Seren expected the SWAT, the army, a spook squad dressed in suits or even a knight in shining armor at this point. Instead, salvation has come as an average height dude dressed like a gardener holding a stick of wood. She almost feels like crying. Fan-fucking-tastic. His angular face is pasty white with fear and his black eyes dart from woman to woman. At least he is not staring at Patience’s chest. Small comfort.

Seren feels like Princess Leia being rescued, except this time there is no dashing rogue and Vader has definitely not given the order to let them go. Speaking of which.

Seren stands up slowly and stretches. This is it, do or die. After two days of hell and the loss of the love of her life she should feel at her wit’s end, instead she is having a second wind. Seren is detached, because with the next ten minutes she will be free or dead.

Quiet steps approach their cubicle and the would be savior turns on his feet to face the threat. He looks like he is two seconds away from pissing himself. Seren eyes the spear, in case he faints.

There is something about the spear. Paths weave and twirl around it. They also move around something in the guy’s hands.

The door opens.

If she had not seen it for herself and someone had told her the monster had once looked human she would have called bullshit. The only thing tying the horror in front of her to mankind is that it is a grisly parody of it. An insult. It now stands at close to seven feet even while hunched, its head barely a flesh appendage conveniently housing vitreous eyes and a nightmarish mouth. Raspy breath come from a degenerated torso and its pallid flesh make it look like a mad scientist had fused taut muscles on crooked bones. The abomination licks blood from the jagged wound that is its mouth and take a step forward.

And so does the man.

Seren was absolutely sure the newcomer was two fingers away from screaming but after seeing the hurt girl he apparently grew a backbone. More, he looks like he wants to fight.

The next seconds feel like a mirage.

The horror steps forward with a terrifying speed.

The man cocks his arm and throws something.

The monster sees the something flying at him in an lazy arc and swats it by reflex.

A grenade explodes.

This is what it feels like. An instant, a monster backhands a small projectile, the other instant, three flowers of death have bloomed in the enclosed space. Three nightmares of blood and thorns and a noise like a pop corn if pop corns were the size of a dog house. An instant and the flowers have wilted to nothingness.

Seren’s ears are ringing and something is screaming, a keening sound that pierces her sensitive ears like a drill. The monster has fallen forward, clutching his only remaining arm to the ruin of his torso. The smell is absolutely disgusting.

Seren is still detached, she walks forward and takes the spear from the guy’s lax hand. She casually walks forward and stabs the monster in the neck.

Silence reigns for a handful of seconds and surprisingly, Patience is the first one to break it.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“We have to get out before the other comes back.”

“Wait, there is another? Shit. Let’s go my car is outside.”

Patience stands up, she is already carrying Sarah in a fireman hold. Seren moves forward but steps away from the unmoving form. The hole in the monster’s neck is sizzling and it looks like flesh is, well, melting. But you never know. It’s a monster. Seren has seen enough movies to know that you don’t come near the mangled corpse to check if it’s dead. I mean if it’s not, what are you going to do exactly? Right.

So they step away from the creature and out in the warehouse. Fresher air fill her lungs and not a second too soon.

The guy looks at the spear in Seren’s hand but says nothing. He has pawed some of the thorn grenades and looks around, cautious. He and Seven take the lead and trot around the assemble line has fast as Patience can make it, hopefully that car is not too far. Patience is tired and the girl… She needs medical attention.

They stop in front of the door. Seren does not need to shift her focus to know that it’s clear.

She steps forward at the same time as the other guy, look at each other then just go on.

How did he know?

Seren gets out first and holds the door for the two others, then they resume their formation and jog along the warehouse’s exterior. The smells of a city reach caress her nose. She can even hear a distance honk. They move forward, fifty feet, thirty feet, fifteen feet.

At fifteen feet they both stop. How did that guy know though. Patience is slower but catches on, then walks back. Seren can see that she is no longer crying. Instead, her face is resigned, but stern.

“Come out”

Perhaps Seren should not have said that. Perhaps they should have run the other way, however, Seren is detached and she is also really, really fed up. Within five minutes she will be free, or dead, and she wants to be free.

