I was watching the stairwell from down the hall, searching for anything that might be of use. Of course, I found nothing that I hadn’t already run into. Which was to say, I was stuck.

I was understandably hesitant to try the only course of action that might have some merit. To use myself as a distraction, to sacrifice the clones for the original. It was the only thing that kept coming to mind, that wasn’t immediately rejected.

The thought of dying—it was paralyzing. Too much had happened that my mental health was hanging on a thread. The strange side effect of multiple me’s mitigating some parts of that trauma.

Third spoke as an echo of my own thoughts. “It’s this or true death.” He said. The line between me and my clones blurred again. This time, it was like watching someone else. Fearless in the assurance of the original’s survival.

Well, as fearless as I could manage.

A white-knuckled grip to match the thick strands surrounding the stairwell. I kept the weapon pointed down the stairs, touching one of the strands. It stuck to me like slime, pulling me until finally tearing silently.

Too much of those and I’d be bogged down.

I passed through the stairwell, checked below, and was greeted with an empty hallway covered in webs. The light was still on, blinking ominously. Working electricity. The building had its own generators and batteries. Come to think of it, that was why there was fresh water too. There was a water tank on the back of building.

None of that helped me. It just distracted me from the fear. I picked my way through the webs, some thick across the hallway, others lying on the floor, some hanging from the ceiling. They were all gently waving and I realized there was a draft through the cave.

I froze as I remembered the last time I felt that.

I whirled around—and found nothing. No sign of the monster that had been my undoing. My gun was shaking almost as much as my legs. I forced myself onward, clearing the hall. I didn’t dare round the corner, it was too much.

Instead, I kept my gun pointed down the hallway as the laboratory began to open. Second greeted me, glancing towards my back, his face was a bleeding mess. A reminder of what this world had done to me, forced me to endure.

Then came Horace and finally—

The dull thud of a body hitting the floor might as well have been a blaring siren. All of me turned, Second from the rear, Third from the front, and the original from the doorway. Horace had fallen over, eyes wide and staring at the webbing caught on his good leg.

On the other end of the hallway—legs. They came around the corner like fingers grabbing onto a ledge, slow and methodical as if suddenly roused.

All of me realized it at the same time.

“Run!”

I bolted down the hallway, maneuvering through the webs I already knew were there. The original me, though heartless, was the number one priority. Second helped Horace up, half-lifting him and half-dragging him.

Third was firing. Bullets rang down the hallway, pinging off metal to the tune of some high-pitched screaming. The legs twitched backward, then surged around the corner as something with too many eyes appeared, even for a spider.

Its mouth opened and a tongue dripped hissing acid on the floor.

I screamed. I wasn’t sure which one of me did.

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Third was cursing as I’d never done before, fumbling for another clip of ammo.

Second was pulling Horace, staring backward wide-eyed.

I escaped to the plaza, far far away from the science building, and found somewhere safe. And then… I watched. I had made it.

The scythe whipped forward on a leg with more segments and range of motion than I ever could’ve thought. I fell to the floor, having tripped on something. A web probably. I glared at the monster, faltering at its many eyes, and raised my gun.

Every pull on the trigger elicited a high-pitched keening, a violent twitch or jerk, but never its death. My eyes caught something on the floor, not two feet from me, and I realized why I couldn’t get up.

I stared in horror at my own leg, severed at the thigh. “What the fuck—” Decapitated. Third didn’t see it, but Second did.

Outside, my hands were over my head, tears falling down my face. Fetal position. I didn’t want to scream, not out here. My head had… my head had been cut off. People weren’t supposed to watch themselves die.

Horace was yelling something. “—out of the way!”

Second scrambled forward, going for the gun. “Horace, go! I’ll hold it off.”

What part of me ever thought I could do that? How could I feel so hopeless, yet so absolutely safe? I had escaped but the part of me that died would stay with me forever.

I wasn’t a bad person. Maybe that was it. But… could anyone be expected to stay true to themselves, faced with this?

I was crying, letting the emotion hit me. No, not letting, it just caught up to me, crippling my mental state.

The other part of me grabbed the gun, as the bleeding monster seized onto my legs. Even as part of its body was blown away by a bright burst of energy that melted its torso. Legs stabbed into me and, screaming, it ripped into me, acid burning away my chest, fangs impaling my organs.

The pain was like nothing I’d ever imagined was possible.

I shoved the gun into the side of its head and pulled the trigger. Again. And again. “Die! Die! Die you fucking—” I gave out first. And whatever else happened in the hallway, I couldn’t see.

Horace was still down there but I… wasn’t going back. I—I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

No.

“You’re free, Evahn,” I said to myself, alone now. “Just fucking go.” My voice cracked. “Just leave him, you don’t owe him anything.”

Even when I could do it with no risk? When I could just send myself to haul him up? The thing was probably dead now. And if not?

“No risk but my mental health.” Second spoke as I shuffled away from him.

“I killed it right?” I asked him. Hoping, by some miracle, I could lie to myself.

Third answered. “I don’t know.”

And that was the worst part. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to die again. To watch myself—to feel—I threw up, dry heaving, chest twisting. I hunched over the floor, hands splayed.

I glanced over to myselves. They looked as terrible as I did. Drained, eyes faded, pale. That wasn’t how I remembered myself. I looked like… like death.

We sat there for minutes on end. It felt like hours. Contemplating, weighing, warring with myself. Cursing my cowardice, hating this apocalypse, dancing around an answer I both cursed and hated more.

And then, eventually, my clones stood up and started making their way to the science building. Two versions of myself that knew they were expendable. It didn’t stop the fear of death.

They went down the stairwell, freezing at a weak keening noise—it was alive. It came into view and, above, I threw up again.

Half-mangled, melted, riddled with bullet holes, it was eating a lifeless Horace. He’d been stabbed once through the leg, another time through the heart.

That anger came back. The cruelty of this world, the horror. Rage. A flame so bright it burned in my chest, so bright that it hurt. The color red lined my vision and suddenly, I didn’t care anymore.

I launched myself at the weakened thing and tore at its face, bare hands ripping away eyes as it jerked back in pain. Nails scraping flesh and blood. I plunged an entire arm into the exposed socket, fingers ripping and tearing at anything and everything I could feel. My other arm pulled at its other eyes.

Its scythe-like legs tore into my own. I ignored it, feeling the deep wounds color with blood.

The other me screamed, cracking its skull with a crowbar, sending it heavily to the floor. Blood leaked on the ground and its mouth opened with a fleshy squelch. I couldn't say when I stopped tearing at the corpse, when I'd had enough.

I stood over the mutilated carcass and I realized something that tore at my soul.

“I could’ve saved him,” I breathed, broken.