW I'M HERE]

[They probably know you're HERE]

[RUN FOR YOUR LIFE]

[RUN AS FAR AS POSS]

The unknown writer hadn't had time to finish the sentence.

Every ink smear was a sinister witness to the uncontrollable tremors of the writer. One detail that didn't immediately stand out was the smell emanating from the wall in front of them. The room reeked of rot, decomposition, but also a faint acrid smell that left a metallic taste in the mouth. It came not from the sickly-looking decaying yellow walls or even the faded carpet on the floor but from a phrase and a drawing that seemed to have been carved into the wallpaper with a sharp object. The blade must have been stained because these inscriptions had taken on a bloody hue.

The drawing was unsettling. It depicted a sort of face, with prominent eyebrows and a wide, deformed smile.

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There were also eyes.

And nothing else.

The drawing was so grotesque that one might think a child had done it, except for the eyes.

They were actually two gaping cavities filled with that dark, sinister red hue with a metallic tint.

The man had approached the wall to film the inscriptions with his camera. He didn't know why, but his instincts had begun sounding the alarm.

There was one phrase left, written about a meter above all the others.

The smell of dried blood was becoming unbearable.

The letters had become sinister and misshapen.

[Do not move, stay still]

As the man recorded the inscriptions with his camera, a blood-curdling scream sounded behind him. As he turned around trembling, his eyes widened.

Fifty meters away stood a silhouette over two meters tall. It was perfectly visible even at that distance, its long, slender, metallic limbs shining with a sinister light.

As the man held his breath, a bead of sweat forming on his forehead, it began to move.

It charged towards them.

There was an exit nearby, but the man was paralyzed with fear.

An inhuman noise now filled the room.

It wasn't the sound of a beast, nor that of a machine.

It was a sound both shrill and dull, bestial and artificial. It seemed to have the power to shake the soul of anyone who heard it.

The creature was approaching them at great speed.

Only 40 meters away.

It was entirely made of cold, sharp metal. Its head housed a nightmarish maw that seemed capable of devouring anything.

Only 30 meters away.

The creature was approaching quickly even though its legs were just a combination of sharp metal pieces and wires. At the ends of its arms were sharp claws. From one of them dripped a viscous red liquid that splattered heavily on the ground with each stride.

Only 20 meters away.

The creature's rib cage was perfectly sized to fit a human. Its metallic ribs seemed capable of opening to let one in and closing to pierce them from all sides.

Only 10 meters away.

Inside this spiked trap were old, filthy rags that reeked of inhuman rot.

Only 9 meters away.

The approach of death was becoming increasingly palpable.

Only 8 meters away.

The man finally snapped out of his stupor.

Only 7 meters away.

He didn't have time to dodge.

Only 6 meters away.

The creature, like an angel of death, was now right in front of them.

Only 5 meters away.

It stopped.

The man's heart was pounding so hard it seemed like it could burst out of his chest at any moment.

The creature had stopped dead in its tracks and was now perfectly still.

The man was now confused. It seemed for no reason to have turned into a statue even though it had wanted to attack them just seconds ago. He then turned to his two travel companions. The first one's eyes were cold, his gaze fixed on what was inside the creature's rib cage. The second man's eyes were filled with disdain. He hadn't even drawn his katana, but his eyes seemed capable of cutting through anything before him.

These were the eyes of a hunter scrutinizing its prey.

And the prey seemed aware of this.

The creature before them must have been programmed to kill travelers who got lost in these places. However, its programmer had also instilled in it a primal instinct, akin to that of animals.

Beasts often possessed the best instincts. They could distinguish predator from prey and were sometimes better at it than some Monarchs.

They wanted to survive, and nothing else mattered.

The creature before them understood this well.

Its instinct had commanded it to stop, so it stopped its charge.

It could sense that there was a predator before it, but unlike the Monarchs, it didn't know it was facing one of the apex predators of all existence.