Another monster steps from the shadow, his ambush foiled. This one still looks mostly human but his long and clawed arms and the fangs betray him. He speaks in a nasal voice.

"Well well “snort”, I thought the missy or hunters had found us. But it’s just another prey."

He turns to the rescuer with a hungry look.

“You…”

It looks like they know each other, how cute. The dude cocks his arm.

Seren needs to provide an opening.

“Hey!”

It works, the creature turns to her. The dude throws.

Seren doesn't know wether this one is smarter or it’s just bad luck but he dodges to the right and swipes with his claw.

There is another boom, but this time only one flower blooms.

The monster backs off and howls. He grabs the bloody stump of his mangled right hand and screams in anger. Seren is already moving forward.

The memory of the voice of Vassily, her grizzled sword teacher, brushes her mind. His heavily accented English mocking.

“It is one try, yes? Every time, you only have one try.”

Seren swallows her fear, her grief, and even her anger. She forgets about the others with her, and the sun on her skin, and the pain in her shoulder and in her head, and dehydration, and switches her focus and the paths on one task. Killing.

Seren is detached.

She falls forward in a feint, the monster swipes his monstruous arm in an arc trying to catch her. Seren moves back at the last moment and lowers her weapon, letting him brush the air above the spear as she lunges. The tip of the spear flies forward and pierces into the monster’s chest.

Not deep enough.

Even before her movement is done she rotates to her left and catches the return. The monster’s arm rams the shaft into her arms and her chest and she exhales as the momentum moves her backward. She rolls back as she hit the ground and prepares her counter attack, then blinks. This is not what she expected.

Their would be savior has grabbed the monster’s one remaining arm and is trying to push him away from her. She rushes forward but too late.

The monster dismissively backhands him with his mutilated arm then swipes him with the other one. There is a metallic reaping sound, not what Seren expected, but when he draws back his hand there is just a bit of blood on the claws.

Seren lungs forward and hits the monster in its mangled arm, not a killing blow. She dodges yet another swipe and counters before pulling back and hitting his healthy arms on the back swing. She does not let him go to forward, nor does she let him hit the spear as it would surely disarm her, but Seren is tiring. The thing is too strong and too fast and it looks bigger and less human than before. Even its clothes are stretched on its mishappen frame. Seren on the other hand is exhausted, dehydrated and hurt. She needs to end this fast.

Seren puts everything she has in the next few attacks, pushing the creature backward and scoring another hit. She is flying, letting the paths and her training guide her.

One try.

Seren fights her exhaustion and the migraine that tells her she is about to drop. Just a few more seconds. She is detached. Detached. The paths flow around her in delicate spirals and the spear moves in a blur.

Thunder explodes in the cloudy sky. No, not thunder.

Gunshots

The creature shivers as bullets hit it from the back. This will not kill it though, Seren knows it as surely as she knows that she has won.

Seren guides her spear in a perfect thrust and shoves it in the monster’s throat, but that is not enough, it prepares to swipe.

In a totally not within regulation move, Seren kicks the creature in the chest with all her might as it is just about to jump. It looks really surprised for an instant before falling backward.

On a land mind.

The two remaining thorn grenades go off when the monster’s back drop on them and the shockwave pushes Seren back. She falls on the ground. In her field of vision there is the top of a warehouse wall, the top of a tree and little bits of black. The little bits of black fall on her body and face and turn out to be blood and body parts. There is something wet on her cheek.

Seren raises her head. Yep, that shirt is definitely done for. No saving it now. The rescuer is leaning against the warehouse wall and holding his left arm. He checks his hand and frowns when he sees blood although there isn’t much of it. A fifth person is rushing toward them. He is a tall man with short cropped red hairs and an attitude that screams cop. In his hand is the kind of hand cannon that people use when they want to hunt dinosaurs or if they have to compensate for a really, really tiny dick. He stares at the mess on the ground then shakes himself.

“What the fuck”

Seren could not have put it better herself.

Then she faints.